Blood.
The cracked stone floors of the endless cavern were being dyed red and a putrid stench began to suffuse the environment. Most of the beasts on this floor were fleeing in every direction, hoping to find salvation from the predator that stalked them all.
Of course, most of them decided to fight back at first, after all, a beast’s natural instinct was to kill, eat, and evolve, however, the beast they were up against was too feral. Every beast that attempted to fight was either torn up, exploded and fried by lighting, or had its body parts mangled mysteriously.
This scene had continued for 3 floors already, but the predator was far from being satiated. Whenever it saw any life, it moved to kill. Whenever it felt fatigue, it tore open beasts and ate them raw. Whenever it felt dehydrated, it would drink their blood for sustenance.
It didn’t seem to care about anything at all, even its own health, as it moved with the singular purpose to bring death. Besides, even if a beast managed to injure it, the beast would rapidly heal. Their strength ranging between levels 10-20 had no ability to resist.
The various beasts who originally inhabited the floor had enough intelligence to know they couldn’t survive alone, so they teamed up and attacked. A group of thirty beasts all together surrounded a single one, however, it was the group of thirty that truly felt fear.
The beast they were facing had a mane of black hair with streaks of silver, eyes that were a mix between deep amethyst and blood red, swirling in a yin yang pattern, and a bipedal body that was growing more and more muscle as time passed.
This beast was naturally Damien.
After Damien’s thought process turned dark in the abyss, he lost control over his emotions, inadvertently letting his beast side take over. Without any control over his newly gained bestial instinct, he went berserk and began killing everything he laid eyes on.
An indiscernible amount of time had passed since then and Damien had descended 3 more floors. If an observer was present to witness the aftermath left on those 3 floors, all they would see is an endless sea of blood and mangled corpses.
Any beast that escaped his grasp either tunneled into the ground farther than his reach extended or fled to the lower floors. However, most of the latter group still ended up dying by his hand.
Even though he wasn’t rational in the slightest, he still had all his power. He would teleport freely to cut off any escape routes and channel lightning as if he had been wielding it all his life. He killed, he ate, and he evolved until the floor he was on had no more use to him, then he descended to continue.
Even after all this time, he showed no signs of regaining his rationality.
The group of beasts that had surrounded him charged ferociously, as they knew their lives were already forfeit. Their only hope was to take him down with them.
But Damien, especially without his rational mind, was a being who was hell-bent on survival by any means. After his near-death experience, this became rooted firmly as the core of his mentality.
Those within the tide of beasts that possessed elemental affinities chose this moment to attack. A barrage of fireballs, ice and earth spikes, and even wind blades converged upon his location. However, this was all for naught.
Damien had already vanished from his original position, appearing at the edge of the tide. His stance was prone as his nails elongated and became more claw-like. He lunged at a beast and directly tore out its heart, throwing it to the side. He then continued his slaughter.
Black lightning danced around his body, increasing his speed threefold as he pounced from beast to beast. His movements were completely primal but looked eerily beautiful as he moved efficiently within a whirlwind of blood.
Everywhere he passed, dismembered limbs and random organs of beasts flew. The tide of originally thirty beasts was already cut down by half in just a matter of minutes.
The beasts gave up on elemental attacks after seeing Damien avoid them easily, and used their body strength to try and wear him down. Various claws, hooves, and talons continuously fell on his body, accumulating countless gashes, however, it didn’t matter.
With only beasts of similar levels around him, Damien was nigh invincible. His regeneration was passively healing every injury he received, leaving him without even a single scar.
Another few minutes later, Damien had mutilated every beast in his vicinity, even the ones that weren’t a part of the beast tide that desperately attacked him.
He turned to glance at the dismembered flesh and chunks of organs that laid waste to the originally dry ground and snorted, continuing to the next floor.
After a certain point of continuous evolution through eating beasts, Damien had formed a sort of 6th sense that allowed him to know whether a beasts meat and blood would benefit him. This was why, even in his berserk state, Damien never stayed on one floor for too long.
The Damien that almost died on the 2nd floor couldn’t even begin to compare with the Damien that existed in the present.
With him gaining a surefire method to strengthen his body and a 1st class related to his spatial affinity, his full potential was finally unleashed. It was previously mentioned that without the limitations of his body, Damien theorized that he’d have talent that rivals Elena and Jin’s, however, he was sorely mistaken.
His talent vastly eclipsed both of them, and his spatial affinity was one of the rarest elements. Now that he could follow two different power systems to gain strength, through evolution and class advancement, his growth rate would hail him a supreme genius.
However, Damien was in no mind to care. He continued to kill eat and evolve, every once in a while he would gain levels as well, as he continued to descend the dungeon.
Damien’s main consciousness was currently trapped in a world filled with blood. When his bestial instinct took over, he suddenly appeared here with no idea what was going on. When he tried to move, he had realized that his body was semi-ethereal and seemed to be fading out of existence.
He wasn’t the only one in this world, however, as he soon discovered an enormous wolf that he remembered killing only a couple of minutes prior.
The wolf had charged at him as another harrowing battle between the two began, but just as Damien managed to kill the wolf, which was much weaker than its living counterpart, more and more beasts began appearing around him.
Thus, Damien was trapped in a seemingly never-ending battle. Each time he killed a beast, another one appeared without end. He was only given an hour or two of reprieve every so often when his body was descending to a lower floor.
With the continuation of this cycle, he was slowly starting to lose his sanity.
Unbeknownst to Damien, who had no room to think about anything other than surviving this endless beast tide, this world was something akin to his sea of consciousness.
Each time he devoured a beast and further evolved himself, his bestial instinct would grow. Each beast that appeared was just a manifestation of this desire.
Damien’s fight in the blood world wasn’t one for survival, but rather a fight for sanity. If he ended up dying to these beasts, he would forever live solely on his bestial instinct. His thoughts and emotions as a human would cease to exist.
Thus, Damien continued fighting two never-ending battles simultaneously. One with the goal of evolution and strength, and the other with the goal of maintaining his will.