Heart

On the ground, a human man laid motionlessly, freed from the hold of the Abyss he had gained power and control from, he could only draw in shallow breaths now, his chest barely rising.

His two stumps oozed red blood, sign of his restored state, the crimson liquid also dripped from his mouth, foam accompanying this stream.

Proof of the serious internal damage that he had received, the man was choking to death on his own blood as Axiolypito stood over him, his eyes no longer wide open but still bloodshot.

He too, was missing a limb but it certainly wasn't bleeding nearly as much, his jaw was hanging loosely, tilted to the side.

The needle claw he had embedded in his own nape was cracking and slowly extracting itself, it wouldn't be long until he returned to the state he should be in.

Thus, he needed to get the experience from his kill as soon as possible.

Even under the influence of the needle claw and freed from the abyssal mist, he felt somewhat sluggish, he looked over at the blood coming from his ripped off arm, little drops falling from time to time in a hypnotic rythm.

His blood wasn't quite the same color as before...

It had never been especially pretty or healthy looking but now, there was a hint of dark blue in it.

'Huh...' he didn't particularly care right now, he simply grew two claws on his remaining hands and placed them right in front of the bleak eyes of the fallen man.

He seemed to be muttering something through the gargling and choking, Axio might have cared if it was understandable, he simply, slowly, stabbed through the soft ocular tissue until he reached the brain.

Then, the needle claw fully expelled itself and shattered, sending the wretch to fall like back of bricks to the ground.

The tremendous pain he was under was unbelievable, it was like every fiber of his being was being sunk into a pool of molten lava and then immediately ripped out to be flash frozen, over and over again.

It was also clear that he had been severely hurt in places he hadn't noticed at all, the Abyss Eater had struck him head-on more times than it had seemed.

Thankfully, it wasn't any schmuck that he had just killed and the torrent of experience that came mended his broken body, he witnessed the bone of his missing arm growing first, then his thin muscles forming and coiling around it before everything was covered with his dark grey skin.

He slowly stood up, not quite up to shape yet, he clenched and unclenched his fists a few time, moved his arms up and down.

Everything seemed operational, then he felt the sensation of the typical evolution wash over him, nothing he wasn't used to, though he was quick to notice that the feeling around his heart was much stronger than typical.

He put a hand over his heart once it was done, noticing nothing different about the way it was beating, though, he could feel the blood being pumped into his stream was way different, much more gooey in nature.

He bit his own thumb and what came out was far from the simply hint of dark blue from before, he was bleeding Abyss, straight up abyssal matter, not even blood corrupted by it.

It was definitely worrying to see but Axiolypito felt nothing off, in fact, he had never felt better!

After all, hadn't he just absolutely crushed an annoying opponent just now?

Well, crushed was definitely not the right word to use but the wretch knew no objectivity at the moment, he had won and no one else was there to challenge his idea of how he had demolished this crippled man.

Still, not entirely delusional yet, the wretch kneeled next to the corpse spoke up.

"Remember this day as the day you almost came somewhat close to maybe defeating me, Dark Blue Moon, Axiolypito!-" he suddenly stopped himself from continuing his villainous monologue to a corpse. 

'Where did that come from?' he didn't know why he had just called himself by that title but it had a nice ring to it and he was the one that had came up with it.

It was certainly way above 'Wretchd Lord', the Obsidian Queen truly had no inspiration when she came up with that one!

"Aah... I'm starving" he remarked to himself, right before the distortion of space began breaking as the Abyss all around began to vanish.

The water that was kept from flowing in by the abyssal matter began to flow in through small holes.

At least the water hadn't been able to fill in the empty space all at once, that would have been a slight annoyance for Axio, to be slammed by incredible water pressure, since he had time, he first devoured the corpse of his enemy.

He had no clue who this guy was or who he had been exactly, all that mattered was that he was now sustenance.

As the water was steadily flowing in, the remnant of Abyss in front of the wretch began to move, tendrils seemed to go search for something inside of the mass of abyssal matter left, pulling out a pristine and delicated-looking crown.

Judging by the design, it seemed to be meant for a woman, a queen of sort.

"How convenient, exactly what I was looking for" he wasn't sarcastic about that one, he truly believed that it would be well enough for his plan.

He was simply fairly suspicious, the Abyss had brought him here, made him to fight this guy for some reason and then given him what he had wanted, what was this? A game?

Though, he noticed that he no longer felt that feeling when staring directly at the Abyss, that was also new.

Then, after handing him the crown, the tendrils of Abyss also manifested some other objects, placing another, dark crown on top of Axiolypito's head and then dressing him up into something that resembled the attire he normally wore, albeit with a more regal look to it.

The clothes flowed like the abyssal smoke he had seen before, in a completely nonsensical way, he liked it a fair bunch.

Then, the crown and clothes were sucked into his body, leaving him in his pitiful garbs once more as the surrounding Abyss disappeared all at once.

Allowing a strong wave to slam into Axio.