Enough.
Enough with the mindless hunt.
I collapsed where I stood. Couldn't even remember how many days had passed since I last slept. The blood on my fists had dried into cracks. My body, worn from years of slaughter, demanded rest.
So I gave in.
I slept.
When I woke, I was no longer the boy who had arrived in this world.
My hair had grown long—thick strands cascading past my shoulders. A rough beard shadowed my jawline. My hands… they didn't feel like mine anymore. They were calloused, coarser than stone, etched with the memory of every beast I had torn apart.
It took me a while to gather myself.
My thoughts were sluggish at first, but clarity returned, like light filtering through a dust-choked window. I regulated my breath. Slowed my heartbeat. Calmed the storm in my veins. Then I moved—half on instinct—trying to find the cave where I'd buried everything that mattered.
It took time.
But I found it. Hidden beneath twisted roots and layers of moss, where time itself seemed to have forgotten.
My bag was intact.
The black USB drive—safe.
My laptop—cracked beyond repair, screen shattered, body bent like paper. But still, I kept it. Nostalgia, maybe. Or desperation. That old machine had once felt like the only tether I had to who I was.
I checked everything else: a few emergency items, a knife dulled from disuse, and most importantly… the crystals.
Over the years I had hoarded them obsessively. Now they lay before me like war trophies.
512 red cores.113 grey.51 transparent.7 palm-sized crystal hearts that throbbed faintly with a pulse I could almost hear.
All gains from a life lived as a predator.
I sat still, surrounded by them, and finally reopened the transmigration group chat. The floating panel shimmered into my mind, ethereal as always.
[Last Message]"Still alive, I see."
That message was years old.
Had it really been five or six years?
I was 21 now.
An adult by all definitions, though I didn't feel human anymore.
The pouch beside me carried nothing but fragments of who I used to be. The drive. The broken laptop. A few scraps of food, long gone stale.
But the reason I'd stopped hunting wasn't fatigue. It wasn't despair.
It was progress.
I'd hit a limit.
I had mastered my strength—completely. My body responded to my thoughts instantly, down to the smallest movement. Every muscle, every drop of energy, bent to my will. Transparent crystals no longer gave me anything but a flicker of growth.
I had evolved as far as I could through brute force.
Even my mindless hunts had purpose. The real reason I'd descended into a haze of endless slaughter… was to control it—that thing inside me. The bear form.
I'd spent years feeling nothing when I activated the lumen core. But today, it pulsed.
Finally.
I could feel it awakening. The dormant energy stirring like a caged beast, pressing against my chest, against my spine. So I stepped outside the cave and tried it.
The transformation was excruciating.
My bones cracked, twisted. Skin ripped, regrew. Muscles tore, reformed, stronger.
But my mind remained.
That was the difference.
I didn't lose myself this time. I contained the madness. My instincts clawed at me, tried to drown me in bloodlust, but I had trained for this. I had become this.
So I endured the pain.
Fur spread across my body. Thick. Black. Coarse like bristles on iron. My body expanded—massive and hulking, claws that could rip through steel, fangs that glinted like obsidian.
I was no longer just human.
I was the beast.
But I controlled it.
I tamed it.
I stood there in the forest—transformed fully—breathing deeply, grounded. Not overwhelmed. Not devoured by rage.
Just present.
Then something snapped.
Not my body. My mind.
A surge of power rushed through me, different from anything I'd felt before. Not from the crystals. Not from the core.
It came from within the bear form.
A ripple in my soul, like the unlocking of a sealed gate.
Wind.
It answered my breath.
The branches above me bent, despite no breeze. Leaves began swirling around my body. The air trembled—resonating with me.
I could feel it.
I could create storms.
I could feel every movement in the air—tug it, twist it, command it.
I had awakened something deeper than just a transformation. An innate ability.
A bloodline gift.
Like those demon beasts in cultivation legends—when they reached a certain threshold, their bodies unlocked divine traits inherited from their ancestors. Abilities tied not to external force, but their essence.
Mine was the Black Wind.
The storm bowed to me now.
I leapt. The wind caught me.
I hovered—barely—but I could feel it. The potential.
Flight. Precision. Slicing currents. Devastating gusts.
And if I focused, I could weaponize it. Turn the wind itself into claws, into blades, into wrath.
I landed gently, the forest trembling beneath me.
Then I let go.
The fur receded. My bones shifted back. My heartbeat slowed.
I was human again. But not the same.
Never the same.
For the first time in years… I smiled.