thief of fate-Chapter 79: Transforming into a human 2

Under a dome of bones and faint violet light, Irkalos emerged from the lair of the "Mother of Curses." His bare feet touched the stone ground as if it were alien to him, and with every step, he felt his new body groan in a silent agony only he could hear.

His skin... human.

His chest... beating.

His heart... beating?

Yes.

And that disgusted him.

Behind him, Axel walked with calm steps, observing him like he was testing a rare piece just pulled from the furnace. His eyes, like a silent abyss, showed neither satisfaction nor aversion. Only a silence resembling death.

Irkalos said in a low voice, still unaccustomed to using his human throat:

"This... body is weak. Weaker than I expected."

"Your weakness now... is what will make you stronger later. Don’t concern yourself with appearances," said Axel. "You’ve taken the first step."

"Human? No. This is temporary. It won’t last... But why this unease within me? What is this feeling in my chest?... Fear? No... Something else. Tightness. Rage. Betrayal?"

They stepped outside. As they passed the threshold, the earth felt their presence. A silent tremor ran through the twisted edges of the ruined buildings, through the sleepless cracks where whispering creatures hid. Silence first, then... a hum, like an instinct awakening.

The Arkanis began to sniff.

The first to appear was a relatively small creature, hunched back, with multiple eyes glinting in the dark. It crawled from behind a rock, sniffing the air and whispering:

"Human blood?"

A second, then a third, then more than ten emerged from the cracks and corridors, their eyes glowing, tongues panting, fangs slowly sliding from their gray lips. It looked like a monster feast, driven only by hunger.

One of them approached Irkalos, and in a hoarse voice from a throat that barely knew human speech, it muttered:

"Scent... disgusting... delicious."

Axel stopped, showing no tension. He merely looked at Irkalos and said:

"Show me."

Irkalos didn’t respond. He turned his body toward the gathering crowd, his eyes burning with a gaze they had never seen before. There was no obvious threat, he didn’t move a muscle, but...

The aura was released.

Slowly, like a beast slithering from his chest, it engulfed the area. It wasn’t just pressure — it was memories of blood, massacres, the chaos of souls crushed in his life. The air grew heavy. Even the earth began to groan.

The first Arkanis dropped to its knees, vomiting black sludge. Then another. Then retreating, fleeing, screaming. Some curled up, others scratched the ground like madmen escaping a nightmare.

But Irkalos did not smile. He stood silently, every cell in him screaming. There was no pleasure in the dominance. Only... emptiness.

"They’re fleeing. As they should. I used to be one of them... Am I now outside their kind? Did I lose my identity for this human shell? Why do I feel shackled?"

Axel spoke as he stopped beside him:

"They will start whispering now. They’ll speak of you as something different... strange... transformed. You’ve crossed the threshold, Irkalos. You can never return to what you were."

In a low hiss, Irkalos replied:

"And beyond the threshold? What’s the next step?"

Axel looked at him, then began walking again through a narrow path between columns of bone. He didn’t answer. He merely gestured forward with his hand and whispered deeply:

"When the time comes... I will tell you."

After hours, they had left the cursed zone. The black sky above them was still as a dust-painted canvas, and the ground beneath their feet throbbed, as if breathing with them.

Irkalos walked silently, surrounded by his thoughts.

"Why did you make me... human? The Mother of Curses laughed. As if she enjoyed stripping me of my essence... my cruelty... my truth. She said she was preparing me for something... but what? And this strange longing... Do I... miss my former body?"

Axel stopped him with a hand gesture.

"We’ve arrived."

They stood at the edge of a black abyss, deep, its bottom unseen. The wind here sounded like insects crawling in the void. And the more Irkalos stared into it, the faster his heart pounded.

"This... is the breath of the Abyss."

Axel said that as if summoning something from the past. Then he turned toward Irkalos and asked calmly:

"Do you feel it?"

Irkalos didn’t respond but closed his eyes.

There... in the depths... a soft voice. Not heard by ear, but felt. As if the Abyss itself was calling his name. No — not calling... watching. Waiting.

He opened his eyes and said with a firmer tone:

"It’s hungry."

Axel smiled, for the first time in a long while, then stepped closer and whispered:

"Hungry... just like you."

Everything fell silent at the edge.

No bird, no breeze.

The universe choked at the Abyss, as if a patch of existence had been torn away.

And yet, the feeling wasn’t absence... it was anticipation.

Axel stepped forward and looked into the dancing darkness below, as if it swallowed light itself. Then he said quietly, without turning:

"It won’t recognize you."

Irkalos raised an eyebrow, his human features hiding a faint surprise. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Who?"

"The Abyss."

The word hit like a slap. The Abyss... that which cannot be named, cannot be understood, cannot be merciful. It wasn’t a pit or a dimension... it was something else. Something felt more than seen.

Axel continued, his voice void of compassion or cruelty only raw truth:

"Humans can’t endure its corruption. Their souls crack, their bodies collapse, their minds... melt.

But the Arkanis, we are of it. Born from its womb, corruption poured into our veins like rain into soil."

He turned his eyes directly at Irkalos:

"But you... you’re not human. And you’re not Arkanis anymore. You are something that belongs... to no one."

"And that, precisely... is what makes it unable to recognize you."

Irkalos felt a chill crawl up his spine.

"Belong to no one? Is that... a privilege or a curse?"

But in his heart, in a dark place untouched by anyone, something shivered... an old desire to belong. To anything.

Axel said, extending his hand toward the void:

"The gate won’t open unless it is fed.

The Abyss isn’t opened by locks... but by hunger."

"And hunger is not sated by what you know... but by what you don’t."

"Something I don’t know?"

"Yes. It knows pain, blood, flesh, and screams. But it does not know you. Your blood, in your current state, is beyond its understanding. Old and new... a mysterious mix. And you... you’re the only one who can feed it something it cannot comprehend."

Irkalos stepped closer to the edge and looked down. Every sense in him screamed not to move. Every cell warned him.

"You are changing, Irkalos... you’re losing what you were... and sinking into something nameless."

But it didn’t stop him.

He raised his hand, extended it forward, and slashed his palm with his nails. Blood began to flow. Red. Pure. Or so he thought... until the light began to change.

When the first drop of blood fell on the edge’s rock, the earth trembled.

Not just a physical tremor it was as if the universe gasped.

The walls began to shake, and the ground beneath his feet... absorbed.

Just one drop... then two... then a stream.

The walls around them, which they thought were dead stone, began to breathe. Yes, breathe. Slowly bulging as if they had lungs, and with every inhale, they pulled more of his blood.

The ground of the Abyss was not mere soil... it was a being.

She drained him slowly.

She wasn’t tearing him apart she was licking him, tasting him.

And with every drop she absorbed, she released a whisper no one could understand, as if trying to pronounce his name for the very first time.

He didn’t fall. He didn’t scream. He remained standing.

His gaze dimmed slightly, but his feet stayed rooted.

His face was pale, and cold seeped into his marrow.

But amid it all... he saw.

A door opened one that couldn’t be seen, one that shouldn’t have existed yet it opened.

The darkness receded a little, as if peeling away. And in the depths, in a place no one was meant to see, the greatest vision emerged.

An eye.

Colossal.

Larger than anything he had ever imagined.

It floated in a living void. Not a biological eye, but a manifestation of vision itself.

Its center spiraled and shifted, as though unraveling layers of perception.

He saw it.

And it saw him.

And in that instant, he knew everything would change.

The earth stopped drinking his blood.

The aura around him was no longer suppressing it was being drawn in.

"It looked at you."

Irkalos, now collapsed to his knees, face pale and hands trembling, whispered:

"I felt it... inside my eyes... inside my skin..."

Suddenly, they heard the voice.

"Who are you?"

It wasn’t a sound. It was a question entering his thoughts, flowing through his nerves, piercing his marrow.

"Who am I?"

And for the first time, he didn’t know how to answer.

Everything within him was contradiction. A beast... and a man. Arkanis... and human. Living flesh... and a numb heart. And now, an eye stood before him, asking.

He wanted to scream, to assert himself, to declare his identity.

But... he stayed silent.

And in his silence, the door opened.