Darkness is not a color here.
It's a taste, a temperature, a pressure that wraps around your bones and squeezes until you forget the surface ever existed.
Somewhere in the rotten shallows of the Abyssal Swamp, a ripple broke the fetid water. Something small, something barely alive, had just hatched.
Name: ???
Race: Fisch (Tier 0)
Level: 1
HP: 5/5
Skills: Splash (Lv.1), Instinctive Dodge (Lv.1)
Evolution Path(s): ???
[Welcome to the Cycle. Survive, evolve, ascend.]
I blinked. Or tried to—whatever counted as blinking when you were a scaly, slimy thing barely the size of a coin. Everything felt wrong. My thoughts were too big for this body. My memories—a blur. Flashes of fire. Screams. A name. A sword. And then… this?
"Glub," I croaked, the sound pathetic even to me. My fins twitched. Hunger clutched at my belly like a steel hook.
The swamp pulsed with danger.
Above, a mosquito-dragon the size of a cat buzzed through the moss-choked air. Below, shadows coiled, things with more teeth than sense waiting for me to make one mistake.
Instinctive Dodge activated!
I flailed left just in time. A needle-beaked predator shot from beneath the muck, jaws snapping shut where I'd been. Mud churned as it hissed and sank back down.
Too close. Too slow.
This body was garbage. I was prey here. Bottom-tier meat. And the Cycle was clear: I had two choices. Eat… or be eaten.
That night—if it could be called night, as the sun never truly touched the swamp—I found my first kill.
A flittering Glowgnat, sick and sluggish, flickered weakly near the surface. Its body glowed like a dying ember.
[Do you wish to consume the Glowgnat?]
[Y/N]
Yes. Yes, a thousand times yes.
I leapt—barely clearing the water—and sank my needle-like teeth into its soft body. It twitched once… then stopped.
[Glowgnat consumed. +4 XP.]
[Level Up! Lv.2 → Lv.3]
New Skill Gained: Luminous Lure (Lv.1) – Emit weak bioluminescence to attract lesser prey.
Evolution Progress: 3%
I shuddered in the water, vision briefly going white.
Power—tiny, electric—zipped through my blood. I grew. Slightly. My fins sharpened. I could swim faster now, and the pressure of the swamp didn't feel quite so crushing.
I felt the tiniest sliver of something unfamiliar in this place.
Hope.
Later, under a canopy of fungal trees that wept black ichor, I saw another of my kind.
A Fisch, same base form as me… but bloated. Slow. Greedy.
It hadn't evolved. It had just gorged.
I remembered the look it gave me—entitlement. Hunger. No kinship. No words.
Only the understanding: One of us will eat the other.
It lunged.
I didn't dodge this time.
I fought.
[Combat Initiated: Wild Fisch Lv.2]
[Splash Activated!]
[Instinctive Dodge Activated!]
[Luminous Lure Activated!]
The water erupted as I feinted, drew it toward the glow I emitted, then slammed it into a submerged stone.
Once. Twice.
Its skull caved.
[Enemy slain. +7 XP.]
[Level Up! Lv.3 → Lv.5]
Skill Upgrade: Instinctive Dodge (Lv.2)
Mutation Available: Bone Jaw – Hardened jaw increases bite strength and armor penetration.
[Accept Mutation? Y/N]
I didn't hesitate.
[Mutation Accepted. You have become Lesser Predatory Fisch.]
Evolution Progress: 14%
My jaw cracked, reshaped. My bite now hurt.
I floated there, the corpse sinking, the swamp echoing with distant roars and whispered growls.
This world didn't want me to live.
But I would.
I'd rise.
I wasn't just some stupid swamp minnow anymore.
I was the start of something.
And one day, this swamp would tremble when it heard my name.
To be continued…