3 — What Gnaws Beneath the Bark
Vincent noticed the
tightness around his face during his eighth kill, a twitching thing
with too many shoulders that he'd dispatched with what he was now
calling "tactical efficiency." As he knelt to feed, he
raised a hand to his cheek and felt something wrong.
The surface was
smooth. Too smooth. Not skin anymore, but something else. Something
harder, colder, like wax that had cooled and solidified over his
features.
He found a
puddle—black, still, mirror-smooth—and knelt beside it. The
reflection stared back, and Vincent's breath caught in his throat.
His face was gone. Not
removed, but replaced. A smooth, featureless surface of dirty-white
wax covered where his features had been. No nose, no lips, no
expression. Just three black holes—two where his eyes should be,
one where his mouth had been—staring back at him like voids punched
through reality.
He touched it. The
surface was seamless, fused directly to his skin—or was his skin
now, impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. The
texture was like old candle wax left too long in the sun: smooth but
slightly grainy, yielding but resistant.
He tried to open his
mouth. The black hole stretched slightly, the edges pulling back like
torn fabric, revealing darkness inside. No teeth visible, no tongue,
just an abyss.
What the fuck?
This is... this is a cosmetic bug, right? Character model glitch? I
didn't customize anything. This wasn't in the options.
[Transformation
Progress: 8%]
[Class
Assignment: In Progress]
[Physical
adaptation detected]
[Psyche:
78%]
Transformation?
Class assignment? What does that mean?
[Irreversible
changes: Accepted per Terms of Service, Section 12.4]
[Continue?]
Wait,
irreversible? I didn't... I didn't agree to permanent changes. That
wasn't in the... okay, it was probably in the Terms I didn't read,
but still. This is fucked. This is bad design.
The system didn't wait
for his answer. It never had.
Vincent stood, staring
at his reflection. The mask—because that's what it was now, a mask
fused to his skull—stared back. The three black holes tracked his
vision, following his gaze in a way that shouldn't have been
possible.
Okay. Okay. It's
fine. It's just cosmetics. Visual character progression. Like how
your armor changes in RPGs. It doesn't mean anything. It's just...
flavor.
He turned away from
the puddle and continued walking. If he walked long enough, maybe he
could outpace the creeping sensation that he'd crossed a line he
didn't fully understand.
It's fine. I'm
adapting. I'm evolving. That's what the game wants. That's what gets
you to level 100.
By level 3, Vincent
had established what he considered a "territory." A section
of the forest roughly a hundred meters across, centered on a large,
cracked boulder that sat between three twisted skin-trees like a
makeshift throne.
He'd decided this was
his hunting ground, his base of operations, his domain. The decision
was arbitrary and meaningless, but it gave him a sense of control,
and control was in short supply.
He sat on the boulder
exactly like Watchdog Man from his favorite manga: knees bent, weight
on his heels, palms flat on the cold stone. With his featureless
white wax body and that dirty-white mask, the resemblance was almost
haunting. He remained perfectly still, a silent sentinel "chilling
between sessions" to look like a pro guarding a strategic point.
This is tactical
positioning. Zone control. I'm not camping—I'm establishing
dominance. Watchdog Man never leaves his city, and look how respected
he is. People don't understand that stillness is a power move.
He'd eaten two
creatures that morning. Well, "morning"—there was no real
sun here, just that unchanging grey light, but his body told him it
was time. One had been almost cute, with large round eyes and a
clumsy gait. The other simply hadn't been fast enough. [Feral
Leap]
had triggered automatically, the mask's mouth-hole had found the
neck, and it was over.
The system hadn't
flinched. No alerts, no crashes. Just the usual notifications—[HP
Recovered],
[Fragment
Absorbed],
[Stable
Progression].
See? I've got this
down to a science. Efficient kills, optimal feeding, zero wasted
movement. I'm basically speedrunning character progression.
He was not
speedrunning anything. He was barely surviving while his body slowly
transformed into something that could survive in this place.
[Level:
3][Integrity:
94%]
[Psyche:
71%]
[Transformation:
Stable (1/10)]
[Public
Class: Brawler]
[Internal
Class: Wìdjigò-Phase]
Wìdjigò-Phase.
That sounds rare. That sounds exclusive. A hidden class most
players won't unlock. I bet the wiki's going to go crazy trying to
figure out how I got this. Unique class. One user at a time.Four percent completion rate. Yeah. That tracks.
He'd even started
"testing his senses"—sniffing the air like a hound,
turning the three black holes of his mask toward distant noises. He
took himself seriously, playing the "Predatory Instinct"
role to the hilt, mimicking the stoic poses of his favorite
characters. It reassured him to pretend.
I'm a specialist.
A tactical asset. Just like him. Q-City has its protector, and this
forest has me.
— Customer service
is currently closed, — he rasped to the empty woods, his voice a
hollow rattle behind the mask. The sound came from somewhere deep in
the void behind his face, echoing strangely. — Management reserves
the right to refuse service to all trespassers. Zero stars.
The forest, as always,
declined to comment.
Then he heard
something. A scraping sound, distant at first, then closer. Not
footsteps—too continuous. A dry, deep, rasping sound, as if the
earth itself were being scraped by something hard and deliberate.
Vincent stood slowly,
every muscle of his white waxy body tensing at once. Another
mob? Good. I need the exp. Probably something small. Easy farm.
He wanted to track it
by scent, but the smell had no direction—it came from everywhere,
saturating the air like acrid, green, vegetal dust. The impression of
an angry forest.
And then he saw it.
The Wolf.
It wasn't massive. It
was constructed.
A body made of brambles woven with surgical accuracy, every vegetal
fiber articulated like tendons. The eyes were two white stones,
opaque and unblinking. And when they locked onto Vincent, something
in his chest—his black heart, visible now through the increasingly
translucent wax of his skin—beat faster.
The Wolf looked at
him. Vincent looked back.
Okay. Bigger mob.
That's fine. I've handled bigger. Probably a mini-boss. This is what
separates good players from great ones. You don't run from
challenges, you—
The Wolf moved.
Not walked. Moved. One
moment it was fifteen meters away, the next it was five, and Vincent
hadn't seen the transition. Just frames skipped, like lag, like the
world had blinked and rearranged itself.
Vincent stumbled
backward. What
the fuck? That's bullshit. That's broken hitbox mechanics. That's—
The Wolf lunged.
Vincent tried to dodge, to leap sideways like he'd done a dozen times
before, but his body was too slow, his instincts too dull. The Wolf's
bramble-claws raked across his chest, tearing through the waxy flesh
like paper.
[-34%
Integrity]
[Deep
lacerations]
[Structural
damage to torso]
Vincent screamed. The
sound came out distorted through the mask, hollow and broken. He hit
the ground hard, rolled, tried to scramble to his feet. The Wolf was
already there, looming over him, white stone eyes staring with
something that might have been contempt if stones could express
emotion.
This isn't fair.
I'm level 3. This thing is obviously scaled wrong. This is bad
design. This is—
The Wolf bit down on
his shoulder. Not with teeth—it didn't have teeth—but with a
mouth lined with thorns, hooks that dug in and held and pulled.
Vincent felt his shoulder dislocate, felt something tear that
shouldn't tear.
[-28%
Integrity]
[Critical
damage]
[Integrity:
32%]
[HP
Stock: 123]
He thrashed, clawed at
the Wolf's face with his black-tipped fingers, but the brambles just
reformed, weaving back together faster than he could damage them. The
Wolf shook him like a dog with a rat, and Vincent felt ribs crack,
felt his vision blur.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
I'm going to die.
Oh shit, I'm actually going to die. This is bullshit. This is broken.
I was doing so well. I was—
Another strike. The
Wolf's claws tore across his side, and Vincent felt something vital
rupture inside him.
[-18%
Integrity]
[Critical
state]
[Integrity:
14%]
[Warning:
Fatal threshold approaching]
No. No no no. Not
like this. I'm not dying to some fucking bush monster. I bought that
regen skill. I have HP stored. I can—
He activated
[Regeneration
Stimulation]
without thinking, pure survival instinct overriding conscious
thought.
[Regeneration
Stimulation: ACTIVE][HP
Stock: 123 → Draining]
[Regeneration:
+2HP/sec]
[Duration:
Until HP Stock depleted]
The effect was
immediate. Not a full heal, but a slow, steady flow of restoration
that pushed back against the damage, kept him just barely above the
threshold of death. His Integrity ticked upward—16%, 18%, 20%—while
the Wolf continued its assault.
It's working. Holy
shit, it's working. Just need to hold on. Just need to—
The Wolf slammed him
into the ground again. More damage. But the regen kept pace, kept him
alive, kept him conscious.
[Integrity:
18%]
[HP
Stock: 98]
[Regeneration:
Active]
Vincent's body moved
without his permission, driven by something deeper than conscious
thought. The Hunger roared to life, amplified by desperation, by the
proximity of death, by the taste of his own blood in his mouth. His
black claws found purchase in the Wolf's bramble flesh, digging deep,
tearing. His mask's mouth-hole stretched impossibly wide, the jagged
edges extending like shards of broken bone, and he bit down on the
Wolf's neck with everything he had.
The Wolf thrashed,
trying to shake him off, but Vincent held on. His claws hooked
deeper, his teeth ground through the woven brambles, found something
vital, something that felt almost like sinew.
[Critical
Hit: Core Structure]
[Enemy
Integrity: 73%]
[Integrity:
22%]
[HP
Stock: 71]
It's working. I'm
doing damage. Just need to outlast it. Just need to—
The Wolf threw itself
sideways, slamming Vincent into a tree. His Integrity dropped, but
the regen pushed back, kept him alive.
[Integrity:
19%]
[HP
Stock: 58]
He ripped his claws
through the Wolf's torso, felt the brambles come apart in clumps,
revealing something beneath. Not organs exactly, but dense masses of
woven root and vine, pulsing faintly with a sickly green light.
The core. That's
the core. That's what I need to—
Vincent bit down
again, this time on the exposed core tissue. The taste was nothing
like meat or blood. It was bitter, vegetal, alive in a way that made
his entire body recoil. But he swallowed anyway, because that's what
the game demanded, because that's what survival meant here.
[Core
tissue consumed: Living]
[Enemy
Integrity: 51%]
[Integrity:
+8%]
[HP
Stock: +22]
[Warning:
Consumption of active entity detected]
The Wolf's movements
became more frantic, less coordinated. Vincent could feel it
weakening, could feel the structural integrity of its body failing as
he tore away more and more of its core. The white stone eyes
flickered, dimmed, like lights on a dying circuit.
The battle became a
test of endurance. The Wolf attacking, Vincent's regen keeping him
alive, Vincent tearing away pieces of the Wolf's core with every
bite. His HP Stock drained steadily—45, 38, 29—but the Wolf was
dying faster.
[Integrity:
26%]
[HP
Stock: 23]
[Enemy
Integrity: 28%]
The Wolf made one last
attempt to throw him off, rearing back with all its remaining
strength. Vincent lost his grip, flew backward, hit the spongy ground
hard enough to see stars.
[Integrity:
22%]
[HP
Stock: 18]
He lay there for a
moment, gasping, every part of him screaming in pain. The Wolf stood
ten meters away, swaying, its body half-collapsed, brambles hanging
loose where Vincent had torn them free. The white stone eyes locked
onto him one last time.
Then, slowly,
deliberately, the Wolf charged.
Not fast anymore. Not
coordinated. Just momentum and dying spite.
Vincent rolled to the
side—barely, his body protesting every movement—and the Wolf
crashed past him, unable to stop, unable to correct. It hit a tree,
and something inside it snapped. The brambles began to unravel, the
woven structure coming apart like a sweater with a pulled thread.
The Wolf collapsed.
Twitched once. Went still.
[Enemy
Defeated: Bramble Wolf - Elite]
[+180
EXP]
[LEVEL
UP!]
[EchoZero]
[Level:
4]
[Integrity:
24%]
[HP
Stock: 12]
[Regeneration:
Active - Low reserves]
Vincent lay there,
staring at the notifications, not quite believing he was still alive.
Level 4. He'd survived. Barely, but he'd survived.
I did it. Holy
shit. I actually did it. That regen skill saved my life. That's what
separates pros from casuals. Knowing when to use your resources.
He'd nearly died.
Multiple times. The only thing that had kept him alive was the HP
Stock he'd accumulated and the regen skill he'd bought. But Vincent,
as always, reframed near-death as tactical brilliance.
He crawled to the
Wolf's corpse, every movement agony, his regen still trickling. The
body was still half-intact, the core still pulsing faintly with that
sickly green light.
Vincent tore into it,
found the central mass—larger than any heart he'd consumed before,
dense and fibrous and ancient—and ripped it free. He hesitated for
only a moment before bringing it to his mask and biting down.
The taste was
overwhelming. Bitter, vegetal, but underneath it something else.
Something that had grown for years in this twisted forest, something
that knew how to survive, something that had killed dozens of
creatures before Vincent.
[Core
tissue consumed: Elite - Bramble Wolf]
[Integrity:
+58%]
[Hunger:
Sated]
[HP
Stock: +280]
[Skill
Absorption: Processing...]
[Trait
Acquired: Way of the Beast]
[Transformation
Level: 1/10 → 2/10]
[Physical
Bonuses: x1.3]
[Vision:
Night Vision Acquired]
[Olfaction:
Active - Scent tracking enabled]
[Unlocked
Skills:]
[Beast
Form]
- Temporary enhancement of physical capabilities
[Pure
Brutality]
- Damage increased when HP below 30%
[Growl]
- Intimidation effect on lesser creatures
[Muscular
Retention]
- Reduced physical degradation
[Targeted
Fracture]
- Increased critical hit chance on joints
[Hunger:
Active phase beginning]
[Targeting
Profile: Fresh flesh / High genetic similarity]
[Psyche:
72% → 68%]
Vincent stared at the
cascade of notifications, his mind struggling to process the sheer
volume of changes. His body felt different. Stronger. Denser. The
black veins beneath his translucent skin pulsed with new vigor, the
network spreading further, reaching his jaw now, his temples.
And his vision. The
grey forest suddenly had depth, dimension, clarity he'd never noticed
before. He could see in the darkness between the trees, could pick
out movement where before there had been only shadow.
And the smells. Oh,
the smells. The forest exploded into a symphony of scents—decay,
growth, blood, life, death. Each creature left a trail, a signature,
a story written in chemical language his new senses could read.
This is... this is
insane. This is a massive power spike. Elite kills are broken. This
is speedrun tech. This is—
He stood slowly,
testing his body. The pain was still there, but manageable. His
Integrity sat at 82%, and his HP Stock had jumped to 292. He felt
fundamentally different. Not just stronger, but changed.
The mask's three black
holes shifted slightly, adjusting to his new vision. His claws had
grown sharper, longer. His body moved with a fluidity it hadn't
possessed before.
He looked at the
Wolf's collapsed form, at what he'd accomplished, and felt something
that was definitely pride mixed with something else. Something
darker.
That's how you do
it. You find the hard content, you push through with the right build,
you optimize. I just unlocked an entire skill tree from one kill.
He sat on his boulder,
assumed the Watchdog Man pose—easier now, his body more flexible,
more adapted—and surveyed his territory with new eyes.
The forest looked
different. Smelled different. Felt
different. He could sense things moving in the distance, could track
the chemical signatures of creatures he couldn't even see, could read
the environment in ways that hadn't been possible before.
This zone is mine.
I own this. And now I can actually defend it.
The system had
rewarded him for his violence, for his hunger, for his willingness to
tear and bite and consume and nearly die in the process.
And Vincent, as
always, interpreted this as validation.
I'm not just
surviving. I'm evolving. This is what peak performance looks like.
The forest breathed
around him, and Vincent breathed with it, his new senses drinking in
information, his new instincts cataloging threats and prey with cold
efficiency.
He'd killed an elite.
He'd absorbed its essence. He'd crossed the [1/10 Threshold] and
gained genuine power.
And he'd paid for it
with 12% of his Psyche and a transformation that was only just
beginning.
The forest, patient as
always, made no comment. It had seen this story before. It knew how
it ended.
But Vincent didn't
need to know that yet.