The sharp stab of pain bloomed behind his eyes.
He staggered back, almost tripping over a tree root. Red fog began to appear in the forest and converge on him.
Fight. Kill. Murder. War. Evolve. Blood. Attack.
The words crashed through his thoughts, looping again and again.
They didn't feel foreign and instead felt like his own thoughts.
A shudder tore through him. Something– someone was forcefully fusing with him.
He dropped to one knee, sweat pouring from his brow.
"This… isn't part of the fusion," he said, gritting his teeth.
All this time, he'd thought that fusing with the berserk death elemental would raise his existence level.
But now that presence was doing the 'fusion', he realized a horrible truth.
The berserk death elemental weren't fusing with him. They were erasing him, slowly and thoroughly.
His existence level was not being increased.
His existence was being replaced by a stronger, higher existence.
