21 [Corrupted Spawn]

Going from complete silence to the bellows of every Marbled Maw screeching in rage. The link that had made them so deadly on the ledge, shared by the entire colony. They dropped, heavy gourds spilling into the cavern floor. How were they so loud? It rattled the cavern, the silent maw swirling in their sacs, stretching and writhing.

The sound was in my mind, bright flares of light and pain. It was hard to move, to think. It drew pain from deep within my core and lanced it throughout my body.

The corpses near me tore away, finally dislodged from their macabre resting places. The force burst the casings sealing their silent maw. Their new bodies gasped into the open air for the first time, dumb and aimless in their infancy. The larger marbled maw were already veiling themselves. Still others heaved their bulk into the air.

I needed out. Now.

The sound was maddening. I could feel it carrying inside me. I dropped through the shadow and I heard the wet heave of one of the corpses, and its tainted embryos, falling with me. The shadows were open, torn by whatever skill racked the infernal noise. I wasn't safe, even here.

I rushed the crack, looking through the darkness for a shadow deep enough to pull through. Above me a giant Maw crashed into the low ceiling, preparing a dive. The force pulled more of it down.

The tunnel below collapsed, the caving widening the gap to the cavern. The rubble was large, rough stones stacked on top of each other. There, a shadow large enough to leap through. Large enough to pull myself out into the fragile space and away from the death collapsing towards me. Close. If I could muster a leap, before my mana failed under the strain of holding myself and the mass of the corpse in shadow.

As I pulled through, the Maw finally caught up to me. Its neck stretched through the shadow. It caught now that I was no longer holding the shadows apart. Trapped. The skin of the physical realm swirling and pulling taunt.

I stabbed down.

Each hack echoed above, where the beast writhed and its body severed from its neck. The head, twitching its severed remains, pulled through to the physical. The needles of its teeth still clenched against each other. The thing didn't know it was dead. I closed in on its remains, teeth catching in the thick cartilage of its spine. With relish I pressed its flesh into the serrated mouth that lined my torso.

With a wet snap, I closed it.

[Fatal Damage done to Marbled Stalker Winged Maw]

[Your will has rewards. Native Latch has increased in ability.]

[Your resolve has rewards. Beginners Stealth Hunt has increased in ability.]

[New Skill Unlocked: Beginners Confusion Resistance]

[New Skill Unlocked: Beginners Pack Manipulation]

Devouring the neck, I felt a rush tingle across my hide. It was working! ripping off chunks of flesh, I could feel the mana coming back to me. I gorged myself, cracking open its sweet vertebrae and feeling the soft bone and sweet marrow. Leveling had knit together the open wound at my side. The absence of its sharp sting lifted a burden I didn't realize I'd been carrying.

The deep wet sounds of a body ripped apart started above me. The cacophony of my intrusion had ended, it seemed. The Marbled Maw's were content with the offering of their own dead companion. No demon was ever full, so my reprieve was temporary at best.

Dragging what I could of the remains that had made it through, I was traveling downward when the sound ended.

The Silent Maw had come through, following where their larger breather could not. In the narrow Tunnel they collided into each other. Fresh and Clumsy. They poured through until it was a wall approaching me. They would be weak, this fresh brood. I remember how frail I had been new and wet to the horrors of Hell. How could I deal with so many of them at once?

The gap closed, and they surrounded me,

[Your endurance has rewards. Beginners Tough Carapace has increased in ability.]

[Fatal Damage done to Lesser Silent Winged Maw]

They dashed in. Clawing one out of the air and another tore into my back. Their bodies pressed against me, blocking out even the ambient glow of the tunnel's core. Gashing through them, it was all I could do to keep the momentum of teeth and poison. If a dozen died, a dozen more took their place happy that my hide wept fresh rivets of blood. Each new body widened another hole, digging to the fresh red meat.

There was no rescue coming now, no mother to descend from the skies of the abyss.

Only myself and death.

[Health 75/150]

I was so much stronger than they were. So far removed from the fragile cliff hugger, christened to the taste of his own kind's flesh. Their bodies became a sea, blood pooling into the sand of the tunnel. It formed a thick paste as I wade through the remains. It was so dark under the flurry of wings and teeth.

[Health 25/150]

How, when there were so many. How was I to survive? My limbs were becoming heavy, motion slow and wooden. Where once only three or four got through, now six and seven. Eight and nine. I could not clear them off my back as they came to roost. My strength was going to fail before my health. Fighting against the inevitable onslaught I was as ignorant to my own end as the Marbled maw. Struggling against the skin of the physical world, trapped in the shadows.

My shadows.

I dropped into the flurry, one darkness replacing another, drew upon that feeling. The feeling of something else coming with me, the shadows being weak and permeable. Instead of a wall I was building a trap. The Silent Maw were happy to swarm through the shadows to their prey, bleeding and torn.

When they had, I let go, and the physical realm crashed through in all directions.

The noise returned. The Silent Maw unborn, the physical realm closing them in new sac's made of gossamer and shadow. I spring my stingers and set about my work, revitalized by the threat of life. Sharp jab, spring recoiling. One small body crushed after another.

[Fatal Damage done to Lesser Silent Winged Maw]

When the work became too much, I gorged in excess on their remains. The grit of silt and clay mixed with their tiny bodies. The crush of skulls spilling juices over my teeth was my reward for the ending of a generation of their kind.

They were too weak to pull themselves through. They would remain, trapped, until I popped them. Gaping sores between the shadows they had cast upon themselves and the reality of the tunnel. Their blood and my own formed currents, pools and eddies leading down. Leading out. If I could join this tunnel to the tunnels that branched off the domain, I would hunt the maw like livestock.

Like they had hunted me. My kindred.

I ate until I could eat no more, and still there were bodies. Still there was blood. Still I could walk among the walls, and kill them.

[Fatal Damage done to Lesser Silent Winged Maw]

But I was bleeding, and finite. There was too much to do, and not enough of me left to do it. My wounds were closing, slow and itching as I moved. The blood clotted in thick scabs, angry festers on black skin mottled by silver scars.

It was only when I had given up, and resigned myself to search for shelter, did I find that I had brought my sin with me. The corpse, unremarkable in the soup of bone and viscera, still had its heavy embryos chained. My venom had stained the sacs, a deep swirl of green and black.

And two still lived.

Their small forms pressed against their soft shells, and they twisted. Their wings drew taunt their prison and small claws finally burst through. Venom and egg pooled about their bodies as they struggled out into the tunnel.

[You have been successful in the corruption of Lesser Silent Winged Maw embryo.]

[You have created Lesser Venom Winged Maw Familiar]

[You have Unlocked Hidden System Tree: Demon Familiars]

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