The ant’s scream exploded through the pit, a shriek so piercing it sent dust and scattered pebbles flying into the air like chaff. Under the weight of this cacophony, Noah wallowed his broken body in the viscous, nauseating purple fluid, diving between layers of pale white flesh while stabbing with absolute madness. His stabs were not entirely random; his exhausted mind recalled a piece of information he had once read in his old world: ants do not have a centralized heart, but rather a long muscular tube that pulses along the back.

  Noah was betting what remained of his life that this freak shared the same physical traits. He drove the knife in, then dragged it forcefully downward, attempting to carve a deep path to that vital tube. He repeated the same motion, tearing tissues and widening the gash, as the purple blood flooded copiously, masking his face until he was breathing nothing but the metallic scent of death.

  Suddenly, after a long and bloody struggle, the ant managed—in a violent, convulsive heave—to shed the shattered part of its back and finally break free from the earth’s grasp. The moment it felt its freedom, it lunged upward, but Noah would not let it escape alone; he sank his teeth into its exposed flesh with savage force, clinging to its tissues like a parasite that refused to die. He knew with certainty that if he lost this hold, his fate would inevitably be death beneath its pointed legs.

  The ant stood on its three remaining legs, spinning in a frantic circle while unleashing screams of pain that shattered the silence. Its balance was nearly non-existent due to the loss of its lower half, making its movements erratic and dangerous. As for Noah, he was in a state of absolute mental focus amidst the chaos; he clung on with everything he had—the pressure of his legs, the grip of his hands, and the clenching of his jaw, which began to feel a searing heat. His facial muscles spasmed from the sheer exhaustion, but he finally succeeded in wedging his upper torso inside the cavity of the mangled flesh.

  Abruptly, the ant stopped spinning. It turned its massive, glassy head toward the rocky wall, and in a desperate attempt to rid itself of the "thing" gnawing at its back, it bolted at suicidal speed toward the stone. Noah watched the wall approaching like a lightning strike, the wind whistling in his ears: "no... no... NO... NO!!"

  (BOOOOM!)

  The rocky wall cracked from the force of the impact, sending shards flying in every direction. But the blow that was meant to crush him became his gateway inward; due to the softness of the entrails and the gash he had carved, the force of the collision propelled Noah’s entire body to sink deep into the ant’s warm innards.

  Noah settled inside, surrounded by a purple darkness and a pungent stench. He bared his blood-stained teeth and muttered with a mad, mocking laugh: "Thanks, you stupid ant... for helping me kill you!"

  With every ounce of spite he possessed, he began to slash at the soft tissues from within, stabbing here and there, searching for that pulsing tube to put an end to this horrific battle.

  The pit roared with the madness of the ant’s death throes—piercing shrieks echoing between the narrow rock walls, and a massive body slamming with suicidal violence from side to side. The ant tried with all its remaining strength to reach its long, pointed legs toward its back; they moved like blind daggers in the air, hoping to uproot that human "parasite" that had permeated its tissues and begun to gnaw at its very being from the inside.

  In that dark cavity, Noah had completely lost touch with reality. Exhaustion was no longer just a feeling; it had become a heavy shackle binding his soul. His right hand, which had been stabbing relentlessly, reached a state of absolute numbness; he could no longer feel his fingers or the knife tied to his palm. His entire arm had become a piece of dead wood, unable to rise a single inch further. His body was screaming for a halt, and his lungs burned with every breath that mingled with the scent of warm entrails.

  But, amidst that flood of viscous purple fluid and scattered, revolting flesh, Noah caught sight of his intended target. Beneath a thin layer of transparent tissue, he saw a long muscular tube glowing with a faint phosphorescent light—a strange fluid flowing through it in rapid pulses, like an electric current extending across the creature's entire body. In that moment, Noah knew by instinct that this was the "Heart," the core that provided this freak with life.

  He tried to deliver a final stab, but his hand failed him, falling lifelessly at his side. He had no time for despair; the ant was growing increasingly frantic, and the sound of its outer carapace shattering against the walls signaled that the place was about to collapse over his head. In a movement stripped of all human heritage, Noah opened his mouth wide and lunged with his teeth at that pulsing tube.

  (Ghrrrrrrr!)

  He clamped his jaws with every ounce of spite and oppression he possessed, savaging the luminous muscle with feral violence. He felt a hot, violent surge of the ant’s fluids into his gullet—a sharp, metallic taste that nearly made him retch—but he did not stop. He began to tear the tissues with his teeth, gnashing and pulling left and right, while the ant unleashed a final shriek that shook the walls of the pit, a scream that embodied the peak of agony before the fall.

  Noah ignored its fading resistance; instead, he continued to tear the "Heart" brutally, swallowing parts of it and shredding the rest, as if he wanted to ensure that death had settled in every single cell of this monster. After moments of instinctive struggle, everything went quiet. The ant collapsed for the final time, and its screeching ceased, replaced by a heavy, desolate silence.

  From amidst that wreckage, and out of a hideous gash in the back of the carcass, something began to move. A blood-stained hand emerged, followed by a body that looked as if it had just been born from the womb of death. Noah crawled out from inside the ant in its final moments, covered in revolting purple blood from head to toe, smoke rising from his wound-riddled body due to the heat of the innards and a mysterious chemical reaction with the monster’s blood.

  Noah stood staggeringly atop the corpse of his prey, gasping for breath, his glassy eyes barely able to see through the haze of blood. He was half-dead, his body so broken he could no longer feel its existence, yet he was alive... alive in a way that did not resemble humanity. He had completely devoured the "Heart," and a strange heat began to surge through his gut.

  Noah stood atop the ant’s carcass, half-dead, staggering under the weight of an unprecedented exhaustion. But as soon as the ant’s flesh and heart settled within him, the tranquility he craved was denied. Suddenly, his stomach contracted with frantic violence, and he felt a strange pressure surging from his vitals to spread throughout his entire body.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  An indescribable pain exploded; he felt thousands of white-hot nails being driven into every pore of his skin, and a fiery fluid coursed through his nerves instead of blood, as if his cells were being scoured with molten lava. Noah tried to scream, but his throat betrayed him. He dug his fingers into the damp soil with a force that tore away his remaining nails and clamped the knife’s hilt between his jaws, biting down with every ounce of resolve to prevent himself from blacking out amidst this hurricane of agony.

  Under this torment, an "ugly miracle" began to unfold.

  With wandering eyes, Noah looked toward his shattered hand lying on the fabric; color began to return to it slowly, shifting from a deathly pallor to the bluish tint of life. He heard a terrifying cracking sound emanating from within; the broken bones were shifting beneath the skin, gathering and reshaping themselves in a forced, painful reconstruction. As for his chest, which had resembled a collapsed vent, it began to swell anew. This was accompanied by the spontaneous expulsion of wooden splinters and dirt from his pores, followed by a black "pus" left behind by the old wounds, as the tissues began to knit together with agonizing slowness.

  Suddenly, everything stopped. The pain ceased as abruptly as the wearing off of a powerful chemical stimulant, leaving Noah in a state of physical bewilderment.

  He felt his hand; it was no longer the wreckage it had been. Now, it was merely "broken"—twisted at an odd angle and still paralyzed, but no longer dead. His chest was no longer a shattered crater; his lungs regained their primary function, breathing deeply despite two or three ribs remaining in a state of painful fracture. The deep, life-threatening gashes had diminished into minor wounds, and the minor ones left behind prominent scars.

  Noah remained there, panting unnaturally, dripping with profuse sweat, his eyes wide as if he had seen a ghost rising from the grave. He thought bitterly: "Why?.." He remembered the first time he felt the pain and wanted to die, but this time, despite the horror of the ache, his body could "endure."

  "Strange..." Noah muttered, looking at his hands. His previous condition would have meant certain death for any human being, yet he remained alive—and by some miracle, he had managed to kill a giant ant while being a complete wreck. His body ached in every corner now, but he was no longer standing on the brink of the abyss. On the contrary, he felt a strange vigor creeping into his limbs, and a slight strength growing in his muscles, as if his body were beginning to adapt to the laws of this brutal world.

  Amidst this stillness, he felt a sudden chill emanating from the center of his chest—a coldness that wasn't from the pit's air, but a suspicious internal "crawl."

  [The Etching has expanded]

  "Hah?.. Expan...?" The words caught in his throat as he stared in bewilderment at his chest. Under the pale light, he watched those black lines of the Etching begin to stretch like the nerves of a parasitic entity that had just awakened beneath his skin. It was no longer just a small symbol; branches of blackness spread to completely envelop his shoulders, and its dark threads crawled downward, piercing through his abdominal muscles to settle at his pelvis. The color grew deeper—a pitch black that did not reflect light but seemed to swallow it.

  "Will... will this thing keep growing until it covers me entirely?" Noah whispered, a sense of dread taking hold of him as he felt the texture of his skin, which had become strange. "But at least I’m certain now... when I eat the flesh of monsters, it’s connected to this Etching. It’s what increases my strength and repairs my wreckage... but what happens if it covers my whole body?" These were questions without answers, circling in his head like a dark vortex before the "Void" interrupted them by declaring the harvest of his first battle.

  [Earth Ant Hatchling Slain]

  

  [Mission Accomplished]

  [Reward: Information]

  [Earth Ant]: An ant that inhabits the depths of the soil and lives in massive, organized communities.

  [Power Basis]: In this species, the smaller the ant, the greater its muscular density and destructive power.

  [Weak Points]: Joints, the surface of the back, and the head.

  [Warning]: Its flesh is poisonous to humans.

  [Recorded]

  "Slain... a hatchling..." Noah stammered, a bitterness washing through his throat. This was the first time he had killed a monster, and now he discovered that the nightmare which had nearly destroyed him was merely the "weakest." But as he was analyzing the shock of the power scale, his eyes froze at the final sentence, and his heart nearly stopped beating: "Its flesh is... poisonous... to humans!!!"

  He had barely finished reading the sentence when his body exploded into a volcano of pain.

  Suddenly, he felt his stomach being squeezed by a fist of glowing iron. A sudden agony flared in his vitals, and the veins throughout his body began to protrude terrifically, bulging beneath his skin like tiny serpents trying to writhe their way out. Noah collapsed, clutching his stomach, his body curling into a fetal position from the intensity of the nausea and internal tearing.

  "Aghhh... what... what is happening!!" He wallowed on the ground, his complexion shifting to a pale, revolting green, like a walking, rotting corpse. The pain was no longer merely physical; his eyes began to bleed slowly, masking his vision with a deep crimson film. Despair and madness drove him to start "eating the soil" frantically, stuffing his mouth with cold, blood-soaked dirt in a desperate hope to extinguish the fire of the poison in his gut or to mask that nauseating purple aftertaste.

  His tears, mingled with blood, poured down as he spat out red clots, the poison gnawing at his nerves. Noah was effectively dying; every cell in his body was screaming to let go. But his body was "stubborn" to a terrifying degree; whenever he reached the brink of death, his heart refused to stop, as if a coercive force were compelling him to remain in this torment.

  This continued for what felt like an eternity of ache—an agony that exhausted his soul and flesh until he could no longer find the strength to scream. Then, with agonizing slowness, the pain began to recede. His color returned to normal, the protruding veins subsided, and Noah remained lying there, dripping with profuse sweat, panting as if he had just returned from a journey into the deepest pits of hell.

  "Damn it... Why? Whyyy?!.. Hah.. hah.. Is there nothing normal here?!" With a Herculean effort, he raised his hand, took the piece of cloth that had been binding the knife, and wiped away the tears and blood covering his face. He was lying on his back, staring at the distant opening far above, when a new notification rang in his consciousness—a notification that made his blood freeze once again.

  【 Target Detected 】

  

  [Forced Quest]

  

  [Kill 50 Earth Ant Hatchlings]

  

  Reward: Poison Resistance (Lowest Rank).

  Failure: Death.

  

  [Surveillance Activated]

  Noah felt madness closing in on him. A single one had nearly ended his life, and now this "Void" was demanding the extermination of fifty? He looked into the darkness shrouding the pit and realized that his suffering was only the beginning. The gates of an endless hell had swung open for him, and under "Monitoring" now, he was left with only two choices: to be the hunter, or to return to being the livestock led to slaughter.

  "? If you’re enjoying the descent into the Void, a rating or follow helps more than you think."