The world slowed down.
Not all at once.
Not with a sudden cut.
It was gradual.
To Eryon's perception, everything began to drag, as if reality itself were running out of strength. The creatures clinging to his body froze mid-motion—jaws open, fangs mere millimeters away from tearing more flesh. Drops of blood spilling from his wounds hung in the air, turned into tiny, motionless spheres.
The pain… stopped as well.
It didn't vanish, but it froze—like a memory stripped of sensation. The burning, the pressure, the tearing—everything was trapped in an instant that no longer moved forward.
The entire swamp stood still.
The wind ceased to exist.Sound died.
Only one thing remained active.
The beeping.
A rhythmic, mechanical, constant sound coming from the status window floating before him. Beep… beep… beep… Each pulse echoed directly inside his mind.
Eryon blinked.
He could move.He could think.
But nothing else could.
His eyes swept across the impossible scene: creatures suspended like grotesque sculptures, his own blood floating in place, mud frozen mid-splash. His breathing was the only thing he could feel—slow, deep, unnervingly clear.
—What… —he murmured— what the hell…?
Confusion struck him harder than any wound.
What had happened now?What had been activated?Why, ever since he entered that damned tower, did things keep twisting in ways he couldn't understand?
First, the massacre.Then waking up here.Then the unknown skill.And now… this.
Time itself halted before his eyes.
Eryon slowly clenched his fists, feeling—for the first time in a long while—that his mind was strangely lucid, as if someone had stripped away the noise and left only what mattered.
—I didn't ask for this… —he whispered— I just wanted to survive.
The beeping continued.
Steady. Relentless.
And though he didn't know it yet, Eryon was standing right at the threshold of something he could no longer undo.
A voice resonated.
It wasn't the same system voice Eryon had heard before. It wasn't rigid or fully robotic. It was mechanical, yes—but fluid, as if every word had been polished to sound inevitable.
—Skill evolution: not viable.
—Host status: critical.
—Reassigning protocol…
—Initiating forced bodily evolution.
The final sentence fell like a verdict.
Eryon had no time to react.
His body folded violently and collapsed to the ground, curling inward, almost like a shrimp. His back arched, arms tensed, fingers digging into the frozen mud. His face twisted into a grotesque grimace.
The pain arrived.
It wasn't physical in the usual sense.It wasn't a wound, a tear, or an impact.
It was something far worse.
Eryon felt as if something were dismantling him from the inside.
As if his very existence were being seized, crushed, and reassembled without the slightest regard.
Every fiber of his body screamed.
Every cell seemed to explode and be reborn in the same instant.
Every muscle, every nerve, every corner of his being was destroyed and regenerated again and again, in a cruel, deliberate cycle.
There was no rhythm.There was no rest.
It was a continuous hell.
Being bitten, torn apart, devoured alive by those creatures—everything paled in comparison to this sensation.
Eryon opened his mouth to scream.
No sound came out.
The pain wouldn't even allow him that.
His mind fractured into flashes—light, darkness, broken memories, his sister's face, the deaths of Sam's team, the swamp, the tower—all blending together as something unseen rebuilt him without consent.
The voice echoed again, distant and indifferent.
—Restructuring in progress.
—Host integrity: ignored.
—Survival prioritized.
In that moment, even through the absolute suffering, Eryon understood something.
This was not a gift.This was not a blessing.
The pain began to recede.
It didn't disappear instantly, but withdrew slowly, like a black tide retreating against its will. In its place came something else.
Something warm. Dense. Powerful.
Eryon gasped.
He felt strength.
Not an abstract sensation, but something real, tangible, coursing through every part of his being. It was as if, for the first time, his body was… complete.
More than complete.
His wounds began to close before his eyes.
Deep bite marks sealed shut, torn flesh fused as if it had never been separated, blood stopped flowing, and his skin regained its color. Even the scars that should have remained vanished without a trace.
His muscles changed.
They tightened, redefined themselves, rebuilt. Where there had once been weakness and exhaustion, there were now firm lines, clear tone, a structure that undeniably hadn't existed before. It wasn't exaggerated or monstrous—but it was unmistakably different.
Stronger.More stable.
Eryon lay motionless, breathing heavily, utterly shaken.
None of this made sense.None of it followed the rules he had been told.
Then the voice spoke again.
—Bodily evolution completed.
—Host statistics have increased as a consequence.
Silence.
A few seconds that felt strangely long, even within the frozen world.
Then—
—Resuming skill evolution: "Integrated Physical Reinforcement – Rank B."
The air trembled.
Eryon felt an intense current of mana begin to gather within him. This wasn't a normal flow. It wasn't something he was controlling.
It was as if he had become a gravitational center.
An invisible black hole pulling mana from the surroundings, absorbing it with silent voracity. The swamp, the rotting trees, even the air itself seemed to lose something imperceptible as that energy converged into him.
His chest burned.His veins glowed faintly beneath his skin.
And then he noticed it.
Almost imperceptibly…
Time began to move again.
A suspended drop of blood slowly fell to the ground.One of the creatures trembled slightly.The mud began to sink again under the weight of bodies.
Eryon raised his gaze, his heart pounding with a new strength, as reality prepared to resume.
The system window flashed intensely once more.
The beeping changed rhythm—faster, more insistent—and a new line appeared before Eryon's eyes:
—Detecting first skill evolution of host.
—Bonus applied: evolution level +1.
Eryon barely had time to process the message.
The instant he read it, the amount of mana his body was absorbing skyrocketed.
It wasn't gradual—it was violent.
The already intense flow multiplied several times over, as if someone had fully opened an invisible floodgate. The air around him grew heavy, almost suffocating, and a brutal pressure concentrated in his chest, his bones, every nerve.
—Ghh…! —he clenched his teeth.
The pain returned, though different from before. It wasn't pure destruction, but overload—as if his body were being forced to contain something pushing against its limits.
How long is this going to last…? was the last thought he managed.
Then, the mechanical voice sounded again.
This time… different.
It was still cold, artificial—but Eryon could have sworn there was a faint trace of enthusiasm within it, almost imperceptible, like a subtle vibration between the words.
—Process stable.
—Adaptive capacity exceeds estimates.
The system window lit up.
Not with a single color, but many. Golden hues, deep blues, silver flashes, lines of light crossing like living circuits. The glow was so intense that Eryon had to close his eyes.
Then, the final message appeared—clear and absolute:
Skill evolution completed.
Original skill: Integrated Physical Reinforcement — Rank B
Result: Successful evolution
New skill acquired:TRANSCENDENT PHYSIQUE — RANK S
Light erupted.
For an instant, Eryon saw nothing. Only white. Only silence.
When his vision finally returned, the world slowly came back into focus: the swamp, the creatures beginning to move again, the mud, the air vibrating with residual mana.
Eryon remained completely still.
His mind was blank.
Rank… S.
Shock froze him in place, confusion tightening around his chest.
None of this should have been possible.None of it had an explanation.
And yet…
There it was.
Etched before him, in letters impossible to ignore.
Transcendent Physique — Rank S.