The damp, sulfurous air of the Sunken Hollows was completely still.
Ren remained on his hands and knees against the cold stone floor, his breath coming in shallow, trembling gasps. His baggy grey hoodie and patched cargo pants felt suffocatingly heavy, soaked in cold sweat and dungeon grime. Beneath the rough cotton, the burgundy poly-silk of his system-mandated foundation garments clung to his skin, mocking him with its frictionless, perfect support.
He stared at his hands. They were just hands again. Calloused, scarred, and shaking violently.
The obsidian claws were gone. The B-rank power that had coursed through his veins—a volcanic, euphoric eruption of kinetic energy and dark mana—had vanished the second he deactivated the Transformation skill. But the memory of it lingered. The phantom sensation of the Life Essence flooding his core felt like a drug withdrawal, leaving him hollowed out and aching.
He had loved it. For three minutes of breathless, bloody slaughter, he hadn't been a weak, pathetic E-rank scavenger desperate for coppers to pay his mother's hospital bills. He had been an apex predator. He had been beautiful.
That realization terrified him more than the horde of feral goblins ever could.
Ren swallowed the metallic taste of copper in his mouth and forced himself to sit back on his heels. He needed to focus. He had a two-hour window on his Solo Delver Permit, and he had just wasted a massive chunk of it fighting for his life. If he didn't bring back loot, his family wouldn't eat, and the electric company would cut the power.
He crawled toward the nearest pile of black ash—the remains of an armored dire-rat Carmine had eviscerated. Normally, when a dungeon monster died, its physical body dissolved into ash, leaving behind whatever rusted weapons it carried and, most importantly, its crystallized mana stone.
Ren brushed the ash aside, his fingers searching for the familiar, smooth surface of a low-grade core.
His fingers brushed against something brittle. He pulled it from the ash.
It was a mana stone, but it was completely dead. The vibrant, glowing green crystal had been reduced to a dull, porous gray husk. As Ren applied even a fraction of pressure, the stone crumbled into worthless, chalky dust between his fingers.
Ren's heart dropped. He scrambled to the next corpse. He dug through the remains of a feral goblin. Another gray, hollowed-out husk. He checked a third. A fourth.
Every single monster Carmine had killed was completely drained.
"No," Ren whispered, his voice cracking in the quiet cavern. "No, no, no."
The crushing reality of his situation crashed down on him. The Life Essence. The system didn't just passively track his kills; it actively cannibalized the monsters' physical mana stones to feed him. By activating his succubus form to survive, he had completely destroyed his only source of real-world income.
He had nothing to show for the slaughter. Nothing to cash in at the Guild Association.
A cold blue light bathed the cavern as the system interface materialized directly in his line of sight, as if answering his mounting panic.
[THE SYSTEM PROVIDES FOR ITS OWN. MATERIAL WEALTH IS FLEETING; TRUE POWER IS ETERNAL.]
[REMINDER: THE HOST MAY CONVERT ACCUMULATED LIFE ESSENCE INTO SYSTEM GOLD AT A RATIO OF 10:1. SYSTEM GOLD MAY BE LAUNDERED INTO HUNTER CREDITS.]
Ren stared at the glowing text. Of course. The system wasn't leaving him destitute; it was trapping him.
He could convert the Life Essence he had just absorbed into credits to pay his family's bills. But Transformation cost Life Essence by the minute. If he drained his reserves to pay rent, he would have no fuel left to fight. If he couldn't fight, he would die the next time a dungeon pushed him into a corner. The system was forcing him to choose between his family's survival in the real world and his own survival in the dungeons, ensuring he would always be starved, always be desperate, and always be hunting.
Before Ren could fully process the sheer malice of the economic trap, the interface flickered wildly. The blue light shifted to a deep, pulsing violet.
[QUEST COMPLETE: A TASTE OF POWER]
[REWARD CLAIMED: 500 EXP]
[CURRENT EXP: 1000/1000]
[EXPERIENCE THRESHOLD REACHED.]
Ren's breath hitched. The numbers glowed brightly, burning into his retinas.
[INITIATING SYSTEM LEVEL 2.]
"Wait," Ren gasped, scrambling backward away from the holographic panels. "Wait, not here. System, delay! Delay the level up!"
[DENIED. THE ABYSSAL CORE IS EXPANDING. THE VESSEL MUST BE SYNCHRONIZED TO ACCOMMODATE THE INCREASED OUTPUT.]
[COMMENCING PHYSICAL EVOLUTION.]
The pain hit him like a freight train.
Ren didn't even have time to scream. His back arched violently, his head snapping back as every nerve ending in his body ignited with white-hot, agonizing fire. He collapsed onto the damp stone floor, his fingers digging into the muddy earth, tearing his fingernails against the rock.
This wasn't the frictionless, magical ease of the Transformation skill. When he shifted into Carmine, the transition was buffered by the system's power. This was his base male body—his actual, human flesh and bone—being forcefully, permanently rewritten on a genetic level to act as a better host for a monster's soul. The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
A sickening pop echoed in the quiet cavern.
Ren let out a strangled, gurgling cry as his pelvis flared. The bones of his hips literally shifted outward, grinding against his joints as his waist simultaneously tightened and compressed. The heavy, padded leather belt around his waist suddenly felt incredibly loose, while the fabric of his patched cargo pants pulled uncomfortably tight across his expanding thighs.
"Stop!" he sobbed, his voice raw. "Please!"
The system offered no mercy. The fire spread beneath his skin, racing down his arms and legs. It felt as though thousands of microscopic needles were piercing his pores from the inside out. He watched in blurry, tear-filled horror as the sparse, dark hair on his forearms simply dissolved. The follicles died and sealed over in a matter of seconds, leaving the skin behind impossibly smooth, sensitive, and radiant.
The heat surged upward, wrapping around his throat like a vice. Ren choked, clutching at his neck. His vocal cords felt as though they were being stretched and thinned over a burning wire. His Adam's apple receded slightly, the cartilage shifting and softening beneath his fingertips.
It lasted for two minutes. Two minutes of pure, unadulterated biological torture.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fire extinguished.
Ren lay curled in a fetal position on the cavern floor, shivering uncontrollably. His clothes were soaked through with sweat. The silence of the dungeon returned, broken only by his own ragged, high-pitched panting.
He didn't move for a long time. He was terrified to.
Slowly, agonizingly, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. The moment he moved, he felt the wrongness of his own body. His center of gravity had shifted. The subtle flare of his hips and the narrowing of his waist made his torso feel alien. When he shifted his weight, his lower back arched naturally, and he had to consciously force his posture to slouch to feel somewhat normal again.
He looked down. His rough, calloused hands were still his own, but his forearms were completely devoid of hair, the skin flawless and soft. He reached under his oversized grey hoodie, his trembling fingers tracing the line of his ribs.
The burgundy poly-silk foundation garments he had been forced to wear didn't just fit anymore. They felt as though they had been tailored perfectly to his new skeletal structure. The lace trimmed his newly defined waist with zero friction.
His male identity was being eroded, piece by painful piece.
A polite, cheerful chime echoed in his skull.
[EVOLUTION COMPLETE.]
[SYSTEM LEVEL 2 ACHIEVED.]
[+1 SKILL POINT (SP) AWARDED.]
Ren closed his eyes, a profound wave of depression washing over him. He had gained a level, but he had lost more of himself. He opened his eyes and glared at the violet interface hovering patiently in front of him.
"Show me," Ren croaked.
He flinched at the sound of his own voice. The deep, slightly gravelly resonance he was used to was gone. It hadn't become a fully feminine voice, but it had thinned out, pitching higher into a smooth, androgynous melody that sounded painfully fragile. He cleared his throat, forcing his chest to drop the pitch, trying to inject some gravel back into it.
"Show me the changes," he repeated, holding the deeper register with conscious effort.
The main menu expanded, several windows cascading across his vision.
[ACTIVE SKILL UPGRADED: TRANSFORMATION (LV. 2)]
[The integration has deepened. The host's physical vessel is now better synchronized with the Abyssal Core, reducing aesthetic friction.]
[Base Cost: 50 Life Essence per minute.][Base Cooldown: 12 Hours.]
Ren let out a small breath. Fifty essence a minute. The cost had been cut in half, and the cooldown was drastically shorter. It was a massive upgrade. It meant he wouldn't burn through his family's potential rent money quite as fast when he needed to fight.
But the system was never that generous without a catch. He read the new sub-text below the skill.
[NEW FEATURE: VESSEL STRAIN (EMERGENCY OVERRIDE)][The host may force a transformation even while the 12-hour cooldown is active. WARNING: Overriding the cooldown inflicts severe physical exhaustion upon deactivation and permanently accelerates the feminization of the base male body due to Abyssal radiation.]
[NEW FEATURE: PARTIAL MANIFESTATION][The host may briefly manifest specific Succubus traits (e.g., Obsidian Claws, Violet Luminescence, or a single Shadow Step) while maintaining the base male form. WARNING: Each use incurs a minor, permanent push toward vessel synchronization.]
Ren stared at the warnings, a cold knot forming in his stomach. The system was offering him tactical flexibility. A panic button. The ability to use Carmine's speed or claws without completely blowing his cover in front of other hunters. But the cost wasn't just Life Essence anymore. The cost was his humanity. Every time he used those new features, he would push his male body further down the path of becoming a permanent succubus. It was a terrifyingly addictive crutch.
He swiped the skill window away, bringing up his status page. He needed to see how much stronger Carmine had gotten.
[USER: REN / CARMINE]
[BASE RANK: E]
[SUCCUBUS RANK: B]
[SYSTEM LEVEL: 2]
[CURRENT AVAILABLE LIFE ESSENCE: 4272]
[SKILL POINTS (SP): 2]
Ren frowned. He looked at Carmine's stat block.
[SUCCUBUS STATS: STR 50(+5) | AGI 69(+7) | INT 34(+4) | CHRM 57(+6)]
The numbers had jumped. A flat percentage increase across the board. The Evolutionary Multiplier for hitting Level 2. But there was a new tab glowing next to the stats. Ren tapped it.
[SYSTEM MECHANIC REVEALED: APEX DIETARY ABSORPTION]
[A true apex predator does not grow by consuming the weak. Draining the Life Essence of monsters ranked lower than the host's current Succubus Rank (B-Rank) will solely yield Life Essence currency. To permanently increase base Succubus Stats without a Level Up, the host must absorb the essence of creatures equal to or higher than her current Rank.]
Ren's blood ran cold.
The dozen goblins and dire-rats he had just slaughtered... they had given him over two thousand Life Essence to spend, but they hadn't made Carmine any stronger. The system was strictly gating his progression. If he wanted Carmine to actually grow—if he wanted to survive the increasingly deadly dungeons humanity was facing—he couldn't just farm E-rank and D-rank permanent gates.
He would have to actively hunt B-rank monsters.
B-rank monsters required a raid squad of ranks B to bring down safely. And the system expected him, a nineteen-year-old E rank hunter, to hunt them for stats points.
"You're trying to get me killed," Ren whispered to the glowing interface.
He tapped the final flashing notification on his screen. It was a new tab titled [APOTHEOSIS PROGRESSION].
[SUCCUBUS RANK PROVISIONAL REQUIREMENTS]
[Current Rank: B]
[To achieve A-Rank, the host must fulfill both Core Saturation and Vessel Synchronization.]
[CORE SATURATION: 5,772 / 100,000 Total Lifetime Life Essence.]
[VESSEL SYNCHRONIZATION: Male Charm Stat 19(+2) / 30.]
Ren stared at the numbers, his brain refusing to process the math for a long, agonizing moment.
One hundred thousand Life Essence.
An E-rank goblin gave forty. A C-rank Void-Stalker might give a few hundred. To hit one hundred thousand, he would have to slaughter a small army. He would have to live in the dungeons. And the second requirement... his male Charm stat needed to hit 30. He was barely at 19, and his body was already softening, glowing, and shifting in ways that drew stares from everyone in the lower district. What would he look like at 30? Would he even pass for male anymore?
Ren closed the interface with a slow, deliberate swipe of his hand. The cavern plunged back into the dim, murky gloom of the bioluminescent moss.
He didn't panic this time. The frantic, hyperventilating terror that had gripped him after the Minotaur Lord was gone, replaced by a cold, clinical clarity.
He forced himself to stand up. His legs felt shaky, but instead of fighting the new center of gravity, he allowed his posture to adjust, letting his hips carry the weight naturally. He adjusted the belt of his cargo pants, pulling it tighter around his newly tapered waist, and pulled his oversized hoodie back on.
It hung loosely off his shoulders but draped snugly around his lower half. It was subtle, but it felt entirely irreversible.
He picked up his rusty dagger from the cavern floor and sheathed it.
He looked back at the piles of gray, crumbling dust. A week ago, he would have died in this cave. He would have been torn apart by a stray crawler or gutted by a feral goblin. The system was a parasite, yes. It was rewriting his DNA, eroding his male identity, and forcing him into humiliating, degrading tasks just to maintain his stats.
But it had also kept him alive.
The B-rank power wasn't an illusion. The obsidian claws, the shadow stepping, the intoxicating rush of Life Essence—it was absolute. For the first time in his life, he hadn't been the weak, disposable E-rank scavenger at the bottom of the food chain. He had felt invincible. If he wanted to survive the escalating horrors of the gates, if he wanted to stop being the pathetic liability everyone looked down on, he couldn't keep fighting the current.
He had to adapt.
He had to hunt. If the system demanded B-rank prey for Carmine to grow, then he would figure out a way to track and kill B-rank prey. If it demanded he raise his Charm stat to thirty to unlock A-rank, then he would play its twisted, humiliating game. The alternative was staying weak forever, and he refused to die as fodder in a dark cave.
Ren raised his hand, staring at his smooth, hairless forearm in the dim light. He flexed his fingers, imagining the lethal, violet-glowing claws resting just beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed. The craving pulsed quietly in his chest—a dark, rhythmic hunger that felt noticeably less alien by the second.
He let out a long, shuddering breath, the faint scent of vanilla and strawberries filling his lungs.
"Alright," Ren whispered into the silent, rotting dungeon, his thinned, melodic voice steadying with a grim, absolute resolve. "If this is what it takes to stop being weak... then let's get to work."
He turned his back on the ashes and stepped firmly toward the glowing blue portal, ready to face the surface.