Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Rule of Brutality

I stood near the edge of a tall building, gazing upon a magnificent city. It was Araksiun—sunlight glinted off countless rooftops, and far below, I saw people moving through the bustling streets, thriving in the glow of day. The city felt so alive, its energy practically radiating from every thoroughfare and plaza.

The warmth of the sun caressed my face, and I noticed a few figures nearby. They were the same companions I recalled from the forest, but once again, their faces remained hidden behind a haze. Despite this, I recognized them in a vague, half-familiar way. No fog shrouded the world now; only a brilliant sky stretched above the city. The sounds of distant chatter and clattering wagons drifted up from the streets below.

Yet, I also heard voices right beside me—conversations I did not seem part of.

"So this is the only survivor from the new batch of subjects?" someone asked, his tone serious.

"Yes, Sir. Test Subject #5439 is the lone survivor. But he appears ready to be introduced to the Ancient. Even though we lost thousands of test subjects during the last implementation, his latest evaluations exceed our projections." Another voice answered—the haze-shrouded figure I sensed holding some kind of electronic book. Letters flickered rapidly across its surface, as though they were alive and shifting with every passing second. Certainly Araksiun's advanced technologies.

"Excellent," said the first speaker. "And which of the Old Ones would that be?"

The one with the electronic book pointed toward the sky, out in the direction of the sun's brilliant rays.

The questioner scratched his chin in thought. "You plan to turn him into an offering?"

"Yes," replied the book-holder. "Even if Test Subject #5439 survives the core formation, the survival rate for such a radical transformation is abysmal. We still can't safely replicate the process for others. But that Ancient has the power to establish an initial core structure for our entire species, much like it once was done for the primordial beasts."

An offering? I frowned, confused.

Was I a sacrifice? The notion weighed heavily on my mind. Is this another memory, or just some strange dream? Why am I experiencing it now?

Gradually, recollection seeped in, reminding me that I was stuck in this dream realm because of another long sleep. My battle against the shoggoth, my attempt at advancement—those events were real, and I must have crossed that threshold.

If that was true, then I had indeed attracted the attention of an Ancient, often called the Old Ones by the people of Araksiun. Yet somewhere beyond this dreamscape, I could feel a part of me was struggling for control, tangling with something intangible.

For a moment, I wondered which Ancient had come. Then I recognized a familiar warmth—the same gentle heat I sensed when sunlight reached my skin, and also the warmth I felt whenever I stepped into the fog, that peculiar signature was unmistakable. That made me pause.

The fog came for me.

So the fog was also one of the Old Ones? Markus had once said the fog was mere condensed mana. Could he have been mistaken?

Infinite questions swirled in my mind, but I sensed another part of my consciousness settle. Its struggles diminished, as though it surrendered to something greater. Meanwhile, my dreamscape shifted back to the same library-like space I had visited before, that repository of knowledge in my head. A comforting presence hovered there, and I felt my splintered consciousness gradually merge with other parts of it.

The other side of me seemed to be listening, nodding to something inaudible as knowledge poured in like a flood. I sensed the meaning of cosmic rules, the fundamental laws that governed both beasts and Ancients. It did not entirely match what Kara had told me; it was something older, primal, tied to the cycle of life and death.

I grasped how rituals and pacts bound not only humans but also the Ancient beings themselves. By truly understanding the set of "rules of the beasts," I could advance further, forging a deeper bond with the flow of life itself.

The first rule—Brutality—I had apparently come to understand through my recent struggle with the shoggoth. My proof of mastery attracted the Ancient's attention.

A voiceless echo resonated in my mind: "Only through brutality does the beast assert its right to exist." The words repeated with faint reverberations, sinking into my thoughts.

"A beast must master violence, not merely in raw strength but in the efficient art of destruction, because only from destruction can new life emerge."

"It must know how to kill, how to break and rend, and do so with purpose."

"A beast that lacks brutality is prey, not predator."

Those statements felt like unholy commandments burned into my consciousness. At the same time, manalytic channels within me swelled with raw mana, surging through every part of my being. The intangible connection to this other plane grew stronger, and I sensed my heart—my newly forming heart core—cross a threshold of transformation.

At first, it took on an ebony hue. There was no agony, just a serene flow of mana flooding my veins. Every fiber of my body felt invigorated, as though the surge of power renewed my tissues. Then it started to shift again, darkening from ebony into onyx. I realized I was being granted further advancement, recognized for my understanding of brutality.

Suddenly, my heart began to pound at an alarming pace. Mana surged in at least ten times faster than it had mere moments ago, when the ebony core first formed. My manalytic channels tore under the strain, and cells throughout my body ruptured or mutated in response. In multiple places, I felt lumps of uncontrolled growth—tumors—budding from my flesh, hungry for any available energy.

Those malformed tissues were starved of the life force they craved and were swiftly abandoned by my body, sloughing off like necrotic matter. For a terrifying moment, I thought I was dissolving into a soup of blood and deformed cells. My remains commingled with what was left of the shoggoth, whose own presence flickered at the edges of my awareness.

It, too, had attempted onyx core formation. But its grievous wounds hindered it, and the creature perished in the midst of its own advancement. I glimpsed its demise briefly though a psychic link, a tangled fusion of awareness—and then it was gone.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I kept slipping, swirling in my own internal chaos. The dream around me quaked, and flashes of memory threatened to scatter. But my new heart core endured, no longer ebony but onyx. It anchored me, binding me to life even as my body cast off every cell that failed to adapt to the mana influx.

Gradually, the turbulence subsided. The tumors that had sprouted died away, and my manalytic channels started to reform, more solid than before. When I glanced inward, I saw what remained: an onyx heart core glowing faintly with raw, brutal power. A sense of primal satisfaction accompanied the realization that I had adapted to it.

All the while the warm presence lingered, like a silent guardian acknowledging my passage through brutality's rule. Then my surroundings dimmed, and the building's edge with its sunlit city dissolved. I felt myself drawn into blackness again, my consciousness drifting somewhere between the dream realm and waking reality.

Minutes stretched into hours as my body dwindled to a mere lump of flesh—the primordial essence of me. From there, it began rebuilding, as though conjuring new mass out of thin air. For a brief moment, I suspected the Ancient was responsible for this revitalization, but then I realized the energy did not stem from him, at least not directly. Another part of me, awakened by the changes, had found a way to convert mana into physical form during my long sleep.

It felt crude, as though it was still learning the process, but it worked at an astonishing speed, causing my body to regenerate from the pool of blood and remains. The damp, claustrophobic darkness around me was thick with the metallic scent of gore. In the background, the faint echoes of dripping fluids punctuated my slow regeneration. Despite the grim setting, mana flooded my system with undeniable potency.

The mana surging through my channels held the distinct signature I had sensed so many times before, that same warm sensation reminiscent of sunlight and the fog. It coursed through the core of my being, fueling the reconstruction of tissue in unexpected ways. My bones, tendons, and muscles were reshaping themselves, forging a body that no longer felt quite human.

Then, abruptly, I was pulled back into the familiar mind library, where fragments of my consciousness sifted and rearranged. A piercing clarity struck me—I understood part of what was happening. Mana acted not only as a fuel source but also as raw building material, shaping my new body according to savage designs I only partially recognized.

I felt the mana rushing freely, without any of the usual barriers. This was akin to what I had sensed in the beasts of the fog, but the volume was far greater, unrefined, lacking in structure or control, the basic and true nature of mana. My physical form underwent a bizarre metamorphosis, muscle fibers grew even denser than before, surpassing human limits, while my bones hardened to a density that rivaled iron. Ligaments shifted, weaving new shock-absorbing patterns into themselves. My entire frame braced for the possibility of future blunt force, reconfiguring to minimize injury.

This was not a simple adaptation. I was branching into a new species, molded by the rule of brutality with the guidance of the Ancient—my body engineered for carnage.

My nails became elongated, retracting into my fingers in a manner reminiscent of gloomwing nails. The underlying structure even resembled theirs, forming a built-in weapon that could spring forth at will. My knuckles also calcified and sharpened slightly, becoming something like natural brass knuckles. It felt as though every part of me served a purpose in combat—a living arsenal, honed by mana.

Flashes of a memory skittered through my thoughts, recalling the desperation of trying to bite into the shoggoth. My jaw and teeth now reshaped, granting me the ability to crush bone and rip flesh like a genuine predator. Serrated teeth, sturdier and more jagged, nestled behind my lips, and I sensed retractable fangs—canines that could slide forward if I needed them. Mana spurred each transformation. I felt an odd disconnect, as if the form being created was not my own; at the same time, stray pieces of my mind peeled away, replaced by new instincts. My hesitation gave way to raw reflex, enabling me to respond before fully processing danger.

Lastly, my skin itself thickened, reinforcing at a deeper level. It offered a new threshold of defense, while my regenerative capacity accelerated. But with the stark lucidity that flared in my mind library, I recognized a side effect, quick healing would spawn more tumors in my flesh, unstoppable growths that would eventually kill me. Only my long sleeps could purge such rampant cell division.

When I finally opened my eyes again, an entire day had passed. I gleaned this from the condition of the blood around me—and the remains of the shoggoth. This was faster than any previous long sleep, likely thanks to the Ancient's direct intervention, much like how I had seen other beasts evolve at unnatural speeds.

"Brutality… so that was what I needed," I muttered under my breath.

I was coated in drying gore, a mixture of my own flesh and the shoggoth's. My body had literally returned to a primordial state and then rebuilt itself from scratch. I feared I might lose my humanity in that rebirthing, and although some aspects of my mind felt irretrievably altered, a persistent human core still burned within me.

My physical transformation was profound. Based on Kara's measurements, my height had gone from 143 centimeters to 164, a dramatic leap for someone like me. My elongated nails now extended well beyond what any human fingernails should, and my calcified knuckles felt suitable for use as weapons at a moment's notice.

I noticed faint sunlight filtering through cracks in the architecture around me, telling me it would be night again soon. Awkwardly, I tried to walk and nearly tripped on my own legs—my weight and proportions were wholly different than before. My clothes, stashed in my hideout, would be useless now.

Then I spotted Hazeveil, lying torn on the ground, a jolt of sorrow running through me. It had been ripped apart in my fight with the shoggoth, trying to shield me. The cloak's ragged edges fluttered a little, as if moved by more than the still air.

"Hang on, buddy," I said softly, lifting it with care. "I'll fix you up soon."

By that point, I had concluded that the hooded cloak itself had awakened to some sort of sentience. It was difficult to accept that a garment could become alive, but after all that I had seen, I refused to dismiss the evidence of my own eyes.

Once Kara finished analyzing my condition, she delivered a series of reports I barely comprehended—my fleeting moment of perfect clarity had slipped away.

[Kara]

[Congratulations, user Omen, last living member of Project Human Core Formation. You have successfully formed a heart core and survived the process. Furthermore, you have advanced to an onyx core, now classified as a Tier 2 beast.]

That news made me smile but also uneasy. I took a breath and asked, "Kara, you never explained the rules. Why did I feel compelled to fight this shoggoth, the most brutally fierce Tier 1 creature I've ever encountered? Was that your doing? I was overwhelmed by a need for brutality. It can't be a coincidence that this was also the rule I was supposed to connect to."

[Kara]

[Negative. The system had no prior data regarding the specifics of these rules.]

I exhaled. "So you don't know about the next one either?" I asked, already suspecting her answer.

[Kara]

[Negative.]

I nodded. So, I'll just trust my instincts again, like the beasts do. That was the only logical path forward, it seemed.

I salvaged what remained of my gear, finding only one usable dagger. My old possessions were tailored to my former size, which was roughly that of a short child. Now I resembled a slim fourteen-year-old boy, my frame considerably more muscular yet unnaturally compact. I sensed I had diverged from normal humanity in some fundamental way but still retained enough to pass as mostly human—at least from a distance.

Testing my new body, I punched the air. Small shockwaves reverberated around my fist. Intrigued, I stepped over to a nearby concrete wall and struck it with everything I had. The surface shattered into countless shards, the impact's force diffused through my restructured ligaments and tendons. Only negligible pain flickered in my hand, and within seconds, the slight damage healed itself.

All in all, I felt remarkably different. It was as though I had been stuck in a cramped shell before, and now, set free, I discovered an unimagined vitality. My manalytic channels no longer felt drained. Mana surged through me, powering my entire body and unlocking newfound strength.

But something else stirred in my thoughts. Tier 2 beasts could typically harness minor forms of magic by wielding mana in more direct ways. If my core was onyx rather than ebony—bypassing a stage I had expected—did that mean I, too, had access to actual magic?

My heart fluttered with excitement at the possibility. Under my breath, I murmured, "Blessed be the fog."