The beast was a blur of segmented chitin and gnashing mandibles.
Kaelen threw himself sideways. His dislocated left arm flared with blinding agony, but the desperate maneuver saved his life. The Void Crawler slammed into the rusted iron wall where his head had been a fraction of a second before. Metal shrieked and groaned under the impact, leaving a massive dent in the thick plating.
Kaelen did not waste time staring. Survival in the Lower Tiers meant moving faster than your fear.
He scrambled backward on his good hand and feet. The mud beneath him was slick with chemical runoff and raw sewage. Corrosive mist clung to the alley walls, turning the junk heaps into looming shadows. His fingers grazed something cold and sharp hidden in the filth. It was a jagged length of sheared iron pipe. It felt heavy, coated in slick grime, and perfectly balanced as a crude spear.
He gripped it tightly.
The Void Crawler recovered instantly from its missed strike. Its six crimson eyes pivoted to lock entirely onto Kaelen. Acidic saliva dripped from its jaws, sizzling violently as it hit the garbage littered across the alley floor. It shrieked again, a metallic screech that rattled Kaelen's teeth.
The sound vibrated deep in his chest.
Right where the Void Core pulsed.
The black veins spreading from his sternum throbbed with sudden violence. The hunger inside him spiked, transforming from a dull ache into a ravenous, demanding roar. His vision blurred with static. The core was feeding on his adrenaline now, draining his absolute last reserves of energy to keep itself alive.
He had mere seconds before his body shut down completely.
The beast launched itself forward. Needle-like legs propelled it over the trash heaps with terrifying, unnatural speed.
Kaelen dropped to one knee. He planted the blunt end of the iron pipe firmly against a solid gear shaft buried deep in the mud. He aimed the jagged, broken tip upward, pointing it directly at the trajectory of the leaping monster.
It was a blind gamble. A beggar's desperate trick.
The Void Crawler descended like a falling boulder. It realized the trap a moment too late. The beast twisted in midair, trying to alter its path, but its own massive momentum betrayed it.
The jagged pipe pierced the soft, unarmored underside of the creature's neck.
Black, viscous blood sprayed across Kaelen's face. The beast shrieked in unholy agony. Its sheer weight drove the makeshift spear deeper, tearing through muscle and chitin until the iron tip burst out the back of its skull.
The creature collapsed, pinning Kaelen's right leg under its massive, twitching body. Claws flailed wildly in the monster's death throes, carving deep, bloody gashes into Kaelen's thigh. He screamed, kicking out frantically, but the beast was far too heavy to dislodge.
Then, the true horror began.
The black blood pooling on Kaelen's skin did not drip away. It soaked directly into his open pores.
The Void Core inside his chest gave a massive, shuddering pulse. The black veins writhing under Kaelen's skin suddenly burst outward. They ripped through the flesh of his hands and arms without spilling a drop of his own blood, taking the form of shadowy, ethereal tendrils.
Kaelen watched in muted shock as the dark tendrils plunged violently into the dying Void Crawler.
The beast stopped thrashing. Its six eyes went wide with pure, primal terror. It tried to pull away, but the shadowy veins anchored it ruthlessly in place.
A sickening slurping sound filled the silent alley. The creature's massive body began to wither. Its thick muscles deflated under the exoskeleton. Its chitinous armor cracked and turned brittle, losing all its dark, oily luster. The beast was being drank dry, completely drained of its blood and its very essence.
Within ten seconds, the giant Iron-Rank monster crumbled into a pile of lifeless, gray ash.
Kaelen lay in the dirt, panting heavily. The shadow tendrils retreated, sinking back into his skin without leaving a single scar behind.
A sudden rush of searing heat flooded his veins. It was like drinking pure, liquid fire. The bone-deep exhaustion vanished entirely. The agonizing pain in his left arm subsided to a dull throb. He watched in absolute disbelief as a faint, ethereal blue screen materialized in his field of vision.
[Target Devoured: Iron-Rank Void Crawler.] [Extracting Aetheric Essence...] [Host physiology highly compatible.]
Text scrolled rapidly across his vision. The rigid, glowing font looked exactly like the Aetheric terminals used by the High Tier guilds, but this interface was burned directly into his retinas.
[Stats Acquired.] [Strength +2] [Agility +3] [Stamina +4]
Kaelen slowly sat up. He pushed the pile of gray ash off his leg. The deep gashes the beast had carved into his thigh were already closing. Flesh knit together right before his eyes, leaving only faint pink scars that quickly faded into healthy skin.
He flexed his right hand. Raw power surged through his muscles. He felt stronger, lighter, and completely revitalized. He grabbed his dislocated left arm, took a deep, steadying breath, and violently twisted his shoulder.
A loud pop echoed in the alley. The joint snapped back into place. It hurt, but the lingering pain faded incredibly fast under the system's healing influence.
"It wasn't a defect," Kaelen whispered, staring at his trembling, bloodstained hands. A manic, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips.
The Ironclad Guildmaster had thrown him away like garbage. The arrogant nobles had laughed at him. They told him his core was a parasite that would kill him in a week. They were completely wrong. His core was not broken. It was simply designed for a different kind of fuel. It did not generate Aether from the atmosphere.
It stole it from the dead.
Kaelen stood up smoothly. He wiped the grim mixture of mud and ash from his face. His mind raced with the terrifying, glorious possibilities. If he could absorb stats from a low-level scavenger beast, what could he achieve if he hunted stronger monsters? What would happen if he devoured the elite beasts of the Abyss?
He could climb back up the tiers. He could tear his way out of the slums and force the Guildmaster to choke on his own arrogant words. He could become a Vanguard. He could become unstoppable.
The glowing blue interface flickered violently.
Kaelen blinked as the calming text vanished. The soft blue light abruptly shifted. The screen turned a deep, threatening crimson.
A sharp pain spiked in his chest. Kaelen gasped, stumbling backward against the cold metal wall. The Void Core pulsed heavily again, sending a jolt of sheer warning through his nervous system.
New text carved itself into his vision, dripping like wet blood.
[Warning: Initial feeding complete.] [Host body remains fundamentally weak. Void Core capacity: 1/1000.] [The Devourer requires constant sustenance to prevent self-consumption.]
Kaelen clutched his chest tightly. The hunger was already returning. It was faint, a mere whisper of the agony he had felt earlier, but it was undeniably there.
[Initiating Forced Evolution Path.] [Immediate objective generated.] [Objective: Devour a sentient Aether wielder within 24 hours.] [Reward: Skill Extraction Unlocked.] [Penalty for failure: Complete Host Consumption.]
Kaelen stared at the bloody red text. His breath hitched in his throat.
The system was not just a tool for revenge. It was a demanding, insatiable master. And it had just commanded him to murder a human being.
Footsteps echoed loudly from the mouth of the alleyway.
Kaelen snapped his head toward the sound. Through the thick, rolling mist, three dark silhouettes appeared. They carried heavy iron pipes and crude, rusted machetes. As they stepped closer, Kaelen recognized the jagged skull tattoos inked onto their bare arms.
Scrap Gangers. The violent thugs who ruled this sector of the slums with absolute brutality.
The leader of the trio stepped fully into the dim light. He was a hulking brute with a scarred face and a heavy, spiked club resting on his shoulder. He kicked a rusted tin can out of his way, his eyes scanning the shadows.
Kaelen pressed his back against the wall. He had nothing but his bare hands and the torn clothes on his back. A day ago, encountering three armed gangers in a dead end would have been a guaranteed execution.
But the heat surging through his veins told a different story. The stolen strength of the beast he had just consumed coiled in his muscles, begging to be unleashed.
The leader spotted him. A cruel, yellow-toothed smile stretched across his face.
"Well look here, boys," the brute chuckled. "Fresh meat dropped right from the high towers. Let's see what he's hiding in those fancy pockets."
The crimson text in Kaelen's vision pulsed in perfect rhythm with his rapid heartbeat.
[Prey detected.]