One second left.

The egg began to crack. Cross could see it—tiny fractures spreading across the black miasma as whatever lurked inside struggled to break free.

With everything he had, Cross forced himself to move. His body felt like it was on fire, his muscles burning with the strain of containing so much Source energy. He stepped forward, his movements sluggish but fueled by raw desperation.

His fist clenched, and with a roar, he swung it down toward the egg, his entire body ignited by the surge of power. The punch connected with a force far greater than anything he had ever felt before. It wasn’t just a punch—it was like his entire being channeled into that one blow.

The impact sent a gust of wind tearing through the bathroom, the very air rippling from the force. Tiles cracked and shattered, the shower curtain flung back, and the egg—no, the thing that had once been the egg—exploded into fragments of black miasma.

For a second, there was nothing but silence.

Cross staggered, his legs barely holding him up. His vision was already blurring, his Heavenly Eyes having taken more of a toll than he had expected. He blinked rapidly, trying to stay conscious, but it was no use.

The egg was gone, destroyed before it had a chance to hatch. But in its place, on the floor, lay a concentrated mass of chaos—its Fiend Core. The swirling black energy hovered, pulsing, almost like it was waiting for him.

Cross’s body collapsed, his right hand landing on the Core. His fingers brushed the concentrated mass of chaos, and as soon as he touched it, he felt something shift inside him. His body, weakened and battered from the fight, instinctively drew in the energy from the Core, drinking it in like a man dying of thirst.

He barely registered the sensation before his vision went black, and he tumbled forward onto the floor, unconscious.

*

Cross didn’t know it yet, but the Fiend Core had been absorbed into his body, merging with his very being. And as he lay there, his body slowly began to change, the Core’s chaotic energy fusing with his own Source.

He was no longer the same.

*

Cross woke up with a start, his tongue heavy with the taste of metallic water. It was strange, like he had been gargling silver or maybe some weird industrial cleaner. He coughed, spitting out whatever lingered in his mouth as his eyes fluttered open. His surroundings gradually came into focus, and it hit him: he was lying flat on his back in his bathroom—or at least, what was left of it.

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The floor was mostly gone, replaced by a thin, murky layer of blackish water. The remnants of the tile were cracked and jagged, some missing altogether. Cross shifted, noticing that the liquid covering the floor was pooling from a leaky faucet above, a steady drip-drip-drip filling the silence in the ruined space.

Right. The fight.

He blinked, everything rushing back into his head at once. The Fiend Egg. The insane amount of Source he’d absorbed. His desperate attempt to destroy it, and then the blackout. Cross groaned as he tried to sit up, pushing himself off the floor with trembling arms, only to slip on the slick surface. He yelped, his body flopping back down, and his head collided with the door.

Thud.

Pain shot through his skull, and he let out a low, miserable groan, silently wailing in frustration as he rubbed the back of his head. “Great. Just great,” he muttered, the irony of the situation settling in. A near-death encounter, only to smack his head on the bathroom door like an idiot.

A few hours passed. Cross had finally gotten his bearings after that embarrassing fall. Now, he sat in a chair, staring out at the disaster that had been his bathroom. The faucet had been leaking for who knows how long, filling the space with that grimy, blackish water. He had managed to patch it up temporarily, using whatever rags and makeshift tools he could find to stop the flow.

The place was a wreck. And worse? This wasn’t his property. He was renting this apartment, and Mrs. Cho, his landlady, was already breathing down his neck for being three months behind on rent. She was going to have an aneurysm when she saw this. Cross had no idea how he was going to explain the damage. It wasn’t like he could say, “Oh, hey, Mrs. Cho, a chaotic egg monster from another dimension exploded in my bathroom. Mind letting me off the hook?”

He sighed, running a hand through his buzz-cut hair, feeling the familiar frustration boiling beneath the surface. Normally, in a situation like this, he’d scream or shout about how unfair the world was. After all, he’d only just arrived here, barely a day into his second chance at life, and already, the world was throwing this crap at him.

But something kept him from exploding. Something that, despite all the damage and chaos, actually left him feeling pretty good.

Cross smiled to himself, a little satisfied. Sure, his bathroom was wrecked, and his future housing situation was questionable, but he had received a boon. After the battle with the Fiend Egg, something had happened. He didn’t have all the details, but after regaining consciousness, he’d felt different. More specifically, bloated, like he had consumed way too much food but in a strange, abstract way.

It didn’t take him long to piece together what had happened.

He must have touched the Fiend Core after the fight, and somehow, his body had instinctively absorbed the chaos energy inside it. The realization had startled him at first, but now, as he sat overlooking the bathroom, it didn’t feel like a curse at all. It felt like he had just unlocked something valuable.

Cross flexed his fingers, feeling the slight hum of energy within him. The first thing he noticed was that, even though he had absorbed the chaos energy from the Fiend Core, he didn’t feel noticeably stronger in terms of raw physical power. He didn’t suddenly have bulging muscles or superhuman strength. But there was something else.

I feel… refreshed, Cross thought. It was the best way he could describe it. It was as if he had just had the best bath, the best sleep, and the best meal all at once. His body felt lighter, more energized. He rolled his shoulders, the tension that had built up from his earlier panic and battle had completely evaporated.