My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Damon crashed into the ground with a sickening thud. The impact sent black sludge splashing around him, the vile substance coating his skin like oil. The smell invaded his lungs instantly, thick and rotten, carrying the scent of decay, blood, and something far worse that no words could truly describe.

It felt familiar.

Not because he had experienced the smell itself before, but because he recognized the despair tied to it.

The corruption seeped into him through every pore, every breath, every exposed wound. It slithered through his veins like living poison, twisting his flesh and intoxicating his soul.

Every pore was another doorway for it to enter.

Damon coughed violently, black mucus splattering onto the ground as he forced himself upright. His vision blurred for a moment before stabilizing.

Beside him, Lilith collapsed to her knees, gasping desperately for air. Her body trembled uncontrollably. Strange black veins crawled beneath her pale skin while her fingers elongated unnaturally, the bones shifting with wet cracking noises.

Her body was slowly twisting into the hideous form of the Beldam.

Ashcroft barked sharply in his tiny canine form, his fur standing on end.

“We need to leave. Something is coming toward us.”

Damon forced himself to look around.

There was no safe direction.

The entire abyssal pit was filled with wandering shapes moving through the darkness. Rotfolk.

Dozens of them.

Hundreds.

Some crawled on walls like insects. Others limped across the ruined ground with half-melted bodies. A few simply stood motionless in the dark, twitching as though listening to voices only they could hear.

Now Damon understood.

This was the truth behind Lysithara’s future.

The Rotfolk had once been ordinary civilians. Innocent people. Citizens abandoned beneath the city and corrupted into monsters.

Lysithara’s descent into darkness was far more twisted than he had imagined.

Damon turned his head sharply when an insidious whisper slithered through his mind. It was worse than madness. Worse than the crown’s influence. The whisper urged him toward cruelty, toward violence, toward becoming something less than human.

His arm suddenly spasmed.

Bones cracked loudly.

Damon stared in horror as his left arm twisted into a giant black claw covered in jagged protrusions. Only his remaining human hand still held onto Lilith tightly.

Hopeless.

There was no escape.

No salvation.

But Damon Gray had never been someone who surrendered easily.

Weakness was not unfamiliar to him.

He had lived most of his life powerless.

“I won’t admit you’re right…” he muttered through gritted teeth.

With a burst of movement, he stomped onto the skull of a crawling Rotfolk and began running.

The monsters screeched around him.

Damon had once been here long ago in another future. He vaguely remembered this place. He remembered the paths through the underground corruption pits beneath Lysithara.

If he could just reach the outer tunnels…

His breathing became heavier.

His perception shifted strangely.

As a human, this body was weak and fragile. But the more corruption invaded his soul, the stronger he became. Faster too.

The price was obvious.

His very identity was beginning to warp.

Suddenly the ground beneath him split apart.

A gigantic maw burst upward from below, rows of rotten teeth snapping toward him.

Damon kicked it aside with monstrous strength, but the creature’s sheer mass still sent him skidding backward.

He stopped, breathing heavily.

Each breath corrupted him further.

Ashcroft growled lowly.

“There’s a way out of here and you’ve figured it out haven’t you?”

Lilith remained limp in Damon’s arms, barely conscious.

Damon lowered his head.

“Yes… I know.”

Just because he knew the method did not mean he wanted to do it.

It was damnation itself.

“I have to absorb the rot and raise my rank.”

Ashcroft’s small dog body stiffened.

“You know the consequences.”

“Yes.”

If he did this, he might never return to normal again.

Even if they escaped physically, Damon’s sense of self could be destroyed forever.

Corrupted beings rarely remained sane.

Those who survived corruption became twisted mockeries of themselves, their personalities warped beyond recognition.

Damon looked down at Lilith’s weakening form and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Then he stopped resisting.

The corruption flooded into him completely.

His flesh twisted violently.

Bones cracked and shifted beneath his skin. A creeping sensation spread through his entire body as countless whispers erupted inside his head all at once.

What was corruption?

Ashcroft did not know.

No one truly did.

Only that corrupted beings heard whispers from somewhere beyond reality itself.

Some theorized the voices came from the gods.

Others believed they were fragments of Akasha.

There were even theories claiming corruption came from truths the omniverse itself was never meant to reveal.

Most corrupted creatures lost their minds completely.

Those born corrupted possessed wills of their own, but they rarely spoke coherently about what they heard.

Sometimes they muttered random phrases.

Sometimes they screamed meaningless words.

Sometimes they simply cried endlessly.

So what did they see?

What did they hear?

Damon saw.

Damon heard.

He witnessed.

The whispers slammed into his soul like an ocean collapsing onto a single man. His mind tore apart beneath the pressure.

He dropped Lilith without realizing it.

Clawing at his own face, Damon screamed.

His nails ripped apart against his skin as he gouged bloody marks into himself. Blood streamed down his cheeks while he clawed desperately at his own eyes.

He didn’t want to see.

He didn’t want to understand.

Terror consumed him.

He tumbled across the ground wishing he had never been born.

Wishing his existence itself could be erased.

Then he saw it.

The source.

The origin of corruption.

He gazed into it.

A vast shadow muttering endlessly within an infinite abyss.

And when Damon looked into its eyes—

The abyss gazed back.

He saw.

He saw.

He couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t unsee.

He cursed what he saw.

He loved what he saw.

He feared what he saw.

He longed for what he saw.

And yet he understood nothing.

He heard whispers beyond comprehension.

He reviled them.

He adored them.

He wished he could unhear them.

Damon despaired.

And in that despair, realization struck him.

He finally understood why the Goddess of Doom had killed him before.

The source of corruption.

The source of all corruption.

The eyes.

The eyes of the Unknown God.