The Crown of the Hollow Glutton settled into place, and for a moment, Adam simply was a serpentine monarch with a circlet of silent hunger gracing his brow.

Ignis circled him, her fiery eyes wide. «Wow! It looks really cool now! It suits you, Boss!»

Alice padded close, her earlier concern softened into approval. She rubbed her head against his neck, her purr a tangible vibration through his scales. «It does add a certain... regal menace. You look more complete. Like a true ruler.»

Lilith observed with her customary analytical grace. «And how does it feel, Adam? Is there a psychic weight? A compulsion?»

Adam focused inward. He could feel it—a hollow, gnawing sensation at the edge of his consciousness, not in his stomach, but in his mind. A subtle, whispering appetite for more than flesh. "I feel... a deep hunger. But not for food. It's... different. I can control it, but it's there, like a new instinct."

«That is likely the artifact's innate nature influencing your perception,» Lilith cautioned, her tone serious. «It was forged from ambition and consumption. You must be the master, not the vessel. Your will must remain the dominant one.»

Nodding, Adam concentrated. He imagined the crown receding, becoming dormant. To his relief and slight surprise, the dark iron circlet shimmered and dissolved from sight, though he could still feel its latent presence, a cool weight against his psyche, ready to be summoned. "It can be hidden. Good. I'll only call it when needed."

«Phew,» Ignis said, though she looked a little disappointed. «It was shiny.»

«Your vanity is showing, little flame,» Alice chided, but without heat.

"Don't worry," Adam reassured them all. "I won't be controlled by a piece of metal. We're done here. Let's move. This lake has given us its prize." With unanimous, if weary, agreement, the group turned from the violet-lit shore and ventured into a new network of tunnels.

They hadn't traveled far when the signs began.

The first corpse was a Fell Dire Wolf, its body desiccated and strangely collapsed, as if the bones within had been sucked dry. Deep, precise claw marks scored its flanks, and a single, brutal bite marred its throat but there was almost no blood.

The second was a Cavern Creeper, its chitinous shell cracked open not with brute force, but with surgical precision at the joints. Its insides were gone.

"These wounds... they're not random," Adam murmured, his Hunter's Tri-Sense on high alert, sampling the air. The scent of death was fresh, but underneath was something else—a stale, dusty odor, like old tombs and dry rot.

Lilith examined the Creeper's shell with a delicate leg. «The efficiency is disturbing. This was not a fight; it was a dissection. The predator knew exactly where to strike to disable and consume the vital essence with minimal energy expenditure.»

«Look at the bodies,» Alice said, her void-sensitive eyes seeing more than just physical form. «They're... hollowed. Not just eaten. It's like their very essence, their life force, was siphoned out.»

A cold knot of dread tightened in Adam's gut. «A new predator? Something that's moved into the vacuum we created?»

«It is a distinct possibility,» Lilith replied. «The death of multiple Dungeon Lords has destabilized the local food web. A niche has opened for something... opportunistic.»

Suddenly, Adam's tri-sense shrieked a warning—vibration, a whisper of that dry-rot scent from above, and a spike of pure, alien malice. "SCATTER!" he roared mentally.

They moved just in time. Something dropped from the ceiling, landing with a sickening, soft thud where they had just been clustered.

It stood on two unnervingly humanoid, yet backwards-jointed, grey legs. Its torso was emaciated, ribs visible under taut, corpse-pale skin. Its arms were too long, ending in hands with elongated, scalpelsharp bone-claws that scraped against the stone floor. Its face was a nightmare of blankness—no eyes, no nose, just a smooth, pale oval of flesh. Then, a vertical slit ripped open from its crown to its chin, peeling back to reveal a black, toothless maw from which a long, grey, prehensile tongue lashed like a whip.

[ Corpse-Eater (Evolved) - Level 45 ]

"Corpse-Eater?" Adam hissed, bewildered. "What kind of name is that?"

Lilith's psychic voice was sharp with sudden, rare alarm. «Corpse-Eaters are low-tier scavengers! They are weak, cowardly things that mimic the forms of the recently dead to ambush the grieving or the injured. They should not have survived here—the Arachnowyrm and other apex predators culled them relentlessly for being disruptive, toxic nuisances! They are shape-shifters, Adam! They can mimic the form and scent of their last consumed prey!»

«But this one... it's different,» Alice growled, flanking Adam. «It's strong. And it doesn't feel like a scavenger. It feels like a hunter.»

«Precisely!» Lilith confirmed, her own combat stance forming. «With the Big Mother and other dominant hunters gone, this abomination has been able to feed without competition. It has been gorging on the essence of every monster left weak or dying in the power vacuum we created. It has evolved. It is no longer a mere scavenger. It has become an apex parasite, a walking plague upon the dungeon's ecosystem. These corpses... this is its work. It doesn't just eat; it consumes essence, leaving behind hollowed husks.»

The Corpse-Eater's head rotated slowly towards them, its blank face somehow conveying a sense of cold, calculating hunger. Its tongue retracted with a wet snap.

Adam stared at the monstrosity, a new kind of revulsion and understanding dawning on him. They hadn't just created a power vacuum. They had inadvertently fertilized the growth of a new kind of horror.

"What in the world..." Adam breathed, his Crown of the Hollow Glutton feeling suddenly heavier in his psyche. "...is this thing? It's not just a monster. It's a catastrophe."

And it was now standing between them and their path forward.

«We should exterminate them,» Alice stated coldly, her claws extending as void energy gathered around them. «Before they grow stronger and drain this entire sector dry of essence.»

No further discussion was needed. The Corpse-Eater lunged with impossible speed, its bone-claws whistling through the air. It wasn't just strong—it fought with the borrowed instincts of its victims. It used the Fell Dire Wolf's pack-hunting footwork, the Cavern Creeper's sudden lunges, and even the viscous, slowing spit of a monster they didn't recognize.

It was a disturbing patchwork of stolen techniques, but it lacked the true mastery and power of the originals. Adam, with his mind, saw the flaws in the mimicry. He baited a lunge, slid aside with Abyssal Glide, and wrapped the creature's torso in a devastating Constrict.

The Corpse-Eater thrashed, its form shuddering and blurring as it tried to shift into something slippery. But Adam's grip, empowered by legendary strength, was absolute. With a final, sickening crunch of compacting bone and dry flesh, he squeezed. The blank-faced horror went limp.

He tore its head off for good measure.

[ Corpse-Eater (Evolved) Defeated! ]

[ +9 EXP | +5 EP ]

Adam stared at the paltry numbers floating in his vision. Then he stared at the dissolving corpse. A wave of profound irritation washed over him.

"This is it?" he snarled, tail lashing against the stone. "All that trouble, a Level 45 monster that fought with a dozen different styles… for nine EXP and five EP? What kind of scam is this?!"

«It is… logically consistent, if infuriating,» Lilith observed, poking the dissipating remains. «The Corpse-Eater's entire biology is based on consuming and hoarding essence. It doesn't just use it; it stores it, integrates it. When we kill it, we are only getting the scant dregs it hasn't yet fully digested and converted into its own mutable form. The bulk of the essence from all those monsters it ate is… lost. Wasted within it.»

"You're telling me we just did all that work for a severance package that wouldn't feed a hatchling?!" Adam fumed, using a human term without thinking.

«Severance… package? What is that?» Alice asked, tilting her head in genuine confusion.

Adam blinked, momentarily derailed. "It's… it's like being told you're fired and then given a single copper coin for all your years of service. Never mind. The point is, this thing is a leech. It steals our experience and evolution points before we can get to them!"

Ignis, who had been cautiously sniffing the remains, jumped back as they fully vanished. «Ew! It doesn't even leave good meat! Just dust and bad feelings!»

«Precisely,» Lilith said, her voice grave. «They are a net drain on the dungeon's energy cycle. They do not contribute to the ecosystem; they only parasitize it. And now, with no apex predators to cull them…»

"They'll multiply," Adam finished, his irritation cooling into grim determination. "And every monster they kill is experience and evolution we don't get. They're not just a nuisance; they're competition. The worst kind."

He looked down the tunnel from which the creature had come, his Hunter's Tri-Sense already picking up the faint, dry-rot scent of more. "We can't let them establish themselves. We need to clear them out. Every one we find. It's not just about safety anymore. It's about… resource management."

A new, darker thought occurred to him. He focused, and the Crown of the Hollow Glutton materialized on his brow, its dark iron gleaming dully. He concentrated on the hollow feeling within it, then on the faint, fading spiritual residue of the Corpse-Eater.

The crown gave a faint, almost eager pulse. A wisp of grey mist, the last vestige of the creature's stolen and hoarded essence, was pulled from the air and drawn into the crown.

[ Soul Captured: Corrupted Essence Shard ]

[ Domineering Will: 1/1000 ]

The number ticked up by one. It confirmed everything. The Crown's hunger and the Corpse-Eater's nature were a twisted match. One hoarded essence selfishly, wasting it. The other sought to collect it all.

"Alright," Adam said, the crown fading from sight again. "New short-term goal, besides leveling up. Pest control. We hunt Corpse-Eaters. We deny them every scrap of essence in this territory. We take it for ourselves."

He looked at his companions, his galactic eyes hard. "It's time to clean house."

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