The world convulsed around Leo, a sickening spin of air, pain, and fragments of memory.
Silva's punch had shattered more than rock, it had ripped the sky open around him, flinging him into the cold night like a broken star.
Wind howled past his ears, sharp and merciless. Every breath was like inhaling glass.
He wasn't falling, he was being discarded.
The cave ceiling vanished behind him, replaced by a canopy of stars too distant to care. He rocketed skyward, weightless and powerless, before gravity yanked him back with the grim finality of consequence.
Then—
Impact.
The world punched back.
His body collided with the earth, bones cracking against stone and root. He bounced, rolled, slammed through underbrush. Trees didn't break for him. They resisted, each trunk a brutal checkpoint in his downward spiral.
The air fled his lungs. His armor split. Blood-painted leaves. He hit the base of a fallen log, and only then, only after everything had been taken, did he stop.
Silence crept in.
Not peace. Not calm. Just the kind of silence that follows ruin.
Leo lay sprawled, barely breathing, half-buried in shattered bark. His body pulsed with pain, but none of it compared to what was happening inside him.
A looping scream behind his ribs.
Roxanne,
Taken.
Gone.
Because of him.
The weight of it pressed down like a landslide. His vision blurred, not from injury, but from the overwhelming ache that tore through the hollow left in her absence.
He hadn't protected her.
He hadn't been enough.
His fingers twitched in the dirt, useless and shaking.
Above him, stars twinkled through gaps in the trees. Distant. Cold.
He blinked slowly, each movement an effort. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called. Leaves rustled. Life continued. The world didn't pause for him.
He closed his eyes.
Maybe it was time to stop.
Not from injury. Not from fear. Just… from everything.
What if he did?
What if he let go?
No more dungeons. No more screaming. No more watching people he loved vanish into the dark.
The thought slipped into him like ice water. Too clean, too tempting.
But it didn't settle.
Instead, something old stirred in him. A flicker. A memory not of strength, but of stubbornness.
Not this again.
Not this endless script.
He remembered another fall. Another world. Another moment where death had reached for him and he'd bitten back.
And in that dark, another voice had once pulled him up.
"When everything feels like it's falling apart," the counselor had said, "you have to find something to hold on to."
His breathing steadied.
He reached, shaking, for his system.
It responded sluggishly, as if even the interface pitied him. But it came.
His hand hovered over the commands. Muscles screamed. Every breath hurt. Still, he pressed forward, summoning the only companion who had never left his side.
A flicker. A hum of mana.
Then Ai appeared.
She materialized with zero urgency. No surprise in her expression. Only calm analysis, like always. Her eyes scanned him in a single glance. Her voice came flat, precise.
"Severe trauma detected."
"Red potions were used up."
Leo managed a weak smirk.
Without a word, she brought up a sub-menu. Two healing potions shimmered into being, suspended mid-air. She snatched them without breaking stride.
Kneeling, Ai cradled his head with mechanical grace, tilting the first potion to his lips. The liquid slid past his teeth, bitter and strange. He choked, coughed. But swallowed.
Warmth bled through him. A tingling spread across his chest. Muscles began to knit. Bruises faded.
The second bottle came next, poured more gently. A soft glow wrapped his limbs as bones realigned and tendons repaired themselves, snapping into place with faint pulses of light.
The pain dulled enough to breathe again.
Still, the ache inside remained untouched.
Leo sat up slowly. His clothing hung in strips. His body felt like wet paper.
But he could move.
Ai stood and stepped back, her head slightly tilted. "Vitals stabilizing."
Leo nodded.
Then, quieter, "…Thanks."
She didn't respond.
He sat there in the dirt, staring at his shaking hands, listening to the forest breathe around him. Distant wolves howled. Leaves whispered in the wind. The world had gone on while he shattered.
"I lost her," he said finally.
No answer.
Not because Ai didn't understand, but because there wasn't one.
His eyes stung. He swallowed it.
This wasn't a game. It never had been.
He looked down at the ground, the torn soil, the blood and potion residue. Everything that had just happened was real. That fist. That level. That name.
Level 4260.
Silva.
Dungeon Master.
Leo's jaw tightened.
She had let him live.
Not out of mercy. Out of confidence.
The insult burned.
He clenched his fists until his nails dug in. He was angry. At her. At himself. At whatever gods made this place a twisted theater of cruelty.
But beneath the rage, another feeling. Deeper, quieter.
A need.
Not for revenge. Not even redemption.
A need to prove that the story wasn't over.
Leo exhaled. The fog in his chest didn't vanish. But it shifted. Became something he could carry.
He looked up.
"Amanda's probably wondering what kind of mess we've gotten into."
Without a word, Ai raised her hand. The map shimmered, locating the guild's marker. She tapped it. Light surged around them. Gentle, warm.
The teleportation spell hummed like a lullaby stitched with static.
Leo closed his eyes as the world fell away again.
He wasn't fully healed.
He wasn't ready.
But he was moving.
And this time, he wouldn't fall alone.
Or is he?