The next morning, Elena woke me before dawn. She had a leather pouch in one hand and a determined look on her face.
"Breakfast," she said, tossing a small piece of raw meat onto the cushion beside me. "Chicken. The cook owed me a favor."
I sniffed it. Ordinary chicken—nothing magical. But meat was meat.
I ate quickly, tearing the soft flesh with my teeth. It wasn't the most dignified meal, but the panel responded.
[Chicken meat consumed - Obtained 6 Gene Points.]
[Total Available Gene Points: 85.6]
Getting closer.
Elena watched me eat with a small smile. "You're more enthusiastic about that than most nobles I know."
«I need the strength,» I thought.
She nodded, then reached into her coat and pulled out a folded piece of parchment. "The Count came through. Not a live specimen, but he had this in his stasis vault."
She unfolded the parchment. Inside was a thin, translucent sheet—something like dried snake skin, but tougher, with a faint green iridescence. It shimmered with residual mana.
"Hydra shed," Elena said. "Elite beast rank. The Count killed a young hydra twenty years ago and preserved its shed skin. He said you could have a piece."
Hydra.
My heart raced. Hydras were legendary—multi-headed serpentine beasts with potent regenerative abilities. Even a piece of shed skin carried traces of their power.
I didn't hesitate. I bit into the leathery sheet and swallowed.
The taste was foul—bitter and metallic—but the panel flared immediately.
[Hydra shed skin (Elite Beast rank) consumed - Obtained 2 Gene Points.]
[New genetic material detected: Hydra (Three-Headed). Gene Library updated.]
[Total Available Gene Points: 87.6]
[Evolution options updated:]
- Venomous Skink (100 GP)
- Spike-Tailed Gecko (100 GP)
- Draconic Newt (100 GP)
- ??? (Locked - requires more genetic data)
- Two-Headed Lizard Snake (120 GP) - Variant species. Grants dual consciousness, enhanced threat perception, and limited regenerative ability. Requires Hydra gene material.
Two heads?
The thought was strange—even unsettling. But the regenerative ability and dual perception could be powerful. I filed it away for later.
«It's working,» I told Elena through the link. «I can feel the hydra's essence stirring in me.»
Her eyes lit up. "Then let's hunt."
We left the manor before the sun fully rose. Elena had assembled a small party: Kellan the archer, Larren the spearman (his arm bandaged but functional and almost healed), and a new addition—a quiet woman named Mira, who carried a staff carved with glowing runes. A mage, like Elena, but specializing in barriers and defensive magic.
"The forest has become dangerous," Elena explained as we walked. "We need support."
I stayed in the leather sling across her chest, my head swiveling, my mana perception spread wide. The forest looked normal at first—green, peaceful, birds singing—but as we moved deeper, I began to see the changes.
A squirrel with three tails, chittering madly as it tore bark from a tree.
A rabbit with elongated claws and red, glowing eyes that watched us from the undergrowth before fleeing.
A patch of mushrooms the size of dinner plates, pulsing with a sickly purple light.
«Corruption,» I thought.
«Agreed,» Elena replied. «The Count's mages think the buried lab is leaking more than just mana. It's mutating everything.»
We found our first real threat an hour later.
It was a boar—not a Thornspike, but something worse. Its hide was covered in bony plates that looked like petrified wood. Its tusks had fused into a single, jagged horn protruding from its snout. And it was easily twice the size of a normal boar.
It charged the moment it saw us.
"Barrier!" Elena shouted.
Mira slammed her staff into the ground. A translucent wall of blue light erupted between us and the boar. The creature crashed into it—and cracked it. Hairline fractures spread across the barrier.
"That's not supposed to happen," Mira said, her voice tight.
The boar backed up, shook its head, and charged again.
I leaped from Elena's sling. My claws found purchase on the boar's armored back as it struck the barrier a second time. The barrier shattered. But I was already on the beast.
I channeled mana into my Clawed Strike and slashed at the base of its skull—the only spot not covered in bony plates. My claws sank deep. The boar squealed, bucked, and threw me off.
Kellan's arrow struck its eye. Larren's spear pierced its flank. The boar staggered, blood pouring from three wounds. I climbed onto its head and used Grip Jaw on its throat, grinding through flesh and sinew.
It collapsed.
[Corrupted Wood Boar consumed (partial) - Obtained 5.3 Gene Points.]
[Total: 92.9]
Almost there.
Elena stared at the corpse. "That was a normal boar two months ago," she whispered.
"Not anymore," Kellan said, wiping his arrow on the grass.
We moved on.
Over the next several hours, we encountered more corrupted creatures. A spider the size of a small dog, its web burning with acidic venom. A wolf with an extra pair of legs, moving faster than any wolf should. A crow with eyes that leaked black smoke.
We killed them all. I ate what I could—small pieces, quick swallows, while the humans kept watch.
[Corrupted Spider venom gland consumed - Obtained 1.2 GP.]
[Corrupted Wolf leg muscle consumed - Obtained 1.8 GP.]
[Corrupted Crow eyeball consumed - Obtained 0.5 GP.]
[Total Available Gene Points: 96.4]
Three point six more.
Then we reached the creek.
-
The water ran black. Not dirty—black, as if someone had poured ink into the stream. The air smelled of rot and ozone. And standing in the middle of the creek, its feet planted on a mound of shattered bones, was the iron mantis.
It was no longer one meter tall.
Two meters. Its chitin had darkened to a deep, rust-red. Its forelimbs—already terrifying—now glowed with a faint, greenish light. Mana rippled along the edges like heat haze.
And when it saw us, those forelimbs extended.
Blades of pure mana erupted from the scythes, doubling their reach. The mantis swung lazily at a nearby tree. The mana blades passed through the trunk like smoke—and the tree toppled, its cut surface smooth as glass.
«Mana Scythes,» I thought, my blood running cold.
«I see them,» Elena replied. Her voice was steady, but I felt her fear through the bond.
"Everyone," she said aloud, "we are not fighting that thing directly. Traps first. Spells second. Melee only if absolutely necessary."
Kellan nocked an arrow with a crystal tip. "Explosive or binding?"
"Binding. We need to slow it down."
Larren planted two iron stakes in the ground, stringing a thin, almost invisible wire between them. "Trip line. If it charges, this will tangle its legs."
Mira began drawing runes in the air with her staff, each one glowing blue. "I can layer three barriers. They won't hold long, but they'll give us time."
Elena pulled a small vial from her pouch—a deep purple liquid that smoked when she uncorked it. "Corrosion mist. It won't kill the mantis, but it'll weaken its chitin."
And me?
I was the smallest, the fastest, the one with claws that could pierce chitin. Elena didn't say it, but I knew my role.
Distraction.
I crawled to the edge of the creek, my bronze scales blending with the muddy bank. My mana perception showed me the mantis's core—a swirling vortex of corrupted energy in its thorax, pulsing like a second heart.
That's the target, I realized. Destroy the core, and the mantis falls.
But getting there meant surviving those scythes.
Elena gave the signal.
Kellan's binding arrow flew first. It struck the mantis's leg and exploded into a net of glowing ropes. The mantis hissed—a sound like grinding metal—and flexed its limbs. The ropes snapped.
"Barrier now!" Elena shouted.
Mira's three walls of blue light rose around the mantis, boxing it in. The creature slashed with its mana scythes. The first barrier shattered instantly. The second cracked. The third held—for three seconds.
But three seconds was enough.
Larren threw a flask of corrosion mist. It shattered against the mantis's face, coating its compound eyes in purple smoke. The mantis screeched, clawing at its own head.
"Now, Vritra!" Elena screamed through the link.
I sprinted.
Mana flooded my legs. The world blurred. I dodged a wild scythe swing—the blade passing so close it singed my scales—and leaped onto the mantis's back. Its chitin was hot, vibrating with barely contained energy.
I climbed toward the thorax. The mantis bucked, twisted, tried to scrape me off against a rock. I held on with Grip Jaw, my teeth sinking into a gap between chitin plates.
Then I channeled every scrap of mana I had into my claws and struck.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Clawed Strike amplified.
Green hemolymph sprayed. The mantis convulsed. I tore through chitin, through muscle, through the thin membrane protecting its core.
And I saw it.
A pulsing, fist-sized crystal, glowing with corrupted green light. The mantis's heart. Its power source.
I reached inside and bit down.
My jaws closed around the core.
The moment my teeth touched the corrupted crystal, a surge of raw energy exploded through my body. It was like swallowing lightning—painful, blinding, but also invigorating. The mantis convulsed beneath me, its legs spasming, its scythes slashing wildly at the air.
I didn't let go.
Grip Jaw held fast as I bit down harder. Cracks spider-webbed across the core's surface. Corrupted green light poured out, mixing with the mantis's hemolymph. The creature's thrashing grew weaker with each passing second.
"Vritra, get back!" Elena shouted.
I ignored her. I was so close.
The core shattered in my mouth.
The explosion threw me off the mantis's back. I tumbled through the air, hit the ground, and rolled to a stop against a mossy rock. My mouth was full of crystal shards and green blood. My scales felt like they were on fire.
The iron mantis stood frozen for a moment, its mana scythes flickering, fading. Then its legs buckled. Its body crashed into the creek with a splash, sending black water spraying in all directions.
[Corrupted Mana Core (Iron Mantis) partially consumed - Obtained 12.4 Gene Points.]
[Warning: Corrupted mana detected in system. Minor mutation risk.]
[Total Available Gene Points: 108.8]
[Evolution threshold exceeded. You may now evolve into any available species.]
Not now, I thought, forcing the panel closed. Not here.
The mantis was dead. But the creek still ran black. The corruption was still flowing.
And somewhere upstream, the source was waiting.
---
Elena ran to me, her hands glowing with healing magic. "You reckless lizard! You could have been killed!"
I let her check my wounds, but my mind was elsewhere. The core's energy was still burning inside me—wild, unstable, but useful. I could feel new possibilities flickering at the edge of my consciousness.
«I'm fine,» I thought. «But the mantis wasn't the source. It was just a symptom.»
Elena followed my gaze upstream. The black water emerged from a narrow ravine, its banks lined with withered plants and bleached bones.
"The buried lab," she said quietly.
"Then that's where we go," Kellan said, nocking another arrow. "That thing grew from a normal mantis to a monster in six months. Whatever's in that ravine... we need to destroy it."
Mira nodded, though her hands trembled. Larren tightened his grip on his spear.
I climbed onto Elena's shoulder and pointed my snout toward the ravine.
«Let's finish this.»
The ravine was a wound in the forest.
The further we walked, the worse the corruption became. Trees grew at twisted angles, their bark oozing black sap. The ground squelched underfoot, soft and rotten. Strange fungi pulsed with sickly light, releasing spores that made Kellan cough.
Elena used a wind spell to keep the air clear. Mira maintained a weak barrier around the group, filtering out the worst of the corruption.
I kept my mana perception wide open.
And then I felt it.
A heartbeat. Deep underground. Slow, powerful, and wrong.
«There,» I thought, pointing with my claw toward a mound of earth and stone at the end of the ravine. «Beneath that mound.»
The Count had said they buried the rogue mage's lab. They hadn't destroyed it. They had simply covered it up and hoped the corruption would fade.
It hadn't.
Elena studied the mound. "We need to dig. But carefully—if the lab collapses, whatever's inside might be lost. Or released."
Larren and Kellan exchanged glances. "We didn't bring shovels," Larren said.
Mira raised her staff. "I can shape earth. But it will take time and mana."
"Do it," Elena said. "Kellan, keep watch. Larren, stay ready. Vritra... stay close to me."
I nodded.
Mira began to work. The earth trembled as she slowly pulled the soil apart, revealing a stone doorway buried for two decades. The stone was cracked, leaking the same black ooze as the creek.
Behind the door, the heartbeat grew louder.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Not a creature. Something else. Something mechanical.
Mira stepped back, sweating. "The door is... fused. The corruption has seeped into the stone. I can break it, but it will be loud."
"Do it," Elena said again.
Mira raised her staff and brought it down.
The stone door shattered.
Beyond the doorway was a staircase descending into darkness. The air that rushed out was cold and foul, carrying the stench of old magic and older death.
Elena conjured a floating light orb. "Stay close. No one touches anything unless I say so."
We descended.
The lab was a nightmare.
Glass vats lined the walls, most of them shattered. Inside the broken ones were the remains of failed experiments—creatures that had been stitched together from multiple species, their bodies twisted and fused. Some still had flesh. Others were nothing but bones.
In the center of the room was a large crystal, cracked down the middle, still pulsing with dim green light. It sat atop a pedestal carved with runes that none of us could read.
"That's the source," I thought, my voice echoing in Elena's mind.
She relayed it aloud. "The crystal. It's leaking mana into the soil and water. It's been doing so for twenty years."
Kellan stared at the crystal. "Can we destroy it?"
Mira examined it carefully. "If we do it wrong, the release of energy could corrupt everything within a mile. We need a containment ritual."
Elena nodded. "Then we do it right. We mark the location, return to the Count, and bring a proper purification team."
She turned to leave—then stopped.
The crystal pulsed once, brightly.
And from the shadows behind it, a single red eye opened.