DxD: Fusion

The branch beneath me didn't so much as creak as I settled my weight, perfectly still against the backdrop of rustling leaves. Below, something that had once been a devil moved with mechanical precision, its massive ant-like body gleaming a sickly pale green in the moonlight.

Where its head should have been sat a twisted human face, stretched across the insectoid skull like poorly applied wallpaper. Its mandibles worked rhythmically, crushing through what I assumed had once been human bone with the efficient indifference of a garbage disposal.

I watched it feed, its jaws making wet, clicking sounds as marrow splattered across fallen leaves. The corpse it feasted on was unrecognizable—just meat and fabric at this point, though the flash of what might have been a wristwatch suggested it had once been a hiker or camper. It seemed to ignore the bulk of the flesh for the crunchy bits. Odd quirk. 

"Observe," I whispered, directing my focus toward the creature.

{Mandible Sentinel

Level: 31

Threat: D

Condition: Sated (recent feed)

Descriptive Insight: Once a lesser devil servant, this creature abandoned its master and devolved into a scavenger. Its exoskeleton provides moderate defense against physical attacks, but its scavenger instincts have been sharpened by starvation. Prefers to ambush lone travelers.}

Level 31. Higher than most strays I'd encountered recently. Not that it mattered much anymore. These hunts had become routine—methodical exercises in tracking, killing, and disposal. My first months of hunting had been challenging, each encounter a test of my abilities. Now they were just cleanup duty.

I drew a slow, silent breath and focused my reiryoku. The power condensed within me, a cool pressure building beneath my skin. Then I released it—not a blast, but a sudden, crushing weight of spiritual pressure directed downward.

The effect was immediate. The stray's limbs buckled, its exoskeleton creaking audibly as my reiatsu pressed down on it like an invisible anvil. Cracks started to appear and chip away at its carapace. A surprised yelp—half-human, half-insect—escaped its mandibles as it tried to identify the source of the pressure.

I dropped from the branch, my body a black blur against the night sky. My zanpakutō gleamed silver for just a heartbeat before plunging through the creature's armored head. The resistance was minimal—like a knife through mud. The blade severed whatever passed for its brain stem, and the creature went rigid, then limp, its limbs splaying outward in death. My feet landed on the ground soon after. 

I withdrew my sword with a quick twist, flicking the ichor off the blade with a practiced motion. The plant life hissed from the creature's blood. Ah, acid blood. 

The stray's body twitched once, then stilled. I took gasoline out of my inventory and doused the creature, and started walking away. I threw a lit match behind me, not waiting for the fire to catch and burn. I heard a woosh, and felt heat against me. I didn't look back. 

I never waited to watch them burn, unless I needed to worry about nearby trees. I'd learned that part of the routine too—never linger at the scene longer than necessary. The orange glow reflecting off the trees behind me. The night was still young, and my energy sense told me there were more anomalies deeper in the forest.

"Level 31, Threat D," I murmured, wiping the remaining gore from my blade with a cloth from my inventory. "And you didn't even get a single attack in."

It was strange to think about how much I'd changed since my first encounter with Yomi. That fight had nearly killed me—I'd been outmatched, unprepared, and frankly, lucky to escape with my life. This creature was technically stronger than Yomi had been back then, at least according to the system's metrics, yet it posed about as much threat to me now as a housefly.

More strays. More kills. More routine.

I wondered if Rias would be proud of my efficiency, or concerned about my detachment. Probably both. She had a way of seeing multiple truths at once, while I tended to fixate on the one that made the most logical sense. Maybe that's why we balanced each other so well.

With that thought, I flash-stepped into the darkness, leaving the burning clearing behind like a distant memory already fading.

I smelled it before I saw it—a cloyingly sweet stench of advanced decay that clung to the back of my throat like syrup. Following the odor led me to a shallow depression between two massive oaks, where what had once been multiple people now formed a grotesque pile of liquefying tissue. This wasn't the work of my ant-faced friend from earlier; this was something else entirely. The bodies—or what remained of them—had been torn apart with deliberate violence, most of the bones conspicuously missing. 

I knelt at the edge of the depression, careful not to touch anything as I examined the scene. Maggots writhed through empty eye sockets and burst from bloated skin that had turned a sickly green-black. Pools of congealed blood formed black puddles beneath the mound, already attracting flies and beetles that skittered across the surface. The smell was overwhelming—death and bacterial feast, the chemical breakdown of what had once been living tissue.

"At least five victims," I muttered, counting the visible skulls. Each one had been partially crushed, as if something had applied pressure just to see when they would crack. Some still had hair attached to scalp fragments; others were stripped to gleaming bone. One jaw hung open in what looked like a final scream.

I felt nothing as I observed them. Not disgust, not pity, not horror—just a clinical assessment of what needed to be done. Was that normal? I wasn't sure anymore. The emotional distance was useful, certainly, but sometimes I wondered if it was a feature or a flaw.

I reached into my inventory and withdrew two gasoline containers this time. This would require more fuel than my previous cleanup. I methodically doused the entire depression, making sure to saturate the deepest parts of the pile where decomposition was most advanced. The gasoline mixed with the liquefied remains, creating a shimmering film atop the black sludge.

After emptying both containers, I struck a match and tossed it into the center of the depression. Flames erupted with a woosh, blue-orange tongues licking upward as the gasoline ignited. The fire would consume everything—flesh, bone, evidence. Nature's most thorough cleanser.

Unlike before, I stayed to watch. This fire was larger, and I needed to ensure it didn't spread to the surrounding forest. The heat pushed me back several steps, intense and purifying. Black smoke curled upward, carrying the stench of burning death into the night sky. I watched as the flames reduced what had once been human to ash and carbon, erasing the horror from the world one charred molecule at a time.

After fifteen minutes, the fire began to die down, having consumed its macabre fuel. I kicked dirt and leaves over the remaining embers, ensuring nothing would reignite. By morning, there would be nothing but scorched earth and a faint smell of smoke—nothing that would alarm a casual hiker.

Satisfied with my work, I flash-stepped away, leaving the clearing behind. My foot barely touched a branch before I was gone again, moving deeper into the forest at speeds that blurred the world around me. The night air cooled my face as I traveled, washing away the lingering stench of death and fire.

This had become routine too—finding multiple stray devils or their victims in a single night. When I first started hunting, I'd focus on tracking one stray, dispatching it, and returning home. Now I could handle three or four in quick succession without breaking a sweat. Efficiency born of practice and increasing power.

I paused on a high branch, perching at the edge where moonlight broke through the canopy. I sent out my energy sense again, a ripple of awareness spreading through the forest like sonar. Nothing pinged back. Either the area was clear, or whatever remained was skilled at masking its presence.

Both seemed equally likely. I'd wait a few minutes, then move to another section, deeper in the forest than before.

As I settled into the stillness, my mind drifted to thoughts I'd been turning over for weeks now. I'd been considering looking for a better place to live—something more than the modest apartment the system had provided me with when I arrived in this world. Not out of vanity or discomfort, but practicality. My current space was functional but limited.

Or at least, that's what I told myself.

The truth, which I was slowly allowing myself to acknowledge, was simpler: I wanted a place where I could host Rias and the others comfortably. A living room where we could all sit without being cramped. A kitchen where I could prepare food for more than just myself. Maybe even spare rooms for when conversations ran late. Possibly, among other things. My recent anime marathon with Rias solidified my decision.

It was odd to realize I was planning around the presence of others in my life. That hadn't been the case in either of my lives before. Sure my last life was dedicated to the betterment of humanity, but the others around me often became furniture in that pursuit. Background to the problem I was solving.

Money wasn't going to be a problem—or rather, it wouldn't be soon. I turned to what I used to be good at, or at least was I dedicated my life and death to. The energy industry. Since it was only 2010, I wasn't surprised to find out the nuclear power technology of today was pretty basic, let alone relied on. Fusion technology was less of a prospect than I even remembered. They were still trying to master fission and come up with novel technologies such as Thorium molten salt reactors. 

Due to my perfect memory, I had reactor schematics from both my own design and from others memorized down to the last titanium plate. I was never very artistic, but when it came to design schematics for nuclear technology, I might as well have been Michael Angelo, so I wasn't worried about replicating the designs on paper. This tech was decades ahead of its time, so the designs and patents had to sell for a hefty sum. 

Rias had agreed to help me navigate the patent process and sell designs through some of her family's human-world connections shortly after our first Fryran marathon. She had been curious at first, at what I told her what I was trying to do. It not only baffled her, but confused her.

The memory warmed me more than it should have, considering I was perched on a branch in the cold night air, hunting monsters.

I shook my head and refocused. I'd give the energy sense one more sweep, then move to the next sector. The night was still young, and I had work to do.

As I moved and searched, my mind drifted back to the conversation with Rias after our Fryran marathon last week, after I had told her my idea to make money. We'd been sitting on my couch, the outro song of the sixth episode playing on the screen, when she'd turned to me with that penetrating gaze that always made me feel like she was seeing through layers I didn't even know I had. 

"I don't understand you sometimes," she'd said, voice soft but direct. "You have the intellect to revolutionize human science, the power to protect yourself from most threats, and yet you spend your days in high school classes you could teach blindfolded and your nights hunting strays." I had raised my eyebrow at that. 

"Oh you really think I didn't know? Kuoh is my territory after all. A sudden, almost complete disappearance of all strays…someone was bound to notice." She chuckled. Then she looked at me seriously. 

"Just be careful. Please. Some strays can be very strong, some even I would hesitate to engage with." I nodded my head, which seemed to satisfy her. 

I remembered how the light from the television had cast blue shadows across her face, making her crimson hair look almost purple at the edges. She'd drawn her knees up to her chest, looking smaller than usual, more girl than devil princess.

"But you could set yourself up perfectly in the human world," she'd continued, her fingers absently tracing patterns on the couch cushion between us. 

"Or you could join my peerage and have access to resources beyond what most humans ever dream of. Instead, you live in this modest house, attend classes that must bore you to tears, and spend your free time fighting monsters in the dark."

Her confusion had been genuine. To someone born into power and privilege, my choices must have seemed incomprehensible. Why work for what you could simply take? Why live simply when extravagance was available?

"Hey I also spend my time with you and the rest of the ORC." That made her smile.

"True." Then I returned into thought to answer her question.

I'd considered my answer carefully, turning over the words in my mind before speaking. Not because I needed to construct a truth—but because I wanted to express the actual truth accurately.

"I enjoy my life," I'd finally said, looking directly into her eyes. "I like the rhythm of school, the predictability balanced with small variations. I like the feeling after a hunt—not just the power gain, but knowing I've removed something harmful from the world. Battling in general has become fun. And..." I'd paused, feeling something unusual—hesitation born not of uncertainty, but of vulnerability. "I like being close to you." My words had come out softer than I intended.

The blush that had spread across her cheeks had been immediate and intense, a deep rose that complemented her hair perfectly. She'd looked away, then back at me, her eyes wider than before.

"Oh," was all she'd managed at first. Then she'd moved closer and wrapped her arms around me in a hug that felt different from our usual contact—deeper somehow, more meaningful. Less about being physically close; much more connection.

I hadn't realized until that moment how different hugs could be. Rias hugged with her whole self, her body relaxing into the contact as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Akeno's hugs, by contrast, always felt like challenges or performances—her body pressed against mine with deliberate precision, each point of contact calculated for maximum effect.

They were enjoyable in their own way, but they never felt like she was truly letting her guard down. It often felt like she was trying to compete with Rias, or trying to get a rise out of her, and a different kind of rise from me. Due to me never "rising" to her provocative provocation, she seemed to see it as a challenge to try harder. 

That was the fundamental difference, I supposed. Rias sought connection; Akeno sought reaction. Both were valid approaches to intimacy, just different in their intent and execution. I'd never get tired of feeling their chests and the rest pressed against me so I wouldn't complain about either method.

However, I felt like Akeno kept herself as distant as I did from other people, just in a different way. Akeno would often initiate, intimate, physical contact, trying to drag any part of me into her cleavage or between her thighs. Koneko now outright called her a "hentai", a pervert, whenever it happened. Not that it dissuaded her efforts in the least. Koneko had given up trying to catch me being a "hentai". Because I wasn't one.

My thoughts shifted to the petite, cat-like girl, who understood my need for comfortable silence better than anyone. She'd taken to sitting near me during my brief visits to the ORC, not speaking, just existing in the same space. Sometimes she'd offer me one of her sweets—a gesture I appreciated and considered a high honor despite not particularly enjoying Japanese confections. I'd eat them anyway, because the act of sharing seemed important to her.

She knew I didn't care for them either. I could tell by the way her eyes lingered on my face after the first bite, watching for my reaction. But she kept offering, and I kept accepting. A small ritual of connection between two people who preferred observation to participation.

Rounding out my thoughts of the group, I was really grateful for Kiba. And I could tell Kiba felt the same way. He was now much more lively compared to when we first met. His eyes seemed normal now, full of mystery yes, but warm.

His change in demeanor had earned him a fan club of his own, something I found hilarious. Kiba looked at me strangely for a while when I actually laughed in his face, but I suppose he wasn't used to hearing that laugh. It made me think back to the time when three girls tried to confess to him at the sam–

My energy sense pinged, interrupting my reverie. Something moving fast about a quarter-mile east—erratic, panicked motion. I flash-stepped toward it, closing the distance in seconds.

I spotted it immediately: a stray devil with the lower body of a leopard and the torso of a human female, its face distorted with terror as it bounded through the underbrush. It was running from something, not hunting—its movements frenzied and desperate.

I dropped to the forest floor directly in its path. It skidded to a halt, eyes wild with fear that shifted to confusion when it saw me.

"Human?" it hissed, voice like gravel on silk. "No. Not just human. What—"

I didn't wait for it to finish. My sword flashed once, severing its head in a clean arc. I softly landed behind where it had come from, sword returning its scabbard in a fluid motion. The body collapsed mid-question, twitching as its blood soaked into the forest floor. Whatever it had been running from, I'd given it a cleaner death.

"Observe," I whispered, more out of habit than necessity.

{Feralimb Stalker

Level: 24

Threat: N/A

Condition: Dead.

Description: A lower-class devil servant who abandoned its master after developing a taste for human flesh. Fast but fragile, relying on ambush tactics and speed. Was experiencing an extreme fear response from unknown stimulus.}

Interesting. Something had terrified this predator enough to make it flee blindly through the forest. I made a mental note to be cautious as I continued my patrol.

I dragged the corpse to a small clearing and performed my usual cleanup procedure. The gasoline caught quickly, flames consuming the evidence of the supernatural with efficient hunger. I waited until the fire burned low, then smothered the remaining embers with dirt and leaves.

As I worked, I found myself thinking about Kiba again, resuming my thoughts, before I was rudely interrupted. 

Our sparring sessions had become a highlight of my week. He'd grown more technically skilled, but more importantly, he'd become more alive. The deadness in his eyes had receded, replaced by focus and determination. Sometimes even humor.

The first time I'd actually laughed at one of his dry comments about his new fan club, he'd looked so startled that I'd laughed harder.

"I didn't know you could do that," he'd said, voice caught between amusement and genuine surprise.

Neither did I, I'd thought but didn't say.

With the cleanup complete, I flash-stepped back into the trees, alert for whatever had spooked the stray. My senses were primed, my body ready for anything.

Or so I thought.

I was still thinking about Kiba's transformation when it hit me—literally. One moment I was flash-stepping through the upper canopy, the next I slammed into what felt like an invisible wall of pure stench so powerful it disrupted my concentration mid-jump. 

My body tumbled through branches, control lost as the overwhelming foulness invaded my senses. I barely managed to grab a low-hanging limb, swinging once before dropping to the forest floor with as much grace as I could muster. Which wasn't much.

I landed in a crouch, one hand braced against the ground, the other covering my nose and mouth. It did nothing to block the assault on my senses. My eyes watered involuntarily, and I fought the urge to gag as I took in my surroundings.

A hazy green gas hung at ground level, clinging to the forest floor like a toxic fog. It wasn't thick enough to obscure visibility completely, but it created a sickly halo around the bases of trees and rocks. The moonlight filtering through the canopy gave it an eerie, phosphorescent quality, as if the forest floor were glowing with radiation.

I straightened slowly, keeping my breathing shallow. This had to be what the leopard-bodied stray had been running from. Not a predator, but this miasma—this corruption of air that felt almost alive in its malevolence.

My instincts screamed at me to retreat, to flash-step back the way I'd come and leave whatever created this toxicity to its own devices. It would be the logical choice. The safe choice.

Instead, I found myself walking forward, drawn by a curiosity that overrode caution. Something about this felt different from the usual supernatural threats I'd encountered. The gas wasn't random—it had a source, a purpose. And whatever could generate such a potent miasma was something I needed to identify. And eliminate. I'm not sure where this sense of duty came from, but I wasn't fighting it.

I moved cautiously through the contaminated area, staying at ground level rather than flash-stepping. Partly because the disorienting stench might cause me to miscalculate a jump, but also because I wanted to track the increasing density of the gas to locate its origin.

With each step, the fog thickened and the stench intensified. What had been nauseating quickly became unbearable—a symphony of olfactory horrors that assaulted my senses in waves. I could identify individual notes in the putrid composition: decaying flesh left too long in the sun, burnt meat with an undertone of hair and bone, methane from ruptured intestines, sulfur as if from volcanic vents.

It was, without exaggeration, the worst thing I had ever smelled. And I had extensive experience with decomposition and death from my hunting activities.

This was different. This wasn't just death—it was death corrupted, death perverted into something worse than mere non-existence. It was as if someone had taken the concept of decay and weaponized it, distilled it into its most offensive form.

My perfect memory was a curse in this moment, each breath cataloging new variations of foulness that I would never be able to forget. The gas seemed to cling to my skin, seeping into my clothes and hair, marking me with its taint. I wondered if I'd ever feel clean again.

Despite my efforts to breathe shallowly, I found myself growing lightheaded. Not from lack of oxygen, but from the sheer assault on my senses. The human brain wasn't designed to process this level of sensory offense.

That's when my energy sense pinged—not the gentle alert I'd experienced before, but a massive spike that felt like a thunderclap inside my skull. Something was ahead, something vastly more powerful than the strays I'd been hunting.

I froze, one hand instinctively reaching for my zanpakutō. The reading was off the charts, easily ten times stronger than anything I'd encountered in Kuoh's forests before. Perhaps stronger than Rias or Akeno at full power. Minus PoD hax.

{Warning: High-level threat detected}

The system's alert appeared in my vision, confirming what my senses were already screaming. This wasn't a routine hunt anymore. This was something else entirely.

I weighed my options. The smart play would be to retreat, gather information, perhaps return with backup. But the pragmatist in me knew that by the time I returned with Rias or the others, whatever was generating this miasma might be gone. I didn't want to take that risk.

Knowledge was power, and I needed to know what I was dealing with. I could observe from a distance, remain undetected, and extract if the situation proved too dangerous. Whatever I needed to tell myself to keep going.

Decision made, I flash-stepped back into the trees, where the gas was less concentrated. Moving through the upper canopy would allow me to approach more stealthily while suffering less from the debilitating stench. As much as I hated the thought, I was slowly becoming nose blind to the foul air. I'd track the source to its origin, then evaluate.

As I moved through the branches, following the increasing density of the green fog, a sinking feeling settled in my gut. Unlike the calculated risk assessment I usually relied on, this was something more primal—an animal instinct warning me that I was moving toward something I wasn't prepared to face.

For once, I couldn't dismiss the feeling as irrational. Every sense I possessed, both human and enhanced, was telling me the same thing: danger ahead. True danger. Not the routine threats I'd grown accustomed to dispatching with ease, but something that might actually challenge my newfound capabilities.

Part of me—the part that had grown complacent with easy victories—welcomed the challenge. The rest of me wondered if I was making a critical error.

Too late to turn back now. Plus I'd hate to come all that way just for my clothes to be ruined by this putrid miasma with nothing to show for it. I continued forward, moving from branch to branch, following the thickening miasma to its source.

The trees ahead had changed. Their leaves were no longer merely dusted with the green miasma—they were covered in it, thick globs of viscous ooze that stretched between branches like mucus membranes. The vegetation had been corrupted into something organic yet wrong, forming what looked like a crude, pulsating cave entrance. 

Moonlight filtered through the canopy in sickly rays, illuminating droplets of something too thick to be dew that fell from the twisted foliage. I paused at the edge of this grotesque domain, my hand tightening around my zanpakutō's hilt as I took in the unnatural transformation of the forest. I couldn't help but think if this was a domain expansion, or Realm enlargement, as this world's Gugutsu Tisen called it.

What had once been a natural clearing had been reshaped into something that defied ecological sense. The trees bent inward at impossible angles, their trunks warped and swollen with bulbous growths that leaked yellowish fluid. The green ooze mixed with putrid blood had cemented the upper branches together, creating a roof that undulated slightly, as if breathing. The entire structure resembled less a forest and more a massive, diseased throat.

I swallowed hard, suppressing the instinct to retreat. Whatever had created this aberration needed to be investigated, cataloged, and—if necessary—eliminated. I stepped forward, ducking beneath a low-hanging curtain of slime that parted with a wet, sucking sound.

Inside was a nightmare landscape that made the corrupted exterior seem quaint by comparison.

The ground wasn't soil anymore but a patchwork of what appeared to be compressed organic matter—bones, hair, and tissue merged together in a spongy surface that yielded slightly with each step. Rising from this unholy floor were structures that resembled stalagmites, but formed of decaying tissue and bone rather than minerals. They spiraled upward in twisted columns of preserved muscle and sinew, some topped with recognizably human faces frozen in expressions of agony.

From the ooze-covered ceiling hung heavy chains with rusted hooks, each supporting what remained of humanoid corpses. Some were fresh enough to be recognizable as devils or humans; others had been reduced to little more than leather-like skin stretched over bone, preserved in the toxic atmosphere.

Spiked chains hung from the canopy ceiling and other tree limbs, ending in vicious hooks.

The hooks pierced through shoulders, rib cages, and in one particularly disturbing case, directly through a skull with the point emerging from an open mouth.

Blood seemed to mist from everywhere—not flowing but suspended in the air like a fine crimson fog that settled on my skin in tacky droplets. It mixed with the green gas to create an atmosphere that was almost tangible in its wrongness, a physical presence that pushed against my senses with malevolent intent.

The stench was beyond description now. My earlier encounter with the miasma had been merely the outer edges of this concentrated horror. Here, at its source, the smell had transcended mere physical offense to become something that assaulted the mind directly. It bypassed the olfactory nerves and struck at the most primitive parts of the brain, triggering revulsion so deep it felt ancestral.

I found myself fighting not just nausea but a creeping sense of existential dread. This place wasn't just corrupted—it was corruption itself, distilled into physical form. A violation of natural law so profound that reality itself seemed to warp around its edges.

Despite years of emotional distance and detachment, I felt something primal stirring in my chest. Not fear exactly—though that was certainly present—but a deep, instinctive recognition that I was in the presence of something fundamentally wrong.

A wet, crunching sound drew my attention deeper into the chamber. I moved forward cautiously, stepping around the tissue columns, keeping to the shadows cast by the strange, pulsating light that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves.

Then I saw it.

Something that didn't belong on Earth, or in the depths of Hell, or in any realm that obeyed structure or sanity.

At first, my brain tried to categorize it and failed. The dimensions didn't register correctly. It stood at least twelve feet tall, but the scale kept warping every time I blinked. Its body was grotesquely swollen, like a corpse left to ferment and swell in stagnant water. Skin clung tight over some parts, pulled taut like overstretched leather, while in others it hung loose in sagging curtains, slick with pus and sweat.

It didn't walk. It sloshed. Each movement shifted the weight of its body like a living stomach trying to digest itself. Its limbs looked like they had been tacked on after the fact—short, stubby, misaligned, barely sufficient to carry its own mass. Its back was ruptured with vertical slits that wheezed and hissed like broken lungs, venting clouds of pale green gas into the chamber. The stench hit me instantly—sour, metallic, layered with the unmistakable scent of meat that had learned how to rot in ways that defied biology.

It loomed over a pile of corpses—humanoid, devil, and things I didn't recognize—all partially consumed, some still twitching. Bone jutted from the mess at impossible angles, licked clean in places, others gnawed down with mindless precision. Blood oozed like sap from the mound, pooling around the creature's squat feet, soaking into the fleshy floor with sickening squelches.

And then it turned its head.

Or what I thought was a head.

Its face wasn't centered. It was smeared across the upper torso—a gaping vertical mouth lined with irregular, needled teeth, twitching and drooling as it chewed on a limp arm that hadn't fully been swallowed. Above that, mounted like a tumor on its shoulder, was a second maw. This one was wider, deeper, darker—like something trying to crawl out of its own host.

Before I could examine it further, I activated Observe, needing data before I decided how to proceed.

{GHOM, The Devouring Titan

Level: ??

Condition: "The hunger is older than the name. It remembers everything it's ever eaten—especially what got away."

Threat Level: B [Environmental Modifier: This creature thrives in toxic or rotted terrain. Threat level increased to A while in corrupted environments.]

Descriptive Insight: An ancient and hateful being, created in the depths of the abyss over 400 years ago. A malformed giant of bloat and decay, Ghom is less a creature and more a biological, demonic catastrophe given shape. Its body pulses with internal motion, as if digesting something that refuses to die. The stench of bile and necrotic gas coils around it like a veil, and its mind simmers with a sadistic fascination toward anything that bleeds, breathes, or begs. It speaks like it's tasting you. It fights like it's seasoning you. This is not hunger for sustenance—this is hunger for possession. For the right to say you were mine before you died.}

The data chilled me more than the sight itself. Level ??. Threat level B elevated to A. This wasn't just another stray—this was something ancient, powerful, and uniquely evil. The kind of creature that had survived centuries not through luck but through calculated malice. This was likely the strongest thing I had encountered in this world.

I began to withdraw slowly, planning to retreat and formulate a strategy. I'd need preparation for this, perhaps even backup. This wasn't a fight to take on unprepared.

"Mmm.... something new on the breeze."

The voice froze me in place. It was the deepest voice I'd ever heard, the kind that vibrated your body hair like the base of a low subwoofer. Guttural, oily, each word drawn out as if the speaker were tasting the syllables before releasing them. The massive figure turned, and I caught a glimpse of a rusted iron mask fused to what might generously be called a face, strings of blood paste running from its jaw into its distended, open mouth belly.

"Not rotted, not ripe. But close." The creature's massive head swiveled, searching the shadows where I stood. "Trying to hide like you can escape my hunger."

I didn't move, didn't breathe. But somehow, it knew exactly where I was.

"Every part of you is going to slide," it continued, a wet sound like collapsing lungs punctuating its speech. "Skin, bone, name... all of it. I'm going to swallow who you were until there's nothing left but teeth marks."

The creature—Ghom—took a step forward, its massive bulk shifting with surprising grace. Hooks and chains in its body pulsated as it moved, releasing unknown fluids from its twisted form. It extended one bloated hand, fingers dripping with a substance that sizzled when it hit the ground.

"You have no idea what you're for," it said, crushing something underfoot with a sharp, wet crunch. "But I do. I can smell it on you. Weakness like yours smells delicious."

I knew in that moment that I was outmatched. Not just in power, but in experience. This thing had been hunting and killing for centuries. It had survived in a world where weakness meant death, and it had done more than survive—it had created this twisted kingdom of rot.

My hand tightened around my zanpakutō's hilt. I could feel my reiryoku responding to my tension, gathering beneath my skin like a storm ready to break.

I had two choices: retreat or fight. Logic dictated the former. Every calculation, every risk assessment pointed to withdrawal as the only rational option.

But I stood my ground.

Sometimes, logic isn't enough. I took one look around at the flesh structures, seeing the dead faces staring at me with terrified grimaces and frozen screams.

"This abomination must die."