Vikram's eyes fluttered open, and with their reluctant parting, his senses returned—much to his regret.
The stench hit him first. Rancid. Thick. Suffocating.
It was the unmistakable odor of rot, of death baked into flesh long since given up on life. It invaded his nostrils with violent fervor, threatening to make him gag before he could even understand where he was.
He tried to move, but something heavy pinned him down. Cold. Wet. Soft in all the wrong ways. Shadows clouded his vision, only faint shards of light piercing through slits and gaps in whatever surrounded him.
Panic gripped his chest.
He writhed. Pushed. Struggled. The weight above him shifted with a grotesque squelch. Bone snapped. Flesh tore.
And then—crack.
With a desperate surge of strength, he broke through the barrier and burst forth.
Only to be greeted by a face.
No... not a face.
A corpse.
The hollow sockets of the dead man stared directly into his soul. Skin pale and sloughing off. Maggots wriggling in its gaping mouth.
"Gah—!"
He recoiled violently, shoving the cadaver aside. His hands clawed through the mess, scrambling to free himself.
And when he finally stood up—he wished he hadn't.
Corpses.
Hundreds of them.
Stacked like discarded dolls, like butchered cattle in a pit. Heads twisted at unnatural angles. Arms frozen mid-reach. A mountain of death—and he had awoken at its base.
The nauseating stink clung to his skin, seeped into his hair, filled his throat. He coughed and staggered away, bile rising in his mouth.
Where the hell was he?
The dim light guided him to the edge of the cave. His feet squelched in muck as he stepped forward. When he peered outside, a flicker of movement caught his eye.
Then another.
And another.
Lines of text flickered in his vision.
[Zealous Zombie] [Zealous Zombie] [Zealous Zombie] [Zealous Zombie] [Zealous Zombie]
His face darkened.
They weren't close, but they weren't far either. The entire field outside the cave was teeming with them. Dozens—no—hundreds, crawling, shambling, twitching as if possessed by unholy zeal.
He didn't want to go out there.
But deep inside, he knew.
He had to kill.
This realm... this desolate hellscape... this was the gift of that Entity from the Beyond. The same cursed being that had blocked his path, sealed his progress, and cast him into stagnation.
And now it had given him this.
If it thought this was some kind of equal exchange...
Then there was more to this realm than met the eye.
Maybe—just maybe—there was something here that could cure the flaw he was born with. The defect that denied him the right to cultivate.
His fists clenched. His breath steadied.
And then—he felt it.
A storm of power surged through his veins. Exhilarating. Unfamiliar. Wild. He looked down at his body, and his eyes widened.
This wasn't the same flesh he had lived with before.
Nearly two meters tall, his frame bulged with raw power. His skin struggled to contain the muscle underneath—cords of strength twisted and coiled like snakes eager to strike.
"…What the hell am I?" he whispered.
His gaze dropped to a nearby corpse—one that still gripped twin axes in death.
He reached down, fingers wrapping around the bloodstained hilts.
The twin axes were crude, heavy, and unapologetically brutal.
Forged not with finesse, but necessity, they looked like something hammered together in haste during the last moments of a collapsing world.
He moved forward, ready to brave the world, but the next second, an odd sense of pain filled his body, and looking to the side, he saw that nearly more than half of his neck had been torn off without his knowledge.
[You Have Been Slain.]
[Do you wish to continue?]
==============================
Vikram rolled aside just in time, the wind howling past his ears as a crude wooden cross slammed into the earth where he had just stood. Dirt exploded into the air as splinters flew past his face. Without wasting a moment, Vikram sprang to his feet, his stance tightening as he gritted his teeth. The dull edge of his axe gleamed faintly under the pale cave light, and with a guttural roar, he brought it down in a powerful vertical arc—straight into the rotting body of the shambling undead.
The creature was no ordinary zombie. No, this was a Zealous Zombie—its eyes glowed with a rabid crimson hunger, its skin stretched too tight over its emaciated frame, as though it had been starved of death itself. Its limbs were sinewy and twitching, carrying it with unnatural speed for something so clearly dead. And in its hands, it wielded that makeshift wooden cross like a holy weapon turned sacrilegious—a tool of martyrdom now used for murder.
Both of Vikram's axes embedded deep into the skull of the creature. Any normal enemy would've collapsed, but this abomination lunged forward, as if pain meant nothing. It snarled with cracked teeth, reaching for Vikram. The sheer proximity triggered something in him—a primal alertness. He yanked one axe free with a harsh twist, and the zombie staggered back.
Above its head, a red bar appeared—twitching and flickering as it drained steadily.
Without hesitation, Vikram attacked again. He stepped forward with precision and struck with back-to-back cleaves, each swing fueled by adrenaline and rising fury. The final blow cleaved through the creature's neck, and the red bar dropped to nothing.
With a dying shriek, the zombie swung its cross one last time. The jagged wood collided with Vikram's ribs, and he heard an audible crack. He grimaced and staggered back—but the zombie began to dissolve. Its body turned to dust, scattering like ashes on the wind. A soft ping echoed in the air as a blue mote of light floated into Vikram's chest.
[+5 Soul Fragment]
Pain pulsed through Vikram's side, but then... it dulled. Faded. He pressed a hand to his ribs. Broken, yes—but mending. Quickly. His eyes widened. This body wasn't his old one. Something inside it was healing him at an inhuman rate.
He exhaled, gritted his teeth, and stood tall.
Another [Zealous Zombie] lurked nearby. Vikram approached it carefully. This time, he had some knowledge of how it fought. He moved with sharper angles, dodging faster, and attacked with focused intent. It was a tough fight, and he still got scraped, but in the end, the creature crumbled.
[+5 Soul Fragment]
Wiping blood from his cheek, Vikram advanced deeper into the tunnel. Soon, the cave split into two paths—left and right. He hesitated, but chose the left. The narrow road wound downward and opened into a dim chamber cluttered with barrels and the pungent stench of rotting food. Flies buzzed. Decay hung thick in the air like fog.
In the midst of the barrels on the far right, a small pillar of light rose, Vikram's eyes were as though it were fixed on it, but the two zombies that stood there breathlessly shattered his dreams.
His gamer senses tingled with joy.