The air in the forest thickened as the Crab Spider's eight crimson eyes glowed through the darkness, its enormous pincers clicking like blades hungry for flesh. Omega's breath caught in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs with such force he thought it might burst free. His mind screamed for him to run, to flee, to do anything but stand there like prey awaiting slaughter. Yet his legs stayed frozen, muscles locked tight as if the beast's presence alone had paralyzed him. Cold sweat trickled down his spine, soaking through his shirt.

The system chimed coldly inside his skull, indifferent to his terror, mechanical and emotionless as always.

"Warning. Wolf energy depleted. You can no longer sustain your human form. Transformation will now begin. In wolf form, you will enter pure rage. Extra wolf energy will be consumed. If a beast is not devoured within five minutes… host will die."

"What?! Wait, no—no, no!" Omega's voice cracked with desperation, rising to a pitch he barely recognized as his own. "I'm not ready for this! I don't know how to—"

Fire erupted in his chest, cutting off his protests. The sensation spread like molten iron through his veins, burning everything in its path. Black lines crawled beneath his skin like poisonous roots seeking purchase in his flesh. Then came the pain—raw, ripping, merciless. His bones twisted with sickening cracks that echoed through the clearing. His spine bent backward until he thought it would snap in two, vertebrae grinding against each other. His jaw stretched and cracked into a muzzle, teeth sharpening into fangs that cut his own gums. Muscles piled upon muscles as his human form shredded away like a discarded shell, leaving only the beast beneath. Every nerve ending screamed in agony.

The boy disappeared.

In his place stood a massive wolf—fur dark as midnight, eyes burning blood-red with primal fury that knew no reason, no mercy.

"I-I don't believe it… he's… transforming?" The log's voice shook with genuine fear, trembling in a way it never had before. "This isn't normal… this is something else entirely."

But Omega's mind had vanished beneath instinct. Hunger. Rage. Devour. Nothing else existed in the red haze that consumed his thoughts. His growl rolled like thunder across the clearing, shaking leaves from the trees and sending smaller creatures fleeing into the night.

The Crab Spider screeched, high and sharp—a sound that pierced the night like a blade through silk.

Then the battle began.

The spider attacked first, lunging with its enormous claw aimed directly at Omega's throat. Omega moved purely on instinct, leaping aside with fluid, savage grace that defied his massive size. His claws tore trenches through the ground as he landed, dirt spraying in all directions. Without hesitation, he pounced immediately, slamming into the spider's abdomen with the force of a battering ram. His fangs drove deep into chitinous armor, piercing through layers that should have been impenetrable. Dark ichor burst across his muzzle, warm and bitter, coating his tongue with a taste both repulsive and somehow satisfying to the beast within.

The spider shrieked, kicking him away with brutal force. Omega's body crashed into a tree hard enough to splinter bark and shake the trunk to its roots, but he rose instantly, eyes blazing with unquenchable fury. Pain meant nothing to the beast. The concept didn't even register in his rage-consumed mind.

"That spider's not ordinary… and him… he's fighting like a wild beast," the log whispered, unable to look away from the carnage unfolding before it. "No—worse than wild. He's fighting like something that's forgotten it was ever human."

The spider shot a web from its spinnerets, the sticky strand glistening in the moonlight. Omega snarled and dodged—almost. Sticky silk wrapped around his hind leg, and in a blink, the beast yanked him across the clearing like a rag doll, his body tumbling through dirt and debris.

Omega's instincts roared louder than thought. With a savage twist, he tore free—even ripping into his own flesh to escape the binding, caring nothing for the damage he inflicted upon himself. Blood dripped hot down his leg, staining his dark fur darker still, but pain meant nothing. Only hunger mattered. Only survival. Only the kill.

He dashed around the beast in a blur, claws slashing into its armored legs, carving bloody cracks along its limbs with each strike. The spider struck blindly, ramming the ground with its pincers hard enough to shake the trees and split the earth, creating craters where Omega had stood mere seconds before. Omega ducked under its massive frame and ripped into the soft flesh beneath it, where the armor couldn't protect, where the vulnerable organs lay exposed. His fangs tore chunks free—and he swallowed them raw, barely chewing, driven by a hunger that transcended mere appetite.

"He's… eating during the fight?" the log whispered, horrified, its voice barely audible over the sounds of battle. "Like a savage wolf—no, worse. Much worse. He's not even waiting until it's dead."

Venom sprayed from the spider's maw, sizzling wherever it landed and burning holes in the earth, turning soil to smoking ash. Omega darted across its body with supernatural speed, claws digging into its back as he climbed, using the creature's own bulk as a ladder. He bit into the joint of its pincer—hard. Bone cracked with a sound like breaking stone, reverberating through the clearing. The limb snapped free, dangling uselessly, tendons torn and muscles shredded.

Black blood splattered across Omega's face, hot and thick, coating his muzzle in gore. He chewed the limb savagely, swallowing greedily as if starved for weeks, as if this meal might be his last.

"This is no normal transformation… he's… devouring it alive," the log said, voice trembling with a mix of awe and horror, unable to reconcile what it was witnessing with anything it had seen before.

The spider staggered, disoriented and weakened by blood loss, its movements growing sluggish and uncoordinated. But it wasn't finished. Survival instinct drove it forward. With a violent slam, it pinned Omega with its remaining claw, driving him into the dirt with crushing force that would have killed any ordinary creature.

The pressure was enough to pulverize boulders, to turn stone to dust.

Any human would've turned to pulp instantly, bones and organs crushed beyond recognition.

But Omega roared—primal, wrathful, defiant—a sound that spoke of something beyond death, beyond pain. He shredded into the beast's limb until it split down the middle, chitin and flesh parting under his relentless assault. He lunged upward, jaws gaping wide, and sank his fangs straight into the spider's head, piercing through exoskeleton to the brain beneath. He could taste the creature's life force draining away.

The spider convulsed violently, its screech fading into a wet gurgle as its nervous system shut down.

Then it fell still, legs curling inward in the final throes of death.

Omega didn't stop. The beast within him knew no satisfaction, only endless hunger. He tore at the corpse with frenzied hunger, ripping through carapace and flesh, devouring everything he could reach. His muzzle dripped with black blood as he consumed half the beast's body, driven by an insatiable need that went beyond mere sustenance. Each bite seemed to feed something deeper, something primal that had awakened within him.

Only when the system spoke did he slow, the fog of rage beginning to lift like morning mist, clarity returning in fragments.

"Congratulations, host. High-level beast defeated. 3000 EXP gained. First-time D-rank kill bonus: 500 EXP. System Reward: Evolution will begin."