Chapter 5: Disgusting Abomination
Author: Mouser_Sama, Co-Author: Shadowknight_950
Jaemin stood at the edge of the broken city, taking a moment to study it before stepping inside.
"This took me a while to find," he muttered under his breath.
He cautiously ventured deeper into the city. From the outside, anyone could guess the cause of its destruction—likely a beast stampede. A massive horde of monsters had trampled through, obliterating everything in their path. Though most of the beasts had since been eliminated by top hunters, the devastation remained.
After walking for a while, Jaemin reached the center of the city. A large building stood there, likely a once top-class hotel, now abandoned. The strange thing was how this building remained standing after the stampede, while the nearby structures were completely destroyed.
Jaemin quickly approached the tall building, stretching out his hands, searching for something.
"It should be here," he thought.
After feeling around the building for about an hour, Jaemin finally found a hidden button. As soon as he pressed it, the entire building shook, revealing a strange underground chamber.
"I was right. Even the special structures from my novel have merged with reality!" Jaemin muttered.
He cautiously descended into the newly revealed underground chamber. The air was thick with dust, as though the place had been untouched for years. Dim lights flickered along the walls, casting enough light for him to navigate.
"This is exactly how I imagined it," Jaemin whispered, his voice echoing in the vast chamber.
As he walked through the large hall, he came upon the remains of a human, long dead, with some flesh already decaying.
"Human experiments..." Jaemin whispered.
When monsters first appeared on Earth and pushed humanity to the brink of extinction, only hunters could defend mankind. But in Jaemin's novel, he had added a darker phase before the rise of modern-day hunters.
He wrote about human experiments, a primitive method predating the discovery of crystal absorption. Before humans learned how to absorb monster crystals, they implanted the crystals directly into people's foreheads, forcibly turning them into hunters at the cost of their sanity.
Jaemin stood silently, staring at the decayed remains of the experiment. The crystal embedded in the forehead still faintly shimmered. He stepped closer, reaching out to touch it.
"I wouldn't have written this if I knew it would become real..." Jaemin murmured, recalling the exact chapter where he had created these horrific experiments.
Kneeling beside the body, he took a deep breath. "They didn't deserve this," he whispered faintly.
For a moment, the idea of absorbing the crystal crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. How could he absorb a crystal from a human? The thought repulsed him.
Outside the building, a strange creature lurked. It had noticed the underground entrance and slowly made its way down, curious to see what was hidden below.
After some time, the creature found the dead human lying on the ground. Upon seeing it, the creature let out a creepy laugh and devoured the body in an instant, growing slightly larger. Spotting more dead bodies, the creature seemed to delight in slowly consuming the remains. With each bite, it grew larger, transforming from the size of a dog to that of a human.
As Jaemin ventured deeper into the underground chamber, the air became heavier, almost suffocating. Crystals embedded in the walls gave off a faint glow, casting eerie shadows on the cold stone floor.
"This must be where they kept the others," Jaemin muttered, glancing at the metal cages lining the walls. Most were empty, their locks rusted and broken, but a few still held skeletal remains—test subjects who hadn't survived the brutal experiments.
Jaemin clenched his fists. He had written these scenes for dramatic tension, to push his characters to their emotional limits. But now, standing here, he couldn't help but feel the weight of what he had created.
Suddenly, he heard a faint, wet sound behind him—like the sloshing of liquid. He spun around, his hand instinctively reaching for the dagger at his waist.
Emerging from the shadows was the creature—a grotesque fusion of beast and human, its body misshapen and swollen from its recent meal. Its eyes glinted with a sickly, unnatural light, and its mouth, still slick with blood, twisted into a mocking grin.
"What the f*ck!" Jaemin shouted.
The creature lunged at him, its claws slicing through the air with terrifying speed. Jaemin barely managed to dodge, rolling to the side with his dagger raised.
"Of course, it had to be one of these," Jaemin growled under his breath. He recognized the creature immediately. He had written it into existence—a hybrid abomination that had escaped the experiments and continued devouring corpses, growing stronger with every bite.
But something was wrong. The abomination was supposed to stay dormant during the day, only hunting at night. Yet here it was, attacking him in broad daylight. The unknown entity behind the world merge was clearly manipulating the events of his story. Jaemin gritted his teeth.
He knew he had to escape. Even though he could probably fight it, he wasn't willing to take the risk, especially in this location. If the creature consumed all the bodies here, it would grow even larger and possibly reach D-rank strength.
Jaemin quickly hurled his dagger at the abomination, punched a hole in the wall behind him, and made his escape. He sprinted as fast as he could, not daring to look back.
The ground beneath him suddenly cracked, and a massive tremor shook the facility. The ceiling above cracked, with large stones beginning to fall. Jaemin cursed, pushing himself to run faster.
Just as he reached the stairs leading back to the surface, he heard the creature's guttural roar behind him—closer now. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw it—larger than before, swollen and grotesque, eyes gleaming with bloodlust. It had broken through the rubble and was now charging at him, claws outstretched.
At that moment, Jaemin realized he couldn't escape—the exit was blocked by debris.
Gritting his teeth, he quickly thought of a plan. Without hesitation, he sprinted toward the abomination.
The abomination halted, surprised by Jaemin's bold move, and swiped at him. Jaemin barely dodged, running past the creature and heading deeper into the basement.
He ran with everything he had, feeling his bones strain under the pressure. Even at top speed, he couldn't outrun the abomination. It paused occasionally to devour more corpses, growing larger and larger.
"F*ck! My legs hurt so bad!" Jaemin screamed.
After a while, he finally reached his destination.
"Faster! That bastard's almost caught up to me!" Jaemin shouted as he entered a cold, dark room.
Inside, he frantically searched for something, and his eyes landed on a black crystal encased in glass. He quickly extended his hand to grab it.
This black crystal was different from the ones found in monster foreheads. It was special and rare—a mysterious object from beyond the spatial cracks.
As Jaemin grasped the black crystal, an ominous aura enveloped his hand. Even though he had written about it, the unsettling feeling made him uneasy.
The abomination had already reached the room, its massive form destroying parts of the ceiling as it entered.
Jaemin turned toward the creature and showed his middle finger.
The abomination didn't understand the gesture but felt provoked and charged at him.
Jaemin quickly threw the black crystal into the abomination's mouth. He wanted it to swallow the crystal.
"Eat this, you fatass!" Jaemin yelled.
The creature, unaware of the danger, swallowed the crystal. Its body immediately began to contort and distort, blood vessels bursting one after another and splattering blood everywhere.
Slowly, the abomination was torn apart from within. All that remained was the black crystal lodged in its remains.
Jaemin, covered in blood, stood frozen at the sight of the grotesque destruction.
"Ding! You gained 1,000,000 experience for defeating a pseudo D-rank monster."
"Ding! Congratulations, your level has increased."
"Ding! Congratulations, your level has increased."
"Ding! Congratulations, your level has increased."
"Ding! Congratulations, your level has increased."
"Ding! Congratulations, your hunter rank has increased."
One notification after another rang in his ears as Jaemin stood in the middle of the hall, soaked in the blood of the abomination he had just slain using the black crystal.