Chapter 22: Predatory Intelligence
The terror still remained. Not the terror of death, but something deeper. Something more wrong.
Yukeli remained kneeling on the crystalline floor, his breathing heavy and irregular, as if each breath had to push through an invisible resistance before reaching his lungs. His body was strong; he could feel it clearly. Too strong. But this strength brought no comfort. It brought pressure.
The Essence within him was not quiet. It moved.
It flowed through his flesh like a river forcibly contained within fragile banks. He could feel it pressing against his muscles, against his bones, against something deeper that he could not name. It wasn't just pain. It was tension. Excess. As if his very existence had been expanded too quickly, without time to adjust.
Small spasms ran through his arms and abdomen—involuntary, unpredictable. His body did not respond with the same obedience as before. There was a delay. A subtle disconnection between his will and his matter. This was not stability. This was temporary containment.
His hand moved slowly over the crystal, his fingers pressing into the cold surface as he tried to anchor himself in something real. His mind was still clear, but something was pressing against the limits of his consciousness. A constant feeling that if he relaxed for a moment, he would lose control again.
He needed help. Not strength. Control.
He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing irregularly, trying to contain the terror pressing against his mind. Every fiber of his body begged to yield to the compulsion, to take another fruit, and another, until death. But there was something inside him that still resisted. A thread of consciousness that knew if he continued like this, he would lose his very mind.
His focus turned inward.
It wasn't a physical movement, but a shift in attention. An act of will. He concentrated. He searched within himself for the system interface, the silent resource that was always present. It wasn't just curiosity or instinct; it was necessity. The urgency to save himself from his own mind pushed him. Every second without finding something safe increased the pressure inside his head; every impulse to eat more fruits felt like a scream from his body trying to dominate him.
Then he focused on that which had responded before. That which watched. That which had been his only source of information. For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then, as if recognizing his intent, the interface emerged silently in his perception. Not as a separate image from the world, but as a layer integrated into his own consciousness. Organized information. Clear. Waiting.
He was not surprised. It had already become natural too quickly. His gaze fixed first on his status.
Genesis Status:
Name: Yukeli Ausra
True Name: —???
Race: Human (Awakened)
Description: You have awakened the paths of greatness within yourself, shedding the fragile shell of Homo sapiens and taking the first steps on the primordial path. Now, you are Homo Imminens — "The Imminent" — the next stage of humanity. An existence still incomplete, but on the verge of revealing its true potential.
Age: 1/1000
Primordial Essence: [1000/1000]
Consciousness: [340]
Will: [310]
Strength: [350]
Order: First Order — Intermediate Stage
[Warning]
[Absolute of mind suppressed]
[Absolute of soul suppressed]
[Absolute of body saturates your existence]
[Your primordial essence is unstable; your existence becomes less solid]
'Unstable.' The word carried an absolute weight. It wasn't a feeling. It wasn't fear. It was a diagnosis. His jaw tightened slightly. He could feel it without the system. The excess within him. The constant pressure. The feeling that his structure had not yet adjusted to what he had become.
His thoughts moved quickly through the interface, searching for something, anything that offered a solution. Attributes. Nothing there offered control. Primordial Essence. Full. Saturated. No room to absorb or release naturally. Status. Only confirmation. No solution.
A silent tension began to grow in his chest. Then his attention stopped.
Arcane Runes: [Predatory Intelligence] [Crystal Protection]
The interface revealed itself clear, simple, silent, but urgent. He didn't have to think about where to look. He knew the answer would be there, if any existed. Two runes glowed in his vision. Only two. [Crystal Protection], which he had gained a few minutes ago, and another that immediately captured all his attention: [Predatory Intelligence]. It had been with him for quite some time, but remained ignored… forgotten.
As he focused on it, something pierced his mind. They were not words; they were not numbers. It was a call. A deep and irresistible whisper within his own Essence. The rune seemed to say, without actually speaking: this is the path. Not just to survive, but to no longer be dragged by impulse, to no longer be a prey to his own compulsion.
He read the description, though he almost didn't need to. Each word resonated directly in his consciousness:
Rune: [Predatory Intelligence]
Absolute: Mind
Rune Description: [Enter a battlefield not as prey, but as a cold and calculating predator]
[Do you wish to engrave]
Before, he would have hesitated. Before, he would have been suspicious. But not now. The compulsion that threatened to crush his mind was present, so close and so irresistible that any doubt would be fatal. The fear of being dominated was greater than any suspicion.
Without flinching, he accepted. His decision was instinctive, desperate, inevitable. [Engrave Arcane Rune: Predatory Intelligence].
When he accepted to engrave the rune, a shock pulsed through his brain before he even realized it. It wasn't just energy; it was pure pain, penetrating every corner of his mind, as if invisible wires were being driven directly into his thoughts, carving a path, remodeling his consciousness. His eyes tightened, his jaw clenched, and for a moment he felt as if every neuron were being ripped out, rewritten, reorganized from the inside out. The pain was indescribable, total, forcing every part of him to bend, resist, and yield at the same time.
But the pain did not last alone. Soon the battle arose. The compulsion for the fruits—that insane and irresistible hunger that tried to drag him to death—rose in his mind like a storm of instinct and urgency. Every fragment of desire and fear screamed for him to surrender, to continue consuming without thinking. And against it, the newborn clarity of the rune rose, cutting through the chaos, organizing thoughts, casting small sparks of logic and focus.
It was like two consciousnesses colliding: one primitive, ravenous, desperate; the other cold, calculating, predatory. The confrontation was brutal. Every idea, every impulse, every memory of pain and pleasure became a battlefield. Yukeli felt his own mind fragment and reconstruct at the same time. The desire to yield to the fruits crushed every thread of rational thought, but the intelligence of the rune seeped in, teaching him to anticipate, to react, to dominate.
Finally, the tide turned. Clarity won. The compulsion did not disappear, but it was contained, reduced to a whisper that he could now observe and ignore. Yukeli took a deep breath, feeling a new strength pulse in his mind, a sense of cold and calculating power. He was no longer just a human trying to survive; he was a conscious predator.
[Arcane rune successfully engraved]
Consciousness +200
[Warning]
[To stabilize the Primordial Essence and balance your existence, 200 points of Strength will be converted to the Absolute of Mind]
Strength −200
When he opened his eyes, his vision seemed clearer, the Essence more fluid, and the chaos within him finally in order. He felt every thought, every intent, every impulse as if he were standing before prey—not to be feared, but to be dominated.
Predatory Intelligence had taken hold in his mind, and Yukeli finally had a chance to fight on equal terms with the power that once threatened to consume him.
That was what he thought, until he looked at the fruits again and realized he couldn't have been more wrong.