…

*Ding*

Evolution Complete

What was that?

Guh!

Feeling back… No, I'm hungry. Wait. Where’d that come from? Oh well.

Why is the feeling back?

I glance towards the pile of… Mutated Loach’s but I can't find them.

Where’d they go?

A feeling; no, instinct, comes over me that I needed to eat them now.

The question changes. Where’d they come from?

*Clang*

*Splash*

I can't help but wince as the disgusting green water splashes over my armor, and it began to steam, but I ignore it in favour of food.

As I reach throughout the water, somehow I know that this isn't… it. This isn't water. It's a weird feeling, something that never belonged to me comes so suddenly, yet so naturally.

Finally, I can feel something. It's not… it doesn't feel like those weird things from before. Smooth, firm flesh instead of hard scales, I pause as a thought starts to come to me, a new idea.

*Clang!*

Ouch!

Something sends me reeling away from the pool, something big and strong. Something that's not a Mutated Loach.

What was that? The water breaks, as something appears on the surface, slowly dripping off its strangely bright yellow color.

It turns its head so a glossy eye can see me, and a maw opens, revealing sparse needle esque teeth and it starts to salivate.

Eel.

Recognition immediately aroused as I rushed back towards my weapons, eyeing the eel in return all the way, as it followed slowly out of the water.

It was odd. As it came out, it almost seemed to… stretch, as though it was somehow folded onto itself.

*Clang*

*Tang*

A strange feeling of calm descends on me, almost bordering apathy, and my gaze turns somewhat indifferent but cautious as I grab the sword in my right, and shield with my left.

They feel heavier, more reliable than before. They feel more like me.

Screeching a gurgled cry, thick dark green liquid began to pour out of its needle teeth as it began to… shrink on itself, to the point of almost becoming a disk.

*Bang!*

!?

As the eel leaps forth with immense speed, my fake calm was shattered.

I hurriedly threw my sword towards the eel, stabbing it into its mouth, and bright green blood reminiscent of the pool flowed just before it hit me.

Kuh!

I can feel the impact flowing through my badly positioned shield as my shield bends and my arm begin to audibly crack.

The impact of the eel blows me into the cavern wall, but somehow the eel manages to keep its charge, its mouth locked from closing by my shield.

My mind blanks for a second as the rock cracks around us and my ears begin to ring.

Realization begins to kick in, and I desperately reach for the sword in the eels mouth, but it was plunged further into the eels throat by the impact, carving it along the way, and as the eel returned to its original length, its throats folding in all sorts of odd ways, its wound stretching further.

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Then something strange happened. My right arm disappeared before appearing before my sword and a nostalgic feeling overtakes me. Questions arise but I quickly suppress them, gripping my sword and they traverse the distance, and I flip my grip and aim to plunge the sword into its mind as the eel began to undulate and heave, previously invisible pores beginning to leak the same fluid as the teeth, which began to pool beneath in its throat.

Stabbing the sword a quarters way into a pore, I release it and fix my posture, wincing as the blood seeps between the gaps of my armor and melted my skin and rested my hand on the pommel, and shoved. Hard. I can feel the sword carve through flesh, and my posture helped me to shatter cartilage with unexpected ease, my hand follows my sword's bloody path, and my arm is inadvertently pierced by a tooth, its sharpness shredding my armor, and I can feel the liquid being injected into me, and pain floods me as my arm begins to quickly stiffen. Letting out a roar which only results in a strangled hiss, my shock leaks into said hiss as my purchase on my sword disappears, so I rip my hand out violently, grabbing bone and breaking it, the tooth ripping me further with my agitation, adding my own blood to the pool that has been growing.

*Tang!*

A crisp ring echoes, but I ignore it as I grip a tooth and snap it, fluid still within it, and I viciously stab the end into its flesh and rip it, before leaving it there. Before I can grab a second, the pool heaves, receding like a tide before the whole eel undulates once more, this time like a collective wave starting from the end to the front, the fluid following it, and suddenly, just like its charge, the blood accelerated with supernatural speed.

I quickly pull my shield to cover my face, but I couldn’t move it from the eels' maws, so instead I twist myself to gain cover behind it.

Suddenly, a stalactite suddenly falls, penetrating deep within the eels head, deep enough that it went right through, disrupting the majority of the wave heading towards me, but increasing the velocity of that which did.

You have defeated Level 4 Uncommon (I) Jumper Eel(Normal).

You have gained one level.

I freeze even as what's left of the wave splashes over me. Green splashes on my face, through the helmet, into my eyes. Psychedelic vibrant visions appear within my sight, growing stronger as I try to blink it away. Steam escapes my helmet as my flesh burns ever so slightly and paralyzing blood seeps in. Coming to, I roll the eel to the side with my right hand, its now limp cylindrical shape complying.

Peeling myself from the wall, I look around me, the blood in my eyes keeping me disturbingly calm. The impacted stone had only sunk for around the width of one of my fingers. The cracks were even less. The remainder of the stalactite on the roof was strangely cracked in comparison. The stalactite that fell was shattered. I sit and touch a piece that fell closer to me. It was extremely brittle, surprisingly so.

I was lucky. No wait, was I?

I looked at my left arm and shield. My shield was deformed, but only slightly so, the right side bent. My arm felt cracked, but not broken. On my other arm, I check my puncture wound. It had penetrated a weaker, flexible area near my shoulder. The venom flowing within felt paralyzing, but nothing more. Turning suddenly, I slam my fist towards the wall with all my weakened force I could muster.

*Crack*

My arm was now numb, so I did not feel the pain as my fist splintered the wall ever so slightly.

I compared the new hole and the old.

The new one was deeper.

Walking on over to my sword which had fallen nearby, seemingly after impacting the stalactite, I grabbed it before hacking at the eel.

It cut easily, and no more green blood came out.

Remembering my hunger, I made another cut, and holding my sword’s handle in my palm, grabbed and examined it. The green blood made the sickeningly bright yellow look unimaginatively brighter, I tilted my head and dipped it through my helmet, into my mouth. It tasted savoury now, and Idripped into an orb within my body, one that became much larger upon my evolution. The rest went somewhere else. Gazing towards the eel, I find a rough location and pierce into it before my sword collides with a thunk, and I grab my prize.

Another orb, its color distorting into abstract beauty, was now placed upon my palm. Wiping it a little on a relatively clean portion of skin upon the eel, I begin to absorb it.

The energy from the orb was much more different from the one from the flesh. It felt less like an energy and more like… a boost. It assimilated with my own, and I could now see it was near empty, save for the strand I just took in.

I began to methodically cut layers of the eel and ate them to fill my core, as my mind focused on something eerily similar to some sort of line, something that seemed to have been available since my evolution but haven’t noticed.

I tug on it.

(I)

Possessed Armor (Common)

Level 2 (Normal)

A blue board appears in front of me, but it appears oddly… empty. Looking at it, a premonition came to me, telling me I was missing something. I ate while pondering this.

…

Finally, my orb was full. It just sat there, just like I was now doing, the paralysis spreading to the rest of me. By now the green blood had worn off, but I was still watching something happen. The corpse of the eel was vanishing, turning into almost invisible wisps of odd smoke and vanishing.

I sat and watched, with mixed feelings. The joy of my win was large, but larger amounts of negative feelings washed it away. My body, it wasn’t weak. It didn’t seem very strong either.

But me, myself, I. I was weak. Glancing at the wall, my feelings magnify upon seeing the difference in depth between the two holes. Even my numb arm had created a deeper crater. I almost lost, and it was all my fault. My victory couldn’t be attributed to me either, this time glancing towards the stalactite, hanging in midair for the briefest of seconds, before succumbing to its fate and shattering upon contact with the ground.

And that odd ability… If it wasn’t for it, I surely wouldn’t have survived. I didn’t know what it was, but its origins felt familiar, like I belonged there.

I randomly waggle my fingers, hoping to see it activate. I couldn’t feel anything.

Losing interest, I guide my focus inwards, towards the orb. There were now countless small threads, all intertwining together into a ball within its glassy surface. Curiously, I grasp one and try to guide it along me. It follows my will but escapes me, and I grasp it quickly again, trying to keep it where it is, so I can examine it. However, just like the eel, it dissipates. But different from the eel, I could feel where it went and what it did.

A strange sense of energy briefly appeared where it dissolved, and I could once more feel it, before the paralysis spread itself, covering it.

Huh.

I repeat the process, with all the time in the world, I grasped and pulled until it left my touch, and then grasped again to restrict its movement, and felt the sensation, of well, sensation.

With my practice, my limbs regained movement, and even my indented armor was reformed. It still seemed… crumpled, but I could tell with practice it would return to normal.

The feeling of handling the strands was different from the feeling of my psychedelic sight. The sight was oddly enjoyable, letting me observe things that did not truly exist, but the feeling of focusing on the threads was different. It felt like I left my body, left its limitations and its pain, and focused solely on my mind, on myself.

However, ever since the sight faded away, the meaning of that premonition began to sink in.

That I was missing out. That I was inferior to the rest of these… things. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the eel disintegrated in front of me, and it slightly helped.

Thinking of the eel, the fight flowed back to me easily without the obstruction of the blood. I-I got scared. Just like the fact that I might not be. But the eel shocked me more.

I lost my rationality. I didn’t even know what to do. The image of the eel pinged around my mind.

Crap. I was losing my composure again. Just like with the eel. I can’t let that happen.

Realizing I stopped my exercise, I grabbed again. This time I took multiple strands, and guided them around my body, trying to purge my stiffness, never letting go. Even when I could feel my brain shaking, I kept holding.

…

My body could finally move again. My shield and armor was still damaged, but it was enough. However, once the toxin was gone, the strands begin to serve a different purpose. They began to empower me, storing inside my muscles, ready to burst into energy fueling my first movement. That wouldn’t do. I took the energy, and braided it back into strands, ones for each muscle, before I guided them back to my orb.

Perhaps because of my faulty braiding, the majority unwinded upon returning. However, two stayed as the large braid.

Getting up, I looked around the cave for an exit. There was none. Crushing my arousing despair, I looked at the pool, then up at the stalactites. I had an idea, but getting it to work might be a little hard.

However, before that I need to see if the pool does indeed have a visible exit.

I dip my head into the pond.