I had already dealt with several of them.
I did not count how many. There was no need to.
Find one, approach, bite, swallow. Then move again.
At first, I weighed each one carefully. Distance, timing, even the paths of escape. Now that process had grown shorter. Idle thoughts had fallen away, leaving only what was necessary.
I bit into another.
Crunch.
Bone shattered and flesh tore. As I swallowed it down, a faint energy seeped inward. It was barely anything, but still, it accumulated.
At that moment, my body tilted toward the next prey.
It was an impulse different from hunger. Even though I was already filled, it tried to force more in. My consciousness was being dragged that way.
I forced that movement to a stop.
Memories of my previous life flashed through my mind. Demonic beasts, demon cores, condensed power. And what remained at the end of it.
It was a pull that did not belong to a human.
I cut off the prey before my eyes and turned my consciousness inward.
The demon core had not yet settled. It kept pushing up from deep within my body. Without scattering or disappearing, it pounded at me to accumulate more.
If I forcibly cut it off here, I would collapse from within.
I had seen what happened to those who could not handle power. The end was usually the same. They lost the shape of a human and became something else.
If you suppress it, it breaks.
The Dao is not handled that way. Instead of snapping it, you redirect it; instead of blocking it, you change its path. You do not smash it by collision, but make it mesh and bind it into one.
After accepting the power of the demon core, I laid Dao power over it.
The Dao power was faint, and its form was incomplete. Even so, it remained. When correcting a great force, that faintness instead became the standard. It was not about size, but position.
Do not block it head-on.
Let it flow to the side.
And bind it.
Crackle.
It felt as if sparks were flying deep inside my body. For an instant, I was pushed back. The demonic power was far stronger, but I did not endure it head-on. I twisted it, let it flow, and wound it again.
Wherever the Dao power touched, the demonic power surged once. If pressed, it leaked to the side; if released, it rose again. Each time, I slightly twisted the end of the Dao power and sent the flow sideways. It was not caught in one attempt. Twice, three times, I traced the same place again and twisted it.
The pulling sensation gradually slowed. It did not vanish completely, but it no longer ran rampant. The force that had been surging as it pleased began to circulate deep within my body, forming a single loop.
I exhaled for a long time.
This is right.
I opened my eyes.
Inside, it was quieter than before. It had not completely settled, but now I was no longer being swung around. Instead of being dragged along, I was holding it.
It resembled a sensation I had once reached long ago. A state where I stood atop power instead of being crushed by it. Though it was not complete, the direction was the same.
I maintained that state for a moment.
Until just now, I had been simple. Instinct had run ahead, and thought had chased after it. Now, thought was laid over it again.
I had come back a little.
I raised my head and checked the surrounding presences once more.
There were still many rats. But there was no need to accumulate more. For now, letting it flow came first.
I changed direction.
Then I caught traces different from the rats.
I stopped at once. Lowering my body and suppressing my energy until it sank, I examined it again.
It was different from hiding. I erased myself from the movement of the air and settled my energy so it would not waver.
Traces of metal, gas, and unorganized energy remained. Quite some time had passed, yet they were still there. They were too distinct to be simple traces of passage, closer to something someone had deliberately left behind.
There was not just one trail. Several branches overlapped in one place. Some traces seemed to have come down from above and risen again, while others had lingered there for quite a while. Amid them, a strand of denser, heavier energy was embedded.
It is still there.
I did not dig deeper. What kind it was, or what level it was, was not important right now. If I tried to confirm it, I would touch it. The moment I touched it, I would be caught.
I took one step back.
The hunt stops.
It is not something to fight.
After a little time passed, my insides stabilized again.
I moved slowly.
This time, I deliberately chose empty spaces. I avoided overlapping points, severed points, and traces where danger still lingered. Instead of forcing my way through, I found an empty path and entered it. That was the fastest and safest way.
Moving like that, I stopped.
It was a wall.
Concrete and cracks, exposed rebar. On top of it were faintly remaining letters and symbols, and paint that had almost been erased.
Entrance.
It had not disappeared completely. The fact that it remained even after so much time meant that this structure had once had a clear purpose. Or else it had been too large to erase.
And the air above was different.
The weight of decay was faint, and the air was drier. It was not stagnant like below. Subtle though it was, there was circulation. It was a movement that could not come from a sealed space.
I thought for a moment.
Below, traces had already accumulated. It was too late to hide. Above was dangerous. Even so, it was open.
There was only one choice.
I raised my head ever so slightly. Faint light was falling from above. If it were completely sealed, that light would not enter. Up there, there was somewhere else.
I have to go.
I lowered my body, matched the flow, and moved upward.
The higher I climbed, the more the space changed. The moisture drained away, and the air became dry. Instead of the stench of rot, there remained the smell of old metal and dust. It was closer to the smell of a place people had abandoned than of contamination. It was a facility whose maintenance had ceased, but it had not yet collapsed.
I saw pipes embedded deep inside the walls. Some were cut off, while others still continued on. Dry dust flowed from the severed places, and faint vibrations ran through the connected ones. I could not tell the direction. However, it was clear that somewhere, something was still circulating.
The light grew clearer. Weak, but definite. It was different from the fluorescent glow or contaminated luminescence I had seen below. Cold and artificial, but more bearable than the rotten darkness.
I increased my speed a little. Without forcing my way forward, I climbed through the gaps remaining between the wall and the cracks. Since my body did not resist the flow, the resistance lessened as well.
And then I stopped.
It looked like a dead end, but the moment I raised my head, my thoughts broke off for an instant. The space open above was far wider and higher than I had expected. Though empty, the space itself pressed down like a single mass, and an invisible weight settled from above, tightening my breath ever so slightly.
At the center stood an overwhelmingly massive structure.
It was a tank.
Several circular tanks were lined up at regular intervals. Metal and concrete were layered upon layer, and everything had been calculated—the gaps between levels, the direction of the supporting structures, even the passages through which something must have passed.
Long black scorch marks remained on the sides of the tanks. One side had corroded and fallen away, while the surface on the other side was preserved smoothly. Inside, traces of dried liquid overlapped with marks showing it had been filled again and drained afterward. It looked like a facility that had repeated the same process for a very long time.
It was far too intricate a structure to merely hold water.
There were aspects that resembled the formations of my previous life. But even before that, they were devices woven by human hands. I could not recall the exact name, but they were a kind I had seen before.
A facility that had not yet lost its purpose.
Those words came closest.
I remained there for a while. It was a structure that had considered function before people. That was why it felt even more overwhelming.
I raised my head. In the ceiling were collapsed gaps and cracks, and light was descending through them.
The surface.
I checked the surrounding structure again. I could see neither stairs nor passageways. It was a vertical movement structure. There must have been a lifting device.
I slowly moved my body.
It had definitely changed.
Power had settled into me. I moved more accurately than before, and the waste had lessened. Only as much as necessary went in. The same was true of impact. My scales had grown harder, and blows glanced off along the surface.
I narrowed my eyes.
Ocular art.
My vision overlapped. Over what could be seen, unseen flows were superimposed. The range had widened, and it did not cut off midway. It was the result of demonic power and Dao power, which had once clashed with each other, now being bound into a single loop.
The range reached by my ocular art had expanded.
It was then.
Beneath the tanks, in the shadows where the light did not reach, I caught movement.
I slowly lowered my head.
It was a familiar shape.
A rat.
Its movements were unfamiliar. They were not scattering blindly or tangling together. Maintaining a set distance, they were looking in the same direction.
I stopped where I was.
Narrowing my presence, I examined them again.
Only then did I see the whole.
Hundreds of rats were surrounding the center of the shadow beneath the tank. Regular intervals. Heads lowered. Forepaws unmoving.
It was different from the posture of starving beasts with prey before them.
They were waiting for something.
Or else.
They were under orders.
I held my breath.
I could not see the center. It was hidden by the rats’ backs and tails, by the black bodies gathered in layers. Even so, I could feel it. Only that inner place had the air pressed down. Between the stench of rot and the smell of metal, something completely different was mixed in.
Heavy.
Unfamiliar.
Something inside was creating weight.
That weight was difficult to explain with pressure alone. At the edge reached by my ocular art, it rebounded once. When I tried to go deeper, my senses twisted, and through that gap, another pressure pushed back. It was an energy that could not easily be classified as either beast or contaminant.
Very slowly, I lowered my body.
Their posture was different from beasts facing prey.
They were enclosing it.
As if guarding it.
Without taking my senses off that direction, I thought.
What is in there?