I was blind, pressed tight by rocks in all directions, probably some twenty feet below the ground. And a window in my sight told me something aimed to kill me. It could be anything from an insect to a ghost to another snake. Anything could come out and kill me.

I think fate doomed me into this spot. Making the cave ceiling crumble had been my only choice. Anything else would result in certain death, in a stupidly-strong chimp wrapping his palm around my head and crushing me.

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Urgent Quest

Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source.

Failure will lead to death.

Success will lead to 2 000 XP.

_____

Before I did anything else I opened the system and slotted in the unassigned points I had.

___

Stat Page

Current Species: Kimp

Active Title: Blind Sheep

Total Power Level: 79

Level = 25

Level Up = 80/72 000 Xp

Unallocated stat points: 8

Strength: 1

Agility: 1

Intellect: 10

Magical Aptitude: 0

Stamina: 9

Toughness: 11

Vitality: 2

Skills: Primal Adaptation, Average Telekinesis

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I contemplated the topic. Eight points were a lot. Each investment I’d made had paid out a lot. The toughness investment radically changed my skin, and the magical aptitude allowed me magic. However, I need a stat which will help me against whatever enemy I can’t see right now. If I could survive its strike, then I’d know here to aim my psychic powers. I needed health, so I put everything into Vitality.

I suffered. My body screamed as if flames enveloped every single cell on my body. The only thing convincing me it wasn’t actually fire was the complete lack of heat, but instead the opposite, a cold, vigorous, breath of life forced itself into me. If I jumped into a fire made out of ice, I imagine I’d feel the same but slightly better.

Before I had a chance to regret my decision the pain stopped. I was left alone in the void once more.

Silence. The pain disappeared in one gasp leaving me alone to the void. All I could do was wait for time to pass and for whatever creature that targeted me to attack. Anxiety slowly built up, tingling at the edges of my heart.

Am I dead? The thought ambushed me, leaving me dazed. Perhaps it was a mix of the void, and the lack of signals which caused it. Death was probably like this. But I didn’t think I’d died now, but rather back when the devil sent me to the overworld.

I couldn’t believe I was the one to survive the experiment. The idea that some ancient bloodline just welled up within me out of nowhere was too good to be true. I was just an imp, nothing more than insect food in the world of hell. Yet I’d been the one to survive it.

Could this all be a dream? Maybe I’d died that moment, on the devil’s floor, and my body was being licked by a human at this very moment. Maybe everything I’ve gone through up until now has been my brain simulating what I’d hoped to be my dream.

Yeah, that made sense. I mean the idea that the primal devil would speak to me is just silly.

Pain brought me out of that thought spiral, which took a nosedive for the worse. It was a sharp pain coming from the wire which connected to one of my spikes. I felt a bit of relief as panic flushed out of my system, and adrenaline replaced it.

My first instinct was to jerk and move my eyes, but as I sent out the physic force, I heard only rocks tumbling. I realized that a faulty cast of my psychic powers might hit the rocks supporting this little space I was in, and it could result with me being crushed.

I had to be careful.

The pain continued to ache on the same spot, except it traveled upwards towards my head. I wondered if I was being eaten. What creature was this? It must be able to eat in such a small space. Could it be an insect perhaps?

I sent out a cut, the same I’d learned practicing against that tree, towards the pain, but it didn’t seize. Instead I felt another pain, one coming from the other wire connected to the spike. I tried to attack again with my physic powers, it was all I could do, but it didn’t work.

I remember the time when I was a child. My father hit me a lot. I think it’s because he was weak. It’s only natural for imps, who are constantly abused because of their weakness, to want to do so onto other imps who are weaker then them. I was a prime target considering that I wouldn’t strike him back because I cared for him. So he hit my blood day in and day out, and I lost all of my teeth by the time I was two years old.

The only reason I’m still alive is because my mother killed him. It wasn’t an act done for me. I don’t really know why she did it. I could guess many reasons. Perhaps a demon took control of her, or maybe she’d grown tired of him, or maybe she just wanted to kill something stronger.

That’s an urge in imps too. Hitting on weaker was satisfying in some way, but beating somebody stronger tops that in every way imaginable. It’s like comparing rotten meat to fresh meat. Of course, fresh meat took a lot more pain to get, and as an imp, most of the time it got you.

I sent out another psychic attack towards the pain. It didn’t stop. Either it was immune to psychic attacks or this wasn’t an insect but something else entirely.

I wondered about what it could be. If it wasn’t an insect the options were limited. Not because they actually were but rather, I didn’t know of any other options. But I guess that didn’t matter. As long as I could kill it that didn’t matter.

My psychic attacks didn’t work, and my summon wouldn’t come back. I needed to use the other skills I had. Primal Adaptation had to be my saving grace. I had no other cards to play. I was still too weak.

I’d increased my vitality and my toughness, making my body increase in strength. It should be possible for me to do things that weren’t possible before.

Yes. Now I got it. I could direct the attacks onto myself. If I struggle to survive, then according to my own skill, my body should mutate making me stronger.

Of course if this doesn’t work, I’d just die. It would be hard to rip into myself with telekinesis and then have nothing happen at the end of it.

But it was a gamble, one that I was rather confident in, if only stupidly. Confidence was stupidities virtue. If you can’t think of any reason things should go sour, and you can not think of any reasons why you might not be able to think of any reasons things can go sour, then you have to be confident. And that is called stupidity, or naive optimism, of which, I have too much.

Turning the telekinesis onto myself was easy at first but it got progressively harder as the pain went up and the resistance too. It felt like trying to bend my finger in the wrong direction. Something inside of me was stopping me from cutting into myself. ‘

Until it cracked. I heard a loud pop noise, and all of a sudden, I could not use my telekinesis anymore. I looked at my health bar at the top right corner and it showed 25% remaining of my hp.

But whatever it was that ate up my spike wires was still doing so. I needed another strategy. Otherwise I might die. After the spikes it would start eating into my head. That was more resilient then the spikes, but it would still not be good enough.

I thought of another way to injure myself. My mouth. I hadn’t used it for fights in quite some time, I almost forgot it existed. I bit into my tongue as the creature ate up my leg. As I bit into, and gnawed, my own tongue, I couldn’t help but resent myself. I felt the resentment traveling through my body.

I began eating my cheeks. it tasted like dry leather, and had the same consistency. I couldn’t get a good bite on it. Blood flowed out. It felt warm, filling my entire mouth. Whatever it was eating me had gotten to my chin. I needed primal adaptation to work faster, so I ate myself faster.

At one point it turned into a competition of who could eat me the fastest. I ate quickly, but it seemed that the creature eating me had caught up and also increased its speed. My own blood drowned me.

The instinct to stop hurting myself beats harder than the instinct to beat the heart. Everything inside of me wanted to quit, but I preserved.

When my health bar got to 5% something happened.

_____

Alert!

Primal Adaptation has been activated! The skill Ouroboros has been gained.

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Without looking into what this strange skill did I used it.