---
The forest's scent shifted—sweet rot mingled with fungal musk.
Yuki's steps grew cautious as he entered a clearing carpeted in odd mushrooms, their caps pulsing with an eerie, faint glow. He recognized none of them, yet instinct screamed danger. The mist from the Mist Serpent encounter still clung to his scales, but it was this stillness that felt truly wrong.
*"Something's buried here…"*
Suddenly, the ground beneath him buckled.
From the earth erupted six-legged beasts with chitinous hides and glowing red eyes. **Blightcap Crawlers**—poisonous mushroom-beasts that moved like spiders but struck like wolves. Their bodies were riddled with spore vents, each exhale releasing a cloud of purple dust.
One lunged at his side—Yuki twisted, flames igniting along his tail.
**\[Flame Clad]** surged and struck true, burning the crawler mid-air. It screamed as its body cracked open, releasing more spores.
But two more replaced it, biting at his limbs.
One's fangs sank into his foreleg. Poison flooded in.
> **Toxin detected. Resistance insufficient. Internal cleansing initiated.**
His breath caught. The pain was dull at first—but quickly surged into a pulsing agony spreading through his blood.
Yuki roared and slammed his tail into the forest floor, sending debris flying. He rolled, dislodging the crawler, then unleashed a torrent of flame. The clearing ignited in orange fury, torching the spore clouds and burning the creatures alive.
But the poison…
His vision blurred. Muscles spasmed.
> **Predator Core Analysis: Initiating emergency adaptation...**
> **Skill Unlocked: \[Toxic Resistance Lv.1]**
> **Passive Skill Gained: \[Adaptive Physiology – Proto]**
Yuki collapsed beside a charred crawler corpse, his breath labored. He could feel the poison fading—slower than he liked, but fading nonetheless. His blood thickened, filtering the toxin naturally now. His cells were learning.
He stood, though weakly, scanning the bodies.
> **Skills Absorbed:**
> \- \[Venom Fang Fragment]
> \- \[Spore Burst Fragment]
> **Stored. Eligible for future synthesis upon Predator upgrade.**
Yuki looked to the sky—or where it should be beyond the tangled canopy.
That battle had pushed him further, not just in body, but in his predator instincts. He was starting to understand how this world worked.
The strong didn't just survive—they *evolved*.
---