Neliarax

Chapter 17—Desires

And that was the moment everything descended into absolute madness. Her weapon slashed forward so fast it appeared as if it moved faster than lightning, cutting through air itself, carving space apart before her with each strike she unleashed upon us...but Zenos managed to intercept it midair, and they clashed together with an impact that echoed throughout the cave-like chamber we were occupying—and I felt its vibrations down to the marrow of these skeletal foundations surrounding the hive....

Chapter 16—The Wraith Knight

Lilith’s spark had already vanished upward, a glimmer crawling toward the dungeon roof. It didn't matter; she had her orders. She was part of the Hive now. Our goals were the same, and I would be aware of everything that she learned, every tiny tidbit of information she gained in the outside world.

She would become invaluable sooner rather than later, and she’d show these assholes what it was like to deal with an actual cheat.

Standing next to the Core was Zenos. With each slo...

Chapter 15—Units

The Hive pulsed.

It wasn’t my imagination anymore; I saw it.

Spirit Sight opened like a second set of eyes, not in my head, but in my soul. The Hive Core was no longer just fused bone and flesh—it was a black sun, its light a storm of tendrils pouring through the cavern like rivers of shadow-fire. Every wall, every stone, every particle of marrow in the bone floor carried my threads.

And Luna…

Luna was a walking contradiction. A direwolf’s body stitched with hu...

Chapter 14—Hive Idol

 Idol

[Warning! Warning! Warning!]

[Biomass is critically low!]

[How pitiful, N-E-M-E-S-I-S, I thought you had the guts to live. Why are you just sitting there, accepting this loss? Fight back, struggle, make us enjoy it. Entertain us, you bug!]

—Fuck off.

My thoughts weren’t directed towards Luna; instead, they were pointed toward the System.

Why hadn’t she gotten rid of it? What was ...

Chapter 13—Wraiths in the Walls

She ran.

Her legs carried her swiftly and silently, her body moving with the fluid grace of a natural predator. The stone corridors blurred past her, a dizzying array of ancient ruins and forgotten pathways. Her breath came in quick, panting bursts, her chest heaving with the exertion.

Luna kept running.

The dungeon was enormous and complicated, with many dark spots and dangerous things that were difficult to see. The dungeon had many rooms, and each corridor led to a differ...

Chapter 12—Hunting in the Dungeon

The dungeon's cold, damp air clung to her fur, a constant reminder of the tomb-like atmosphere of this underground world. She padded silently, ears perked, senses keenly attuned to the subtle shifts in the air around her. She had always been a hunter, a creature of instinct and predatory cunning, but her current state was different.

Her death, the feeling of being crushed by that spore-manticore and being consumed from inside by her master… It had not just ended her life; it had trans...

Chapter 11—The Start Of The First Hive

—Hive Management

I focused my attention inward. As the system had hinted, I was no longer just a parasite. I could build something here. A place that was mine, that would shelter my Thralls and nurture my ever-hungry form. I needed to make the most of this brief reprieve.

The first decision was easy: resources.

I surveyed the cavern, my gaze falling on the remnants of the skeletal horde that had once sought to end us.

The bone would provide a foundation, a f...

Chapter 10—The Ecstasy of Hunger

The first bite was a rush.

The flesh I devoured wasn't just sustenance—it was potential. It was the promise of a new me, of something stronger and more resilient.

As I fed, I could feel myself changing, evolving. My tiny larval body was expanding, growing stronger with each bite.

The wolf’s heartbeat wasn’t separated anymore. It was mine. Every twitch of muscle, every scrape of claw—a string in the symphony that I alone conducted. My hive was my body. And my body wou...

Chapter 9—Rest and Upgrades

I had a moment of silence in the bone-strewn chamber. It wasn’t just the lack of immediate threat that allowed me this reprieve; it was also the realization of how much had changed in such a short time.

I was not the same as when I first awoke.

—Wave 1?

I was certain there were more waves of these undead things waiting to tear us apart. They would shred both me and the direwolf into tiny pieces. Yet the system hadn't yet lied.

I was alone.

The cavern...

Chapter 8—The Bone Gauntlet

I had been a pawn in this game. But now it was my turn to become the player.

As the two skeletons bore down on me, I realized it wasn’t about power. Not anymore. It was about survival. My will against their mindless aggression. As the pressure mounted, a clarity settled over my consciousness. This contest was no longer just a desperate struggle. This was a battle for the very essence of my existence.

In that instant, my entire being focused down to a single, diamond-sharp point:...

Chapter 7—The Cold Hunger

The dungeon was not like anything I could have expected. There were no flickering torches lining rough-hewn walls, no mildew stink of rot, and no damp air pressing heavy in my throat. Instead, a sterile, bone-white glow emanated from nowhere and everywhere at once, reflecting coldly off slick, smooth stone.

But the illumination wasn’t what made me shiver. It was the bones.

Every surface—floor, wall, even ceiling—was adorned with them. Not scattered, not left as carrion. No, ...

Chapter 6—The Feast Within

The manticore’s fungal mane bristled as it sensed the wrongness before it. My wolf’s lips peeled back in a grin that wasn’t its own, exposing blood-slick teeth. I flexed its claws experimentally, delighting in the grotesque marionette strings of muscle bending to my will.

Each bite wasn’t just food—it was a floodgate opening.

[Biomass +3]

[Biomass +2]

[Biomass +4]

Energy roared through me, filling every...

Chapter 5—First Quest Failure

As I sat nestled within the direwolf's muscular tissue—a stowaway on an unwilling journey—I was privy to a symphony of information, conducted not by a masterful composer but by the wolf's own primal senses.

—We're being stalked.

The direwolf had stopped in its tracks, the powerful muscles under my body coiled and taut, ready to spring into action. Through its heightened awareness, I felt the prickle of electricity dancing along its spine, the sudden, overwhelming ur...

Chapter 4—The Predator's Den

I was a parasite that had become a player. And that realization changed everything. Suddenly, the meat around me was more than a cage; it was an interface, a conduit to a larger world. One that was, for the first time since I'd woken here, knowable.

It was my megazord, a robotic vehicle in which I was the tiny controller, the pilot at its heart. If I could just figure out how to see outside of the fleshy walls that encased me, then maybe, just maybe, I could start to make some kind of s...

Chapter 3—Gamer of Flesh

The words hovered in front of me, cold and expectant.

[System Message]

Congratulations, [Player Name: ¿?], your Hunger Meter has been reset.

Please select your preferred User Name.

In a flash, everything shifted.

I'd eaten, and I'd gained health. And now, the system was pushing me further down this rabbit hole, asking for a player name, confirming that this was some sort of twisted, fucked up, horrific video gam...

Chapter 2—Hunger

My stomach is cramped. An empty ache quickly gave way to a rumble. The sensation cut through my confusion and fear like a knife, leaving behind only one singular truth. No matter who I was or had been, right then, hunger was all that mattered.

I shuddered and clenched against the feeling. But the need was unrelenting, gnawing at the depths of my body, demanding its satisfaction. As the ache intensified, my mouth—if I could even call it that—began to water.

A larva. That was th...

Chapter 1: The Warm Dark

Awake.

Awareness hit like a freight train, a jolting realization of self. I was alive, sentient. But it wasn't a soft wake in a warm bed. That moment was harsh and sudden, like a plunge into ice water.

The darkness was everywhere, an impenetrable blanket that my mind could not pierce. My eyes—assuming I even had such things anymore—refused to obey my mental commands to open. Instead, I blinked uselessly against the unending void, a void that felt oddly warm and moist, pressing...

Chapter 15 — Hymn Of The Broken Mirror

It was the sound of raindrops that filled the silence in front of The Author, the patter of water against glass. It was the sound of a symphony, an orchestra of a thousand notes, playing a song that had been written in the stars themselves, in a language that was as old as the universe.

"So, you chose not to play my ending. Again." The Author spoke, breaking the stillness of the room with his words. "And instead, you gambled on the future of a few broken mortals."

He could not hel...

Chapter 14 — Checkmate

"There are names that burn like fire, and names that vanish like smoke. But only one name is carved into the silence itself." — Echo Of The First Monarch.

The Queen of Broken Mirrors had returned to face The Author, leaving the two boys to their fate—whatever it might have been. As she stood in the mirror realm, she could feel her connection to her mortal body slipping. It would not be long now before she would have to relinquish control over the Nameless soul that had been...

Chapter 13 — The Gospel of the Shattered

Footsteps, breath, the scrape of staff—each sound folded shut, one by one, until only their pulses remained. Then even that softened. Dust hung undecided and settled. Cold pooled at their ankles; the air thinned like a held note.

The floor looked back at them—stone turned to mirrors—and in that stillness they saw her, golden and waiting.

Throughout the remains of her shattered influence, she had made herself a sanctuary from the storm—a realm untouched by his red ...

Chapter 12 — The One Who Witnessed

He began to twirl his staff. Then he spun it around himself, his form blurring as the staff cut the air with a chilling whistle, each movement precise and powerful. The wind from his spinning weapon morphed into wind blades, sharp and lethal, flying in multiple directions at the two boys. JB and Basim were barely able to evade them, their exhaustion making their movements clumsy.

For the briefest instant, they glimpsed their own deaths—not as metaphor, but in vivid, surgical clarity:<...

Chapter 11 — The Witness of Witnesses

In front of the duo, a lone man in an ancient garb walked in, the door of the room closing behind him, and he looked at the duo with curious, yet calm, golden eyes that seemed to have witnessed many a storm, many a battle, and many a tragedy through his marble mask. "You're still alive." He muttered to himself.

"I thought your purpose was to help me achieve my goals." Basim told him. "What happened?"

"It was. However, there are things that are beyond the control of a mere mortal l...

Chapter 10 — "The Storyteller"

"Splendid." The word slid out of the author's lips, a snake-like whisper of twisted delight that echoed across the shattered remnants of his own creation. "I did not expect less of you," he clapped, the gesture of approval reverberating throughout the fragmented void, each clapping a punctuation of admiration amidst the wreckage of what was once a carefully constructed world, "You truly exceeded my expectations."

With the shattered pieces of his creation dancing around him, the Author e...

Chapter 9 — Insight

When we're young, we tend to think that our lives are special, unique, and important. We feel that the story that is being woven is about us, and only us, that the spotlight shines on our existence, and on our struggles and triumphs.

But, the sad, cold truth is that none of that is real. Our stories aren't ours. We're merely the latest chapter, and in a way, the least interesting part, in the grand book of humanity, a long and winding tale of countless souls, and countless ...