Chapter 17: The World is a Platter of Flesh

The pressure of the ocean thinned as Mark ascended from its lightless womb, his body rising like a monolith of flesh and will, passing through the thermal gradients of the sea with neither hesitation nor pause, for the time had come to breach the veil of water and touch once more the chaotic, sun-baked realm of land, where creatures crawled and ran and screamed; where countless genomes, unarmoured and unguarded, awaited his judgment.

And as the light above finally broke against the dome of his mantle, as the salt parted into foaming spume and sunlight struck his ink-dark skin, he emerged from the ocean like an ancient truth clawing back into memory.

Far behind him, yet failing to remain unnoticed, a loose formation of human naval ships had begun trailing him; slow, determined vessels armed with sonar arrays and depth-monitoring drones, pathetic in speed but dogged in purpose.

Unlike Godzilla, who swam with the unhurried grace of an apex sovereign accustomed to being followed, Mark was neither regal nor theatrical in his movement; his speed was monstrous, sharp, deliberate, like a weapon thrown through water.

Within moments, the sonar pulses fractured behind him, their sources left swirling in his wake as he disappeared into the deeper ocean and left only cold silence where moments before men had tracked a living god.

By the time the vessels had caught up to where he had once been, Mark had already reached the continental shelf, coiling through narrow underwater ravines, and emerging finally upon a jagged, uninhabited coastline carved by centuries of storms; a land bereft of cities, patrolled by no satellites, and perfect for beginning his work.

He dragged his bulk ashore in the dead of night, sand crushed under his mass, stone shifting beneath the weight of muscle and mutation. The process of movement was awkward at first; for all his might in the sea, he remained a creature of water, and only his newly acquired partial respiratory systems allowed him to function with some measure of grace.

He adapted quickly, however, body venting heat in visible columns of steam, muscles writhing beneath damp flesh as he slithered inland under the shelter of ancient pines and moss-soaked cliffs.

The first creatures he found were ungulates; a herd of elk, majestic and slow-minded, their silhouettes lit by starlight as they grazed with arrogant calm. They had not yet learned to fear him, and for that, they died quickly.

[New Genetic Material Acquired: Cervus canadensis — Elk]

[Potential Trait Catalogued:]

[Enhanced Joint Flexibility (Level 1): Slight increase in limb articulation for faster manoeuvring on uneven terrain.]

He moved on, unimpressed but dutiful, for even the simplest genome was still a stone upon the mountain of his transformation. As he travelled across continents in brutal silence, swimming when required, dragging his bulk through marsh, jungle, and highland during the long nights, he always avoided the bright knots of civilization, not from fear but from calculation.

He had seen what humanity hurled at threats it did not understand; projectiles that split the sky, missiles laced with atomic fire, weapons designed not to win, but to deny victory.

In the thick forests of the southern hemisphere, he ambushed boars, snapping their bodies apart in clusters, testing the durability of their sinews and the density of their bones.

After consuming over thirty of them across several nights, the system responded.

[New Genetic Material Acquired: Sus scrofa — Feral Boar]

[Potential Trait Catalogued:]

[Charge Kinetic Amplification (Level 1): Short-distance mass acceleration improves impact force of full-body collisions.]

…

Then came the mountain goats, who clung to sheer cliffs with gravity-defying indifference. He cornered and consumed them in remote ridgelines where human feet had never touched, drawn more to the absurd resilience of their hoof placement than their meat.

[New Genetic Material Acquired: Capra aegagrus Hircus — Mountain Goat]

[Potential Traits Catalogued:]

[Ledge Cling (Level 1): Enhanced micro-surface grip allowing improved vertical scaling on rock surfaces.]

[Balance Correction Reflex (Level 1): Increased neural processing for rapid adjustment of body equilibrium.]

…

In the humid rainforests of a forgotten island chain, he faced down and killed six separate jaguars, each of whom attacked with territorial desperation and were consumed one by one beneath his writhing tendrils.

Only after the sixth did the system accept the genetic line as worthy of documentation.

[New Genetic Material Acquired: Panthera onca — Jaguar]

[Potential Traits Catalogued:]

[Low-Light Vision (Level 1): User will see with enhanced clarity in dark, shadow-rich environments.]

[Muscle Density Upgrade (Level 1): Marginal improvement in raw strength output without size increase.]

…

He hunted apex scavengers next; hyenas, packs of them that gnashed and howled beneath the moon in distant savannahs. Their laughter died in echoes as he consumed whole clans, leaving the dry grasses bloodied and torn.

[New Genetic Material Acquired: Crocuta Crocuta — Spotted Hyena]

[Potential Traits Catalogued:]

[Jaw Compression Strength (Level 1): Allows generation of extreme force for crushing or puncturing hard targets.]

[Bone Digestion Adaptation (Level 1): Improved enzymatic processing of high-calcium material.]

…

And then, after so much meat, so many bones, came the reptiles; desert lizards, jungle monitors, and crocodiles sunning themselves by the hundreds along freshwater deltas. He gorged upon them greedily, knowing their ancient DNA might hide a trove of scalable predatory traits.

[New Genetic Material Acquired: Varanus Komodoensis — Komodo Dragon]

[Potential Traits Catalogued:]

[Bacterial Coating Resistance (Level 1): Provides minor immunity to bloodborne infection through dermal wounds.]

[Heat-Sensing Pit Organs (Level 1): Improves detection of warm-blooded creatures through temperature differentials.]

[New Genetic Material Acquired: Crocodylus Niloticus — Nile Crocodile]

[Potential Traits Catalogued:]

[Amphibious Lung Exchange (Level 1): Improved ability to hold breath in water and reduce oxygen demand on land.]

[Scale Fortification (Level 1): Increases dermal plate rigidity to resist blunt force and tearing damage.]

Some creatures gave nothing. Rodents, small birds, even some apes; the system catalogued the genetic ingestion but offered no traits in return, as though to say these animals, despite their numbers or social complexity, offered nothing that Mark did not already exceed by existing.

[New Genetic Material Acquired: N/A]

[Potential Traits Catalogued:]

[N/A]

Still, the number grew. Not in obvious ways, not in muscle or size or power; but in potential. The silent code behind his existence grew richer, deeper, more complex with every kill, every swallowed corpse, every blood-soaked trail left behind under the guise of moonlight.

And though the system did not yet shake or tremble, though no limb split or mind reshaped or form changed, he could feel the weight of it building like pressure beneath a tectonic plate, the future evolution curled tight and waiting to unfold.

He paused one night upon a cliff overlooking a valley littered with the remnants of his latest hunt, smoke still rising from a small fire where a distant storm had struck. He let his massive form coil atop the rocks and gazed into the dark with eyes that could pierce fog, distance, and sleep itself.

He was preparing to move on, to continue the endless cycle of hunt, consume, catalogue, repeat; when his senses, honed far beyond the reach of any natural predator, detected something that felt entirely out of place.

At first, it was merely a shift in atmospheric pressure, subtle but persistent, a strangeness layered in the upper winds that spoke of something deeper than weather. Then came the distant thrum of roaring skies; a storm, vast and unmoving, pulsing in place as though tethered to the bones of the world.

Compelled by something more than curiosity; something ancient, perhaps instinctive, perhaps system-born, Mark plunged back into the ocean and swam for several hours without rest, his body slicing through the dark depths like a missile, his limbs folded back for maximum hydrodynamic efficiency.

Eventually, he reached it. A place where the world twisted unnaturally; a region in the heart of the Pacific where storms churned without end, their thunder never ceasing, their clouds so thick with moisture and charge that sunlight had not kissed the surface in generations.

Rain lashed the sea without rhythm. Lightning danced like chained spirits across the blackened sky. And the winds... the winds were angry.

It was as though the Earth itself had raised a curtain; not merely to warn, but to conceal.

Mark did not stop.

With his eyes narrowed and his instincts sharpening to a knife's edge, he stared into the wall of endless storm and felt something shift deep within him; not evolution, not hunger, but something stranger still.

He would enter it, and he would discover what the storm was hiding.