Pain exploded across William’s shoulder as he twisted at the last possible instant, Cerberus’s jaws closing not on his skull but on the meat of his arm, teeth punching through leather and flesh alike. He screamed, the sound tearing out of him raw and involuntary, and some distant part of his mind registered that this was probably the last sound he would ever make.
The head released him almost as quickly as it had struck, some instinct in the wounded creature holding back from the full killing bite, and William rolled away through the mud clutching his ruined arm, blood soaking hot through his fingers.
’Move. Move, damn it, move.’
His body barely obeyed. He dragged himself backward through the reeds on his good arm, vision swimming, the pain in his shoulder a white hot line that made every other thought feel distant and unreal. Behind him, Cerberus stalked forward with the unhurried confidence of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere left to go.
’This is where it ends.’ The thought came almost gently now, stripped of the earlier panic. ’Seven years of being told I was worthless, and it turns out they were right. Not even strong enough to avenge the one man who ever gave me a chance.’
His back hit the packed earth wall of the hollow. No further retreat. The center head lowered, red eyes narrowing, and William found himself staring into them with a strange, hollow clarity, waiting for the end.
Then something inside him cracked.
It did not feel like pain, not exactly, though pain was woven through it. It felt like a door that had been sealed shut his entire life suddenly splitting down the middle, some vast pressure behind it finally finding release. William’s vision went white, and through that whiteness a voice spoke, ancient and vast and utterly without warmth, the words settling into his mind less like sound and more like inevitability.
[Host has reached the threshold of death.]
[Dormant potential detected.]
[Second Awakening: Conditions Met.]
[Talent Evolution Initiating: Taming (Common) → Mythical Taming System]
William’s back arched involuntarily, a silent scream caught somewhere behind his teeth as raw power flooded through channels in his body that had never carried anything before, mana pathways rewriting themselves in real time, agony and euphoria tangled so tightly together he could not tell where one ended and the other began.
[Mythical Taming System — Activated]
[Core Passive Unlocked: I Can Tame All Things]
[Core Passive Unlocked: Second Awakening Resonance]
Above him, Cerberus’s jaws had already begun their final descent, the wounded creature either unaware of or uncaring about the transformation happening beneath it. William’s eyes snapped open, and where moments ago the world had been narrowing toward darkness, now it burned with a strange new clarity, every line of the creature above him laid bare in a way he had never perceived before. Its wounds. Its exhaustion. The threads of will holding its splintered forms together, frayed and trembling at the edges.
’I can see it.’ The realization hit him with startling force. ’I can actually see how weak it’s become.’
Instinct older than thought surged up through him, and where his earlier attempts to reach out had been clumsy, desperate flailing, this time the Talent responded like a limb he had simply never known he possessed. Threads of intent poured out of him, not gently this time, but with a raw dominance that had not existed in him an hour ago.
[Tame (Mythical) — Activating]
[Target: Cerberus (Epic Grade) — Severely Weakened]
[Second Awakening Resonance: +30% Success Rate on Weakened Target]
[Calculating Resistance...]
The jaws stopped less than a foot from his face, frozen mid strike, all three heads suddenly rigid, red eyes wide with something that looked almost like confusion. William held his ground beneath it, blood still pouring from his shoulder, and pushed everything he had left into that single, desperate reach.
’I don’t know what I just became. I don’t care. Just give me this. Just give me this one thing.’
[Resistance: High]
[Second Awakening Resonance applied]
[I Can Tame All Things: Passive resistance reduction applied]
[Bond Attempt: 61%... 74%... 88%...]
Cerberus’s three heads thrashed in unison, a sound tearing out of all three throats at once that was not quite a roar and not quite a scream, some ancient instinct warring against the pull of the bond forming against its will. William felt the resistance like a physical weight bearing down on him, pressing the air from his lungs, and he screamed through gritted teeth and refused to let go.
[Bond Attempt: 94%...]
[SUCCESS]
[Cerberus (Epic Grade) has been Tamed]
[Taming Realm: 1/3 slots filled]
[Inheritance Available: Doppelganger, Hellfire Manipulation]
The pressure vanished all at once, and William collapsed backward into the mud, chest heaving, arm still bleeding freely. Above him, Cerberus’s three heads went rigid, then threw back in unison, a sound tearing from all three throats that was neither pain nor release but something caught between.
Light poured out from beneath the creature’s fur, black bleeding into white in an instant, three distinct forms folding inward toward each other at impossible speed. William threw his good arm over his eyes, the glow bright enough to burn red through his eyelids, and when it finally faded and he lowered his arm, what stood before him bore only a passing resemblance to the beast that had nearly killed him minutes earlier.
One head. One massive, powerful body, black furred and corded with muscle, a single pair of burning red eyes fixed down on him with an intensity that had not dimmed even in submission. Where three skulls had loomed over him only seconds ago, there was now only one, and yet William could feel, through the newly formed bond threading between them, that the other two had not vanished so much as folded back into the one, waiting, coiled, ready to unfold again the instant they were needed.
’It’s not three heads.’ William stared up at it, some instinctive part of his new Talent parsing the change even through his exhaustion. ’It never was three separate heads. It’s one being that can split itself into three.’
[System Note: Tamed Entities revert to true base state upon binding.]
[Skill Inherited: Doppelganger]
[Skill Inherited: Hellfire Manipulation]
Two windows unfurled beneath the notification, each accompanied by a description that settled into William’s mind as much as it appeared before his eyes.
Doppelganger (Inherited)
Grade: Epic
The user may split their physical form into up to three independent bodies, each retaining a fraction of the user’s full strength divided across all active copies. Copies act with full autonomy and combat capability, but share a single pool of stamina and mana with the original. Damage taken by one copy does not affect the others directly, but the loss of any single copy causes an immediate backlash of exhaustion to the user. All copies dissolve automatically when reduced to one, or may be recalled manually at will.
Hellfire Manipulation (Inherited)
Grade: Epic
Grants control over black flame drawn from the user’s own vitality rather than external mana. Hellfire burns through conventional resistances and continues consuming its target after contact, ignoring most elemental deflection. Prolonged use draws directly from the user’s stamina reserves rather than mana, making it a dangerous tool to overextend with at low rank.
William read both descriptions twice, the pain in his shoulder momentarily forgotten. ’This is what it was doing the whole time. Splitting itself into three bodies and calling it three heads. Not a monster with an extra pair of skulls. One will, wearing three shapes.’
The single head lowered toward him slowly, red eyes searching his face, and William felt something pass through the bond that he could only describe as recognition. Not the alien fury of the wounded, cornered thing that had chased him through the marsh. Something steadier now, older, and strangely patient, as though it had been waiting a very long time for someone willing to reach for it even while it tried to kill him.
"You’re not what I expected," William rasped, pushing himself up onto his good elbow. The movement sent fresh pain lancing through his shoulder, and he hissed through his teeth before continuing. "I thought your kind was just born with three heads. Some old bloodline curse, maybe."
The impression that came back through the bond was not words, exactly. It settled into him more like a fact he had always known and simply forgotten. One body. Three when needed. Always one beneath it.
[Status Window Available]
William blinked, and a second window unfurled at the edge of his vision, more detailed than the flickering system text that had guided him through the taming itself.
Name: William Belforht
Age: 17
Rank: F-Rank
Title: Abandoned One • Survivor of the Tenth Floor • Second Awakener
Primary Talent: Mythical Taming System (Unique - Growth Type)
Grade: Mythical
He stared at it for a long moment, laughing weakly despite the pain still radiating through his arm, tears cutting clean tracks through the blood and mud on his face. Seven years of being told his Talent was worthless, and here he was, alive, with a status window that read nothing like the ceiling he had grown up believing was his.
’This isn’t what a Common grade tamer looks like.’ He wiped his face with the back of his good hand, smearing more mud than he cleaned away. ’This isn’t what any of them thought I’d become.’
Above him, Cerberus’s single head dipped lower, until its massive snout hovered inches from his face, patient in a way the three headed beast from the fight had never once been. William reached out with his good hand, hesitant, and laid his palm flat against the fur along its jaw. It was warm. Warmer than he expected from something that had nearly torn his arm off minutes earlier.
"I need your help," he whispered, voice cracking. "There’s a man down here somewhere. My raid leader. He held this thing off so the rest of us could escape, and I need to find him before it’s too late. Please."
The system flickered at the edge of his vision, responding to something in the request itself.
[Share Senses (Basic) — Available]
He did not fully understand what that meant yet, only that the moment he thought the words, something shifted behind his eyes, an awareness that was not quite his own bleeding faintly into his senses. Cerberus’s head lifted, nostrils flaring, and William felt what it felt, caught the same faint thread of scent drifting on marsh air that no human nose could have detected.
All at once, both of them turned toward the far edge of the hollow, toward a shadowed depression beneath the earthen wall that William had not noticed in the chaos of the fight.
Toward what remained of Dorian Reyes.