The broken drone trembled faintly where it had crashed into the floor. Through its melted casing, a red light flickered intermittently.
Bzzzt. Bzzzzzt.
The smell of scorched metal hung thick in the air. Every breath scraped the inside of my throat and clung deep in my lungs.
More than what I could see came rushing in all at once. The places where heat still lingered. The traces of danger that had passed only moments ago. Across my scales and the tip of my tongue spread smells, pressure, and signs I still could not name.
On the outside, the drone was completely wrecked. Even so, I could not conclude that it had stopped.
Just moments ago, it had been an enemy that drove me into a corner. The gap between us had been so wide that fleeing was the only answer. Something like that would not go out so easily.
I closed the distance. I had to make sure.
A thread of noise scraped the air.
My movement stopped first. There was no time even to think it was fast. The instant I judged that I had to stop, my instincts had already pressed my belly to the floor.
Kiiiiik.
The dead mechanical sound twisted back to life, and its output immediately surged.
I reflexively slipped to the side. The moment my scales scraped across the floor, the spot where I had been exploded.
Boom!
Concrete cracked and fragments flew. A wave of heat struck my back a moment later. It did not stop at the surface of my scales, but burrowed into my flesh.
If I had been even a little slower, I would not have dodged it.
Only after avoiding it did I realize. This body reacted faster than I had thought.
If I stopped, I would die. I had no room to think beyond that.
I did not retreat in a straight line. I twisted my body along the cracks and debris on the floor, changing direction again and again. The red light pursued me from behind.
I could see the direction in which the air was being pushed. I sensed where the attack would pass before it did. I moved just a little away from that place. That was all.
Boom! Kwaang!
The floor burst apart one after another. Shards flew, and the heat drew closer. The sensation brushing my scales grew deeper little by little, followed by the feeling of my flesh splitting faintly.
I could not stop.
Then the air pressed down again from above.
Two. Three. There were more.
A short breath leaked out.
I could not break through the front. My Dao power was exhausted, and I was already near my limit. If I stayed where I was, I would die. My judgment ended there.
Run.
When I narrowed my awareness, I grasped the cracked floor and the deep space that continued beneath it. Stagnant water, a rotten stench, and traces of contamination overlapped all at once, and from among them, I picked out only the least dangerous direction.
There.
I pressed my belly flat against the floor. I settled the lingering energy in my scales and suppressed even the traces of Dao power as much as possible. Simply holding my breath was not enough. My movement, my presence, even the faintest trembling—I sank it all beneath the floor.
The red light slowly passed overhead.
As the light passed over my body, it groped downward for movement and even my hidden presence.
It was a scan.
A brief moment stretched strangely long. Then it passed.
I immediately threw myself beneath the crack.
Splash!
Cold water forced its way between my scales.
It was sewage.
A rotten stench surged up. My tongue reacted before my nose. Water, air, and polluted particles rushed in all at once.
The disgust was not as great as I had expected. Rather, it was an unsurpassed environment for hiding.
I sank deeper. As I mixed with the polluted water and stench, my body heat blurred and my energy was buried. The reactions above also grew more and more distant.
The sounds overhead were pressed down by the water and receded. In their place, the low vibrations of the drainage pipes in the darkness flowed along my scales. The path had not yet ended.
Only then did the tension loosen a little. Not completely.
I had merely survived by a hair’s breadth.
Then something caught beneath the water.
The tip of my tongue and my belly groped toward it first.
It was a massive corpse. It resembled a catfish, but its form was twisted like an alligator. Torn flesh, thick hide, a body from which all life had been cut off.
Inside the corpse, a faint energy remained. It was so slight it was almost imperceptible, but it was certainly squirming.
As if bewitched, I followed the remaining energy.
It was a yao core.
My body was already moving.
My tongue tasted the water first. Before the warning of poison came, the scent of condensed energy reached me, and something hot rose from within.
It was an impulse deeper and more primal than hunger. An instinct this body had possessed from the beginning.
Swallow it.
Before reason, my tongue, belly, and every single scale pointed in the same direction.
There was no room for judgment to intervene. Even if it did, I knew it could not win.
I exhaled briefly and forced my way in through the rotten flesh. A sticky sensation clung to my scales, and the tissue slowly split apart, opening a path.
Squish.
Rotten flesh pushed aside. The smell grew thicker, and the more I breathed in, the more my head reeled. Even so, I did not stop.
The center where the energy gathered.
Near the heart.
There.
It was small. But its density was different. Condensed power.
I did not hesitate.
I opened my mouth and swallowed it whole.
At that instant, it burst inside me.
Energy spread like an explosion. It tore through flesh and burrowed between my scales. My flesh melted, my insides overturned, and my form collapsed.
It was not something I could endure.
Only the sensation of splitting remained, from the tips of my scales to the inside of my head. Even when I tried to seize my Dao power, the flow collapsed wherever it touched.
My vision narrowed. The sensation of cold water and the smell of rotten flesh receded. Inside, only collapsed energy and a body unable to withstand it remained.
My breath stopped.
At the edge of my crumbling consciousness, I heard an auditory hallucination.
—There is that habit of yours again.
It was my master.
From my days as a Taoist. The voice I heard every time I fell into arrogance.
—Did I not tell you not to act as though you held all the principles of the world in your grasp simply because you had obtained a realm?
—Not even knowing that you do not know. That arrogance will one day strangle you.
My consciousness cut off.
—
“······Ha.”
Breath burst out of me.
My body convulsed like a beast. My insides were still burning.
I had been arrogant.
My mind had thought it knew, while my body had been saying something else from the very beginning. Being dragged along by those words was what had led me to this state.
I caught my breath for a moment. I had no intention of stopping here. I had merely nearly died.
I forcibly pressed down the rampaging energy, gathered my Dao power, and covered it.
Bzzzt.
They collided inside. Twisting, bursting.
“······Kugh.”
The pain surged over me again.
Merely enduring was not enough. I seized the energy trying to scatter, bent the directions in which it ran wild, and bound it into one. Strand by strand, I gathered it as though carving it out from within. What was unbound tore through my flesh, and what was bound seethed inside me.
It was hot.
The melted flesh joined back together. The balance within overturned.
My exterior split.
Scales burst, and skin was pushed away. Beneath the places that peeled off as though torn, a new surface was revealed.
A color where fluorescence and darkness were mixed together.
Scales that had sunk down as if absorbing light.
It was strange, but stable. When I breathed out briefly, the remaining pain surged in belatedly. Even so, it was clear that I had made it through.
When I tried moving, the difference became apparent at once.
The way my muscles responded had changed. Power connected only to the places where it was needed, and unnecessary trembling had decreased.
My tongue split the scents in the water. Temperature, smell, and the direction of the current entered all at once.
At first, my legs, arms, and low field of vision had all felt awkward. Because the memory of the world I had seen as a human was too vivid.
But now it was different.
This body read vibrations with its belly touching the ground, tasted water and air with its tongue, and received temperature and pressure through all its scales. My senses did not gather in one place. My belly, tongue, and scales each read different information.
I detected the drones’ reactions above. Even without seeing them, their positions, movements, distance, and scanning cycles reached me.
I entrusted my body to the water. I flowed without resisting. For now, escaping came first.
Shaaak.
My scales cut through the water. My muscles reacted before my consciousness. I was still not completely used to it. Even so, I moved.
Then a foreign pressure brushed past.
It was faint.
At first, I thought it was an illusion. But the current changed again.
The water pressure gained speed, pushing against my belly and flanks, and even forced my direction into place.
I tried to stop, but it was useless. The water pulled me in.
At first, it was gentle. The smoothly continuing current gradually grew rougher.
The water surged upward in reverse, dragging my body up.
By common sense, it made no sense. It was as if some enormous structure had collapsed somewhere, twisting the water pressure as a whole.
There was no time to investigate the cause. I was already being swallowed by the violent suction. The speed increased further. My surroundings blurred, and my vision shook.
Even if I resisted by force, I would only lose control and be swept away.
My hesitation did not last long.
Ride the flow.
I relaxed, matched my body to the current without resisting it.
Shaaaaaak!
My scales cut through the current. Friction decreased, and resistance vanished. I accepted the force of the water pressure pushing me and shot upward.
I could not control it, but I had made a choice. This was safer.
Kwaaaa.
Water erupted upward.
Through a split gap, darkness opened, and air poured into it.
The smell changed.
The rotten stench of sewage broke off, and dry, rough air touched the tip of my tongue. It was polluted, but different from the water earlier.
The ground drew closer. My speed increased further, and at the last moment, I was pulled up with great force.
Just like that, I burst out of the water.