"Cough, cough..."
A hoarse, feeble cough came from the darkness, like the muttering of someone on the verge of death.
The air was thick with the peculiar scent of roasted flesh. Rats kept scurrying through the freely flowing filth, making soft rustling noises.
In a corner deep within the darkness, the outline of a humanoid figure could vaguely be seen.
It lay on the ground. If not for the rise and fall of its chest, it would have been little different from a corpse.
After a long while, the person on the ground seemed to recover somewhat. He barely managed to stand and take a few steps toward the light.
Under the dim illumination, his horrifying appearance became visible.
His entire body looked as though it had been scorched by flames. His blackened skin was split by countless cracks, revealing yellowish fat and red muscle beneath.
Within the flesh was an indescribable, peculiar structure, like some kind of special root system. It barely held together his body, which stood at its limit, forcibly connecting skin, flesh, and bones that were nearly falling away.
"Phew."
He let out a soft breath, as though the exhaled air itself carried the heat of burning.
His fingers had completely snapped off and fallen away, replaced by a miserable tentacle. Mucus constantly dripped from its surface, corroding one pit after another into the ground.
His chest split open. A tentacle reached inside and withdrew a tiny bottle no bigger than a finger.
The bottle contained pale golden liquid. When gently shaken, it seemed to glitter with countless stars, dreamlike and illusory.
Without much hesitation, he tossed the entire bottle into his mouth, chewed it apart, and swallowed it.
Soon, the faint, sweet fragrance of flowers quietly spread through the air, and his mental state barely