Pain woke me before the cold did.
My ribs ached like fire under my skin, my shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat, and the taste of iron coated my tongue. I was lying in damp leaves, the night wind threading icy fingers through my hair.
Lilith's voice slid into my thoughts.
You're still breathing. Disappointing, but we can work with that.
"Go to hell," I muttered, pushing myself upright.
If you'd let me have more control, she purred, you wouldn't be lying in the dirt after losing your shiny tokens.
I didn't answer. Talking back to her would just waste breath I couldn't afford to lose.
The forest was darker now, moonlight filtered through thick canopies. Somewhere out there, the bastard I saved Ryn, I remembered now was carrying my tokens.
And maybe he thought that was the end of it.
I'd prove him wrong.
My boots whispered through the undergrowth. The trail was faint a bent fern here, a smear of blood on bark there but I'd tracked beasts in worse conditions before.
Ryn had been sloppy. Probably thought I'd be too broken to follow.
The faint satisfaction kept me moving despite the stabbing pain in my side.
There's a quicker way, Lilith murmured. I can make you faster, sharper. You'd run him down before he could blink.
"And then owe you more," I muttered. "Not yet."
You're starting to sound like you think you have a choice, she teased.
A wet, serpentine hiss snapped my head around.
Through the trees, moonlight flashed off something that coiled and shifted. I crept closer, careful not to snap any twigs underfoot.
That's when I saw her Lira back pressed to a boulder, spear in hand, eyes locked on the two-headed serpent that circled her.
Its scales shimmered black-green, each head moving independently, fangs dripping with a clear venom that hissed when it hit the ground.
"Damn it," I muttered.
The serpent struck.
Lira twisted, blocking one head with her spear shaft, but the second came from the side. She barely rolled away, the boulder taking the brunt of the bite. Venom hissed as it ate into the stone.
"Hold still, damn you!" she shouted then caught sight of me. Her eyes narrowed. "Well, if it isn't the useless hero. Come to watch me die?"
"Wouldn't be the first time someone I saved didn't appreciate it," I said, stepping into the clearing.
The serpent's twin heads both turned toward me, hissing.
"You're injured," Lira said sharply. "Stay back—"
Too late. One head lunged.
I sidestepped, letting it overextend, then slashed upward with my short blade. The steel scraped off scales not deep enough.
Lira drove her spear into the other head's open mouth. It thrashed, shrieking, coils tightening around her legs.
I dove in, hacking at the neck just above her weapon. Warm blood splashed my hands the head went limp.
The second one roared in fury, wrapping tighter around her.
One more push, Lilith whispered. Let me make you strong enough to crush it.
I didn't hesitate this time. Power burned through my veins, muscles flooding with unnatural heat.
I grabbed the serpent's coils, heaved with everything I had, and tore them off Lira. The second head whipped toward me and I shoved my blade straight into its open maw.
Hot blood poured over my arm as the beast convulsed, then went still.
I staggered back, the rush fading. My vision swam, my knees nearly buckled.
Lira wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, breathing hard. "You're insane."
"And you're welcome," I said, dropping into the grass beside the corpse.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. Just the sound of our ragged breathing and the night insects around us.
Then she glanced at me sideways. "You're hurt worse than you're letting on."
I smirked faintly. "You're seeing things."
"Your blood's all over your side," she said flatly. "And that… thing inside you. It's eating at you."
My hand twitched. "Drop it."
"I'm not blind, Kai. You use its power, and something in you changes."
Her gaze held mine for a long, tense moment then she looked away. "I just hope you don't change so much you're not you anymore."
Before I could reply, a deep, bone-vibrating roar echoed through the trees.
The serpent's corpse twitched no, something was dragging it away into the darkness.
We both froze.
"That," I said, "wasn't part of your Trial plan, was it?"
Lira tightened her grip on her spear. "We move. Now."
We fled through the trees, branches whipping against our faces. My ribs screamed, but I didn't slow.
We broke into a clearing and stopped cold.
Five figures stood there. Torches. Weapons.
At the front, smirking like he'd already won, was Ryn.
The firelight from Ryn's torches flickered across his smirking face.
"Look what I found," he said, jingling the string of tokens like they were trinkets from a street market instead of my way out of here. "I'd thank you for carrying them this far, Kai, but I think I'll just take the rest of your stuff instead."
Lira didn't lower her spear. She stood just off to my right, her weight balanced, eyes darting between me and Ryn's four companions. I could see the calculation in her gaze if she fought, she'd be outnumbered. If she ran, they'd chase.
Lilith's voice slid into my skull like oil through water.
You could kill them all in seconds, you know. You're letting them breathe out of pride, and it's boring me.
"Not now," I muttered under my breath.
When, then? When they put a blade through your ribs?
Ryn's eyes flicked to Lira. "You know him?"
"We've crossed paths," she said, her tone flat.
"Then you know he's dangerous. And stupid. Step away, and maybe I let you walk."
I could almost hear her weighing the offer. Then she shifted her grip on the spear and took one deliberate step closer to me instead.
Ryn's smirk faded. "Fine. Both of you die."
That's when the ground shook.
Not much at first just enough to make the torches sway and throw long, jerking shadows across the clearing. Then again, harder. The forest seemed to hold its breath.
The hair on my neck stood up.
Oh, Lilith whispered, and for the first time she sounded interested. Now this is new.
Something moved at the treeline. No… not moved. It was there, then gone, then there again like a bad image flickering in and out. The shape shifted between frames, parts of it human-shaped, others stretched too far to be right.
The System's interface flashed across my vision for a split second not my status screen, but something else. White text scrambled and glitched:
[ENTITY CLASSIFICATION ERROR — ###?%DATA%###]
Then it was gone.
"What the hell is that?" one of Ryn's men asked, voice tight.
It stepped into the clearing, and the torches bent away from it like the light didn't want to touch it. Six limbs three on each side with jagged, animal-like claws. Parts of it looked solid, wet with blood. Other parts were… static. See-through. Like I could almost see the trees behind it, but warped and wrong.
It moved faster than my eyes could follow. One moment it was at the treeline. The next, it was in front of the nearest of Ryn's men and then there wasn't a man there anymore, just two pieces of him hitting the ground in different directions.
The sound it made wasn't a roar. It was more like the tearing of cloth mixed with the shriek of metal on glass.
"Spread out!" Ryn barked, but his voice had lost its confidence.
The thing turned toward the torches and toward me.
It's not part of your Trial, Lilith breathed. It's something else. I can taste it.
"That's comforting," I said, backing a step.
Lira lunged, her spear flashing toward one of its solid limbs. The weapon connected, slicing through flesh but then the wound glitched, flickering closed like the moment had been rewound.
The beast's claws swept out. Lira ducked, the tips shaving strands of hair from her head.
I moved in from the side, aiming for the joint between limb and body. My blade sank in but I felt static buzz up my arm, and the thing wrenched away, dragging my sword halfway out of my grip.
Ryn's group attacked from behind it, but every time they struck, its body shifted like it could pick which parts of itself were real at any moment.
One man screamed as his weapon passed straight through the thing and the thing's solid claw ripped his spine out in return.
"Kai!" Lira shouted.
I spun. The beast had focused on her again.
This time, I didn't think. I let Lilith's power flare in my veins, hot and sharp, turning my vision red at the edges. My legs moved faster, my grip stronger I slammed into the creature's side, driving my blade into its torso.
It shrieked, and for a moment, the static failed. I saw all of it, solid and killable.
"Now!" I roared.
Lira's spear punched through its throat. Ryn damn him darted in from the other side and hacked at one of its legs. The combined damage finally made it stagger, flickering harder.
That's when Ryn turned the attack on me.
The flicker of movement registered too late his blade slashing for my neck. I barely got my sword up in time, sparks flying as steel met steel.
"You bastard—" I started.
"Should've stayed down," he snarled, shoving hard.
I let the shove spin me, then used the momentum to bring my blade around in a low arc catching his thigh. He shouted, stumbling back, blood running down his leg.
The glitch-beast lunged for both of us, claws wide. Instinct took over I grabbed Ryn by the collar and yanked him into its path, diving the other way.
The thing smashed him to the ground, raking claws across his back before tossing him aside like trash.
I came up behind it, both hands on the hilt, and drove my blade into the back of its head. This time, I held on, even as static burned through my bones.
It thrashed once, twice then froze.
The air shimmered. The static bled away.
And it fell, twitching, to the dirt.
Instead of the usual loot notification, the System flickered again. A small, pulsating shard of pale light rolled from the thing's corpse, humming faintly.
Lilith's tone was suddenly sharp.
Take it. Now.
"What is it?" I asked, still breathing hard.
Something not meant for you. Which means it's worth more than your life.
I glanced around Lira was still catching her breath, Ryn was groaning in the dirt, and the two surviving members of his group were too shaken to move yet.
I snatched the shard.
The System screamed in my vision:
[UNAUTHORIZED ITEM ACQUIRED — SYSTEM INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
Red text flashed across my HUD. The forest around me… blinked. For a single second, everything went black and when it came back, the trees were in slightly different places. The stars overhead had shifted.
And somewhere in the darkness, something else had started moving toward us.