The cave floor was cold. Accompanied by the moon, it made quite the chilly evening. Only the hunters would be out this late at night, their prey barely sleeping. Nothing was stupid enough to be left out in the open, except one boy.

Newt, the first true connection between the five strongest races, had experienced the worst day of his life. His 'destiny' had played a cruel trick on him. At least the others had a swift end, hopefully. He had to live as this... monster... for the rest of his pitiful existence. Maybe he should just end it all, it would be easier that way... right? To live life as a horrible monster, with no one to call his family or friend, life wasn't worth living. He walked deeper into the cave, thinking about what the easiest way to let go of life would be.

It would be easiest to let himself disappear from the world. To disappear into the dark void of nothingness. Death's sweet embrace was said to be cold, but cold was better than this misery. The only thing left to do was find something to do the job. This life wasn't worth living.

The choice became obvious to him soon enough. A gigantic pit, spanning miles and miles in front of him. Something like this should expand far beneath the sea, maybe even reaching the area near the World Tree. "Whatever monster lives down there will get an easy meal tonight."

And with that, he fell. His arms flailing, hair being blown far behind him. It felt almost peaceful, falling into the dark. The only thing that he could feel was the pressure of the air around him. Everything else felt dull.

It almost reminded him of a good memory, when he was younger. His eldest brother would practice his wind magic with his siblings. He would send them up into the air and make them float all around, rarely letting them fall. It felt nice... to have someone that would never let them down. Then his mind changed "Wait a minute, I don't want to die... I can't die yet! I need to see my family, my brothers and sisters! I need to show them that I am alive!" But his wings were ripped apart by the god clan's representative. They wouldn't be enough to stop his fall, yet he felt his speed slow a bit.

"My mother and father, surely they would accept me. I need to go back, I NEED TO LIVE!" He tried angling himself towards the wall and sank his clawed hands into the stone. Immediately his skin broke and his bone started grinding against the hard stone wall, but that wasn't enough to stop his fall. It was working, but very slowly, he was in constant agony, but this was nothing like the summoning ritual.

But his abysmal luck was starting to run out. The cave wall disappeared, leaving him back to freefalling. Nothing was stopping him from hitting the spiky floor, and he hit it hard.

The breath was knocked out of him. He was surprised that he didn't pass out from the fall, or die for that matter. He didn't try to move for a while, knowing that his bones would be cracked and probably broken. He could only lay there on the ground, eyes closed and lungs panting from failure. The pain was... bearable. Well, anything could be considered bearable from what he went through barely 24 hours ago. His mind was still numb from the experience.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Nothing mattered in those peaceful hours. From his life being perfect to becoming suicidal, it had been a constant struggle. This sleep was a brief respite away from the world, away from the pain, and most importantly away from the chaos inside of his mind.

His dreams, his hopes, everything laid bare in front of the sole resident of that chasm. A being lost to time and forgotten by most of those living on the surface. Someone that inspired fear, no, something stronger than mere fear. He was death incarnate for the souls living on the surface.

"Ugh, jeez, just what went through my mind to make me jump into a hole that deep?" As soon as he sat up he felt a chill sweep through his body, his legs wouldn't work. He looked around to find what could cause his body to stop moving but didn't find anything that important or scary. His eyes swung over to one of the rock spikes, and something looked strange.

"Come on now legs, this isn't the time to lose your strength. We need to get out of this place, or at least find some water. I'm thirsty."

"These rocks don't look normal. I could be totally wrong, but I think I can sense some foreign mana inside these rocks. More than usual, maybe it's in the process of becoming a mana stone, that would be cool." As Newt walked closer to the stone spikes he found what that foreign mana came from, and it terrified him.

"What the hell is that?!" Between a couple of the stone spikes was the corpse of a humanoid creature. It had long ears like the elves in his village, but also wings that were torn and ripped apart.

'Consume it,'

"What?"

But the voice disappeared. Leaving the young boy confused. Consume it? The body?

The red tentacle that had wrapped around him at the entrance of the cave appeared. It slowly moved towards the corpse.

'Consume it,'

Something in his mind clicked, and his body went towards the corpse against his will. It was disgusting, the flesh ripped apart, the wings tasted like sandpaper, and the blood was the worst part. It tasted like the fancy alcohol in his parent's secret stash and it made him feel all weird. Nothing felt right, it was numbing as his body autopiloted this. His thoughts detached from the moment, thinking ahead of what he could do next.

Then something else clicked like a chain hitting something rapidly. The red tentacle glowed hot red, it burned with heat that Newt had never felt before, but it felt nice. Then it didn't.

The bloody tentacle glowed and wrapped around his body once more. The amalgamation of limbs, eyes, teeth, and other body parts was swallowed and transformed into a giant cocoon. It was as hard as iron and beating like a living heart. Inside however was where the magic was happening, literally. From the corpse that he had consumed, raw ancient magic flowed through the cocoon. It tore through his body, leaving only his vital organs.

Soon enough the horrid monster was just pieces of flesh and blood mist, perfect for forming a new body. There was only one problem that the ancient magic faced, the body parts didn't match just one species. In an attempt to fix this error the magic mixed and matched the blood and mana until it found a suitable match, keeping all of the original mana and bloodwork without all of the extra junk like the multiple bodies extra fat, or extra claws.

It took what was useful and tossed the rest out. Leaving a perfect combination of species between the body. Wings of a young dragon, mana pathways of the elves, muscles of the dwarves, the amphibious properties of the merfolk, and the main bodies of the god clan. Soon enough a scared and completely naked young man stood in the middle of a bloody cocoon that glowed with power.

The tentacle connected itself to the wings and arms, creating multiple tentacles for god's knows what.

"What the hell just happened?"