The entity resting in the heart of the dungeon did not measure its passage.
Only the void within it served as a metronome, a hollowness that grew inexorably, demanding to be filled. After assimilating the Cavern Crawler, its body had acquired a new solidity.
Plates of smooth, black chitin now protected its torso and formless limbs, a stolen armor that gleamed faintly under the glow of the spectral mushrooms.
Its form was more coherent, less amorphous, and a new ease allowed it to slide across the stone should the desire or need arise.
But the need did not arise.
People will say the primary instinct, that of energy conservation, dictated stillness.
To remain there.
To wait.
To be a simple thing in a world of things that move, that hunt, that die.
A piece of flesh abandoned in the darkness, nothing more.
A bait.
The silence of the dungeon was never complete. It was woven with distant and indecipherable sounds: the regular and sinister dripping of water seeping through unseen ceilings, the rustle of chitinous wings in a faraway gallery, the occasional scratching of claws on rock.
The air, heavy and saturated with humidity, carried complex scents of decay, damp minerals, and molds with strangely sweet undertones.
Here and there, clumps of phosphorescent lichen cast a spectral glow, painting the cavern walls with dancing and deceptive shapes. The thing had no eyes to appreciate this spectacle, but it felt the light as a different kind of warmth, an abnormal vibration in the darkness.
A hoarse hiss tore through the silence.
The Anakon emerged from a side tunnel, its four powerful legs carrying it with reptilian agility. Its skin, thick as leather and a dirty verdigris green, was covered in small scales that did not shine, but instead absorbed the faint ambient light.
A little over two meters long, it was the dominant predator of this sector. Its yellow eyes, complete with vertical pupils, scanned the surroundings with territorial confidence.
It had just chased a giant rodent out of its territory and was now returning to its nest, a deeper alcove where it kept the carcasses of its prey.
It was on its way back that it stopped short. Its massive body froze. Its forked tongue flicked from its maw, tasting the air. A scent. A scent of life, but a scent it did not know. It was neither one of its usual preys, nor one of its rivals. It was something else.
Its gaze landed on the inert mass near a colony of mushrooms. It hadn't moved. It hadn't fled at its approach. For the Anakon, anything that did not flee was either a threat or food. This thing did not smell like a threat.
Driven by a predatory curiosity, it approached slowly. It sniffed the thing. The scent was neutral, almost sterile under the layer of chitin.
Intrigued and annoyed by this anomaly in its territory, it decided to test it. With a swift movement, it lashed out with one of its forelegs, its three sharp claws aiming for the center of the mass.
CRACK!
A sharp, metallic sound, like a blade striking a shield, echoed in the cavern. The Anakon's claws, capable of shredding rock, had barely scratched the black chitin plates. The thing was thrown a few meters but remained intact.
The reptile hissed, surprised and now furious. Its prey had defended itself, even passively. It was an insult. It gave it no time to "react," not suspecting it was incapable of doing so. It opened its jaw wide, much wider than its head, and this time, it did not strike. It snatched.
Its short teeth, designed to hold, sank into the fleshy parts between the chitin plates. It lifted the creature from the ground and, with a violent contraction of its neck, swallowed it in one go.
The thing slid down its gullet, heavy and inert. Satisfied, the Anakon let out a sonorous belch. Problem solved. It resumed its path toward its nest, its belly full of a strange but substantial meal.
It never reached its destination.
After about ten meters, it stopped, an abnormal burning sensation rising in its stomach. This was not the usual digestion.
It was a violent cramp, an inner fire that seemed to travel up its esophagus. It let out a pained hiss and tried to regurgitate, to empty itself of this thing that was gnawing at it. In vain.
The swallowed creature had begun its work. Its nature as a parasite, a biological solvent, activated upon contact with the reptile's potent life energy.
The assimilation was underway.
The Anakon collapsed to the ground, its legs thrashing in the void. Its body was seized by convulsions so violent that its head repeatedly struck the stone.
Steam began to escape from its open maw. Its solid, verdigris-green skin started to pale, to bloat in places, as if being boiled from the inside. I
t clawed at its own belly in a gesture of animal panic, its claws tearing its own scales, but the pain wasn't coming from the surface. It came from the core of its being.
Its muscles liquefied. Its bone structure softened. In less than a minute, the formidable predator was nothing more than a heap of twitching flesh, a grotesque shell decomposing at a supernatural speed.
Finally, with a last wet gurgle, everything that constituted the Anakon melted into a greenish, fuming sludge, leaving behind only a few fragments of scales and an acrid smell.
From the center of the organic puddle, a new form pulled itself up.
A wider, lower mass emerged, an abomination of gray flesh and black chitin. It was not a bipedal silhouette. It was a heap of powerful muscles and protective plates, bristling with several reptilian appendages that twisted and stretched.
At the end of some of these limbs, the claws stolen from the Anakon scraped the stone, testing their new solidity. The creature did not stand. It crept, dragging itself across the ground with frightening speed, a horrific mix of a reptile's slide and an insect's crawl.
Its body was stabilized, more complete, more resilient.
But the void within it had become an abyss.
The energy it now emitted was no longer that of a simple anomaly. It was a complex life signature, a mix of several essences, a shining beacon in the ocean of the dungeon's primitive energies.
And that glimmer, far more intense than before, did not go unnoticed. It crossed the planes, transcended matter, and alerted an entirely different form of predator.
In the ethereal corners where lost souls serve as currency, a shadow woven from whispers and regrets turned its immaterial attention.
It had sensed something.
A soul. A nascent soul, incredibly empty and yet radiant with a raw, complex life energy.
A perfect prey. An anomaly to be devoured.
The Soul Reaper began its hunt.