Pain wasn't a sensation anymore. It was a location. And I was living in it.
My stomach didn't just hurt; it felt like I had swallowed a bag of rusty razor blades and chased it with boiling acid. The pressure pushed against my diaphragm, stealing my breath in jagged, shallow gasps, while something wet and sharp scraped against the lining of my gut.
It wasn't just nausea. It was a hostile takeover.
"Get it out!" Vikram choked, rolling on the floor, his fingernails clawing red furrows into his silk shirt. "Oh god, get it out of me! I'll sue! I swear to god, I'll sue everyone! I'll sue the forest! I'll sue the Gods!"
Javed wasn't screaming anymore. He was curled into a fetal ball, his face the color of wet ash, his eyes rolled back so far only the whites showed. His HP bar, visible above his head, was draining in real-time, ticking down like a bomb in a bad action movie.
[ HP: 85%... 82%... 79% ]
"Fascinating," Ilvala murmured, stepping delicately over Riya's convulsing form like he was avoiding a puddle on a sidewalk. He looked like a scientist observing a particularly successful petri dish. "The assimilation is faster than usual. Perhaps the 'Strength Buff' accelerated the metabolism? Or maybe it is your young, potent blood? Spicy food does speed up digestion, after all."
He looked at me, his milky yellow eyes narrowing with cruel amusement.
"You are resisting, Dhruv. Why fight it? Vatapi is just... making space. It is like a renovation."
"Space for what?" I gasped, forcing myself onto my knees. My vision swam with red warning boxes, pixelating the horror in front of me.
"For his rebirth, of course," Ilvala smiled, his skin stretching too tight, like plastic wrap over rotten fruit. "He will wear your skin like a suit. He has always wanted to be taller. He finds his current form... limiting."
I looked at the System window floating in my peripheral vision. It was glitching, the text vibrating as it struggled to analyze the threat that was literally inside me.
[ BOSS BATTLE: THE DEVOURING TWINS ]
BOSS 1: Ilvala ( The Summoner )
BOSS 2: Vatapi ( The Parasite )
CURRENT STATUS:
> Ilvala: Invulnerable (Shielded by Safe Zone Rules)
> Vatapi: Internal (Cannot be targeted by external attacks)
[ WARNING: HOST DEATH IMMINENT IN 180 SECONDS ]
Three minutes. We had three minutes before we exploded like cheap party poppers.
"Kabir!" I wheezed, blood dribbling from my lip. "Run! Get out! Save yourself!"
Kabir was the only one standing. He was backed against the heavy wooden door, his cane held like a sword in trembling hands. He hadn't eaten. He was clean. But he looked terrified, his head whipping back and forth as he tried to track the chaos with his ears.
"I'm not leaving you," Kabir said, his voice shaking but his feet planted like roots. "Ilvala... you said the Safe Zone forbids monsters."
"I did," Ilvala agreed, circling us like a shark in a kiddie pool. "And that is true. I cannot hurt you. I cannot attack you directly. The System prevents me from raising a hand against a guest. See?"
He waved his hands in front of my face. "I am harmless. A pacifist."
"Then what is this?" Riya sobbed, clutching her stomach as a visible lump moved beneath her shirt.
"That?" Ilvala pointed. "That is Vatapi. But Vatapi is not a monster anymore. He is... food. He is nutrients. He is calories. He is part of you now. And the System does not regulate indigestion. If you have a bad reaction to the meal... well, that is hardly the chef's fault, is it?"
It was a loophole. A sick, twisted, mythological loophole designed to bypass the one rule that was supposed to save us. He had weaponized the Terms of Service.
"Kabir," I gritted out, clutching my stomach as another wave of agony ripped through me—something inside me kicked. "Listen to me. You have to... you have to kill Ilvala."
"He's invulnerable!" Kabir shouted back, desperation cracking his calm facade. "The barrier protects him! I can hear the hum around him!"
"Not him!" I roared, vomiting a spray of black bile onto the stone floor. "The connection! Vatapi comes back to life when Ilvala calls him! Stop him from calling! Shut him up!"
Ilvala laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "Smart boy. You understand the mechanics. You would have made a fine scholar. But how will a blind cripple stop a Sage?"
Ilvala took a deep breath. He wasn't just breathing; he was gathering power. The air in the room vibrated, the pressure dropping until my ears popped. He was preparing to use the Voice again. To command the thing inside us to burst out.
"VATAPI—"
CRACK.
A clay pot shattered against the wall, inches from Ilvala's head. Shards of pottery exploded outward like shrapnel.
Kabir hadn't thrown it at Ilvala. He had thrown it at the sound of Ilvala's voice.
"I can't hit you," Kabir said, breathing hard, reaching for another pot on the shelf. "But I can make noise. I can be annoying."
Ilvala sneered, brushing dust from his shoulder. "Insolent pest. Do you think a little noise will stop the ritual?"
He opened his mouth again, louder this time.
"VAT—"
CLANG.
Kabir swept his cane across a low table, sending brass plates crashing to the floor. The noise was deafening in the enclosed space. It broke Ilvala's concentration, disrupting the frequency of the chant.
"Distract him!" I shouted to the others, my voice raw. "Don't let him speak! If he finishes the name, we die!"
"How?!" Vikram gagged, tears streaming down his face. "I'm literally pregnant with a demon! I don't have a plan for this! This wasn't in the syllabus!"
"Use your Charisma!" I yelled, grasping at straws. "Lie to him! Insult him! Anything! Hurt his feelings!"
Vikram, despite the horror, grabbed onto his one lifeline: his massive, fragile ego.
"Hey! Gandalf!" Vikram wheezed, pulling himself up on one elbow. "Your brother... he tastes like cheap mutton! Too much salt! And your ashram? Tacky! One star review! I'm telling you, zero ambiance! The decor screams 'failed cult leader on a budget'!"
Ilvala's eye twitched. "Silence, worm."
"And your beard!" Vikram continued, vomiting slightly but pushing through the pain. "It looks like a bird's nest made of pubic hair! Did you style it in the dark? Or did your mother dress you? Oh wait, she probably abandoned you because you're ugly!"
It was petty. It was childish. It was the kind of insult a middle schooler would come up with. But it worked. Ilvala turned toward Vikram, his face twisting in genuine rage.
"You dare mock the host?" Ilvala hissed, stepping toward the rich boy. "You ungrateful little appetizer!"
"NOW!" I screamed. "Riya! Throw something! Anything!"
Riya, tears streaming down her face, grabbed the nearest object—a heavy copper water jug—and hurled it with a scream of pure frustration.
It didn't hit Ilvala. It hit the oil lamp hanging directly above him.
Hot oil splashed down onto the Sage's shoulder.
Because it wasn't a direct attack—it was an "accident"—the System didn't block it.
Ilvala shrieked, batting at the flames on his saffron robes. "Ah! My robe! This is silk, you insolent brats!"
"Kabir!" I yelled, pointing with my shaking hand. "The window! Break the window!"
"Why?" Kabir shouted back, confused.
"The Safe Zone!" I gasped, feeling Vatapi squirming higher, pushing against my ribs, trying to find an exit. "It creates a sealed environment! It's like an air-conditioned room! If we break the seal... maybe the rules change! Vent the system!"
Kabir didn't hesitate. He spun, sensing the draft from the shuttered window. He swung his heavy white cane with all the torque his slender frame could muster.
SMASH.
The wooden shutters splintered into a thousand pieces.
Wind from the outside—cold, smelling of rot and sulfur—howled into the warm room. The perfect, climate-controlled atmosphere of the ashram was breached. The illusion of safety shattered like a glass mirror.
The golden glow of the room flickered and died, replaced by the eerie, sickly green light of the Gear Sky.
[ SYSTEM ALERT ]
[ SAFE ZONE COMPROMISED ]
[ ENVIRONMENTAL SHIELD: OFFLINE ]
Ilvala froze. The flames on his shoulder died out, but the shimmering golden aura of his invulnerability flickered and vanished.
"You broke my house," Ilvala whispered. He looked genuinely heartbroken. Then, his face split open. Not a smile. His actual face. The skin peeled back like a banana, revealing wet, red muscle and bone underneath.
"Fine," the demon growled, his voice now a wet gurgle. "No more loopholes. No more games. Now we do this the old way."
He lunged at Kabir.
"Kabir, duck!" I screamed.
Kabir dropped to the floor. Ilvala's claws slashed the air where his head had been, carving deep grooves into the wooden pillar behind him.
"Vikram! Javed! Get up!" I commanded, forcing my own body to move. "The digestion stopped! The spell is broken!"
I checked my HP. The drain had paused. Vatapi was still inside us, a heavy, dormant weight, but without Ilvala's chant, he couldn't burst out. He was just... really bad indigestion.
"We have to kill him," I said, grabbing my iron spear from the floor. "We have to kill the summoner to purge the parasite."
"I can't walk," Javed groaned, clutching his leg. "The bone isn't fully fused. It hurts like hell."
"Then crawl!" I yelled. "Riya, help Kabir! Keep the demon away from him!"
I charged.
It wasn't a heroic charge. It was a stumble. I was weak, my center of gravity thrown off by the demon-lump in my stomach.
Ilvala saw me coming. He swiped backhand, lazy and arrogant.
I didn't try to dodge. I didn't have the agility. Instead, I remembered the Physics.
Force = Mass x Acceleration.
I threw my body weight forward, sliding on the oil-slicked floor. I went under his guard.
I drove the rusted iron axle upward.
THUCK.
The spear tip buried itself in Ilvala's thigh.
The demon roared, looking down in shock. "You... you are cattle! Cattle do not bite!"
He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. His grip was like a hydraulic press. My windpipe began to crush. Black spots danced in my vision.
"Dhruv!" Riya screamed. She threw a rock—one she must have picked up outside—but it bounced harmlessly off Ilvala's back.
"I will squeeze the life out of you," Ilvala hissed, bringing my face close to his exposed, skinless visage. The smell of raw meat was overpowering. "And then I will pull my brother out of your corpse myself. I will start with your eyes."
My vision started to go black. My legs kicked uselessly. I was going to die. After all that, I was going to die choking on my own blood in a fake ashram.
But then, I saw it.
Behind Ilvala, on the floor, Javed was moving.
He wasn't crawling away. He wasn't crying. He was swiping frantically at the air in front of him—at his System Interface.
What is he doing? Is he checking his Instagram?
Javed's eyes were wide, focused on a blue screen only he could see. His finger stabbed a button with desperate intensity.
"Come on, come on," Javed muttered. "Apply. Apply!"
He had leveled up from the first kill. We all had. But we hadn't used the points.
[ NOTIFICATION: LEVEL UP! ]
[ ATTRIBUTE POINTS ALLOCATED: +5 STRENGTH ]
Javed roared.
It wasn't a scream of pain. It was a scream of power. The muscles in his arms bulged, veins popping against his skin. The Level Up healed his fatigue instantly, flooding his system with fresh Prana.
He grabbed the handle of the spear sticking out of Ilvala's thigh—the spear I had planted.
"Get... off... him!" Javed bellowed.
He didn't pull the spear out. He twisted it. And then, with a strength that shouldn't be possible for a human, he pushed it up.
Ilvala convulsed. The massive damage, combined with the critical hit, dropped his HP to zero in a single second.
The demon shrieked. He dropped me, clawing at his leg, but it was too late. The iron axle had severed the femoral artery. Black blood sprayed like a geyser, coating the walls.
"Hit him!" Vikram shrieked, finding his courage in the madness. He grabbed the massive, heavy cauldron of stew—still boiling hot—and lifted it over his head. His hands sizzled, but he didn't let go.
"Eat this, you ugly freak!"
Vikram brought the cauldron down on Ilvala's head.
CLANG-SPLAT.
The impact was sickening. The heavy iron crushed the demon's skull, and gallons of boiling hot mutton stew—the very trap he had set for us—poured over his open, skinless flesh.
Ilvala fell. He didn't hit the ground; he dissolved. His body turned into black smoke, swirling away into the vents, leaving only his saffron robes behind.
And the moment he died, I felt a violent lurch in my stomach.
I doubled over and retched.
Black sludge poured out of my mouth. Next to me, Vikram and Riya were doing the same. We vomited up the "stew"—the essence of Vatapi. It pooled on the floor, hissing and bubbling like acid, then evaporated into nothingness.
The weight was gone. The parasite was purged.
Silence returned to the ruined ashram.
We lay there in the mess of oil, stew, and vomit. Panting. Shaking. Alive.
[ BOSS DEFEATED: ILVALA & VATAPI ]
[ QUEST COMPLETE: SURVIVE THE NIGHT ]
[ REWARD: CLASS SELECTION UNLOCKED ]
[ BONUS REWARD: 'SAGE SLAYER' TITLE ]
[ LEVEL UP! ]
"I think..." Vikram wheezed, wiping sludge from his mouth with his silk sleeve. "I think I want to be a vegetarian now. Forever. I'm converting to Jainism. No roots, no onions, nothing."
"Seconded," Javed grunted, falling back onto the cushions. He was staring at his hands, amazed. "Did you guys see that? I leveled up. I put everything into Strength. I felt like... like I could punch a truck. I felt like the Hulk, but with a broken leg."
"You saved us," Riya whispered, crawling over to check on his leg. "Javed, you figured it out. You actually figured it out."
I looked at the blue text floating in the air. Class Selection.
"We did it," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "We actually killed a Boss. And we didn't die."
Kabir tapped his way over to us. He looked pristine compared to our filth. He knelt down, touching my shoulder.
"Is it over?" he asked.
"The boss is dead," I said. I looked around the ruined room. The windows were broken, but the air inside... it was changing.
The oppressive green light of the Gear Sky faded. A new, softer golden light began to emanate from the center of the room, from the very spot where Ilvala had died.
A new System window appeared, but this one wasn't red or glitchy. It was pure, calming gold.
[ AREA CLEARED ]
[ SANCTUARY ESTABLISHED ]
[ THIS LOCATION IS NOW A PERMANENT SAFE ZONE ]
[ RESTORING PLAYER HP/MP... ]
A wave of warmth washed over us. The cuts on my face closed. The ache in my shoulder vanished. Even the disgusting taste of the vomit in my mouth faded away, replaced by the taste of tulsi.
"It's... it's actually safe now," I said, disbelieving. "We conquered it. The ashram is ours."
Javed laughed, a sound of pure relief. "So we have a base? A real base? Does it have Wi-Fi?"
"It has a roof and no monsters," Kabir said, smiling for the first time since the crash. "That is enough."
I leaned back against the wall, closing my eyes. We didn't have to run. Not tonight. Tonight, we could sleep without fear of being eaten.
But tomorrow... tomorrow we had to choose our Classes. Tomorrow, we had to hunt.
Because Ilvala was right about one thing. We were weak. And if we wanted to survive what was coming next, we needed to become monsters ourselves.