"That's… not blood," Riku stated quietly, carefully examining a bird's wing without touching it directly. The colour was too uniform, the edges too defined, almost like a dye or a rash that had seeped into the very tissue. It felt inherently wrong.
A sudden wave of dizziness washed over Riku, a sharp, prickling sensation behind his eyes. He instinctively put a hand out to steady himself on a nearby tree trunk. For a fleeting moment, a small, almost translucent puff of reddish mist, like disturbed rust spores, seemed to coalesce above the back of his other hand before dissipating instantly into the air. He blinked, the sensation passing as quickly as it came, leaving a faint metallic taste in his mouth.
He had not really seen such a scar or felt such a feeling in his previous life, though he had days of experience in every class and had played through every content that the dev had created. In fact, he was the only one who had cleared every achievement in the game.
