Becoming a Monster

Chapter 459: New Story: Predation: Riftbreak

There won’t be a Chapter for the original Novel today. So, since I didn’t have time, I decided to post two Chapters of the other novel I’m working on to give you all something to read.

I couldn’t find a way to make this Chapter free, so sorry about that.

This story is inspired by Monster Hunters, but that is it. The monsters won’t be the same, and many changes will be different from the game’s mechanics.

If you enjoy it, then let me know. But we had only 3 comments on my original note. So if I don’t receive much interest in this story, then I’d rather not bother posting the rest.

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Chapter One Predation: Wildfall

The controller rested tightly in Vergil’s hands, fingers moving in a blur. His eyes shifted just as fast as his fingers as the colors of the screen flickered within his vision.

The screen in front of him was of a hunter fighting against an Apex Beast prowling along the fractured stone caverns. Every movement it made kept Vergil on his toes. From the way its tail moved, to the glowing intensity of its eyes.

Vergil leaned forward just slightly.

This was the last one; droplets of sweat slid down his face. The stress was high, but so was the adrenaline.

This creature was the hardest and final Apex Beast on a list he had been building for years, ever since he realized that speed had never interested him the way perfection did.

Records in the gaming world continued to be broken. The competition became more about simple exploitation rather than gameplay. In most cases, those who vied for records would resort to underhanded methods to break them.

What Vergil came to realize later on was that instead of efficiency, he felt much more alive when achieving a flawless hunt.

One that couldn’t be cheated.

So he aimed to defeat every beast within one sitting, without being touched. And if he failed, he would have to start all over.

The beast lunged suddenly with its claws, looking as if it was about to strike, but it was a feint. It suddenly twisted, elemental energy gathering in its mouth as it pivoted backward. The feint was too surreal, the tell that it was not a real attack was barely there, more subtle than most players could react to.

But Vergil didn’t move right away. He waited, he always waited.

The true attack came immediately. That moment was everything. It was what Vergil was waiting for all this time.

He raised his shield at the exact instant flames were inches away from his face.

The impact should have sent his hunter skidding across the ground. Instead, the fiery flames collapsed inward, consumed by the enchantments woven into his shield.

The chat exploded.

"NO WAY."

"DID YOU SEE THAT?"

"That should’ve chipped him at least."

"bro that timing—"

Vergil didn’t look at the messages. His health didn’t budge, and his momentum never wavered. In the end, his shield began to grow even brighter than before.

Now, he was ready.

After the flames died, he hopped back. just in time to evade a tail that swept through the space he had occupied a heartbeat earlier.

He didn’t rush his next move right away. Instead, he placed his sword into the holder that was built into the shield. With a solid twist, the sword roared with flames that engulfed its blade. The flames appeared more majestic than the beast’s own.

The following moment, the beast lunged again. This time, it aimed to swallow him whole. It was this specific attack that caused the failure of many. Even if you were at full health or had the best gear. It all meant nothing if caught in this creature’s jaws. It would still one-shot you.

Vergil tightened his grip on the controller, but his posture didn’t change. He had seen this attack too many times to panic now. The beast’s head tilted slightly before the lunge, its jaw opening just a fraction wider than necessary.

That was the window.

Under normal circumstances, this attack couldn’t be blocked. It was coded that way.

But Vergil wasn’t using a normal setup. Every rune slot on his gear had been coordinated for this exact moment. Again, fast clears weren’t the goal. His gear was aligned so that block timing and deflection thresholds not just overlapped, but made it possible to even interact with unblockable attacks.

The beast’s jaws closed. For a single frame, everything seemed to freeze. And then the force was redirected.

The impact sent the beast’s entire body sprawling backwards. Its head snapped off course before it succumbed to gravity.

The chat surged again.

"WAIT."

"That was unblockable."

"No shot."

"Show us your gear, please!"

"Screw that! Show us your settings!"

Vergil continued to ignore the chaos he caused. He was an introvert at heart. But more importantly, the chat was mostly consumed by toxic viewers. The ones who truly supported him knew that he didn’t respond until after the hunt.

A mini crossbow suddenly appeared on his wrist, aiming for the death stone hanging on the ceiling.

The crossbow struck true.

The death stone fractured with a sharp crack before giving way entirely. The stalagmite tore free from the ceiling and came crashing down onto the Apex Beast’s back, the impact shaking the cavern. The creature collapsed again under the force.

The impact provided a small window for Vergil to act, but he was already approaching before the stalagmite had even finished falling. He had accounted for this outcome from the start. The timing, the damage, the positioning, all of it had been tracked since the opening exchange.

Every strike, burn, he knew how much health the creature had left, and he knew how much power was stored in his blade after accumulating the elemental damage.

Vergil’s sword flashed an over-exaggerated animation, leaping off the beast’s face, slamming down the blade into its face, which delivered a critical hit. Damage numbers spiraled out of control as the fire ticks accumulated.

There wasn’t a health bar, but Vergil didn’t need one. His body relaxed the moment he delivered the blow. He finally did it; he beat every apex monster in one sitting without being hit once.

He had never felt so accomplished before in his life. Job promotions didn’t make him feel this way; hanging out with family, or even landing dates couldn’t give him the same satisfaction as it did now.

This was why he played Echelon Hunt.

When had he put in so much effort into anything before? Even when the game first came out, he never showed such vigor in accomplishing what he did now.

But that was also because the game hadn’t always been this hard.

—

When Vergil first started playing, the monsters were brutal but predictable, easily predictable.

They followed routine patterns. Complex ones, but patterns all the same. Once you learned them, once you truly understood how the systems worked, you could overcome anything the game threw at you.

Vergil understood those systems better than most.

Better than almost anyone.

At first, it had just been a hobby. Then an obsession. Then, eventually, something more. He had created a platform account, not because he wanted fame, but because the game demanded time, and time demanded money. If he was going to sink his life into mastering it, he might as well make enough to justify staying invested.

So he shared what he knew.

Tutorials, breakdowns; guides so detailed they bordered on obsessiveness. He explained which gear sets allowed for optimal survivability without sacrificing damage. Which feats to use, geared toward different people’s playstyles.

He mapped attack timers down to fractions of seconds. He showed players what to look for, not just animations, but posture, positioning, the subtle shifts that betrayed what a monster was about to do before the game itself made it obvious.

People listened, millions of them.

His videos spread everywhere. New players followed his guides religiously. Veteran hunters refined their playstyles around his insights. Slowly, inevitably, the narrative around Predation: Wildfall began to change.

It’s too easy now.

The monsters are predictable.

There’s no creativity left.

The irony never failed to amuse him.

Vergil hadn’t made the game easier. He had simply taught people how to understand it from their own perspective.

The developers responded in a way that no one foresaw. Not with a warning, or even patch updates. Instead, it was with an overhaul so extreme it fractured the community overnight.

The update rewrote the monsters themselves.

Apex Beasts no longer followed fixed behaviors. They adapted, learning from the player mid-hunt, altering attack patterns, delaying tells, punishing habits. No two fights were ever the same again. The better you played, the more dangerous the game became.

Flawless victories disappeared overnight.

Players who once complained about difficulty couldn’t even survive their usual hunts even when partnering with other players. The same voices that had demanded creativity now screamed about unfairness. And about developers ruining their own game.

Surprisingly, the developers said nothing. Not even an explanation or an apology.

It was as if they truly no longer cared about their player base.

Nearly a year has passed since then.

Most of the player base was gone. A few hundred people still logged in regularly. Stubborn or nostalgic enough to keep trying. Thousands more preferred just to watch others play, unwilling to face the game themselves anymore.

But Vergil kept playing.

His views dropped slowly at first, then all at once. During the transition, he was unable to perform as well as he did before. His cautious nature proved to be his downfall as the creatures no longer followed logic.

At least that was the initial belief. Over time, he noticed that the monsters behaved as if they were real. And when he learned that, a trait that should make the hunts even harder, he learned that he could use that to his advantage even more.

They overcommitted when pressured and pulled back when they sensed danger. They behaved like living creatures trying to hunt and survive.

Once Vergil stopped forcing old habits and began treating them as such, everything changed again.

His performance slowly recovered. Then it improved.

As he resumed posting flawless victories against Apex Beasts that others couldn’t survive, the tone shifted. Awe turned to suspicion, respect curdled into accusation.

That was when the accusations started.

At first, they were subtle. Comments questioning his setup. His latency. His inputs. Then they became louder, more direct. Claims that what he was doing wasn’t possible. That no one else could replicate it, so it had to be fake.

His viewer count reflected that shift.

Hundreds stopped showing up. Then thousands. Eventually, the numbers dwindled into something almost insignificant. But Vergil didn’t stop streaming. He didn’t stop uploading either. The platform had never been about validation for him. It had been a means to an end.

The challenge was sharper now. More demanding. The game pushed back in ways it never had before, and that resistance made him feel more alive than he had in years. Every hunt demanded his full attention. Every victory had to be earned again, as if mastery itself were something the game was trying to strip away from him.

The chat was quieter now than it had ever been. Messages appeared sporadically, often repeating the same doubts, the same demands for proof. Vergil ignored them as he always had. The ones who truly supported him understood. They stayed quiet and watched.

The rest filtered themselves out.

By the time he finished the last Apex Beast, the list he had been building for years was finally complete.

The game lingered on the results screen longer than usual.

Vergil noticed it immediately. Normally, the transition was quick. After the rewards were tallied, the game would return him to the hub as if nothing remarkable had happened. This time, the screen stayed still. The background music looped once, then cut out entirely.

The image dimmed.

Vergil frowned slightly, his grip on the controller loosening just a bit as he waited for something, anything, to happen.

Then the screen froze.

Unbeknownst to Vergil, the chat could no longer see his screen.

A window appeared in the center of the display. It wasn’t stylized like the rest of the interface.

At first, it read like an achievement. A simple line, congratulating him for completing a challenge.

Vergil stared at it, confusion settling in slowly. He had memorized the game’s achievement list years ago. There was nothing like this in it. Nothing even close.

The text shifted.

Another line appeared beneath the first, then another. The phrasing felt... suspicious, as if it were addressing him directly rather than the character on the screen.

His heart rate picked up; he could feel that something wasn’t right.

He was given two options. Instead of choices, it was more like two hypothetical scenarios.

The first scenario was to enter the world of Predation: Wildfall, becoming the hunter he had mastered, keeping all of his gear, all of his experience, all of his hard-earned skills.

Or.

To have that world come to him instead. A world where his potential would exceed what his character had ever been capable of... but where he would have to start over from nothing.

Vergil stared at the screen, heart pounding.

His first thought was that this was a joke.

But his sleep-deprived mind still led him to question, what if?

Hesitantly, he chose the second option. Not because he wasn’t sure of what choice to choose, but because he was afraid that this would turn out to be a diabolical prank by the developers, because he could be considered the ring leader that had started the backlash against their game.

Nothing happened.

Vergil stared at the screen for several seconds, waiting for something, anything, to follow. No loading screen appeared.

A minute passed.

Then another.

The tension slowly drained from his body, replaced by disappointment and irritation. He leaned back in his chair and let out a slow breath, shaking his head.

He should have known better.

It was probably some elaborate joke. A poorly timed experiment by the developers. Or worse, an intentional jab aimed directly at him. If anyone could be considered responsible for the backlash against the game, it would be him. Even if he never meant for it to happen, his name was always there when people complained.

Vergil felt his mood sour.

He reached for his controller again, intending to shut everything down. The stream. The console. The night. He was exhausted, and now he was annoyed on top of it. Whatever that message had been, it clearly wasn’t real.

As his finger hovered over the power button, the floor beneath him trembled.

At first, it was subtle. A faint vibration, easy to mistake for a passing truck or a momentary imbalance. Vergil frowned, pausing mid-motion as the shaking grew stronger.

Loose items slid across his desk and dropped to the floor. The light fixture above him swayed, casting uneven shadows across the room.

But it wasn’t just his apartment, and it wasn’t localized either. The earthquakes were sent throughout the world. Everyone had felt it.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

The silence that followed was unnerving.

Vergil remained still for several seconds, ready to run out of the apartment before he was caved in. He was on the second floor for crying out loud. He would rather take the chance outside than be buried under three more floors of rubble. His heart pounded in his ears. Nothing else moved.

It felt unreal.

But the clutter around him said otherwise.

From outside, he heard doors opening. Voices carried through the apartment building outside in the halls, overlapping as people stepped out of their apartments to confirm what they had felt.

Vergil didn’t move.

It wasn’t fear that held him in place. He just didn’t know what he would say. "Oh, you felt that too? Me too." He could already imagine the awkward exchanges.

He stayed where he was. If anything, he would just check the news to get a better understanding.

Then someone screamed.

The sound was almost directly outside his door. It was followed almost immediately by another scream. Then another. Voices rose in volume, no longer confused, but afraid.

Vergil’s stomach tightened. That was enough. He had to see what was going on. He pushed himself up from his chair and moved toward the door.

Chapter 2

Vergil stepped out into the hallway with the door still half-open behind him.

Other doors were open too. Neighbors stood in their frames or just outside them, some barefoot, some still holding phones, all of them quiet in the same way. No one was talking loudly. No one was running. Whatever had just happened had shaken that instinct out of them.

The first thing Vergil noticed was where everyone’s gaze was directed; it was a distortion in the air.

It hung in the middle of the hallway, several meters away, occupying the space where the corridor should have continued uninterrupted.

Up close, the distortion resolved into something more defined. There was an opening, as if space created an open door. Soft light gathered along the boundary before they touched the floor. The surface shifted slowly a, layers of different colors slowly, ranging from muted purples and pale blues moving over one another.

Those who were close could see into it. On the other side of the portal, land could be made out.

Flat plains stretched outward, broken up by clusters of large stone formations jutting out of the ground at irregular angles. The grass there moved even though there was no wind in the hallway. The sky above that place was brighter than it should have been.

Something moved between the stones.

At first, it was just motion. A shadow crossing from one boulder to another, too large to belong to anything human. Then it stopped, partially obscured by the terrain. Vergil could make out the curve of a broad back and the outline of powerful shoulders. Plates ran along its spine, rising slightly as it shifted its weight.

The head came into view for only a moment.

It was low to the ground, heavy, with a shape that suggested a wide jaw and forward-facing eyes. Whatever it was, it circled the area slowly.

Vergil felt his fingers tense at his side. His eyes were glued to the portal that showed the creature repeating the same scene over and over, as if the portal were hinting at what lay on the other side.

But he didn’t care about that. He was more focused on the creature itself. He didn’t need to rewatch it or see more to discern what it was.

The size, the posture. The way it moved between the rocks instead of out in the open. Anyone who had spent enough time fighting Apex Beasts would recognize that silhouette immediately.

Thornmaw, the first Apex encounter.

Vergil’s attention broke when he heard the crying.

It was uneven and strained, the kind that came from someone who had already screamed themselves hoarse and kept going anyway. He turned his head toward the sound.

A woman was on her knees near the far wall, her hands pressed flat against the floor as if she were trying to pull herself forward. words slipped out between sobs that barely resembled sentences anymore. Another woman stood behind her, arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, leaning back with her weight just to keep her from getting closer to the portal.

"They’re both in there!" Vergi finally was able to piece together the string of words. "M-my baby! Someo-one help them!"

Vergil looked back toward the portal.

The scene kept repeating itself. By this time, Vergil understood that the portal wasn’t showing what was happening on the other side in real time.

People along the hallway stayed where they were. No one stepped forward. No one asked questions out loud. A few phones were still raised, recording everything that was happening. Then there were others trying to reach the police.

"All the lines are busy! What is happening?"

Vergil shifted his weight and was about to look back at the portal when something else caught his attention.

Further down the hallway, past the first distortion, there was another portal. And beyond that, another.

Vergil’s gaze followed the corridor, his stomach tightening as the pattern became clear. The distortions weren’t random. They were spaced apart at regular intervals, extending past the corner where the hallway turned out of sight.

There were more than he could count from where he stood.

Vergil slowly turned, taking in the length of the hallway. Each portal distorted the space around it in the same way. Each one showed the same stretch of land beyond its surface.

And in every one of them, he could barely make out the same shifting silhouette.

The posture never changed. The pacing never varied. Even the way it turned its head was identical from one portal to the next.

Vergil felt a familiar tightening in his chest. He had a feeling that this wasn’t just happening here, but everywhere.

"It was all real..." He muttered to himself. For some reason, he wasn’t panicking at all.

’If it were really true, then doesn’t that mean the unlimited potential is true too?’ His body was nearly trembling. Those who saw him assumed that he was afraid. While the crying woman held faint hope that he was trying to convince himself to save her family.

Vergil’s breathing changed before he noticed it himself.

Shorter, faster.

The thought wouldn’t let go once it formed. It kept circling back, louder every time it did.

And if that was true, then people weren’t just disappearing. The portal was leading them into a hunting zone.

He turned away from the hallway abruptly and stepped back into his apartment, uncaring about shutting the door behind him.

He moved quickly, feeling that wasting time would only make things worse. He crossed the apartment in long strides, heading straight for his bedroom. Clothes were pulled from drawers without much thought. Sturdy pants. A thick jacket. Boots instead of the shoes he usually wore.

His hands shook as he tied the laces.

"Am I really about to do this?" He asked himself aloud. What he was about to do had finally caught up to him. His nerves were jangling, yet he kept moving.

Vergil went to the kitchen next. He grabbed his backpack from its hook by the door and dumped its contents onto the counter. Old receipts. A charger, nothing useful for where he was going. He pushed it aside and began filling it again.

Water bottles. As many as would fit. A small first-aid kit he barely remembered buying, shoved into the bottom of the bag, and a flashlight. He hesitated for only a second before opening a drawer and pulling out the largest kitchen knife he owned. It felt ridiculous in his hand when he thought about what he was about to go up against.

Still, he held the knife as if it were his lifeline.

He stopped then, gripping the edge of the counter as his thoughts raced.

What if I die?

He wasn’t trained, nor was he properly armed. Whatever was on the other side of that portal wasn’t something a normal person could fight. He knew that better than anyone.

He spent years killing creatures like Thornmaw as easily as breathing. But this wasn’t a game. It would tear him apart if he made the smallest mistake.

His reflection stared back at him from the darkened microwave door. Loose strands of dark brown hair fell over his forehead, the rest tied back carelessly at the nape of his neck, something he did out of habit when gaming, so it wouldn’t fall into his eyes. Those green eyes were looking back at him, searching within himself for an answer.

His face was pale from the lack of sunlight. Thoughts of what he was about to do continued to swirl through his thoughts. Scenes of fighting against an apex monster with movements far apart from what he was capable of were replayed. Gradually, his eyes turned from hesitance to an eagerness that outshone his fear.

"I can’t believe I’m really this stupid," he muttered to himself again.

And yet, his body didn’t slow down. He was ready.

Vergil slung the backpack over his shoulders and took a deep breath, steadying himself as he recalled every hunt he had against the creature.

The only information he had was from when it was a game, but on the off chance that the beast had the same tendencies... no one could be said to understand the beast better than he did.

That had to count for something.

Vergil turned back toward the door.

The crying next to his door had grown quieter. But now he could hear louder voices down the hall.

Someone else must’ve gone into a portal.

Vergil took a deep breath before stepping back into the hallway. The moment he did, people noticed what he was carrying.

The backpack first. Then the way his jacket was zipped tight. Then the knife handle that was barely visible where it pressed against his body. It wasn’t impressive, nor was it intimidating. But it was enough to register his intent.

The woman near the wall saw him and broke free from the other woman’s grip.

"Wait—wait!" she cried, scrambling to her feet. She nearly fell as she rushed toward him, her hands shaking as she reached out, stopping herself just short of grabbing his arm. "Please. Please save them."

Her voice cracked completely.

"Please," she said again, louder now. "It’s been so long now. My baby! Please, I’ll do anything."

She was crying openly now, the words tumbling over each other without order.

The others watched, even the woman who initially held the lady back, but no one stepped forward.

There was only one other man standing close to the portal, positioned in front of his door with his wife. Behind them, Vergil could see little mounds of hair trying to peek around them.

When the man made eye contact with Vergil, his eyes diverted to the floor. He didn’t try to defend himself; he had a family to care for. But at the same time, he felt guilty letting a man almost ten years younger than himself go alone.

Everyone else stayed where they were.

Some looked at Vergil with something close to hope. Others with disbelief. A few with quiet relief that someone else was doing something, so they didn’t have to.

No one tried to stop him.

And Vergil didn’t blame them.

If he didn’t have knowledge of the game, if the game never gave him the wish for unlimited potential, he would have done the same thing they are doing now.

Better yet, he would’ve locked his door, barricading it until he heard news from the government.

Leave? Leave where?

He had family too. But they had their own lives. Their own problems. And no one had called him. No one had checked on him.

Everyone was focused on worrying about themselves.

Vergil looked at the woman before him.

"I don’t know if I can," he said honestly. He didn’t want to play the hero, and he didn’t want others to paint the role for him. But he wasn’t heartless to turn her away either.

She nodded anyway, desperately clutching at his sleeve. "Ju—just bring them back, please!"

Vergil gently pulled his arm free.

He stepped past her and toward the portal.

Vergil stopped at the edge, staring into it. This wasn’t a game, but it was almost too similar not to think of it that way.

He adjusted the straps on his backpack one last time, tightened his grip on the knife, before steading his breath.

Then he stepped forward and disappeared.