NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: A Glimpse of Oblivion
The Prime System's quest notification, with its almost ridiculous promise of a Mythic skill, kept echoing in the back of my mind. It was a terrifying, but completely irresistible, pull. The Umbral Matriarch Lurker, a Tier 2 Boss Variant. Terminal failure, the System had flatly said if I tried to fight it right away.
But "right away" was the key. That was the loophole my desperate mind latched onto. What if I could shift the odds, even just a little? My hand drifted to my chest, a subconscious move towards that new, alien power inside me, the ability the System called [Glimpse of a Path]. One hour of foresight. It was a big gamble, with a steep, week-long cooldown. A major resource to use up. But the idea of getting [Prime Axiom's Nullifying Veil] — true concealment, the power to become a ghost in this hostile, watching universe — felt worth almost any risk.
I thought about the System's cryptic comment about the Lurker's weakness to light. I didn't have anything to make intense light. No forgotten flashlight in a miraculously okay backpack. No easy way to start a roaring fire in a damp cave. My resources were pathetic. Still, maybe the Glimpse would show me a different way, a subtle flaw in its defenses, a moment it wasn't paying attention during its shadowy patrols deep in the cave. Even with my current Body stat of 155, a number that now felt laughably low, knowing what was coming might give me the crucial edge I needed to land a decisive blow. I still clutched that jagged piece of metal torn from the wreckage of an abandoned car. It was the improvised weapon that had, through sheer luck and a surge of desperate strength, killed the Tier 1 Thorn-Viper Wolf. It was crude, unbalanced, but it was all I had.
It was a fragile hope, one almost bordering on delusion, especially since I was so exhausted and my stomach was cramping from hunger. But the thought of that Mythic skill, the sheer freedom and security it promised, was a potent, intoxicating drug. If I was going to survive as an anomaly, a ghost in the big cosmic machine of this new reality, then this was my first, vital step towards getting the tools I needed.
My Spirit, at 210, was my highest attribute by a lot. The System's note on [Glimpse of a Path] had said its effectiveness, its clarity and how long it lasted, were influenced by this very stat. Maybe my vision would be unusually clear, more detailed, more real than it might be for someone else. I had to take this chance. The alternative — a life spent cowering, always exposed to threats I couldn't even understand — felt like a slow, agonizing surrender. A death by a thousand cuts.
I found a little bit of shelter among the gnarled, tangled roots of a giant, alien tree just outside the Lurker's cave. The beast's musky, predatory scent was a faint, unsettling whisper on the humid breeze, a constant reminder of the danger lurking nearby. I settled myself against the rough bark, closed my eyes, and forced my breathing to slow down, to deepen. I focused all my will, my entire being, on the desperate desire to see, to know the danger that was waiting for me. I pictured the cave entrance, the imagined shape of the Matriarch, the desperate hope of survival, the distant glimmer of victory.
"[Glimpse of a Path]," I whispered into the oppressive silence of these smashed-together worlds. I pushed my intent outward, a mental command that resonated deep inside me, feeling for that new Soul Ability.
There was a subtle click in my mind, a feeling like something disengaging, and then reality just fractured. Not with a bang, but with a silent, instantaneous swap.
It wasn't a dream. It wasn't like fainting into blackness. It was an abrupt, total sensory hijack, as if my consciousness had been violently ripped from my body and shoved into another version of myself. One instant I was sitting under the alien tree, the rough bark at my back; the next, I was stepping through the jagged mouth of the Lurker's cave, my hand clammy around the cold metal shard. The air hit me, cold and thick with the Matriarch's sharp, eye-watering stench — a smell of rot, damp fur, and something else, something metallic and sharp. My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs. The realism was absolute, terrifyingly complete. I could feel the fine grit of the sandy floor beneath my worn shoes, the damp chill raising goosebumps on my arms, the familiar, metallic prickle of adrenaline flooding my system. This wasn't a memory playing back; this was happening.
My senses within the vision were incredibly sharp, like that strange clarity I'd felt when I first woke up after being out for so long. The darkness wasn't just flat; it had texture, shades of gray and deeper black. I could hear the almost silent skittering of unseen things — tiny claws on stone — the rhythmic drip of water from somewhere deep inside the cave, each drop echoing with unnerving clarity. I moved like a ghost, cautious, my feet finding places to step as if they knew the way, following a narrow passage that wound downwards into suffocating, heavy darkness. The jagged metal bar was held ready, a pitiful defense. The Prime System's ethereal blue arrow was gone here; I was navigating by my own heightened, visionary senses, a raw, unfiltered perception of this deadly space.
The passage opened into a vast, vaulted chamber, draped in an oppressive, almost touchable blackness that seemed to swallow sound and light. Then, a sound — a soft, wet, chittering hiss from directly ahead that instantly turned my blood to ice and made my scalp prickle.
From the deepest ink of the shadows, a shape detached itself. It moved with a speed that was a horrifying contrast to its apparent size. The Umbral Matriarch Lurker. It was much larger than the Thorn-Viper Wolf. Its body was slung low to the ground, a segmented, armored horror of glistening, dark obsidian that seemed to absorb all light, like some unholy mix of a monstrous centipede and a shadowy panther. Eight multi-jointed legs, each ending in razor-sharp talons, pushed it forward with a terrifying, liquid silence. Its head was dominated by a pair of immense, forward-facing mandibles that dripped a thick, shadowy goo that sizzled faintly where it touched the stone. It had no visible eyes, only smooth, dark plates where they should have been. Yet it knew, with absolute, predatory certainty, that I was there.
Before I could even fully register its nightmarish form, to process how utterly alien and warped it was, it attacked. The System had described its agility as "Exceptional"; I had massively, fatally underestimated what that meant against a Tier 2 creature. It wasn't just fast; it was a blur, a ribbon of shadow detaching from the greater darkness, crossing the distance between us in less than a heartbeat. I tried to dodge, my visionary self reacting with a desperate, clumsy lunge. It was useless, laughably slow. A leg, wickedly sharp as a scythe and tipped with a cruelly hooked claw, lashed out.
Agony — so real, so visceral it made me gasp aloud even in my physical body back under the tree — exploded in my side as if I'd been impaled. My vision grayed at the edges. A wet tearing sound echoed in the cave.
The Lurker was on me in an instant. Its massive head struck with reptilian speed, those terrible mandibles snapping shut with a sickening, bone-crushing force where my throat had been a mere fraction of a second before. I'd thrown myself backward in a wild, uncoordinated scramble, tasting dirt and terror. Another chorus of skittering sounds erupted, closer this time, from all around. Not one, but three smaller versions of the Matriarch — broodlings, the System had warned, maybe the size of large, vicious dogs — darted from the surrounding gloom. Their chittering was a maddening, high-pitched symphony as they expertly flanked me, cutting off any hope of escape.
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The Matriarch pressed its lethal advantage, a relentless storm of scything claws and crushing jaws. I thrust out with my metal shard, a desperate, blind stab aimed at where I thought its heart might be. It glanced off the creature's hardened shell with a grating shriek of metal on armor, doing no apparent damage and sending a jarring, numbing shock up my arm. One of the broodlings darted in, its smaller mandibles locking onto my leg. Teeth like needles tore through fabric and flesh, sending flashes of visionary fire shooting up my limb. I screamed, a choked, hopeless sound instantly swallowed by the oppressive darkness of the cave and the incessant, gleeful chattering of the brood.
The Matriarch's immense form blotted out what little ambient light might have filtered from the distant entrance. It reared up, looming over me. For one horrifying, crystal-clear instant, I saw the pulsating, alien flesh of its underside — a vulnerable spot, perhaps — before its main claws slammed down with irresistible, crushing force.
The world, the vision, my fragile hope, all ended in an explosion of agony so profound, so absolute, that my physical body back under the tree convulsed violently. A strangled cry tore from my throat as phantom limbs were severed.
Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, the vision shattered. I was back, gasping, drenched in cold sweat that instantly chilled me in the humid air, trembling uncontrollably in the dappled, alien shade. The full hour of the Glimpse hadn't even been halfway through, but the outcome had been horrifyingly, permanently burned into my brain. My chest heaved, my heart trying to batter its way out of my ribcage. Phantom pains lingered, cruel, sharp echoes of the dismemberment and crushing death I had just so vividly, so completely experienced. My side throbbed, my leg burned.
I had been demolished. Utterly, completely, and humiliatingly demolished. The power difference wasn't just a gap; it was a chasm, an abyss. My current Body of 155, while enough to luck my way through a Tier 1 fight against a single enemy, was wholly, pitifully not enough against the sheer brutal power, speed, and coordinated tactics of a Tier 2 Boss Variant and its brood. The Glimpse hadn't revealed a weakness I could use now; it had delivered a brutal, harsh lesson in the vast difference between Tiers. It showed me my death, in excruciating detail.
The System's detached pronouncement echoed in my memory: "Terminal failure." It hadn't been an opinion; it had been a cold, hard statement of probability when facing a threat of that size in my current, pathetic condition. Any lingering pride from my first kill, any desperate idea that I could overcome such an enemy so soon, evaporated like mist in the sun. It was replaced by a chillingly stark, undeniable understanding.
I needed to be stronger. Significantly stronger. I needed skills, actual combat abilities, not just raw stats. I needed resources, better equipment than a rusty piece of scrap metal. I needed to prepare, thoroughly and meticulously, not just charge in, armed with wishful thinking and a single, powerful precognitive flash. The [Prime Axiom's Nullifying Veil] was a dream worth chasing, a necessity even, but it would stay a dream if I let myself get recklessly slaughtered trying to get it.
Survival, first and foremost. The System's earlier, clinical advice, the words I had almost dismissed in my initial shock and desperation, now resonated with the undeniable weight of truth: "Ingest nutrient-rich sustenance to support physical recovery and facilitate harmonious Essence integration."
The Thorn-Viper Wolf. My stomach still clenched at the idea. The thought of its alien flesh turned my insides. But the vivid, visceral memory of my visionary dismemberment was a powerful, compelling counter-argument. If eating monster flesh was the price of avoiding that horrific fate, the price of gaining the strength to one day earn that Mythic skill, then it was a price I was now willing, even eager, to pay.
With a grim, new resolve hardening my face, I pushed myself to my aching feet. The path back to where I'd killed the wolf was burned into my memory, a short journey now filled with a stark, practical urgency. It took me the better part of an hour, my exhaustion making each step a colossal effort, my limbs still shaking from the aftershocks of the Glimpse, but I found it. Its unnatural, green-and-black form was already beginning to attract oversized, iridescently buzzing insects. Their drone was a morbid soundtrack to my task.
The job of butchering the creature with my salvaged metal shard and another, smaller rock I sharpened against a larger stone, was a gruesome, bloody initiation into the harsh realities of this new world. An education in alien anatomy I tried to mentally block out, focusing on the System's guidance. The System, true to its detached nature, offered terse, clinical advice when I mentally prodded it, highlighting edible muscle groups — "quadriceps analogue, dorsal extensors" — and cautioning me away from internal organs that pulsed with a faint, sickly yellow-green light — "primary venom sac, neurotoxin clusters in spinal column." The stench was appalling, a mix of wet dog, decay, and something sharply chemical.
After much trial and error, scraping together dry tinder and striking sparks with two rocks until my knuckles were raw, I managed to coax a small, sputtering fire to life. I charred chunks of the surprisingly lean, dark meat until it was at least cooked through, if not remotely appetizing. The taste was intensely gamey, with a strange, persistent metallic aftertaste that coated my tongue. But I forced it down, bite by painful bite, driven by a hunger that was now more than just physical — it was a hunger for survival, for strength, for a future that didn't end in a dark cave.
As I ate, a subtle warmth began to spread through me. It was a different feeling from the earlier passive Essence saturation that had boosted my baseline. This was a more grounded feeling, a sense of my body eagerly, almost greedily, absorbing something vital. Strained muscles slowly beginning to mend, not just from rest, but from this new fuel. Depleted energy reserves, however slight, starting to refill. It wasn't an instantaneous, magical surge of power, but a slow, steady, deeply felt strengthening, as if my very cells were being reinforced. My body, it seemed, recognized this alien protein as fuel, as building blocks for whatever strange processes this Essence now demanded of it. There was a definite sensation of internal systems working, of energy being processed and integrated. A subtle vibration that made my muscles feel fuller, my limbs more responsive. The lingering phantom pains from the Glimpse began to recede more quickly.
By the time I'd eaten what my protesting stomach could handle and had crudely hidden the rest of the carcass under a pile of rocks and broad leaves to keep scavengers away, a new, more realistic strategy was forming in my mind. The Lurker's cave was out of the question as a main base, at least for now. It was a death trap. I would look for a smaller, more easily defensible shelter nearby, something I could actually secure, maybe even fortify. For the next week, while [Glimpse of a Path] was dormant on its cooldown, my goals would be brutally simple: rest, recover, methodically eat the wolf meat for food and whatever "Essence integration" benefits it truly offered, and cautiously explore my immediate surroundings for any other useful resources — water, edible plants the System might identify, maybe even materials for better tools or basic defenses. I would practice moving, testing the limits of this enhanced, yet clearly still developing, body. Perhaps I could even begin to understand how to consciously channel that 'Mana' the System mentioned on my status page, to try and unlock the Tier 1 potential it said I possessed, to try and develop some of those much-needed skills.
This time, when I eventually faced the Tier 2 Umbral Matriarch Lurker — and I would face it, that Mythic skill was too vital, too fundamental to my long-term survival to abandon — I would not be relying on a desperate gamble and a fleeting vision. I would be prepared.
As I found a small, defensible alcove nestled among a cluster of jagged, obsidian-like rocks, not far from the Lurker's cave but distinctly separate and offering a clear line of sight to its entrance, dragging my remaining wolf meat with me, I could already feel a subtle but definite shift inside me. The deep, throbbing ache in my muscles was easing, replaced by a thrumming, anticipatory readiness. My body, fueled by the alien protein and whatever strange energetic alchemy it was now undergoing, was already adapting, strengthening. The numbers on my status page might not have visibly changed yet, but I could feel the change, a new power stirring deep within, a tangible promise of what could be achieved with patience, with cunning, with relentless, grinding effort. The week of waiting stretched before me, no longer a period of idle frustration, but a crucial testing ground, a time for forging myself anew.