The underground forest was covered in a thick shroud of darkness. It was as if the realm itself was colored over by a layer of charcoal, unrelenting in blotting out any and all vestiges of light. An area of complete silence, as the monsters that inhabited it remained completely silent, aware of the predator in their midst.

Him.

Lukas sat perched atop a boulder, his pupils extremely dilated from Internal Lifeforce Manipulation to grant him sight in the darkness. In spite of the velvety blackness ensconcing him, he felt more aware than ever as he perceived everything within the range of his Scan function with a sensitivity that far exceeded his normal capacity.

Lifeforce surged through him, sending his body into high alert. He could feel the movements of the flower petals on the walls, the skittering of tiny feet across muddy grounds, the controlled beats of his own pulsating heart. Adrenaline filled his veins as the anticipation of the hunt gave him jitters.

Tonight, a predator would be made prey. He would quench his thirst with its blood. He’d satisfy his hunger with its flesh. He’d devour his prey.

Time slowed to a grinding halt, as the air itself seemed to become stagnant. Stale. Dense.

His knuckles turned bone-white as he clenched the hilt of his dagger, his muscles coiling as his power slowly grew. And then, without thinking, without stopping, he zoomed through the forest to precisely where his prey would be at the moment.

Fifty meters.

He sped up.

Twenty meters.

He could feel the vibrations in the ground beneath him— vibrations caused by a creature he wanted to hunt. That he would hunt.

Just a little more.

The monster slumbering in the darkness finally began to stir. It had smelled the putrid, decaying flesh of the anomaly’s other monsters. As it rose, chitinous scales rubbed together as its near-infinite tubules contorted into each other. It slowly began to dig through the ground, raising its hundred-fanged maw to devour whatever prey awaited.

With practiced ease, Lukas held the dagger right in front of his chest, its sharp edge facing outward to tear through the monster’s hard exoskeleton in one sharp blow.

He leaped.

The khorkhoi let out a bone-chilling screech.

Earlier…

“I don’t get it,” Lukas frowned, his countenance completely puzzled. “I kill monsters, I gain experience, and then I level up. So what’s this Anima stuff got to do with it?”

Inanna merely sighed, just as she always did when he said something irritating, foolish, or just plain dumb. Which was, apparently, all the time.

“You recall the Origin, yes?”

Of course he remembered that thing. Lukas was pretty sure that even if he forgot everything else in his life, he’d never get that incomprehensible image out of his brain. Well, that and Inanna’s face, but there was no need to say that aloud.

Her ego was large enough as it was. Any more, and the universe would run into a spatial problem.

The goddess knowingly smirked. “Allow me to diminish the idea so your mortal mind can comprehend it. The Universe is akin to a pendulum, swaying between two opposing extremes. On one end is Formless Infinity— a state of undifferentiated Unity, the one and only absolute. On the other end is the Infinity of Forms— the cosmos, life, matter, non-matter. Nothing that has Form is unchanging. It is always relative. The path between Formless Infinity and Infinity of Forms is what is known as Creation.”

Lukas nodded, pretending to fully understand what the hell she was talking about. “So the Origin is…”

“The closest to true Formless Infinity. It possesses all possible qualities and attributes, while each being in this Universe possesses a limited number of qualities and attributes. The self-identification of one’s Ego with a set of attributes is what is known as Anima.”

“Ego, you say?” Lukas instantly thought back to the Freudian principles he was taught in his college psychology class. Somehow, he doubted it was the same thing.

“Your consciousness. Your self-identity. Your Name.”

Not Freudian then.

If the goddess heard his thoughts aloud, she didn’t comment on them.

“So if the Origin possesses all possible attributes, then it means it has all the… anima too?”

The goddess beamed.

“Yes. It is the Supreme Anima in Existence. The Creator. The one true God, if you will.”

No matter how much he heard her waxing lyrical about the so-called Origin, Lukas could never get past the surrealism of Inanna referring to something else as the GOD. All caps. A part of him wanted to point that out to her, but something told him it wouldn’t be conducive to his good health.

“The greater one’s individuality, the greater one’s Anima. So a flower, despite being a living thing, possesses a lesser Anima than say… a mortal such as yourself. Although not by much.”

Lukas was fairly certain she was just saying that. He certainly hoped to have more Anima than a plant.

“Take the issue of what you mortals coin as disease. An organism enters your body and tries to make alterations to your being. The intruder’s Anima differs significantly in sophistication to your own, and is thus incapable of assuming control of your physiological functions. This conflict is what manifests as a physical disease. If any part of your body rebels against the Host Anima’s domination and seeks to proliferate itself with the new Anima, the result is a maleficar.”

“Cancer,” Lukas muttered. Though the words Inanna used were foreign to him, the idea wasn’t. When a cell in your body acted out of the norm and began to divide more than it should, it formed a tumor. A… maleficar, as Inanna had put it.

“Yes. Cancer. But be it external or internal, physical disease is always an onslaught on one’s Anima.”

Lukas wondered what his world’s doctors would make of her theory. But he remained silent, opting to absorb every word she uttered.

“Conversely, if the wraith of another human were to possess you, the sophistication between the host and intruder Anima would be far lesser. In this case, the disease would not just be physical, but also mental and spiritual.”

“I get all that, but what does this have to do with this so-called ritual you want me to do?”

Inanna folded her arms behind her back. “It is an ancient Akkadian coming-of-age practice. After any warrior attained a modicum of skill—” the irony that all he’d endured barely earned him a modicum of skill was not lost on him— “they sought out a powerful beast with useful skills. And then consumed it.”

“Consumed? As in… hunted and ate the creature?”

“Consumed. Devoured. Absorbed. Take your pick.”

The slight irritation in her voice was practically palpable to his senses. Lukas decided it was unwise to constantly interrupt her.

“An ordinary kill only brings you experience. The soul of the prey returns to the World to be reforged into something else. But if you devour something, you consume the Soul itself. You gain no experience, but the soul of the prey becomes a part of the predator. A part of you. And with its soul comes its skills, its power, its Anima.”

“Consumption,” Lukas murmured. He was finally beginning to understand how it tied together. If he went ahead with this ritual, he’d not only be killing a powerful creature, but he'd also be devouring it. He’d be opening himself up to the monster’s Anima. And that meant—

Oh, hell.

“May I ask why it was considered a standard Akkadian practice to welcome a monster into one’s head and risk becoming a raving psychopath?”

Obviously, he wasn’t sure what exactly possession by a monster would do to his mental state, but ‘raving psychopath’ seemed like a fairly educated guess in his opinion.

Knowing Inanna, it was bound to be something far worse.

“Dominating the monster’s Anima is as much a part of the ritual as is slaying its physical shell. That is why you cannot, will not, and should not receive any aid when fighting this monster. You, and you alone, must fell the beast.”

Lukas’s brows furrowed. “And what’s so wrong with weakening some nasty top-tier monster with that crazy lightning-fire spell of yours and just letting me cast the killing blow?”

“If you can’t slay its physical form by your own merits, what chance do you have to dominate its Anima on a spiritual level?”

That stopped him short.

“The stronger your self-identification, the greater your power in the spiritual realm. You must kill its physical form first, then dominate its Anima. In doing so, you gain its skills, its abilities and its Presence. You become more.”

Lukas’s eyes widened. Based on all the monsters he’d encountered in this forest— and all the scary ones he probably hadn’t yet —he could certainly see the benefits of this kind of ritual. “And then I can use its skills whenever I want?”

“No.”

He gaped. “What?!”

Inanna smiled. “The skills belong to the fallen monster, mortal. Not you. Never you.”

Lukas opened his mouth, and then promptly closed it.

“I don’t understand,” he finally admitted.

“When you devour a creature, you consume its soul as it is. Everything that makes it what it is. It does not break. It does not shatter. It does not get split into parts. If you wish to make use of its abilities, you must allow the creature to come into focus. Allow it reign over your physical shell. And when its task is complete, you must push it back to the depths from which it arose.”

“And,” Lukas gulped, “what happens if you can’t?”

The maniacal gleam in her eyes didn’t help assuage his fears in the slightest. “You become a monster in human flesh. One who looks human, but follows the rules of the beast within you. The beast may quite possibly go on a rampage, continuing on until someone ends it for good or you have slaughtered everyone in sight.”

His eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

The goddess only grinned further. “That spell of mine you are so enthralled with is the breath of the apocalyptic dragon, Mušmaḫḫū, whose strength and skill resides in even this paltry reflection of me.”

Lukas let out a heavy breath. Finally, finally, he could see the stairs through which he could begin to attain power. Real power, not unlike the spell Inanna had used back when they first met. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was how he would finally meet his end.

Outfight a monstrosity, killing it without aid. And then succumb to it in some astral spirit battle.

But still, the risk would be worth it.

“Tell me one thing,” he replied, surprising himself. “This… devouring of Anima. Souls. Whatever. Is this how one eventually becomes a superior being? Is it how one becomes…”

He paused, unsure of how to phrase it well.

“Finish the thought, Lukas Aguilar.”

“God,” he breathed reverently. “Is it how one becomes a god?”

“No.”

Lukas started. “It’s… not?”

She shook her head, her silky hair flowing along with the motion and temporarily distracting him. “This ritual, this process of ascension, is a way to take in the Anima of another being. You can absorb every living creature and still remain just that. A mortal.”

“Then how?” Lukas gasped. “How did you do it? How did you abandon your shackles and become what you are?”

Soft chuckles reverberated throughout his mindscape. And in the midst of it all stood Inanna, staring right at him. Really staring at him. For a brief moment, it looked as if something terrible shone in her eyes. Finally, she opened her mouth to answer.

“A conversation you are far from ready for—”

Soft mulberry lips stretched apart, revealing the gleaming, perfect white teeth hidden underneath.

“—mortal.”

Back To The Present…

A khorkhoi.

Not so long ago, it had been the monster that had facilitated his encounter with Inanna, forcing him to bind himself in chains he’d never consider otherwise. But today, it was the creature he chose to face. To hunt down. To claim its corpse as his own.

To devour it.

The symbolism of his life in this anomaly coming full circle wasn’t lost on Lukas. It was one of the reasons why Inanna had been so approving of his choice. But as fitting as it was, it wasn’t the only reason for it. He could ponder more about that later— right now, he had to deal with the ferocious beast in front of him.

The khorkhoi stirred in the darkness, and it was only thanks to Lukas’s amplified vision that he was able to pick up the monster’s motions. He picked up the pace, hefting his dagger right in front of him.

The khorkhoi rose.

Lukas leaped.

Metal met chitin.

The first layer of its body fractured with frightening ease, and the monster let out a horrifying screech as it twisted around itself. What was initially a layer of chitin was now a criss-crossed transverse reticulum of scales, interlocking into one another like a puzzle that never stayed still. Despite rendering the tail useless, Lukas couldn’t pull out the dagger in time. He cursed as he felt his weapon get trapped inside the ever-contracting layer of scales, and kicked against the creature’s hide with as much force as he could.

It was a mistake.

The ground beneath his feet abruptly exploded. Lukas could feel a thick, strong cable wrapping around his ankle and pulling on him. And then suddenly, he was falling as the khorkhoi’s hideous stench assaulted his nostrils and sense of smell. He crashed against the misshapen ground, only to roll over just in time to avoid being squashed.

It wasn’t enough.

Something swept against the floor, and suddenly Lukas felt a hundred different things— debris, broken rock, detritus —all slam into him all at once, forcibly pounding the wind out of his lungs.

For a few seconds, Lukas lay stunned on the ground, struggling to remember how to breathe.

And then, he felt something move underground.

Panicking, he rolled over once more, and the floor exploded again as a massive, scaly tail erupted outwards. Pushing his palms against the ground, he shot lifeforce downward, propelling himself up into the air. Quicker than one could say ‘the late Lukas Aguilar’, the monster’s tail came at him once more, this time aiming for the face.

Thump! Thump!

With iron-clad control, Lukas suppressed his panic as Tachypsychia began settling in. He quickly drew another dagger from his belt and flipped it around, holding it straight in front of him.

The monster’s momentum did the rest.

This time, the metal ripped through the monster’s scales, tearing through tissue and slime alike. Flipping his hold on the dagger, he held it in reverse-grip and grinned.

Thump!

Burst! he internally yelled.

A wave of raw kinetic force ragdolled him, and the dagger along with him, tearing through the tail until there was a gaping hole in the middle of it. The creature hissed and screeched and trashed, the now-torn tail swaying around in apoplectic rage.

“Hah!” Lukas breathed. “That just leaves your head—”

Before he could finish, a third tail coiled around his leg and pulled him upwards as a fourth wrapped itself around his neck.

Third? Fourth? Is this really a khorkhoi?

Khorkhoi didn’t have multiple tails. Hell, the one Inanna had defeated was a long creature with a tapering end, one that arguably looked like a tail from a certain angle. But this? This was just—

The thought perished midway as the khorkhoi’s scaled appendage began to contract around his throat, its terrifying strength cutting off all airflow.

Well, fuck.