Oblivion's Throne-Chapter 99: Varkren’s Instinct

The air reeked of blood, a thick metallic scent that clung to Orion's tongue as he stood over the Varkren's corpse.

The beast still radiated faint heat, its massive form twitching with post-mortem spasms. Even in death, it looked indomitable—its black, chitinous hide pulsed with dying crimson veins.

A soft chime resonated in his ears.

The Pythia System flickered to life.

 「Begin Extraction?」 

 「Yes | No」

Orion exhaled, steadying his breath before pressing his palm against the still-warm flesh.

The moment contact was made, something struck him—a force, primal and violent, surging up his arm. It latched onto his nervous system like a predator sinking fangs into prey.

Then the world around him shifted.

Pain all flooded into him at once, like a dam breaking in his mind.

Not the sharp kind, but something deeper, more visceral—like his very cells were being torn apart and reshaped all at once. His nerves lit up as though something had detonated inside him.

A flood of sensations crashed through his mind.

A world of movement. A world of kill or be killed.

No fear. No hesitation. Every movement was a calculation. Every breath was an advantage.

This was how the Varkren saw the world.

And now, for some reason he could feel sensations from it.

Orion's heartbeat increased, hammering in his ears like a war drum. His muscles tensed involuntarily, resisting the foreign presence forcing its way into his body.

The Varkren had lived by instinct. Its body was a manifestation of perfect predation, honed by thousands of hunts, hundreds of battles, all etched into its very genetic sequence. And now, those instincts refused to be tamed.

His vision fractured.

For a brief moment, he saw through the Varkren's eyes.

The world was a battlefield.

Weakness meant death.

Strength meant survival.

A surge of alien willpower crashed into his mind like a tidal wave, fighting back. The Pythia System flared to stabilize the process.

 「Evolutionary Pathway Detected. 」

Orion felt something inside him buckle.

A lesser person would have broken—torn apart by the sheer force of foreign instincts invading their mind.

 「Choose Integration Path」

1. Path of Reflexive Augmentation → Nervous system optimization to match the Varkren's hyper-responsive combat state.

Effect: Near-instant reaction speed in combat.

Drawback: Reduces precision.

2. Path of Predatory Awareness → Heightened sensory inputs to detect prey—or threats—with inhuman precision.

Effect: Instinctual awareness of living beings within range.

Drawback: Risk of sensory overload.

3. Path of Adaptive Muscle Fibers → Micro-adjustments in combat, mimicking the Varkren's fluid, instinct-driven movements.

Effect: Dynamic muscle adaptation for maximum efficiency.

Drawback: Requires recalibration time to prevent bodily strain.

Orion clenched his jaw. Each option had a cost.

His body still thrummed with the aftershocks of the trait absorption, but now he had to decide how far he was willing to push the integration.

The Predatory Awareness was tempting—he had already felt glimpses of it, the sensation of life pulsing around him. But his Vyonmetra's Eyes sigil already enhanced his vision in low-light conditions and provided acute detail perception. Stacking too many sensory augmentations could overload his mind, reducing clarity rather than improving it.

The Reflexive Augmentation would turn him into a creature of raw speed and instinct, allowing him to counter threats before his conscious mind even registered them. But if his body moved too fast without balance, he could overcompensate in battle.

Then, there was the Adaptive Muscle Fiber—not remarkable at first but if used correctly with Orion's other advantages it would be insanely good. Instead of just moving faster, it would allow him to move better, adjusting his stance and attack patterns to optimize every motion. But it would take time for his body to recalibrate and fully synchronize.

The system provided a choice, but not without consequences.

 「Select Evolutionary Path」

Orion chose the Predatory Awareness path.

Orion gritted his teeth, feeling his muscles convulse as the process neared its climax.

The Varkren's instincts wanted to consume him.

Orion's body convulsed, muscles locking as a searing pressure crawled through his spine. It wasn't pain in the normal sense—it was deeper, as if something within him was being taken apart and rebuilt at a fundamental level.

His nerves felt raw, exposed to the air itself. Every muscle fiber, every tendon, every cell was being forced to accommodate something new.

Then, a chime echoed in his mind, an artificial calm against the chaos inside him.

A sudden shift—his vision fractured. Time stretched. The cavern around him blurred, colors bleeding at the edges as his perception bent.

But this wasn't loss of control.

This was expansion.

Something was changing the way he experienced movement, space, and intent. The world didn't just exist before his eyes—it pulsed, layered in unseen forces, currents of motion he had never perceived before.

A foreign instinct wove itself into his being, a blueprint of predatory efficiency—each adjustment sharpening his awareness, syncing his mind and body to a different kind of logic.

He could feel it—his breath syncing with the shifts in air pressure, the way his body automatically tensed and relaxed in preparation for movement. His reflexes adjusted before he was even aware of them.

Orion's body jerked violently one last time—then stilled.

The tension in his muscles vanished. The overwhelming pressure evaporated.

He inhaled sharply, lungs dragging in air like a man surfacing from the depths. His hands trembled, but not from pain.

From something else.

After two hours of pain, Orion's eyes snapped open, shinning with a thin violet hue.

Orion exhaled, his entire body trembling, sweat dripping down his jaw. His heart still pounded like it wanted to burst from his chest, but the worst was over.

The Varkren's corpse lay motionless before him, its once-bright veins now completely dark.But as he flexed his fingers, feeling the new sensation woven into his being.

A presence, a new layer of awareness, had settled inside him.

Something was different now.

Orion took a slow step forward.

The world around him had changed. Or rather, his perception of it had.

It was no longer just a cavern.

It was a territory.

And he could feel everything in it.

 「Trait Extraction Complete.」 

 「Predatory Aura – Instinctual Awareness of Living Beings Within a Radius in Addition To Heightened sensory inputs.」

A pulse in the air.

The shift in temperature.

The weight of unseen eyes.

Orion didn't need to turn his head to know exactly where every living thing in his vicinity was.

He could sense the fluttering of unseen insects hidden in the cracks, the faint but steady breathing of something larger, lurking beyond the cavern's threshold.

His mind processed threats instantly, an involuntary categorization of everything around him—size, movement patterns, proximity, intent.

The instincts of a hunter had been imprinted into his body.

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Orion exhaled, closing his eyes.

A shiver ran down Orion's spine as he turned his head slightly, following an unseen ripple in the air. It was like an echo—not sound, but something deeper, more instinctual. He shifted his weight and immediately sensed the micro-adjustments in his posture, the tension in his muscles subtly aligning for efficiency. Even the way his breath passed through his nostrils was something he could now feel in absolute clarity.

Then, without warning, his gaze snapped to the cavern's entrance. A presence lingered just beyond the threshold. It wasn't moving, but he could feel it—a heartbeat, the faintest shift of weight on stone, the subtle exhalation of breath. Whoever—or whatever—it was, it had been there for a while.