The club never landed.
Not the way it should have.
Something inside Matth snapped like a rusted chain giving way under too much weight.
His body moved before his mind caught up, a raw animal surge that tasted of panic and old rage.
He lunged upward, teeth bared, and sank them into the thick green flesh of Gorzak's throat the moment the orc leaned in for the kill.
Hot blood flooded his mouth.
Salty. Metallic. Alive.
Gorzak roared, staggering back, but Matth clung like a parasite, jaws locked, ripping and tearing with everything he had left.
The orc's massive hands scrabbled at his back, claws raking fresh lines across already bleeding skin.
Pain exploded everywhere, but it felt distant, drowned under the sudden flood of something else.
Something hungry.
[Devour initiated… 47%…]
The words slammed into his skull like ice water poured straight into his brain.
Blue light flickered at the edge of his vision, unstable, cracking at the corners.
Warning: backlash incoming.
He didn't care.
Couldn't.
The taste of the orc's life pouring down his throat was the only thing that mattered.
Strength surged through his arms in ugly, jagged pulses.
His fingers dug deeper into green muscle, tearing chunks free.
Gorzak bellowed again, weaker this time, the club dropping from numb fingers with a heavy thud that sent sand spraying.
The crowd had gone strangely quiet.
Then the screaming started, but it wasn't for blood anymore.
It was confusion.
Fear.
Something they hadn't seen before.
Matth kept biting.
Kept swallowing.
Each gulp sent fire racing through his veins, burning away the exhaustion, the broken nose, the whip marks.
His heartbeat thundered so loud it drowned out the arena noise.
[Devour complete.]
[Essence absorbed: Orc Brute – Partial.]
[+8 Strength]
[New Skill Acquired: Essence Bite (Crude) – Level 1]
The notifications came too fast, overlapping, glitching with static that made his eyes water.
He felt the new power settle into his bones like molten lead cooling too quickly.
His arms thickened just enough to notice.
The chains around his wrists creaked as he flexed.
Then the backlash hit.
It started in his chest, a cold spike that spread outward like venom.
His veins turned to rivers of liquid night, burning and freezing at the same time.
Matth gasped, releasing the orc's ruined throat and collapsing sideways into the sand.
Black spots danced across his sight.
His body convulsed once, twice, muscles locking so hard he thought his spine would snap.
He lay there tasting dirt and blood and victory all mixed together, while the world spun sickeningly.
The arena master's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and furious.
"Get that thing out of the sand! He's still breathing. Lock him back in the pens. We'll see how long the freak lasts tomorrow."
Rough hands grabbed him.
Chains rattled.
Someone kicked him in the ribs for good measure, but the pain barely registered past the void eating him from the inside.
Later that night the slave pens smelled of wet stone, old shit, and fear-sweat.
Torches burned low along the walls, throwing long flickering shadows across dozens of broken men and women huddled in iron cages.
Matth sat with his back against the cold bars, knees drawn up, breathing slow and deliberate.
Every inhale still carried the faint metallic aftertaste of orc blood.
His body felt wrong.
Too heavy in some places, too raw in others.
The new strength hummed under his skin like a live wire, but the backlash had left him shaky, feverish, skin slick with cold sweat.
An older slave shuffled closer to the bars separating their cages.
Bald, missing most of his teeth, one eye milky white.
He grinned like a skull.
"Look at you. Still alive after biting the big green bastard's neck like a rabid dog. Never seen that before. Most new meat just cry and die pretty. You… you acted like a beast. That what you are now, boy? Some kind of monster wearing human skin?"
Matth lifted his gaze slowly.
The old man's voice grated, but there was no real heat in it.
Just the tired mockery of someone who'd watched too many die and needed to poke at the ones who didn't.
He considered staying silent.
Let the fool talk himself out.
But something in him wanted to push back, to test the new edges of whatever he was becoming.
"Better a beast than a corpse," Matth said, voice low and rough from screaming earlier. "You been here long enough to learn that, old man. Or are you still waiting for someone to come save your sorry ass?"
The slave barked a laugh that turned into a wet cough.
"Save? In Aetherion? Gods don't save slaves. They watch us bleed for sport. You think biting one orc makes you special? Tomorrow they'll throw two at you. Or three. They always punish the ones who refuse to die clean."
Matth felt the corner of his mouth twitch.
Not quite a smile.
More like the ghost of one.
"Let them. Maybe I'll get hungry again."
The old man squinted at him, the milky eye catching the torchlight strangely.
"Cold one, aren't you. Most break in a week. You talk like you already own the place."
"I don't own shit yet," Matth replied, shifting against the bars. His back protested, fresh scabs pulling tight. "But I'm not planning on staying in this cage forever. You can rot here feeling sorry for yourself if you want. Me? I'm going to eat this world until it chokes on me."
Silence stretched between them for a moment.
The old slave studied him like he was seeing something new and unpleasant.
Then he shrugged and shuffled back to his corner.
"Good luck with that, beast. Just don't scream too loud when they break you tomorrow. Some of us are trying to sleep."
Matth watched him go, then leaned his head back against the iron.
The conversation had cost him nothing.
Cost the old man nothing either.
Just words in the dark.
But it had settled something inside him.
Confirmed the shape of his own mind.
Cold.
Calculating.
Already looking past the pain toward whatever came next.
He closed his eyes, trying to will the lingering void ache away.
That was when the system glitched again.
Blue light flared behind his eyelids without warning.
[Status Update]
[Strength: 18 (+8 from Essence)]
[Recovery rate: Accelerated. Full functionality expected within hours.]
[Essence Bite cooldown: 0 days. Ready for use.]
The numbers looked good.
Too good.
A rush of false confidence washed through him, warm and tempting.
He could almost feel the pain fading already, muscles knitting faster, the fever breaking.
Tomorrow he'd walk into that arena stronger, faster, ready to—
A fresh wave of nausea rolled over him.
The numbers flickered, then reset lower.
[Warning: Backlash residue still active. True recovery estimated at 60%. Overestimation detected. System stabilization incomplete.]
Matth's eyes snapped open.
He stared at the empty air where the boxes had been, heart suddenly pounding for a different reason.
The system had lied.
Or glitched.
Or both.
It had dangled perfect recovery in front of him like bait, then snatched it away.
For the first time since waking in this nightmare, genuine confusion cut through the cold layers he'd been building.
What the hell was this thing inside his head?
A gift?
A curse?
A trap wearing the skin of power?
He wasn't used to not knowing.
Back on Earth he'd at least understood the rules, even if they sucked.
Here everything felt slippery, half-formed, like the system itself was figuring him out while he tried to figure it out.
The uncertainty sat heavy in his gut, colder than the backlash had been.
He hated it.
Wanted to reach in and tear the doubt out by the roots.
But he couldn't.
Not yet.
Footsteps echoed down the stone corridor outside the pens.
Heavy boots.
Armor clinking.
Two guards stopped in front of his cage, torches raised.
One of them, a scarred human with a crooked nose, smirked down at him.
"Arena master wants you fresh for tomorrow, freak. Says you put on quite the show today. Too good for a single opponent, apparently. Tomorrow you fight two. Gruk the Hammer and that skinny knife-eared bitch they dragged in last week. Should be entertaining. Try not to die too fast. The crowd loves a good show."
The other guard chuckled.
"Promotion, they call it. Lucky you."
Matth stared up at them through the bars, face blank.
Inside, the cold calculation clicked back into place, shoving the confusion down deep where it couldn't slow him.
Two opponents.
One probably big and slow, the other fast and tricky.
Different threats.
Different essences to taste.
He could work with that.
The guards moved on, laughing between themselves about how long the new meat would last.
Matth stayed silent until their footsteps faded.
Then he let out a slow breath, tasting the damp air of the pens, the distant copper of old blood still clinging to his tongue.
The system had lied once already.
Maybe it would lie again.
Maybe it was broken.
Maybe he was the broken one for trusting anything it showed him.
Didn't matter.
Tomorrow he would bite again.
Swallow whatever they threw at him.
Grow.
Even if it hurt.
Even if the numbers lied.
Even if for one stupid second he felt small and lost and terrified of what this power was actually doing to him.
He flexed his fingers in the dark, feeling the new strength there, raw and unsteady but real.
Next time the club came down, he wouldn't be the one on the ground.
The thought brought a flicker of something hot and possessive through his chest.
Not just survival anymore.
Something deeper.
Hungrier.
He wanted more than escape.
He wanted the arena.
The pens.
The masters watching from their safe seats.
He wanted to feel them break under his teeth one day.
But first he had to survive tomorrow.
Matth closed his eyes again, listening to the ragged breathing of the other slaves around him.
The uncertainty was still there, a quiet crack in his armor.
He didn't push it away this time.
Let it sit.
Let it remind him that nothing here was certain except the hunger.
And the hunger was growing.
He smiled faintly in the darkness, a small, sharp thing that didn't reach his eyes.
Two tomorrow.
Fine.
He'd make them both regret waking up this morning.
The pens settled into uneasy quiet, but inside Matth's head the system whispered again, too soft to read clearly.
Another glitch?
Another promise?
He didn't bother trying to decipher it.
He already knew what it wanted.
Devour.
Or die.
And he had no intention of dying twice.