At this point, the deep abyss was starting to become my second home. With but a thought, my aura sight was activated, eliminating the need for sunlight. Immediately, I was greeted by the usual emptiness of the area, but I knew it was nothing but a lie.

There were a lot of monsters down here, they were simply well hidden and had a larger area to live in than those inhabiting the reef above.

And I just so happened to have a very keen nose and a very hungry belly. Like a bloodhound, I sniffed out the most delicious trail out of the thousands around me and began to follow it.

Within less than ten minutes, I arrived at where the smell was strongest. There was nothing above the floor, but then again, that just meant my new meal was a bit of a coward.

I hang around the area for a couple minutes, trying to get any meaningful info on my prey. When it failed to do anything except keep hiding, I got impatient and pounced.

Although my body shape wasn't great for digging, I could easily use my head as a shovel, even if it was a bit dangerous. I didn't need though, since as I was just about to hit the floor, the beast hiding under it exploded outwards.

A 50-meter long bobbit worm exploded outwards with a ferocious screech. I wasn't impressed though, since although it was big, it's aura was weaker than mine by quite a bit.

Instead of stopping my attack, I redirected it at the worm's core. My jaws snapped shut around it, fangs sinking deep as my other teeth tried to split it in half, but failing.

The worm retaliated by biting my own body... or at least trying to. My serpentine coils danced around it's jaws before wrapping around it's body, and my constriction skill activated.

Disgusting squishing sounds sounded out dully from the worm as it's ferocious screechs turned into pitiful whimpers, right until it's body was snapped in half. I uncoiled myself from it and unlatched my teeth, then ignored it's head and instead began to work on swallowing the tail part.

It died pretty quickly after that, and it's remains were happily swallowed up by the hungry noodle that is me. After waiting a couple minutes to let my body handle the digestion, I checked my status, finding my evolution progress to only have gone up by 0.4%.

Still, that was enough. I immediately began to sniff out another trail, and once I reached the end of it, I slaughtered the monster there and devoured it.

This process repeated itself constantly for the next couple days. In total, I murdered and devoured at least 50 beasts, each one of them at least half my own size.

I was also careful to not get lost from the reef, constantly making sure I knew where the reef wall was. After all, although I'd be happy enough to leave that place behind, I couldn't bring myself to abandon the little mermaid all on her own.

I didn't particularly care for her, and yet I did. It was a confusing mess, my cold and uncaring serpentine instincts clashing against my remaining human feelings.

I guess that is why it has been so confusing for me. Nonetheless, I had little time to care for such paultry things such as feelings when I was so damn close to evolving.

I was at 99.99% evolution. I merely needed one last meal, and then I would rank up, and oh boy was I looking forward to it.

Having just finished yet another meal, a relatively small but extremely quick frogfish, I immediately began yet another treck towards my final target for this hunting session.

I'd shot up to around 60 meters in length at this point, and I was large enough to swallow entire boats in one gulp, or more accurately, swallow most 'small' monsters. It was starting to get a bit problematic, though. Being so big made it hard to hide and fight smaller things than me, but it was still overall a big benefit.

Anyways, after a half hour search, I finally reached my new target. A house-sized tuna... which fled immediately upon seeing me.

This wasn't an uncommon accourance, and unfortunately for the tuna, I was no speed slouch. I shot after it, chasing it.

After two entire hours of this damned chase, I was finally able to latch my teeth onto the tuna when it slowed down a bit from tiredness. It was basically over at that point, even as the tuna tried to turn and bite me back.

Although being a snake meant I lacked having arms, it was still a much more convenient form for battle than, say, being tuna-shaped. I easily twisted my larger and flexible body away from it's mouth, my coils wrapping around it.

It shouldn't even be said that the tuna died a pathetic death the moment my coils were tightly secured around it. I swallowed up it's corpse, and when I did, the much-awaited notification finally came.

Congratulations! You have fought and slaughtered your way to a higher stage of being. Your brutality and voraciousness is unrivaled, but while you are feared by most, you are also loved by a Cursed being. For this achievment, Special Evolution mode has been unlocked.

Transfering into S.E. mode...

Transfer succesful. Time stopped until Evolution is finished.

The world around me suddenly faded away, and I found myself surrounded by a world of darkness. I couldn't feel my body, nor could I feel the ever-present water caressing me.

Then, a titanic snake appeared in the darkness, perfectly visible despite the lack of light. Reading through the system's notification, I was momentarily stunned.

However, I understood that this was a very special opportunity. Hence, I pushed away any and all emotions, opting to instead focus on what was important.

I could view my body from any angle, and in a corner of my mind, I had a strange but undeniably real 'feeling' of what I needed to do to change myself. I had limited resources with which to upgrade my body, but they were still quite a lot.

Before I upgraded myself, though, I took the opportunity to satisfy the scientist within me, and inspected my serpentine body from the inside out, quite literally. I looked at every organ inside me, every teeth, every scale.

I understood very little over how this seemingly random mess of parts made up my body, but it was still a fun experience. Then, I got to work doing the actual upgrading.

After thinking over it for quite a long time, I first and foremost changed the layout of my teeth. From two extremely dangerous fangs and lots of smaller teeth, I made all of them the same size, and all of them possessing my venom. Then, I upgraded both my eyes and nose by quite a bit.

I wanted to add to my eyes the ability to see heat, but after feeling out the cost, I abandoned that idea. Instead, I spent a large chunk of my points increasing my size all the way to a nice and round 100 meters.

I changed my color scheme too, making myself a dark blue all around, with some splashes of black here and there to make it less uniform. Since it was so cheap to change colors, it barely hit drained any resources.

With that done, I paused a bit to debate over what else to upgrade. In general, all I really needed was more size, strength, defense, and aura. Everything else was alright as it was, and it wouldn't be worth changing.

Hence, I threw half of my remaining points into increasing my aura. The moment I did, there were no real changes, but I could tell that when I entered this new and improved body, the aura would be a great help overall.

Happy enough with that aura level, I threw the remaining points into my scales, making them stronger yet lighter.

Satisfied, I backed off to observe the finished result. Overall, I was very satisfied. Looming over the world at 100 meters in length, I looked like an imposing overlord of the seas.

Still... This was only the first rank-up. I still had a long ways to go.

As if reading my mind and knowing I was satisfied, the serpent faded away, and my consciousness dissipated. I had little time to be suprised at this, but I did have time to worry if I fucked up.

I hadn't left my body in the most defensible position, after all.