"Wild Symbiote, huh?" I muttered, narrowing my eyes at the screen.
No sooner had the words left my mouth than a low ripple passed through the air beside —like the world itself exhaled in response.
I froze. Sothing slithered nearby. It wasn’t sound exactly, more like... presence. Sothing that shouldn’t be there, but was.
Then it happened.
With a sickening, wet squelch, sothing tore through the space next to . My skin crawled as I turned my gaze.
A mass of shadowy flesh twisted upward, twitching with malford limbs and tendrils, dotted with blinking eyes and puckered mouths. It was hideous—utterly wrong—and yet it pulsed in sync with my heartbeat.
I didn’t feel fear, though. Not exactly. It was more like a distant recognition—like greeting a part of myself I never knew existed.
The thing pulsed again. Its form wavered, shifting between liquid shadow and semi-solid at, and then, slowly, it began to slink toward .
My instincts scread at to back away. To burn it. Kill it. But I didn’t move.
Instead, I let it touch .
One of its tendrils—warm, slick, almost affectionate—slid along my arm and sunk into my skin without resistance. No pain, just... heat. Like plunging your hand into molten syrup. A sensation too alien to describe with any sanity.
Then I felt it—like a second heartbeat igniting deep within my chest.
My body tensed. My spine arched as an avalanche of sensory data overwheld . My veins felt like they were being rewired, each nerve thread being traced and rewritten by this... thing. No, not a thing. It was now.
The connection settled after a few seconds—maybe minutes?—ti lost aning for a bit. When I ca back to myself, I was kneeling on the floor, panting, and covered in sweat.
The symbiote had retracted, but I knew it was still there, just under the skin, coiled around my soul like a protective serpent.
[ Wild Symbiote has bonded successfully. ]
[ Symbiote Level: 1 ]
[ Passive Skill Gained: Probability Warp (Minor) ]
[ Ability Gained: Fleshcraft Tendrils (3/3 uses) ]
"Well, damn..." I chuckled, still breathless. "You’re clingy."
A faint hiss echoed in the air, almost like it was purring in response.
Then, as if to prove a point, I lifted my hand—and a sliver of that eldritch shadow coiled around my wrist. It obeyed . It lived through . I flexed my fingers, and the tendril danced, sharp as a blade one second, soft and feathery the next.
"I’m gonna break so many things with you," I whispered, grinning.
But even as I basked in the raw power coursing through , a chill cut across my neck. I looked up sharply, finally paying attention to the anomaly in the atmosphere.
Sothing was wrong.
The air had gone still—unnaturally so. No birds, no wind, not even the ambient hum of the world.
Then I felt it.
Chaos.
Not mine.
A ripple of disturbance spread through the distance. I narrowed my eyes toward the far edge of the ruined castle grounds.
Sothing was moving—no, spreading—like an infection. It slithered through the soil, the stones, the very ether.
And then I saw them.
The townsfolk.
Or what used to be them.
They ca staggering from the outskirts of the ruined fortress. Eyes glazed, skin grey and cracked like old pottery. Their limbs jerked like puppets pulled by invisible strings, and from their mouths, a thick, tar-like substance dripped endlessly.
"The thralls..." I muttered. "So, Ness activated this before fleeing."
It must’ve been his last move, a failsafe for when things went south. But they were different from the thralls in Duskholm... were they made by Ebon? or Ness—but at that ti he wasn’t strong enough to make them mindless just like now.
Or he turned them like this because of .
One of them locked eyes with .
It screeched.
And then, like a broken floodgate, dozens of them surged toward the castle, claws out, faces twisted in silent agony and maddened hunger.
I clicked my tongue and sighed. "Guess the grind starts earlier than expected."
The symbiote inside pulsed. Eager.
"Fine," I muttered, cracking my neck. "Let’s dance."
I ran back so distance, then bolted straight through the window using the montum I jumped well past the castle gate.
Landing straight between the hordes of horror.
The first thrall lunged.
I sidestepped easily, grabbing its outstretched wrist mid-air. Its skin crumbled beneath my fingers like dry parchnt. Whatever human it used to be was long gone—this thing was just a hollow shell driven by residual hatred and corrupted will.
I twisted its arm backwards, bone snapping like brittle twigs. Then, almost instinctively, I raised my free hand and let the symbiote act.
A tendril exploded from my palm.
It shot forward like a spear, impaling the thrall clean through the chest. The creature twitched, gave a strangled gasp—then with a sudden whump of air, it burst into a cloud of ash.
I blinked. "...That was cool."
[ Fleshcraft Tendrils - 2/3 Uses Remaining. ]
A dozen more charged in.
They were fast—faster than they should have been—but my body moved before my mind caught up. The Chaos coursing through made my reflexes supernaturally sharp.
I ducked beneath a swiping claw, planted my hand against the ground, and kicked one of them square in the chest. It went flying, crashing through a half-collapsed stone pillar like a wrecking ball.
Another leapt at from behind.
I spun, one hand forming a coiled mass of tendrils mid-motion. I slashed sideways. The tendrils cut through the air with a shrill whip! sound, cleaving through two heads and half a torso.
Blood sprayed, but it wasn’t red—it was thick, viscous black.
The system chid again.
[ 10 XP ]
[ 10 XP ]
[ Probability Warp Activated - Minor Crit ]
[ 15 XP ]
I grinned. "So the symbiote is feeding, huh?"
So, killing things.... That’s how this bad boy would evolve. "It’s all good at the end of the day they are just thralls not humans."
I could just grind creatures to evolve my bad boy. Ignoring that blissful thought...
They kept coming. From all directions.
I didn’t have ti to think—just act. My body twisted, danced, adapted. I used my agility like never before, leaping off crumbling stone, ducking and weaving between the crowd of monsters, each strike faster than the last.
A thrall tried to bear-hug from behind.
Right that mont, an idea flickered in my mind. ’Lets try this.’
I whispered, "Chaos Surge."
My body flared. Dark energy with stripes of crimson exploded outward, a pressure wave rippling through the air like a sonic boom. Every thrall within five ters disintegrated instantly—no ceremony, no scream. Just dust.
But the mont after—
"Ghrrrhk...!"
I staggered. My head spun. My insides burned like molten lead was pouring through them. My nose bled. My knees buckled, and I barely stopped myself from collapsing.
’Right. Repercussions of Chaos use: decreased, not removed.’
Still burns like hell.
[ Warning: Chaos Core Stabilizing... ]
[ You have taken 980 Damage. ]
[ Health: 12200/15000 ]
I wiped the blood from my face, laughing between heavy breaths.
"Okay... so maybe don’t use that too casually."
But the attack did the job—half the horde was gone. And now, they were hesitating. The remaining thralls twitched uncertainly, their grotesque faces twisting in confusion. They looked at not like prey—but like sothing worse.
A predator.
"Now you get it," I muttered, stepping forward, letting the shadows at my feet writhe in response.
The symbiote pulsed again. Its presence grew sharper, more attuned. I could almost feel it whispering.
’Feed more.’
"Gladly."
I pointed a finger at the nearest thrall, and with barely a thought, a spike of Chaos energy launched from the air around —not through a spell or a chant. It simply was. My will made it real.
The spike impaled the creature in the face. It dropped like a marionette with cut strings.
[ 10 XP ]
I turned toward the others, cracking my knuckles. "Next."
What followed wasn’t a fight—it was a massacre.
I tore through them like a storm. Chaos flowed around , through , as if the very air bent to my will. The ground beneath my feet blackened with each step. The thralls fell one by one, shrieking as they disintegrated or exploded in corrupted ichor.
And through it all, the symbiote fed.
I could feel it growing—stretching deeper into , into reality. Every kill made it stronger. Every pulse of Chaos made more inhuman.
By the ti the last thrall collapsed in a twitching heap, the entire courtyard was littered with corpses and ash.
Silence.
Heavy. Absolute.
I stood alone in the ruins, my chest heaving, soaked in sweat and blood—most of it not mine.
The symbiote curled quietly under my skin now, dormant. Sated
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