"GROWLLL"
As Caesar's stomach began to growl in hunger, a hollow, aching sound that vibrated deep within him, he looked around again at the dark and gloomy cavern. His eyes, though adapted to the dimness, strained, searching for anything—any scrap, any morsel—that could be used for consumption.
A shadow-drenched cavern stretched in all directions, its cold, damp stone walls disappearing into an oppressive blackness. The only source of light was the faint, otherworldly glow from mysterious, ethereal shards of dust scattered sparsely around the cavern floor, casting long, distorted shadows that seemed to writhe.
The only thing he could truly see, stark against the glowing dust, were the inert, grotesque corpses of the monsters he had just slain. Their forms lay still, unmoving, yet menacing even in death.
"Damn, don't tell me I have to eat these monsters raw from who knows where…" The thought was a vile taste in his mouth, worse than any venom.
As the horrifying realization fell upon Caesar, a cold dread seeping into his very bones, he looked once again at the cavern, now using every heightened sense he possessed. He strained, desperate to find more—anything, perhaps something to drink, something to cook with, a hidden passage to escape. Anything at all.
He searched for an hour, each minute stretching into an eternity of fruitless hope, but to no avail. The cavern remained stubbornly empty of what he needed.
"There's nothing here at all… There's no passage… There's no water… There's no wood… There's absolutely nothing here at all except for these damned monsters…" His voice was a harsh whisper, laced with despair.
Caesar began to agitate, a restless, frantic energy stirring within him as he truly comprehended the grave, inescapable situation he was in.
"How the hell am I gonna get out of here…"
Caesar had no clue at all. He wondered and wondered, but all he knew was that he was stuck in a dark, suffocating cavern where there was nothing but the constant, brutal appearance of more monsters. The air felt heavy, pressing in on him.
"GROWWLLLLLL!"
Caesar's stomach roared again, a deeper, more insistent rumble that drowned out his desperate thoughts. He was hungry, so hungry it was a physical ache, tired to the bone, and in grave need of rest and energy.
Before coming here, he had barely eaten anything, and the brutal previous fight had cost him far more energy than expected. He didn't know when the next wave of monsters would appear again, a ticking clock in his mind, so he couldn't hesitate.
His body was still shaken from the excessive, punishing use of his abilities, a persistent tremor running through his limbs.
"I need to rest for now… I really need to develop my core fast… or I'll die if I keep fighting these monsters in this state. Furthermore, I don't know how much time I have before the next monster will arrive. I need to think and act now…"
As Caesar thought of this, his gaze, heavy with grim resolve, fell upon the inert corpses of the Orc and the three Wolves he had just slain. Their lifeless forms lay stark against the dimly lit stone.
"I need to consume those guys." The words were a bitter pill, but the truth was undeniable.
Caesar stood up, barely forcing himself to rise, his muscles protesting with a dull ache, his body still pulsating with profound tiredness. He looked down at the grotesque, fallen monster corpses lying side by side. He first moved towards the orc corpse.
Caesar looked towards its large, hulking green body, sprawling awkwardly on the ground face first. Its skin was a sickly, mottled green, almost black in the poor light, thick with muscle and sinew. Coarse, matted hair covered parts of its back, and from its wide, slack jaw, yellowed tusks protruded like ancient, stained knives. A faint, musky scent, mingled with the metallic tang of dried blood and something damp and earthy, hung heavy around it.
"This is not gonna be pleasant at all," Caesar thought to himself, his stomach churning with revulsion. "But I have no choice…"
SWOOSH!
Caesar used his makeshift club-sword, bringing it down with a desperate, heavy swing against the orc's shoulder. The crude weapon, designed for bludgeoning, not slicing, grated harshly against the orc's incredibly tough hide. It barely slid, leaving only a small, ragged wound, a shallow groove in the creature's dense flesh.
SCHLURK! He pressed the jagged edge of his makeshift blade into the small wound, twisting it, forcing it open. A sickening, wet tearing sound, like thick fabric ripping, echoed in the silent cavern as he peeled back the skin and muscle with brute force, exposing the dark, glistening meat within.
"Shit… This smells so bad…. Fuck… This is so gonna be bad."
The putrid stench of stale blood, musky orc, and something akin to damp, decaying earth assaulted his nostrils, instantly making his gorge rise. He wanted to puke, his throat clenching, but he had to force himself. Every fiber of his being screamed in protest.
RIP!
He tore a ragged chunk of flesh from the orc's shoulder, the raw meat feeling strangely spongy and still warm in his trembling hand.
CRUNCH!
Caesar bit down. The flesh was utterly disgusting, far more horrendous than its foul smell had promised. It was tough, stringy, and coated in a vile, gritty residue that coated his tongue and teeth. A wave of profound revulsion, so potent it threatened to overwhelm his senses, washed over him. This was the most vile, repugnant thing he had eaten in his two lives. It was not something any human should ever consume, yet he forced himself.
GRIT! He clenched his jaw, the muscles in his face tight with strain, forcing himself to grind the vile meat between his teeth. The flesh was not just tough and rough; it tasted of stagnant iron, something acrid and sour, and carried an undercurrent of deep, ancient decay that seemed to cling to his very soul, making his stomach clench.
URGGGHHH! A choked, desperate sound escaped his throat, his body heaving, on the very precipice of expelling the putrid mouthful.
But he endured. He didn't want to waste the thing he had just forced himself to ingest, knowing it was his only chance. "FK… This is so disgusting… but I have to fight this! I have to endure this! Or else I'll die!"
GULP! He swallowed, the small, repugnant wad of flesh sliding down his throat like a lead weight, leaving a bitter, burning trail of pure disgust in its wake.
His face was contorted, a mask of profound displeasure and raw anger, etched with the strain of what he was being forced to do. Yet, he kept on, a fierce, unyielding determination burning in his eyes. His feeling of not wanting to give up was far greater, far more potent, than the revulsion of dying by refusing to eat this horrendous thing.
CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH-GULP! Caesar ate more flesh, each bite a battle.
"Ughhhh!"
Caesar groaned, a guttural sound of pure agony, as his stomach surged with a sharp, sickening pain. This flesh… it clearly had toxins. It was barely edible, a biological weapon against his own system. Caesar was trembling, his body fighting a desperate internal war, struggling violently to puke out the putrid flesh he had just forced inside him. His skin felt clammy, a cold sweat breaking out.
"Fuck, I need to control my digestive system… I need to separate the toxins… And only digest the edible one…."
Caesar closed his eyes, enduring the searing pain that ripped through his gut. He used all his focus, every ounce of his concentration, on his digestive system. His veins pulsed, visible beneath his clammy skin, his heart raced a furious, erratic rhythm, and his breathing became shallow, precisely controlled. Caesar used everything, channeling his will and the innate control of Natan's body, in order to digest this monster while keeping himself safe from its poisons.
PUKEEE!
A violent, wrenching sound tore through the cavern, and a gush of dark, vile fluid, mixed with fragments of putrid, undigested meat, exploded from Nate's mouth. An incredibly nasty, acrid smell, like a cesspool of decay, immediately filled the air around him, making the stale cavern even more unbearable.
Caesar, in the past, had already learned an inhuman feat: the ability to separate toxins from the things he consumed. More specifically, he had learned how to control his full body down to a cellular level, a truly extraordinary and inhuman achievement.
Only Caesar had attained this level of full physiological control in his past life; his previous body was gifted as he was in its swordsmanship, but this internal mastery was his own unique development. Because of this, with practice over time, he could eat poisoned food and remain unaffected by it.
But now he was in Natan's Body. This body was far more gifted than even Caesar's in the past. This was incredibly fortunate, because if this body was incapable of such precise cellular control, he would have been doomed from the start. Because normally, to be able to do this, one could take decades of grueling practice just to get used to it.
"Ugh…. Shit, I got lucky that this body was special… if it had not been, I could've died right there."
Caesar consciously thought, a profound, subconscious thankfulness washing over him, even amidst the lingering torment.
CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH-GULP! PUKE!
CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH-GULP! PUKE!
CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH-GULP! PUKE!
CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH-GULP! PUKE!
Then he continued to eat—force it down, puke, and repeat—until he was satisfied, a grim, exhausted satisfaction that filled his empty stomach with raw, barely contained energy. Caesar was not pleased; his face was a mask of sheer physical and mental endurance, sweat plastered his black hair to his forehead, and his eyes, though still burning with red intensity, held a flicker of deep-seated trauma. He looked like a man who had stared into the abyss and forced himself to consume a piece of it.
After eating a few more chunks of the repulsive flesh, Caesar had enough; it was enough to fuel him, for now. He rested for a bit, controlling his ragged breathing once more, and then slowly, carefully, sat at a lotus position, his trembling hands coming to rest on his knees. He began controlling his blood flow and his deep, rhythmic breathing, preparing for the next crucial step.
"Focus. Focus. Now's the time to form the first stage of my core… I need to do this fast before the monster appear again."
Caesar closed his eyes, and his world began to turn dark, not from the cavern's gloom, but from his intense internal focus. The outside world faded into total silence as he channeled all of his concentration, every shred of his will, to form the first stage of his core.
His body began to pulsate, a faint, almost imperceptible aura, like a barely visible heat haze, could be felt emanating from him as he developed his core. The atmosphere in the cavern felt palpable, thick with a subtle, rising energy.
After a few minutes, which felt like an eternity, Caesar felt his hands, which had been resting on his knees, fall limply to the ground. He gasped, taking in deep, shuddering gulps of air, his chest heaving.
"HUFF… HUFF…" His breathing was heavy, raw, and desperate.
"I did it…." A wave of profound, weary relief washed over him as he realized he had succeeded.
"I didn't think it was possible to do this, but this body is truly special…. It's totally the perfect fit for someone like me," he thought in rejoice, a rare, fleeting surge of triumph for the unbelievable feat he had just accomplished.
Normally, people in his world would take months, even years, of grueling training for one to even develop the first stage of a core. Natan's body was an anomaly, a true miracle. It was special; it possessed supreme physical prowess far beyond his peers, an innate, almost perfect control of the body even though it was not yet developed or trained. Now Caesar had just proven it: with this body, he could develop faster than he previously could have ever imagined.
But…
Not everything was on his side.
From the shadows, another presence began to emerge, not with the sound of footsteps, but with a subtle distortion of the air itself.
"What is that…. A scarecrow?"
"Krrkk KRkkk Krksda K KeraskKKk!" A disturbing and creepy voice, like dry bones grinding against rough cloth, emerged from the cavern. It was loud, menacing, and utterly inhuman.
Caesar focused his gaze into the dark cavern, seeing a bizarre, stitched figure like a scarecrow begin to materialize. Five grotesque arms wriggled from its crude, burlap form. One arm ended in a wickedly sharp scythe, another wielded a jagged, crude sword, while the remaining three twitched freely, like hungry serpents. Its chest had a small cage, made of what looked like twisted bone or wood, and within it, ominous red eyes glowed with malevolent intent, all gazing directly towards Caesar.
"What in the wor-"
Before Caesar could finish asking, the mysterious scarecrow suddenly lunged towards him. No… More like it teleported behind his back, a silent, horrifying flicker.
SWOOSH!
The Scarecrow suddenly swung its arm wielding the sword. Caesar instinctively dodged this by ducking his neck down, the razor-thin edge of the blade whistling past his ear. He was nearly cut, the air displaced by its speed grazing his skin.
'He's Fast! How the hell did he teleported in my back… No he's not fast, he's…'
The monster suddenly faded from the shadows, dissolving like smoke. Then, just as abruptly, it appeared directly in front of Caesar, its glowing red eyes boring into his.
RED MEETS RED.
The Scarecrow's eyes, an evil, burning red, had tiny, swirling souls circling within its pupils, a horrifying vortex of agony and malice.
SWOO-STAB!
The monster thrust its jagged sword forward. Caesar tried desperately to dodge completely, but his hand still caught a glancing blow, getting stabbed slightly instead of his body. Blood immediately welled up, a warm, slick trickle beginning to drip onto the damp stone.
'This bastard… can go teleport!'
Caesar immediately swung his weapon towards the monster, a desperate, wide arc.
SWOOSSHH!
But the monster dodged this with unnatural ease, submerging back into the shadows, its malevolent red eyes the last thing to fade into the gloom.
[Absolute Sense]
Caesar focused his will, pushing past the pain in his hand, enhancing his senses to an almost supernatural degree. He closed his eyes, relying on his other senses. The faint shift in the air, the dry, musty smell of the scarecrow, the minute vibrations in the stone, the subtle rustle of its burlap form. He felt it all with a terrifying clarity.
"There!" As the air subtly changed, he felt the incoming attack from his side, a barely perceptible disturbance.
Caesar dodged the attack with a blur of motion and immediately counter-attacked the monster.
[Oblivion Blade: Horizon's Slash!]
SWOOOSHSHHH!
A sweeping, wide-arc attack tore through the air, a devastating wave of cutting force. The scarecrow's 3 arms and a slight part of his shoulder were caught in the arc, brutally slashed and severed from its form.
"KRKRKKKKRKK!KKKKKK!!" the monster shrieked in raw, agonizing pain, a sound that grated on the soul.
Caesar didn't hesitate to finish the monster. Now that he had just broken through to the first stage of his core, he felt a bit more comfortable, a newfound precision, in using his skills now.
[Oblivion Blade: Crimson Reckoning]
SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSSH SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSSH SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSSH SWOOSH!
Caesar immediately adopted his stance and attacked the groaning scarecrow in an instant, with no hesitation. The scarecrow immediately tried to block Caesar's ferocious assault, its remaining limbs flailing wildly. But Caesar overwhelmed the scarecrow, unleashing a fierce, relentless flurry of crimson slashes.
The monster was sliced and sliced again, its form growing smaller and smaller with each brutal cut, its grotesque body being meticulously dismantled.
SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSSH SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH!
The monster didn't die yet, still twitching with a horrifying tenacity, but Caesar didn't hesitate. The last of the trapped souls in its eyes started to fade away, flickering like dying embers. And then eventually, with a final, rasping Krrkk, it was severed into small, lifeless pieces, crumbling into fine dust and vanishing as if it had never been.
"HUFF… HUFFF…"
Caesar gasped, his breaths ragged and torn from his chest, the sheer exertion of the barrage leaving him utterly spent.
"This is getting dangerous… I don't know what kind of monsters keep appearing and I don't know when they appear… Plus there's no proper food or water here…" The grim realization weighed heavily on him.
Thump… thump…
Another heavy footstep was heard again, approaching Caesar from the encroaching shadows. His black hair, matted with sweat, fell half into his eyes. His intense red eyes, narrowed to slits, gazed upon the approaching monster, a new wave of exhaustion threatening to drag him down.
"Shit… This place is not even giving me a rest…. My time here is gonna be fucking suck."
He thought, the bitter truth a raw taste in his mouth.
-- Chapter 11 End