Edge snapped back into his body and opened his eyes.

For a second, he’d thought that he was standing somewhere else, talking to something… strange. He’d had a vision of his heart burning to ash, replaced by an incandescent organ wrapped in living chains.

I must be hallucinating from the pain… That was when the realization of what had happened washed over him, driving all other thoughts from his head.

The core! The System said that I claimed it. But how do I use it? And what was that about ignition?

In that same moment, Edge’s world erupted into flame. Searing pain engulfed his body, setting every nerve alight. There was a bonfire raging behind his ribs, burning him to embers. No, not a bonfire, a furnace.

He had just enough time to scream before the agony shot up by an order of magnitude. Then again, until there was nothing but the limitless blaze roaring inside him.

It felt like he had been hurled into the sun, threatening to shatter his sanity beneath the overwhelming intensity of the experience.

It isn’t all pain. A small, dissociated corner of his mind realized. There’s something else too. And the fact that I’m hurting means that I’m still alive.

Thump. Thump. Blood began pumping through his arteries once more, letting Edge draw a ragged gasp as life returned to his organs and limbs. The cataclysmic inferno receded to a pulsating warmth within his chest, and his thoughts began to clear.

It let him realize that something about binding the core must have healed him a little, or was otherwise allowing him to function. But that was the extent of the good news.

His guts were spilled across the floor. Blood was dripping from the ruins of his hand. The monster was coming back at any moment, and he was still fatally injured. Still running out of time.

In short, Edge didn’t have time to consider the implications of what he’d seen or what he’d read.

While this fleeting moment of clarity gave him enough energy to move for another few seconds, he was well into the process of dying, and had far too little blood to sustain him regardless.

He had another minute at most to turn this around, or he was dead despite his lucky break. That was when he felt his core flickering inside him, whispering that there was a way. That he still had a chance of living to see tomorrow.

He could smell something wonderful in the air, stronger than the stench of sweat, fear, and blood. With no reason to resist, he listened to the voice telling him to get up and move. To fight for his life with everything he had.

Holding on to that last glimmer of hope, Edge rose to his feet and staggered out of the alcove. Back toward where the pair of prisoners were experiencing their own version of hell.

When his gaze landed upon the jailbirds, he felt a strange longing that he’d never known before. Electric desire welling up from the space behind his ribs.

He knew in that moment that his life had reached a crossroads. He could either give into the craving and become something new, or he could die. I want to live. Show me the way. He made his choice, and within Edge Vasher, a ravenous beast awoke.

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It was a hunger. A call. A need to consume something exquisitely delicious that he had no words to describe.

Acting on instinct, he staggered across the room and stopped in front of the wounded convicts.

The man with no arms was barely conscious. He seemed to be in the final stages of deciding whether he wanted to end his own life, although his arms had finally stopped bleeding.

The beast inside Edge ignored the tall man for now, although he felt a surge of gluttony at the sight. What it wanted to devour was coming from the man who’d been cut in half. Who was clearly in shock but unable to die, thanks to his own skill. Not while there was still mana flowing out from his core.

The newly born instincts stirring within Edge knew that the big man had something he needed. Something that could save his life and would satisfy him in a way that nothing ever had before. A delicacy that could only be taken from the willing, or from those unable to resist.

Half maddened by pain, tormented by desire, he reached out toward the man and surrendered to the beast howling inside him. Granting it permission to emerge and to feed.

Activating ultimate ability: [Extraction].

The moment that he gave it leave, something deep inside his chest, dwelling in the core where his heart had been only moments before, began to build. Once more, heat was rising inside him, and Edge began to burn.

The rattle of a thousand chains thundered in his ears, just as the energy reached a crescendo.

Edge reached out, fingers stretching toward the big man, as something went sliding beneath the skin of his arms. From the ends of both wrists emerged a pair of glossy black chains, moving by their own will. He couldn’t tell if they were solid or ethereal. Metal, magic, or just a shape projected by his subconscious to help him process what was happening.

In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter.

Fast as thought, the twin chains surged forth like a pair of vipers, writhing and twisting through the air. Predators going in for the kill. Their ends reared back and then shot down… plunging into the prisoner’s chest with no appreciable resistance. Edge realized that he could sense them, like they were extensions of his own body.

For just a second, he could feel the living links passing through flesh. Then they went diving into the core burning within the big man’s chest, searching for something that Skill-Eater wanted so badly that it made his whole body shudder with need.

In that instant, he was granted a vision of the convict’s core.

Edge found himself standing in a cozy living room, with a fire crackling in the hearth. He could smell something savory cooking in the kitchen. Hear the patter of rain falling outside. It was a comfortable home. A dwelling for something… tasty. Because inside this strange space, whatever it was, were the big man’s skills.

There were several scattered across the room, but only one that his core wanted. He looked around with wide eyes, trying to understand what was happening. It all became clear a few seconds later, when the chains found what they were looking for.

They went surging for something squirming in the far corner, hiding behind an overstuffed armchair. Something that desperately wanted to evade their pursuit.

But with two chains working together, it couldn’t get away. I think that they’re hunting… his skill!

The snaking links circled their prey, cutting off all avenues of retreat as they wound tighter and tighter. They continued weaving back and forth, until the skill had been completely encircled by the chains linking Edge’s core to the prisoner’s.

With blinding speed, they struck, wrapping tight around the pulsing mass, accompanied by a chorus of ghostly clinks.

Before he could make sense of what was happening, the twin chains yanked hard. They ripped the skill free from the jailbird’s core and began drawing it toward Edge, bringing the vision to an end.

He found himself back inside his body, where less than a second had passed in the outside world.

At this point, he expected the chains to withdraw into his wrists with the prize they had stolen. Instead, the chains deposited the squirming skill into Edge’s mouth before retreating through his wrists into the space behind his ribs.

With that act, it all became clear. Skill-Eater wasn’t just the name of the unique core, it was how its bearer claimed them. Eating skills was a literal description of the process, rather than a turn of phrase.

In that moment, he knew with complete and utter certainty that just holding the skill in his mouth wasn’t going to cut it.

If he wanted to eat the skill, Edge was going to have to chew.