Not because it grew darker—but because it no longer existed.
Darek found himself inside the monster.
He struck against soft, yielding tissue, slid sideways in slimy constriction, and instinctively groped for support. His hands found nothing solid. Only pulsating, warm walls that moved beneath his fingers, as if everything around him lived in its own rhythm.
It was darker than outside.
Denser.
Damper.
The air was heavy with stench—a mixture of rotting flesh, sour fermentation, and hot blood. The heat was not like in the swamp. It was organic. Enveloping. Suffocating.
Something dragged across his back.
Slime dripped from the ceiling.
Phew… I thought I’d land straight in his stomach and fall victim to his stomach acid.
He leaned his head back as far as the narrow, pulsating tube allowed.
Man, I’m lucky.
The irony was audible even in his thoughts.
He felt the walls around him contract. A swallow. He slid a little deeper down the esophagus. The pressure around him increased. Muscles worked against him, trying to transport him further.
Now that I think about it… I really am lucky. If this were a forgotten dream… I’d probably be a lot more nervous right now.
Another swallow.
He slid further.
I’ll just wait and see how long Iris needs. The vision won’t help me much during her mission and the darkness anyway. And I’ll see how bad the pain gets in here. If necessary, I’ll just leave the dream.
The walls around him tightened.
Warm. Wet. Pulsating.
“Well then… if I’m already here waiting for my suffering, I might as well make his life harder.”
His hand rose.
The red dust began to rise from his skin.
At first, only a hint.
A fine mist.
Normally it stopped after one or two full handfuls.
But not this time.
The dust kept pouring out of him, denser, more intense. It spread through the esophagus, was absorbed by the slime, carried further by the muscular transport. Every contraction of the monster pumped the dust deeper into its body.
Darek grinned.
The first real, crooked grin in minutes.
I had planned to experiment one way or another anyway, but I hadn’t had a suitable test subject until now.
The dust grew.
It gathered.
It spread.
Through the esophagus.
Into the stomach chamber.
Into every fold, every niche.
Minutes passed.
The red mist was everywhere now. It began to condense because the space could no longer absorb it. It compressed between organ walls, settled into layers of slime, mixed with digestive fluids.
Darek eventually reached the stomach.
A smacking, viscous basin of acid and half-digested mass.
The smell hit him like a wall.
He gagged. His eyes watered.
“Ugh… that’s disgusting…”
Bubbles of stomach acid burst beside him, hissing, steaming. The liquid devoured everything organic it touched. Even the smell felt as if it were attacking his lungs.
For a moment, he truly wondered how long his Soulbound could compensate for this.
Then he exhaled.
Slowly.
The red dust now vibrated throughout the monster’s entire body. He felt it. Felt it crawling along nerves. Wrapping itself around muscle fibers. Gathering in organ walls.
The perfect position.
Darek lowered his gaze.
His grin disappeared.
His voice grew quiet.
Whispering, he gave the dust its property.
Pain.
In the next moment, an impulse shot through the monster.
At first, it was only a flicker inside it—an irritating pull somewhere between stomach and chest. Incomprehensible. Diffuse.
Then it became clear.
The impulse spread like a crack in glass.
Pain.
It did not begin loudly.
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It began within.
A burning that devoured the organ walls, burrowed into muscles, shot through nerve pathways. It was not a cut, not a blow—it was as if its own tissue were turning against it. As if its cells suddenly realized they were working incorrectly.
The monster tensed abruptly. Its massive body arched, scales pressing against each other. Its gills flared open. Its feelers twitched uncontrollably.
The pain dug deeper.
Into the skin.
Into the depths.
Into something that went beyond flesh.
Its stomach began to twist. Not rhythmically. Chaotically. Convulsively. The musculature contracted in violent waves, as if trying to tear itself out.
And the monster understood.
The being it had swallowed.
That was the cause.
Nausea surged through it. A massive, uncontrollable reflex. Its enormous throat tightened, its body reared up.
It gagged.
A dull, gurgling sound escaped from within. Then another.
And then it vomited.
With a brutal, slimy surge, Darek was hurled from its mouth, accompanied by half-digested mud, viscous saliva, and stinking stomach acid. The mass landed heavily in the swamp.
Darek hit the ground on his back.
Black, rotten mud splashed upward.
Drool ran in thick strands from the monster’s enormous maw, dripping heavily onto him. One of the drops splattered directly into his face. He braced himself on his left arm, nearly slipping in the mud, and wiped saliva and vomit from his eyes with his right hand.
He coughed.
Spat.
Breathed heavily.
“So I was right…” he muttered hoarsely. “Quantity is linked to effect. And the dust can trigger physical effects as well.”
His lips twisted into a crooked grin.
“Not just fatigue, fear, or bad luck… This opens up an entirely new range for me.”
Another drop fell.
Splat.
He blinked.
The thought broke off.
The monster recovered.
The pain subsided. Not completely—but enough. Its musculature tensed again, this time controlled. Its eyes fixed on Darek lying beneath it in the mud.
Then it lifted its right leg.
Slowly.
The mass behind it was absurd.
And it brought it down.
With a force that was not only weight, but pure brutality.
The impact made the swamp explode. Black mud shot meters high. The ground beneath Darek was crushed outright.
His lower body, still submerged in the mud, burst under the bestial force. Bones shattered. Flesh tore. A dull, wet sound accompanied the impact.
The pain was not burning.
It was an explosion.
A blinding, all-penetrating flash that stole his breath.
A scream tore from his throat—raw, uncontrolled.
And for a brief moment, his eyes turned white.
Not from unconsciousness.
But because his body no longer knew where to put the pain.
At the same moment, he could barely hold his upper body above the mud.
His arms trembled, slipped away. The resistance beneath him gave out.
Then he sank.
The mud closed around his hips, pressed heavily and coldly against his lower body, pulled him deeper, as if the ground itself wanted to swallow him.
He was stuck. Lower bodyless, buried in the mire.
Drowning.
Suffocating.
At the feet of the beast.
The stench of rotten water and decay burned in his nose. Mud swelled into his mouth, crept between his teeth. Every breath was a struggle, every attempt to rise a futile fight against an invisible hand pressing him downward.
His Soulbound pillow worked at full capacity.
It stabilized his bleeding. It kept his heart beating. It forced his body to continue.
It made sure he did not die.
But it took none of what he felt away.
The only thing he did was suffer.
In that moment, the beast catapulted itself to second place among his worst experiences. Directly above the agony from the fight with Dex.
And yet far, far below the pain of soul formation.
This was a nightmare of suffocation, bleeding out, and total helplessness.
But it was not the worst he had endured.
After struggling several times, he finally managed to form a first half-clear thought.
The pillow primarily ensures more suffering than healing.
His fingers clawed into the mud.
This is almost a curse.
Mud pressed against his ribs. His chest burned.
What am I supposed to do if I’m ever trapped in a burning house?
A hoarse, inner laugh.
Wait and suffer until the fire eventually burns itself out?
Goddamn shit.
The curse was not a scream. More like a broken breath that got stuck somewhere between mud and lung.
Darek forced his eyes to remain open and fixed the faded red line in his field of vision.
It had been weak. Barely more than a shimmering thread.
Now it grew brighter.
Not strong. Not stable. But distinct.
A pulse ran through the symbol, as if something on the other end were responding.
Seems like the contract Soulbound has at least become clearer.
A bitter pull moved through his thoughts.
Iris and Aria must have somehow managed to persuade the thing.
The red line no longer flickered indecisively, but stretched more clearly through his field of vision. No diffuse glow anymore, no lost searching.
The compass reacted differently.
Stronger.
The trembling in the marking subsided, as if something had aligned itself. The line was still thin, still vulnerable, but it seemed… more determined.
The compass definitely perceives the dream being more accurately than before.
Before, it had only been a shadow. A vague echo. A presence without clear position.
Now it had weight.
Direction.
That alone was absurd enough. Two voices in the distance, negotiating over his survival while he sank half into the mud.
But the line remained thin.
Unstable.
And above all, far away.
They’re still too far away.
His gaze twitched restlessly, although his body barely responded anymore.
Now they have to make the whole way back.
Through this swamp.
Past the beast.
Through something they didn’t even know all it was capable of.
His stomach tightened.
And who knows what this thing can even do.
An equal pact.
The words tasted wrong.
Equality has nothing to do with safety.
It means demands.
It means something in return.
It means price.
What does it demand from me?
His mind worked feverishly, although his body had almost no strength left. He went through the events again. Step by step. Every decision. Every impulse. Every mistake.
He wanted information.
He wanted control.
Originally, he had only wanted to find a way into the city and obtain this dream essence.
And now he lay here.
Half buried in mire.
In front of a beast.
A dry inner laugh that immediately turned into coughing.
What a pile of shit this is.
His fingers clawed deeper into the mud.
They’ll need another moment.
The thought was sober. Almost factual.
But that moment stretched.
Darek lay there.
And suffered.
No heroic resistance. No strategic plan. Only pain that pulled through his body like viscous poison. Mud pressed against him, his ribs burned with every breath, and the dull pounding in his chest became its own metronome of misery.
Seconds felt like minutes.
Minutes like an eternity.
The mud slowly crept higher. Or was he imagining it?
For someone who constantly emphasizes how bizarre and relative concepts like time are…
A bitter pull moved through his thoughts.
…this shit is taking damn long.
If time is really just perception, then mine currently feels like a particularly sadistic version of it.
Technically speaking, I’ve probably drowned twelve times already.
And suffocated at least eight.
Maybe more. At some point I stopped counting.
How generous of my Soulbound pillow.
How unbelievably kind it is to pull me back from the brink of death every single time… just to not let me fall over.
I should thank it.
Maybe later. When I can breathe again. If that is ever intended.
If this is relative, then it relativizes damn poorly.
The mud would not release him.
Every time his body reflexively tried to gasp for air, his mouth opened wider than he intended.
And every time the mire was sucked in.
Thick. Warm. Heavy.
It tasted of rot and old water, of decayed plants and something metallic that reminded him of blood. The mud slid across his tongue, pressed against his palate, crawled down his throat as if it possessed its own awareness.
His body wanted to breathe.
It needed air.
His chest rose convulsively, muscles tensed, ribs desperately stretched outward.
But instead of oxygen, he received weight.
The mud pressed into him, filled every open gap, as if it were only waiting for Darek to make a mistake.
He gagged.
His throat tightened, tried to expel the foreign substance, but the next reflexive breath came faster than his control.
More mud.
More burning.
It felt as if the ground itself were drinking him. As if he were not sinking into the mud, but the mud into him.
His lungs convulsed. His body reared as best it could, although his arms were still stuck. A useless attempt to rise that only caused the mire to give way deeper and swallow him further.
Every breath was no longer breathing.
It was drowning in slow motion.
And his body would not stop trying it again and again.
Maybe Iris is right. Maybe time really is just a strange concept.
But pain…
Pain is terrifyingly precise.
Pain keeps count.
And right now, it is counting every single damn second.
Maybe Iris is right. Maybe time really is just a strange concept.
But pain…
Pain is terrifyingly exact.
Pain keeps count.
And right now, it is counting every single damn second.
HOST STATUS: LORD CRESTFALL (ERROR)
[BREEDING SCHEME ABORTED] Su Ian Hoo woke up male, uninjured, and infinitely more spiteful.
[FOREKNOWLEDGE ACTIVE] She knows exactly who holds the hammer.
[OBJECTIVE] Dismantle the Chancellor's plot using pure, unadulterated chaos.
Cursed into a useless peacock, then murdered and reset—Lord Crestfall is done with destiny. This time, the "Immortal Scam" is taking no prisoners, only grubs, and certainly no breeding partners.