Demon Anomaly System

Chapter 7: 15%

There was nowhere to go.

Even at full speed, he couldn't escape the pit. Every wall was a churning flood of blood, meat, and broken bone. There was no climb, no way out. He could outrun the swarm for now. But not forever.

The pit was massive, but running felt like stalling death. He skidded to a stop and dropped low, claws tearing into the flesh beneath his feet as he started to dig.

[Recommendation: Cease. User will die. Racial Ability: Savage Feed is still on cooldown.]

"Don't want to burn!"

His black heart hammered in his chest. The swarm was close now. Thousands of burning insects, glowing like cinders, rushing toward him in a single living wave.

Panic clawed its way into his mind.

[Alternate Recommendation. Head northeast. Opening detected at base of waterfall. Dive.]

"What?!"

He bolted back into a sprint, saliva spilling from his mouth as he screamed at the voice.

"That will kill me!"

[Dig, 98% chance of death. Racial Ability disabled. System cannot protect User this time. Run, 100% chance of death. No escape routes available. Dive, Outcome unknown. Estimated survival, 10%.]

Even if the imp was new to the idea, he understood enough to know 10% wasn't much.

He looked back once. Just once. The memory... the death of the system's first imp, flashed in his mind. The screaming, the burning. That was enough.

"Where?!"

[SYSTEM // Notification]

[Override Request // APPROVED]

[System Function // Map // UNLOCKED // Operation Limited]

As the script blinked out, confusion hit... until he saw it. A small arrow, floating near the top of his vision. Fixed. No matter where he looked, it stayed. He followed it, veering left. Straight toward the bloodfall.

"If I die, you die too!"

[System will survive.]

The scream of the falls grew louder. The stench hit next - iron, pus and rot. A death march of heat and filth. Spray soaked his skin, darkening it deeper red.

"Just jump?!"

[Recommendation. Grab a falling bone. Hold on.]

"Hold on..."

He snarled at the suggestion, but his eyes were already searching, scanning the torrent for anything solid as the air behind him grew hotter.

Closer.

Panic surged, heat licking at his back. Then he saw it. A massive ribcage tumbling through the falls.

He jumped. Slammed into the spine, his claws dug deep, all twelve locking into wet, solid bone as he wrapped tight.

Everything vanished, sound, air, feeling. Just pressure remained. Darkness and descent.

Above, the swarm hovered at the edge, wings humming. Watching. Then they turned, flared, and lifted off. Seeking something else to hatch their eggs in.

And below, the imp clung to bone and instinct. Doing the only thing he could. Trying to survive.

----

Everything was red, then black, then red again.

The imp couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Blood filled his mouth, nose, and eyes. He clung to the ribcage, claws sunk, but every second threatened to rip him off.

[!! WARNING !!]

The waterfall wasn't water. It was heat and pus, meat chunks and splinters of bone slamming against his skull as he plummeted with the corpse.

Air came in bursts.

[!! OXYGEN INTAKE CRITICAL !!]

Only when the skeleton struck a growth or bounced off a bone. A second of light. A scream of open air. Then swallowed again.

But the deeper it fell, the more stone there was. Flesh gave way to jagged rock, cuts of black stone slicing through the tunnel walls, growing thicker with every second.

[!! WARNING !!]

Something burned. His skin blistered. Then froze, so cold it cracked.

[!! SYSTEM STABILITY DEGRADING !!]

He bit his tongue. Didn't feel it.

The stench was constant, sweet rot, boiled marrow, sulfur and waste. It coated his throat. Every time he gasped, it crawled deeper.

The ribcage snapped. Each impact broke more, his anchor shrinking.

Something flashed. Screaming faces in the blood, pulled apart and screaming still. A spine whipped by, caught him in the shoulder, tore a gash across his back.

[!! WARNING !!]

The ribcage twisted. The tunnel beneath opened wide. Then... nothing.

[!! SURVIVAL RATING // BELOW 2% !!]

Everything dropped. The sound spread out, the pressure gone. An immense free fall. Then... impact. He slammed into something at an angle. The massive spine beneath him shattered. He slid, claws scraping across something hard - then dropped again.

Weightless, clawing at blood and nothing. He twisted mid-air, just enough to look down. It paid off. Barely.

Another hit, this time into a churning mass of blood. It swallowed him whole. The speed drove him deep, tunneling into it before he hit the bottom.

Hard.

Not hard enough to end it.

His legs snapped on impact. Pain shot up his body. The current dragged him, spinning, ripping him through the flood.

A large slab of meat slammed into him. Veins throbbing along it like snakes. The force drove him closer to the edge. Just enough.

He reached out. Clawed at it. Talons met stone. One arm caught and held, just barely.

No time to celebrate. He wasn't moving, but he couldn't breathe. And staying still wouldn't change anything.

[Request permission to forcibly allocate AP to strength.]

'Anything! Yes!'

[SYSTEM // Notification]

[Override Request // APPROVED]

[Forced AP Allocation // STR +3]

[STR 2 → 5]

A surge. Heat spread from his core, flooding every muscle. His grip tightened. He dragged his other arm forward, and began to climb.

His legs still dangled, twisted and limp, bone shards and slick cords of intestine shifted around him, threatening to dislodge his hold. But it didn't matter.

The strength was real.

He kept moving. If only his breath could keep up.

[!! WARNING !!]

Fire lit in his chest. His wounds tore with every pull.

[!! OXYGEN REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY !!]

Flashing, beeping, more flashing, more beeping. Did the system really think he didn't know? The fear almost took over... until the anger edged past it. Enough for one last pull.

That was all he had.

He didn't even realize when he broke the surface, he only felt the rock slam square into his chest when he landed. Hard enough to kick his lungs back into working.

He coughed. Gasped and convulsed, then passed out. 

 Besides the raging flow of blood, the last thing he heard, before everything went black... 

[...Surprising.]