Chapter 18

  He awoke to stillness.

  Smooth stone met his cheek, faintly warm from his own body heat. The dim haze of temple light filtered in from above, casting pale lavender circles across the stone floor where dust had settled in lazy spirals. Raime lay at the threshold of the temple’s entrance, sprawled like a man who had fallen from a great height—and in a way, he had.

  But there was no pain.

  He pushed himself upright with caution, expecting fire along his back, or the ache of torn muscle where the venom had scorched through him. Instead, he moved smoothly, like a machine freshly oiled. His arms were steady. His breath came deep and clear.

  No spasms.

  No System pulses.

  No convulsions or final warning bells.

  Raime stared down at his hands. Strong. Whole. Unmarked.

  So… it wasn’t a dream.

  The memory surged back in pieces. The fight. The venom. The thresholds—shattered one after another like glass beneath a hammer. Then the cascade, that spiraling, unbearable moment when the System itself had seemed to fracture, flooding him with power and then recoil in horror at what he was becoming.

  And then…

  The Administrator.

  He saved me…or rebuilt me, or both.

  Raime stood slowly, testing every muscle group with the care of someone newly forged. Each motion was precise. Balanced. Coordinated. There was no stiffness in his limbs. No lingering fatigue. If anything, he felt—more than recovered. He felt unstoppable, the strength in his muscles and the energy coursing through him, not psionic, that remained the same, but the sheer oomph he could feel from every part of him was intoxicating. Not only his body, but his mind felt so clear even after what happened, his senses were sharper too. His body no longer dragged behind his mind. It obeyed. Like the two had finally aligned.

  But it was the why that stirred something unsettled in his chest.

  The Administrator had done it. Not the System. Not some divine failsafe coded in to protect anomalies like him. Theta. That watching presence. The one who had tried to fool him with prophecies and half-truths. The one who treated the System like his plaything.

  And yet… he had acted when the System didn’t.

  Why? Why save me? Why intervene now?

  A cold draft slipped down from the temple’s central corridor. It carried the scent of mineral dust and strange pollen, but beneath that, the phantom stench of venom still lingered in Raime’s memory. He glanced toward the stairs leading up, then down to the temple’s heart. Still alone. Still alive.

  This wasn’t mercy. It couldn’t be.

  But then…

  He looked again at his hands. Flexed his fingers. Caught the way the veins under his skin shimmered faintly with a pale light. His breath hitched.

  What did you turn me into, Theta?

  He remembered the words—Mind Over Body. The new trait. The sensation of something vast and alien coiling inside him, not like a parasite, but like a spine. A framework on which his new self had been built. It had felt right—and wrong, like something both designed and improvised.

  So now I’m your project. Is that it?

  He wanted to feel anger. Or suspicion. Something sharp and solid to ground himself again.

  Instead, all that rose was uncertainty. And beneath that… gratitude.

  I should hate him.

  I still might.

  But… he saved my life. And not just that—he made me stronger. Better.

  Raime shook his head and exhaled slowly, centering himself. The stone beneath his bare feet was cool now, grounding him more than thoughts could. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened—not just with ears, but with that new perception still echoing faintly in his skull.

  The Thread was there. Waiting. No longer flickering or strained. His psionic energy felt replenished. Stable, if not full. The chaotic bleeding of power had stopped.

  Not much time had passed.

  His stomach growled, dragging him back toward more mundane concerns. Right. Food. And water. And then…

  He glanced toward the entrance, towards the forest, barely visible through the stone beyond the temple’s shaded lip. The idea of going back there wasn’t haunting. Or maybe he just saw things differently. He didn’t feel like the same man who had dragged himself back here in desperation. His body was sharper. Tensionless. Like a machine calibrated by hand.

  So what now, Raime? Do you pretend none of this happened? March off and thank the Administrator with a smile?

  His jaw tightened. No. You remember. You don’t forget what he is just because he helped you once. But you don’t waste this, either. You don’t forget that a single mistake nearly costed you everything.

  Whatever Theta’s reasons, whatever twisted goals the Administrator harboured, one thing was clear—Raime had been changed. Permanently. And that change had bought him power.

  He wouldn’t waste it.

  Let’s see what we’re working with.

  “Status”

  Status: Raime

  Race: Human (Altered)

  Level: 0 (Unawakened)

  Attributes:

  Strength: 18

  Vitality: 21

  Vigor: 21

  Resilience: 18

  Finesse: 21

  Perception: 18

  Insight: 24

  Clarity: 21

  Resolve: 21

  Cognition: 19

  Available attribute points: -10

  Racial Trait – Mind Over Body

  Titles:

  ? Traveller of the In-Between

  ? Anomaly

  ? Ithural-born

  ? The One Who Refused

  ? Transcendent Divergence

  ? Progenitor

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  What the hell? Why does it say “altered” human? And what are these new titles?

  With a thought Raime expanded their description.

  Transcendent Divergence

  You have shed your original racial trait and embraced an evolved form through unnatural means. You are no longer bound by your species’ limitations.

  Progenitor

  You are the first of your kind. A being shaped by will, psionic force, and cognitive dominance. A living deviation. An Anomaly. A new beginning.

  Oh… at least I’m still considered human, even if not a normal one. What is this? Raime felt something while looking at the race section, he could now change the name. Fuck no, are you telling me that I’m really not human anymore? Is this because of the change in racial trait or does it go deeper, did my D.N.A. change too? Haaa… at least I didn’t die. Ok let’s be logical, leaving aside the possible race change I don’t feel bad, no bonus or malus both in the titles and in the new traits. It’s like the System doesn’t know what to make of this… well neither do I, but these stats are insane, and after some math, is clear that Cognition is improving any other stat by a bit more than a third of its value… my most important attribute is the lowest now. Still for now I am in debt… but it won’t be long until I’ll manage to go positive again. Anyway, all of this is irrelevant compared to the monumental mistakes I made today. I didn’t even think of the possibility of being followed. I caused a disaster with my attributes, I should have listened to the System warning. Haaaa… what to do now?

  He looked at his hands, big and somewhat alien to him, the fingers were leaner than what he remembered, and his memory was exceptional.

  Hunger gnawed at him with a ferocity that left no room for thought. It wasn’t just emptiness—it was a clawing, all-consuming need, deep in his gut and down to the marrow.

  One look at himself told part of the story. He’d grown leaner since arriving in the Rift, muscle exposed by constant motion, stress, and hunger. But this... this was something else.

  His skin clung tighter to bone than it had hours before, his gut was nearly flat, and even the aches of transformation were gone, as if his body had fed on everything it could to survive the ordeal.

  The new trait. Mind over Body. It hadn't just changed him—it had taken. Ripped through the last of his reserves without asking, pulling energy from his cells, his fat, his muscle, to fuel whatever it had needed to complete the shift.

  Now, his stomach screamed for restitution.

  He stumbled toward the egg’s chamber, toward the cluster of laid alien eggs, but stopped just short. His gaze locked on the larger ones—the ones that pulsed faintly now, on the edge of something more.

  He clenched his jaw.

  No.

  He wouldn’t eat those. Wouldn’t stoop so low as to eat uncooked eggs and meat again. He shouldn’t live like this. Not just because the Rift made it so.

  He wasn’t here to become something that fit this place.

  Decision made, he turned. Re-entered the room. Raised his boot.

  The first egg shattered beneath his heel with a wet pop. Then the next. Then another.

  Sticky fluid splashed across the stone. Something inside twitched once before it stilled.

  He didn’t stop. Not until the last of them was ruined, his breath ragged, and his chest heaving—not from exertion, but from release.

  Fear. Frustration. Fury.

  He had nearly died. Again.

  And for what?

  A System that watched in silence until he broke. A Rift that warped everything it touched. A path he didn’t ask for.

  Raime leaned against the wall, fists trembling. He had no answers. Only hunger, and a flickering sense that, somehow, this had been a choice. One of the few left to him.

  He marched towards the entrance and moved the precariously put stone slab, with one hand… it seemed made of styrofoam for all the weight that he felt, the stone was brittle under his fingers.

  But he couldn’t really appreciate his newfound abilities, his mind catalogued it and shelved it, he was too upset to care.

  Raime walked slowly toward the forest, letting the pale outside light wash over him. His shadow stretched long across the ruined temple. Beyond it, metallic trees swaying gently in the Rift-charged wind. Energy still danced faintly in the distance, currents and eddies made visible only to his expanded senses. The eruption had faded, but the land still thrummed with unnatural life.

  He was going to end those lives, he was going to hunt them and use them to fuel his new body. He was going to find a way to turn those stupid exploding trees into fuel for a fucking barbeque.

  While he stalked towards the forest, he recalled Thunk to his hand. The weapon that laid discarded outside the temple flew to him like a lost dog after finding his owner, the weapon vibrated in his hand.

  As soon as he reached the first tree Raime took a swing towards the base of the trunk.

  With a deafening crack the tree got split in two, sparks and splinters exploded in an arc, while the trunk toppled down.

  So easy.

  His movement was precise, his body was working like a well oiled machine. More than that, he was strong, the movement calculated, the rebound nearly non existent given his timely use of psychic energy through the bond to stop the weapon momentum. And his senses… they were telling him of everything that was happening around him, and even more, including all the creatures that felt the disturbances and were running towards him.

  The tree smouldered at the base, sparks fizzing out where sap met strange metal. Raime let the trunk fall behind him with a dull, final thud. His heartbeat didn’t quicken. His breath stayed steady.

  The Thread pulsed, and his body listened.

  They were coming.

  He turned without urgency and stared into the forest. Shapes moved inside it, slow and sinuous. A metallic hiss rippled from somewhere to his right, and something let out a short, sharp screech like metal tearing in two.

  The scent of ozone and alien blood clung to the wind.

  Good, he thought. Come, then. Let’s see what you’ve got.

  The first to break through the mist was familiar—one of the centipede-things, all segmented chitin and too many eyes. It slithered from a branch overhead and dove straight for him with a mouth full of twitching fangs.

  Raime didn’t step back.

  Thunk blurred. A half-twist of his hips, a ripple of pressure through the Thread, and the weapon curved up from his right side in a tight arc. The creature split at the midsection mid-air—its blood sprayed wide in an oily, iridescent sheet. Its halves crashed to the ground on either side of him and twitched like dying snakes.

  Another shriek. This one deeper. Thicker. Wrong.

  From the underbrush came something else—larger, broader, six-legged and plated, with branching horns and a jaw that split open in thirds. A beast he hadn’t seen before. Its hide shimmered with the same metal-flecked sheen as the trees, and a faint glow pulsed beneath its plates.

  It charged. Fast.

  Raime planted one foot, Fingers tightening around Thunk’s hilt. The beast leapt.

  Why the hell are you leaping you fucked up alien boar-stag?

  At the apex of its lunge, a psychic pressure flared out, Raime felt like something wanted to shove him, to make him lose balance. At the same time the creature’s trajectory veered in the air, horns pointing at his side instead of his chest. Raime threw its own force against it. He resisted the push and, raising his arms high, he swung the lever with all his strength, adding even more through the bond. The beast’s horns and skull cracked and its body crashed into a tree trunk with a crunch, bark and metal shearing. Brain matter and fluids pooling beneath it. Dead.

  He didn’t wait. More were coming.

  From the left, the underbrush parted as three smaller creatures rushed him together—low, spider-like things with dagger limbs and bright white eyes. He whirled and flung out his hand. Thunk snapped like a whip, slamming into one mid-run. It flipped, crashed, and burst open on impact.

  The second pounced. A fist met it in mid-air with a splat. The third skittered under the arc, trying to get close—only to be crushed as Raime’s boot came down hard, chitin crunching under heel.

  Breath still calm. Senses still sharp. Fury still mounting

  They’re not done yet.

  A chittering filled the forest now—like claws on stone. He turned toward it.

  A pack. Five, six, maybe more. Not centipedes. Something leaner. Tall. Bipedal.

  He spotted them through the mist. Elongated limbs, heads like mantises, scythe-arms longer than their legs. They saw him and screeched.

  Raime bared his teeth. “Come on, then.”

  They rushed.

  He didn’t back away. Instead, he stepped forward and threw Thunk—hard. The weapon spun end-over-end, guided mid-air by their bond, and cleaved through the first in line. As its thorax burst open and the beast fell, the weapon stabilized in mid air and flew back towards Raime, point first, while piercing another clean through its head. The gory spectacle didn’t elicit anything to Raime who was busy pondering his next course of action.

  From his perspective, the movement from the beasts looked like they were underwater, slow, and predictable.

  Thunk snapped back into his grip like a magnet slamming home just as the next creature closed the gap. Raime spun low, his weapon dragging a sharp arc, and severed both its legs at the knee. Not being sharp, the feat of strength required was impressive. It collapsed, shrieking, and he finished it with a quick downward stroke to the neck.

  They circled him now. Smarter. Adapting.

  Didn’t matter.

  He surged forward—faster than he’d moved before. His mind stretched through the bond, tugged gently at momentum, weight, friction. Everything bent to his intent. He moved through them like a storm, blows precise, lethal.

  Two tried to flank him—he felt them before they struck. With a flicker of thought, Thunk whipped around his back mid-swing, blocked one claw, then snapped forward into the other’s skull.

  Another went for his throat—he ducked, drove his shoulder into its chest, and sent it flying into a tree.

  By the time he stood over the last of them, breath still even, his boots were soaked in alien blood, and the forest floor was littered with twitching limbs.

  He waited. Listened.

  Nothing. For now.

  His Thread buzzed softly with exertion, not complaint. His body felt the strain, he realize that the speed he could manifest now was a mix between different attributes. Strength and Finesse, but cognition too, all bolstered by his new trait. His body needed more energy when he moved like this, and demanded greater durability to avoid breaking from the stress, but there was no weakness in his limbs.

  He looked at his hands. At Thunk, still humming with stored momentum, splattered in ichor.

  This wasn’t survival.

  This was domination.

  Raime exhaled through his nose and turned his gaze deeper into the Rift-warped forest. There would be more. There always were.

  But now, he was hunting.