The darkness of the Abyss wasn't empty. It breathed.
Kaelen moved through the jagged tunnels, his new grey skin glowing faintly with a sickly light. Every step was a lesson in agony. His "Unique Skill" hadn't removed his injuries; it had simply forced his body to keep moving despite them. He was a walking corpse held together by pure, concentrated hatred.
[Notice: Passive Skill 'Pain Storage' is full.]
[Status: Overloaded. Physical stats reduced by 40% until Malice is discharged.]
"Discharged," Kaelen rasped, leaning against a damp cave wall. "You mean I have to give this away?"
A scratching sound echoed from the ceiling. Kaelen froze. Down here, in the 'Dregs' of the world, lived the things the Gods considered failed experiments.
A Crawler dropped from the shadows. It was a creature that looked like a starved wolf stretched over a human frame, its face replaced by a vertical slit of needle-like teeth. It was a "Zero-Rank" monster, the lowest of the low, but to a broken man, it was a death sentence.
The beast lunged.
Kaelen tried to dodge, but his snapped ribs flared with white-hot heat. The Crawler's claws tore through his shoulder, pinning him to the stone floor. The creature let out a wet, clicking growl, its jaw opening wide to snap his throat.
"You... want my life?" Kaelen choked out, his eyes flashing a bruised purple. He reached up, grabbing the beast's hairy forearms with his trembling hands. "Fine. Take the rest of it."
[Skill Activated: Malice Transfer.]
Kaelen didn't swing a sword. He didn't cast a spell. He simply opened a valve.
Three years of absorbed trauma—the sensation of a spear through the lung, the sting of acid on the skin, the mental weight of a hundred betrayals—poured out of Kaelen and into the beast.
The Crawler didn't even have time to howl.
Its body underwent a horrific transformation. Its bones began to snap and reset in a frantic, chaotic rhythm. Its eyes burst from the internal pressure of a thousand phantom headaches. It thrashed on top of Kaelen, its muscles tearing themselves apart as it experienced a lifetime of "Martyrdom" in three seconds.
With a final, wet crunch, the creature went limp. It hadn't died from a wound; its heart had simply stopped from the sheer shock of the pain.
[Kill Confirmed: Abyss Crawler (Lv. 3)]
[Experience Gained.]
[Level Up: 1 -> 2]
[Attribute Points Gained: 2]
Kaelen pushed the carcass off him. He felt... lighter. The crushing weight on his chest had eased. By "gifting" his pain to the monster, he had actually healed a fraction of himself.
"So that's how it works," he whispered, wiping black ichor from his face. "I suffer, I store it, and I kill to get rid of it."
He looked at his character screen.
Current Malice Load: 98%
Next Evolution at Level 10.
He wasn't just a survivor anymore. He was a plague. The Heroes had spent years using him to stay perfect and clean. Now, he would use every monster in this hole to sharpen himself into a blade.
High above, through miles of solid rock, he could almost hear the music of the Gods' celebration.
"Celebrate while you can," Kaelen said, his voice becoming more human, more cold. "I'm coming up, and I'm bringing every scar you gave me."
He picked up a sharp shard of obsidian from the floor—his first weapon. It wasn't a holy sword, but it would do. He turned away from the light of the portal and headed deeper into the throat of the Underworld.
To climb out, he first had to conquer the bottom.