Clive sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor. There was no light except for the faint reflections seeping through cracks in the ceiling stones. The air carried the damp scent of metal and old dust, clinging thinly to his tongue with every breath he drew. The room had been forgotten for years, hidden behind stacks of rusted metal crates coated with a thick layer of dust. No sound existed other than the occasional drip of water falling from the stone crevices, forming a slow rhythm that never truly broke the silence.
In his lap, the small monster core pulsed like a foreign heart refusing to stop. The deep blue light inside it shifted slowly, rising and falling like the breath of a creature still struggling to live. Each pulse cast faint glows upon Clive's fingers, making thin shadows dance across his skin.
Clive stared at the object without blinking.
There was a subtle pressure. Like a gaze coming from behind its rounded surface. As if something was waiting for him to make a mistake.
He drew a long breath. The air slid into him like shards of ice scraping his throat. His heartbeat was slightly faster than usual, but still controlled. There was no clear fear. Only tension building at the base of his neck, pulling the muscles of his shoulders tighter than they should be.
The scroll he had read earlier remained open beside him. Cracked handwriting, razor-sharp diagram lines, rigid explanations that gave no room for misinterpretation. Coreforge was no breathing technique.
It was surgery conducted from within, performed without tools. With the risk of death.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Not to calm himself, but to clear the faint whispering at the back of his mind. When he opened them again, his fingertips moved to touch the surface of the core.
Cold.
Not ordinary cold. Not the cold of the room. The object seemed to drain warmth from his skin, replacing it with a foreign temperature that did not belong to the real world. A faint pulse throbbed beneath its surface. Like a creature holding in a long growl.
Clive shifted the core into both hands. The surface was smooth, yet not like stone or metal. More like the hardened skin of something once alive.
He inhaled again and focused his awareness inward.
Slowly.
Tracing muscles and tendons. Following the flow of blood through arteries. Feeling the rhythm of his heart pounding against his chest walls. Brushing the edges of his internal organs the way someone might explore a dark room with their hands, trying to understand its shape.
Until he found that point.
The empty center.
A dark space with no temperature, no color. Silent. Still in a way unlike any other part of the human body. As if humans were born with a room waiting to be filled by something that never belonged to them.
He touched that point with his awareness.
The space flickered gently. As if responding. As if opening an eye.
Clive opened his physical eyes.
The core looked different. Its blue light denser. Its pulse more stable. The surface seemed to tighten and relax in rhythm with his heartbeat.
He lifted the object to the level of his solar plexus. His upper arms tensed. His breath held halfway. The room seemed to shrink, narrowing into a single point between the core and his body.
When he lowered the core directly before that empty center, the world moved.
As if a thin string had been pulled taut.
Clive's body jolted.
The first tremor came from his lower abdomen. It spread to his lower ribs, climbed up his sternum, then snapped into his shoulders and neck like a freezing current.
The core responded.
Its blue light dimmed. Then flared again. Brighter. Piercing through the spaces between Clive's fingers, casting jagged, broken shadows across the walls like a creature trying to escape the stone.
The room grew colder.
The core's energy touched the empty center.
Clive felt it instantly.
Like sharp claws entering an internal organ. One rough movement. One short tug that felt as though it was trying to drag his inner self out of its place. The muscles in his abdomen tightened uncontrollably. His body shifted a fraction of an inch, unintentional.
The core began to tremble violently.
Both his hands shook. His grip nearly slipped. The blue energy writhed, searching for an escape through any gap in the merging process.
If the core fell now, its energy would explode wildly, destroying his organs long before his body hit the floor.
He bit the inside of his cheek. Blood seeped onto his tongue. His awareness stayed sharp.
The energy entered.
The first stream pierced skin and tissue like a heated needle. It crawled from his abdomen to his ribs. The blood in his veins reacted with an unnatural current. The rhythm changed. No longer following his heart. More like matching the core's growing pulse.
Clive's heartbeat staggered.
Stopped for a moment.
Then began a new pattern. Heavier. Deeper. Slower, yet far stronger.
A metallic taste filled his mouth. Bitter. Thickening on his tongue. Until something faint appeared behind it. A thin sweetness that should not exist.
The core began to melt.
But not like liquid.
More like light melting. Thin blue streams seeped from the object into Clive's body, passing through his skin without sound or trace.
The scroll had warned about this moment.
Right before a monster core dissolved, its will would emerge.
Not a mind.
Not intelligence.
Just the last remnants of life refusing to sink.
Clive sensed it the moment the first stream entered.
His body felt struck by a cold surge.
His lower back tightened.
His vision fractured.
And the world cut away.
In a single blink, he stood in a dark forest… a forest that made no sense.
Its leaves were stiff, hanging like sheets of brittle paper about to collapse but held in place by something unseen. The ground beneath him was as cold as ash. No wind. No sound. No direction.
Light came from nowhere.
Shadows appeared from nothing.
Everything felt wrong.
Clive steadied his breathing.
His body, or whatever form his consciousness took here, felt like a thin cluster of light pulled at the waist. Muscles that should exist were now only sensations of pressure.
Among the black trees, something moved.
The small creature.
Another version of the one he had killed.
Its body was too thin, as if its flesh had been sucked to the bone.
Its color dark like dried soot.
Its eyes… empty. Not dark in shade, but hollow, like a hole leading to a place with no end.
The smell of iron burst from the creature's body, sharp and thick enough that Clive felt it stabbing into the base of his throat.
The creature breathed.Each inhale made the forest pulse.Trees shifted a few centimeters closer.The ground's roots trembled softly.
Clive moved a finger.A pale light coated his skin, steady yet fragile.An odd pressure formed in his chest, like a second voice trying to crawl up his throat, forcing itself to think along with him.
The creature lifted its head.
Those empty eyes pierced into him, as if they had found the most vulnerable part of Clive's being.
Then the creature moved.
No steps.No weight.No momentum.
It slid forward.Suddenly.Like a shadow being pulled ahead.Claws grew from its arms, long and thin, reflecting light that shouldn't even exist here. Its mouth opened slightly, revealing small wet fangs.
Clive felt the temperature shift on his skin.The false air cut past his cheek in a sudden, rapid slice.
The creature grew larger.Or its shadow stretched.Hard to tell. This place had no rules.
The trees trembled.
Clive raised his hand.It wasn't flesh and bone anymore but the shape of his consciousness.Thin light, fragile, yet moving with precise intent.
He caught the attack.
Not the creature's physical body, but its will.Raw energy seeking to pierce, tear, and overtake.
Pain shot through Clive's arm.Deep pain, stabbing from the center of the bone, spreading to his nape, then behind his eyes.The creature's claws scraped against the light of his skin, leaving fracture lines that crawled like shattered crystal.
The creature came closer until Clive could smell the metallic stench of its breath.Its growl was low, the sound of a beast that knew it was dying but refused to bow.
The pressure in Clive's head grew stronger.Long invisible fingers pressed against his memories, trying to pry their way in.
Clive held his breath.Not out of fear,but because his form, whatever it truly was in this place, was trembling as if it might shake loose from itself.
The creature pushed again.Harder.Its claws dug deeper into Clive's light.
The pain was crude.Sharp.Directionless.
Clive gripped the creature's will more tightly.His fingers closed slowly, forcing its form to stabilize within his grasp.
The first crack appeared in the creature's eye.A thin light, like the line of a fractured glass surface.
The creature screamed.But the sound didn't come from its mouth.It came from its entire body.Trees bent low.Shadows on the ground quivered.The strange light of the forest dimmed.
The cracks spread quickly.
From the eye.To the head.To the chest.Across its entire body.
Forming a pattern like a mirror struck by a hammer.
The creature thrashed.Its will tried to shatter Clive's hold.But Clive inhaled slowly.
A voice rose inside his head.His own voice.Harsh, like metal being forced through narrow space.
This is my body.
The creature shattered.
It broke into fragments of shadow drifting like dark ash.All the pieces floated upward.Then extinguished.As if they had never existed.
The forest collapsed with them.Trees melted into dark stains.The ground vanished beneath his feet.The light was torn from the sky.
Everything ripped apart in a blink.
Darkness.
Then light returned from another direction.
Clive was hurled back into his own body.His awareness snapped into place.His heart resumed beating.His lungs reopened.
His breath caught. His chest rose and fell violently. Cold sweat traced from his temples to his jaw.
The core in his hands was half-melted. Its blue light seeped into him like cold smoke.
The creature was defeated.
But his body was only beginning to suffer.
The energy struck his heart.
Clive's heart convulsed. Its rhythm chaotic. As if it wanted to stop. Or burst. Blue ribbons of energy slammed the organ from the inside. His body bent forward without him realizing. The pain was too deep to curse, too vast to suppress.
He coughed hard. Blood spilled out, warm on his tongue.
His spine tightened. Vertebrae seemed forced apart. Small cracking sounds echoed faintly inside him. The muscles of his back trembled like wires pulled too tight.
His blood boiled.
He clutched the floor. Sharp gravel tore his palms, but the sensation barely reached his mind.
The core's energy was larger than what a human body could contain.
Wilder. Heavier.
Clive held his breath. He redirected the flow toward his center. Forcing his organs not to rupture.
Then something tore inside him.
Slowly.
Like a thin curtain being ripped by a cold wind.
Clive jerked.
His breath stopped.
The world flashed white.
And not far from Clive, three people felt the world shift.
Outside the room, three others sensed it as well.
Ted raised his head. Zorilla turned sharply. Dorde straightened despite his bandaged shoulder.
The temperature dropped.
Air was pulled toward a single point behind the metal crates.
And they heard a heartbeat.
Clive's heartbeat.
Deep. Heavy. Echoing like a drum strike in a hollow cavern.
Ted swallowed.
What is that…
No one answered.
Because the sound grew stronger.
And the air grew thinner.
Clive drew his first breath as his new self.
Air rushed in too quickly, filling his lungs as if there were more space inside them than before. The sensation stabbed across his chest, cold like wet metal pressed against skin. He blinked several times, trying to adjust to the light that now felt sharper than any blade.
The stone chamber looked different.
Fine lines on the walls that were once faint now appeared clear, each crack having its own shadow. Dust drifting from above moved slowly, each particle floating as if alive.
Clive's bones still vibrated.
Rhythmic, deep tremors, like distant impacts echoing from beneath the earth.
He looked down.
Arms that should have been covered in bruises… were clean.The tension in his chest was gone.The heat from old wounds had vanished.
He pressed the palm that had been torn open earlier.The skin was smooth.The veins beneath it pulsed steadily, thicker and stronger.
Every sensation entered his body with new intensity.The pulse.The flex of his muscles.The flow of air.
All layered, all deeply felt.
He felt his strength.
Everything was different. His movements lighter, his blood flowing faster. His body felt not just stronger, but denser, steadier, solid like the foundation of stone.
He curled his fist slowly.
Even that small motion revealed the new power hidden beneath his skin.
He lifted his hand, staring at it.
The once-wild blue energy now sat calmly within his center, flowing gently through his tissues, reinforcing and refining every inch of him.
He exhaled a long breath.
This change… was extraordinary.