The moment the message appeared.
[Consumption Initiated]
Ethan knew, deep down, that whatever was about to happen… there would be no going back from it.
At first—Nothing...No explosion of light...No dramatic surge of energy.
Just silence.
A strange, suffocating silence that pressed in around him, muting the chaos of the café as if the world itself had taken a step back to watch.
Ethan's fingers remained in contact with the creature's body, his muscles tense, his breath shallow as he waited—uncertain, afraid, bracing for something he couldn't predict.
"…What now?" he whispered.
And then—It started...A faint vibration...Not around him...Inside him.
It began at the point of contact, where his skin touched the creature's charred surface. A subtle tremor spread through his fingers, creeping upward along his hand, his wrist, his arm—slow at first, almost unnoticeable.
Then faster...Stronger...More violent.
Ethan's eyes widened as the sensation intensified, his body stiffening as a sudden, sharp pain shot through his arm, like thousands of needles piercing through his flesh simultaneously.
"Ah—!"
He tried to pull away...He couldn't....His hand was stuck.
Not physically—not like glue or chains—but something deeper held it in place, something that bypassed muscle and bone and went straight to the core of his being.
"No—no, stop!"
The creature's body began to change.
The cracks along its surface glowed brighter, the faint ember-like light beneath its skin flaring to life. The glow pulsed rhythmically, synchronized with the growing intensity of the vibration coursing through Ethan's body.
It wasn't just energy...It was being transferred...Drawn...Pulled.
From the creature—Into him.
Ethan's breath hitched violently as the pain escalated, spreading beyond his arm and into his chest, his spine, his skull. It felt like something foreign was being forced into him, something that didn't belong, something that his body rejected with every fiber of its existence.
"STOP!!"
His voice broke into a scream.
His knees buckled, his body collapsing forward as the pain overwhelmed him. His vision blurred, dark spots dancing at the edges of his sight as his mind struggled to keep up with the flood of sensations tearing through him.
It burned...Not like fire...Worse...Fire stayed on the surface.
This—This was inside him...Under his skin...In his blood...His veins.
It felt like they were being filled with molten metal, something heavy and scorching, flowing through pathways that were never meant to carry such things.
"I—I can't—!"
His fingers dug into the creature's body instinctively, as if trying to push it away, but the opposite happened.
The connection deepened...The glow intensified...And then—The world disappeared.
For a brief, disorienting moment, everything went dark.
Not the darkness of closed eyes...Not the absence of light.
But something else...A void...A space without form or sound or time.
Ethan felt himself… falling... No... Not falling... Being pulled.
Dragged through something vast and incomprehensible.
And within that void—He saw....Fragments
Flashes of something that wasn't his.
Images that came and went too quickly to fully grasp, yet left behind impressions strong enough to shake him to his core.
A city.
Ruined.
Burning.
Structures twisted into unrecognizable shapes.
The sky above it… broken, fractured like glass, cracks spreading across it as if reality itself had shattered.
Creatures... Hundreds... Thousands.
Moving through the ruins... Hunting... Feeding... Evolving.
And among them—Something larger...Something watching.
Something that didn't feel like prey... Or predator.... But something beyond both.
Ethan gasped, his consciousness snapping back violently into his body as the visions ended as abruptly as they had begun.
Air rushed into his lungs in a desperate, ragged inhale, his body jerking as if he had just been pulled from deep underwater.
"What… was that…?" he choked out, his voice barely more than a broken whisper.
But there was no time to process it...Because the pain returned...Stronger...Sharper...Final.
His back arched as a surge of energy exploded through his body, forcing another scream from his throat. His muscles tightened uncontrollably, his fingers curling as the last of the creature's glow was drawn into him.
And then—Silence...The connection broke.
Ethan collapsed fully onto the floor, his body trembling violently as he struggled to breathe, each inhale shallow and uneven.
The creature's body—Was gone...Not moved... Not destroyed...Gone.
As if it had never existed...Only a faint, dark stain remained where it had been.
Ethan lay there, staring at the empty space, his mind struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
"I… absorbed it…?"
The thought felt wrong.... Impossible.
And yet—There was no other explanation.
A new screen appeared in front of him.
Different from before...Darker...More… personal.
Host: Ethan Cole
Status: Anomaly
System Type: Unknown
His eyes fixed on the word....Anomaly.
"…That's not reassuring."
Unlike the previous interface, this one didn't list levels or experience points. There were no familiar indicators of progress, no structured paths to follow.
Instead—There was only him...And whatever he was becoming...Another line appeared.
[New Ability Acquired]
[Skill: Devour (Level 1)]
Ethan's breath slowed slightly as he read it.
"Devour…"
The word echoed in his mind, carrying a weight that went beyond its simple meaning.
Consume...Absorb...Take...Not just physically...But completely.
"…This is insane."
His hand trembled as he lifted it slowly, bringing it closer to his face. For a moment, it looked the same—human, familiar, unchanged.
But when he focused—Really focused—He saw it... A faint darkness beneath his skin.
Subtle...Almost invisible...But there...Moving...Flowing...Like something alive.
Ethan's stomach tightened.
"What did I just do to myself…?"
No answer came...Of course not.
Because whatever system he now belonged to—It wasn't interested in explaining.
It only gave... And expected him to figure out the rest.
A sound echoed in the distance...A crash...Then another.
Ethan's head snapped up instantly, his senses sharper than before, his awareness expanding beyond what it had been just moments ago.
The café...The survivors...The chaos...It all came rushing back...He wasn't alone.
And more importantly—It wasn't over...Footsteps...Heavy...Multiple...Approaching.
Ethan pushed himself up slowly, his body still weak, still trembling, but something had changed.
The fear was still there...But it no longer controlled him the same way.
It was… quieter...Distant...Replaced by something colder.
Something more focused...He turned his head toward the source of the sound.
The darkness where the entrance had once been—Moved...Shapes emerged..One...Two...Three...More...Creatures.
Just like the one he had killed.
Their eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, their forms shifting as they stepped forward into the café, their attention locking onto the remaining humans like predators spotting prey.
A scream broke out somewhere behind him...Someone tried to run...Someone fell.
Ethan watched.
Silent...Still...His breathing steadying...His mind calculating...Different...Everything felt… different.
His gaze dropped briefly to his hand...Then back to the creatures...And for the first time.
A thought crossed his mind that would have terrified him just minutes ago.
Can I… do it again?
The system flickered...Responding.
[Devour available]
Ethan exhaled slowly.
The corner of his mouth lifted... Not in joy...Not in relief...But in something else...Something darker.
....
He stepped forward....Not as prey—But as something else entirely..