Dark.

  Thick.

  Silent.

  The first thing he felt was pressure. All around him. Like being swallowed alive by a warm stone.

  No... not just pressure. There was movement. A constant, sluggish drift, as if his body floated within a syrup-thick fluid. He couldn’t move—only think.

  And he thought something strange for someone who had never been taught to think:

  Who am I?

  The question echoed inside his mind like it had always lived there, waiting. He had no memories. No identity. But he had nguage. He had logic. He knew what questions were. That made no sense.

  Where… am I?

  His world shifted. Something glowed.

  A dim neon light appeared before him, hovering just above the boundary of his vision. It was a ft shape, rectangur, made of shifting characters that floated without touching the dark liquid. He stared, and the glowing text flickered into crity.

  [Interface]

  Name: Qing

  Race: Zu’Ma

  Age: 0

  Lifespan: 10D

  Tier: None

  Faculty Points: 5

  Faculties Avaible:

  Cognizance (1)

  Polymorph (4)

  Crystallization (1)

  Soul Forge (1)

  Door (5)

  Qing.

  That name meant nothing to him.

  Zu’Ma? Ten days of lifespan?

  What did any of this mean?

  His lips didn’t move. He couldn’t breathe—couldn’t speak. Yet he knew what the words said. He didn’t recognize the script, but the meaning blossomed in his head.

  “Interface…” he thought, and as the word passed through his mind, the glowing screen vanished.

  What? Where did it go?

  Panic flickered in his chest.

  He tried again.

  “Interface.”

  The glow fred back, like a loyal beast obeying its master's call.

  I can control it by thought. This… this is mine.

  He didn’t know why that made him feel powerful. But it did. In this bck void of fluid, where he could do nothing but drift, at least he had something.

  Then he saw the symbols beside the faculties: -|+

  A strange instinct took over. His consciousness reached for the + beside Polymorph.

  Click.

  The moment he did, one Faculty Point disappeared. He tried again. Another point vanished.

  Polymorph (x2)

  Again.

  Polymorph (x3)

  He pressed until it maxed out.

  Polymorph (Max)

  All five points were gone. At the bottom of the interface, he now saw:

  Faculty Points: 0

  Something stirred.

  The fluid surrounding him trembled. His skin itched. No—tightened.

  A new sensation hit him, pure and primal: transformation.

  His bones cracked inward. His muscles flexed as though awakened for the first time. The fluid around him was no longer just a soup of darkness—it reacted to him, pulled into him like breath into lungs.

  Then, heat.

  His spine tensed. His limbs extended involuntarily. Pressure built behind his shoulder bdes, throbbing like new muscles pressing outward. Something wanted out.

  He thrashed, gasping for a breath that wasn’t there.

  Break. I need to break out—

  He curled forward—and smmed his fist against something hard.

  Crack.

  A web of tiny fractures etched itself across the inner surface. It was a shell.

  He was in an egg.

  The realization hit harder than logic could expin. Panic, rage, hunger—all of it cwed up through his throat, and he thrashed again.

  Crack! Crack!

  He kicked. Smmed his forehead. Punched with trembling hands.

  The fluid inside was boiling now—or maybe it was just his blood. He screamed inside his mind.

  Crack-KRAK!

  And then light.

  Blinding, white-blue light—so piercing he shut his eyes instinctively. The egg burst open. Cool air kissed his wet, glistening skin. He y sprawled across damp stone, panting, lungs finally sucking air for the first time.

  “Hhhh—hhhh…!”

  The rush of breath shocked his chest. It hurt. But it was real.

  And he ughed.

  “Ha… Ha!” The sound escaped his lips, ragged and raw. “I can talk…”

  It was his voice. His.

  The world blurred before him. Four glowing orbs floated in the corners of the room—like nterns with no fme—casting shadows against the cold bck walls. Around him y dozens of simir bck eggs, still intact. Silent.

  Except one.

  A crack formed in a nearby shell.

  Then another.

  Others like me?

  The thought only passed briefly before another, darker feeling returned—one he had no word for but knew deeply: hunger.

  It stabbed his stomach like a bde. His hands shot out instinctively, scooping the broken shards of his own eggshell into his mouth. It crunched like old bone. He chewed, swallowed. It wasn’t enough.

  His head pulsed.

  His body shifted.

  Suddenly, he felt them—two serpentine masses writhing near his shoulders. He looked down and saw them.

  Two pythons.

  Jet bck. Scaled. As long as his arms. Emerging directly from his shoulder bdes like twisted limbs.

  They moved on their own. Opened fanged mouths.

  And then they ate.

  Snapping, devouring the nearby shells. Not just his own. Others. Intact ones.

  Eggs.

  The snakes dug into the shells, crunching them open with savage hunger, slurping down the fluid within. He followed them.

  He didn’t know why. He couldn’t stop.

  He drank the viscous gold-white liquid from a broken shell, gagging as it slid down his throat, but the hunger drove him.

  I’m eating unborns. Hatchlings. Alive or not yet alive… I’m devouring them…

  But his stomach didn’t protest. His system didn’t stop him. No message said “You cannot do this.”

  No.

  Instead—

  SYSTEM NOTIFICATION You have consumed: [Reptilia Hatchling — Undeveloped] Experience acquired: +12 Predatory Path Affinity +1 Warning: Aggression Level Rising

  His head snapped to the side as another egg cracked open.

  More…

  But that was when the door smmed open.

  Heavy boots echoed across the floor. A snakeman—tall, scaled, cloaked in greenish-bck armor with a jagged spear at his back—entered.

  He stared.

  At the broken shells.

  At the mess of bck fluid and yolk.

  At Qing.

  “Ffffff—WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!”

  Qing didn’t understand the words—but the tone pierced him.

  Still, the pythons didn’t stop. They hissed and lunged for another egg.

  “I SAID STOP!”

  The guard charged forward and kicked Qing across the floor.

  His body smashed into a wall. Bones cracked. Pain exploded in his ribs.

  His vision blurred—red danced at the edge of everything.

  Why? I was hungry… just hungry…

  He turned his head—and saw the spear.

  Too te.

  SHHNK!

  The spear pierced his stomach. Not deep—but enough. Blood spurted, hot and dark.

  He stared up at the guard, mouth trembling. Confused. In pain.

  The system flickered again.

  SYSTEM WARNING Vital Injury Sustained Hibernation Recommended Memory Protocols Preserved

  His world dimmed again. The room spun. His own blood pooled beneath him.

  The st thing he saw was one of the snake heads still chewing—munching on the yolk of an egg he hadn’t even noticed.

  I… was just born… Why… does everything hurt so much…

  Everything went bck.