Dante awoke in darkness.
The first thing he felt was the hunger—a raw, insatiable need gnawing at the pit of his being, like a beast clawing at the walls of his stomach. It wasn't hunger for food. It was something deeper, something primal. A hunger for souls.
His breath came ragged, his chest heaving. But as he forced himself upright, the next realization hit him.
This wasn't his body.
His hands—if they could even be called that—ended in black, clawed fingers. His skin was darkened, marked by strange crimson veins that pulsed faintly in the dim light. When he tried to stand, his muscles coiled with unnatural strength, and the scrape of something heavy behind him made him glance back.
A tail. A long, sinuous tail, tipped with a bladed edge.
Panic surged through him, but then—memories flooded in.
He remembered the battlefield. The cold steel of a dagger buried in his back. The betrayal. The pain. The feeling of his life slipping away beneath a bloodstained sky.
He had died.
But he was alive again. Reborn. And not as a man.
Something stirred in the shadows ahead. Dante tensed, instincts flaring, and his new eyes adjusted. A creature slithered into view, its scaled body coiling across the cavern floor. Its many eyes gleamed with predatory hunger.
A Lesser Devourer.
The knowledge came to him instinctively, as if whispered by the new instincts within him. A monster known for consuming the weak, its own strength growing with every kill. It was hunting him.
And his body—his new demonic body—craved the same thing.
Kill it. Take its strength. Feed.
The voice in his mind was not his own. It was deeper, darker, like something born from the abyss itself.
Dante clenched his teeth. No. I won't lose myself.
The Devourer lunged. Dante moved on reflex. His new form was faster, stronger—before he even processed it, his claws slashed forward, raking through thick scales. The beast shrieked and twisted, striking with a barbed tail. Dante ducked, spun, and drove his arm into its chest.
A sickening crunch. The monster writhed—then fell still.
Then came the next horror.
A pulse of energy rushed into him, like fire burning through his veins. A notification flickered across his vision, glowing letters in an ancient, unreadable script—yet somehow, he understood.
You have slain a Lesser Devourer.
Soul Absorption Available. Consume?
The hunger clawed at him, desperate, ravenous. The knowledge was clear: he could take the creature's essence, claim its strength as his own.
For a moment, he hesitated. This was the law of this world. Kill, consume, grow stronger. This is what demons did.
No.
With sheer willpower, Dante rejected the absorption. The hunger howled in protest, but he gritted his teeth and pushed it down. He wouldn't be ruled by instinct. He wouldn't become a mindless monster.
But even as he stood over the slain beast, another notification flickered.
Soul Absorption declined. Essence dissipating…
New Trait Acquired: Defier of the Abyss.
Dante exhaled slowly. He didn't know what that meant yet. But one thing was clear: he was in a world where strength ruled, where power was taken, not earned. And he had been reborn as something meant to devour and destroy.
But he was still Dante Varos. And he would fight to keep it that way.
With one last glance at the monster's fading corpse, he turned toward the cave's exit. He had to find answers.
And in a world where gods, demons, and monsters reigned, he would forge his own path or die trying.