Blood had dried tacky on my hands. The taste of fur still coated my tongue. The [YES]/[NO] prompt was still hovering in front of me.
I didn't move.
The muscles weren't screaming anymore, but the rest of me was.
Every joint ached. My stomach churned.
I was bleeding in a tutorial.
A tutorial.
Not a war. Not the last stand of some doomed hero.
A goddamn "Welcome to the System" warm-up!
Why?
I stared at the [NO].
It made sense. Hit it, sit down, breathe for an hour, maybe figure out if my legs would still hold me after that.
But the longer I stared, the more something else bubbled up.
The pop-ups came back to me, the etiquette warning.
Like I was the problem here.
Like, somehow, me chewing through half a corrupted squirrel just so I wouldn't pass out was worse than whatever this tutorial thought it was teaching me.
No healing. No gear. No "You're dying, maybe take a second."
Just the System, keeping its distance, smiling at someone else.
It didn't feel like a bad design.
It felt deliberate.
Like I wasn't supposed to make it this far.
Like it didn't want me here at all.
I looked at the [YES].
Held it in my sight until the shape of it started to feel sharp.
Maybe the next fight kills me.
Maybe it tears me apart and wipes me out like I was never here.
Fine.
But it's going to have to do it while I'm standing in the middle of the room, loud and bloody, getting in the way.
I smashed [YES].
TUTORIAL ENCOUNTER [4/10] – WAVE 1/3 INITIATED
Type: Basic Hostiles
Difficulty: Very Low
Recommended Response: Basic formation holding. Try not to panic!
Tip: Shield-users should position in front of squishier allies! 😊
Failure to protect the node will lead to severe consequences such as but not limited to, tutorial dismissal, personality fragmentation and/or death.
The sound came first, a grinding crack, wet and brittle, like bone giving way beneath a boot.
I turned.
Right where the goblin I'd split clean through the head had fallen, the floor was shifting. Not caving in. Not breaking. Just... pushing.
Something beneath the dirt was rising.
Slow. Relentless.
A black crystal forced its way out of the earth like a splinter shoved backwards through skin. Sharp. Angular. Growing one jagged inch at a time.
The goblin's body was draped over it, still folded, still twitchless. Then it slipped. No dignity. Just a dead thing falling off a spike and hitting the ground with a wet slap.
The crystal pulsed once.
Dark light. Heartbeat rhythm.
Just... presence. A pressure in the air, faint but focused, like the arena itself had just turned its head to watch.
Around me, the corpses didn't move.
Not the squirrels. Not the goblins.
The arena breathed, a quiet thing, waiting.
The crystal stood chest-high, wide at the base, tapering to a mean point. Still wet with goblin blood. Still warm.
I looked at it. Then at the goblin body. Then at the squirrels. Then back at the crystal.
I couldn't be everywhere. But maybe I didn't have to.
The idea crawled up slow, stupid, ugly, and stubborn.
Not a good plan. Not even a safe one. But it would be the one I went with.
I crouched, grabbed the nearest goblin by the leg, and hauled it over. Slid it down the spike like a kebab from hell. The ribcage cracked, but it went.
Another. Heavier. Messier. One arm swung like a fucked-up windchime when it caught on the crystal's edge. Then the third one.
Then the squirrels. All of them.
It looked deranged. Grotesque.
It also looked... right.
I backed away, hands tacky with blood, chest still heaving from effort.
Better than the tactical hotpants I'm wearing.
The spike stood there, meat-stacked and grotesque, dripping into the dirt. Blood steamed faintly in the cool air.
It wasn't just defense.
It was a message.
I circled the arena warily. It was the same stone walls, the same shape as before, but it felt different now, smaller. Tighter.
The light didn't seem to reach the corners anymore. At least there were no more bodies to trip over...
The air had weight. Not heat. Not pressure.
Expectation.
"Node defense, huh?" I said to the corpse shish kebab. "Waves, timed intervals... maybe a miniboss if you're feeling frisky."
The crystal didn't answer. Of course it didn't.
"Bet the golden boys get a turret. Or a barrier. Or a goddamn health station."
Still nothing.
Just my voice, the drip of blood, and the sound of the arena breathing.
I exhaled. Closed my eyes. Let the fury settle, not burn, not boil, just be.
Because I'd need it soon.
I wasn't doing this to protect the crystal.
Fuck the crystal...
The gate cracked open.
Five goblins stumbled out, dead-eyed, sloppy-footed, dressed in rags that made thrift store rejects look high-end.
One had a chipped shortsword. One had an axe that looked like it lost a fight with a rock. The other three carried sticks.
Not monsters. Not soldiers.
Just tutorial mobs.
Training wheels for the golden boys.
They stopped when they saw the node.
Paused even longer when they saw what I'd built on it.
Squirrel bones. Goblin torsos. Dried blood. Loose limbs.
Art, really.
And me, crouched in the shadow of it all.
Knuckles split. Fingers burning. Thigh leaking again.
When I stood, my knees didn't shake.
Pretty sure theirs did.
Something was different now.
Every stat bump. Every scrap of Presence.
It was in the way I stood, the way the pain sat in the corner instead of running the show.
Then Battlelust kicked in.
Not a thought. Not a decision.
Just... on.
It rolled off me like heat from a forge.
They felt it.
One shifted his grip. Another took a step back.
Two of the stick-bearers looked like they might bolt.
They didn't.
But God, they wanted to.
I moved.
The first goblin got its blade halfway up before I caught it on my forearm, felt the edge bite, and drove the hatchet into the notch where neck met shoulder.
It jerked like a fish on a hook. Made a wet, ugly sound.
I kicked it off, let it hit the dirt like trash.
The cuts weren't deep anymore.
Maybe that was [ Flesh Forged by Fury].
Maybe it was just that my body had decided to stop caring.
The second lunged, desperate, hopeful.
I stepped in, smashed my fist into its jaw, felt teeth go.
Grabbed its arm, twisted until the socket tore.
It screamed.
I ended that with a knee to the face and dropped it.
Three left. All with sticks.
Why sticks?
Why the hell did I get nothing when they threw me in?
They moved slower than the last pair.
Hesitated more.
I didn't.
I grabbed the closest by the throat, slammed it into the arena wall hard enough to rattle stone. It crumpled. I dragged it by an ankle to the node and rammed it down the spike.
The crystal punched through its chest like paper.
Still warm. Still leaking.
The last two hit me in the back.
I didn't even flinch.
I grabbed one of them by the throat, cracked his neck.
I swung the fresh corpse sideways like a club, bone and meat slamming into one of them.
The other caught the hatchet in its gut before it could blink.
I yanked my hatchet free and let them both drop, then hauled their bodies to the growing pile
Blood hadn't dried on the last layer yet.
Made the new ones stick better.
My arms burned. My side throbbed.
Didn't matter.
I wasn't tired.
Behind me, the meat totem steamed in the cold air, crystal vanishing under a skin of blood and bone.
Not just a barricade.
A warning.
🎉 CONGRATULATIONS 🎉
You have successfully completed Wave [1/3] of Tutorial Encounter [4/10]!
This wave was designed to encourage tactical formation use and shield-line reinforcement.
Typical completion time: 90–120 seconds.
Well done!
Would you like to proceed to Wave [2/3]?
(Rest Period: 5:00 remaining)
I stared at the prompt.
Didn't even blink.
Same tone as always, chipper, detached.
Like it hadn't just watched me turn five things into scraps and hang them on its altar.
The rage slid off me slow.
Didn't fight it.
Didn't cling.
Just let it drain out in long, steady pulls, like bleeding into warm water.
The warmth followed.
Heavy. Slow.
Not healing, not the good kind, anyway.
More like something sitting in the wounds, pressing down until they couldn't leak anymore.
Heat in the cuts.
Stiffness easing in my fingers.
The slice on my shoulder tugged itself closed into a hard, unfriendly line.
The System hadn't given me a bandage.
Didn't need to.
The rage stitched me together just fine.
Then the hunger came.
Of course it did.
That hollow, twisting drop in the gut, like a furnace gone cold after burning too hot.
I reached for what was left of the squirrel.
Cold now.
Tacky. Rubbery.
Didn't matter.
I bit down.
Chewed. Swallowed.
Fuel. That's all it was.
Until,
Teeth.
Not the needle ones.
Small. Quick. Nibbling.
Paws shaking. Ear half-bitten.
The runt.
I couldn't remember if I'd ever given it a name.
But I remembered the way it sounded when it finally got a crust of bread without being shoved off.
The way it looked at me like I'd broken the rules in its favor.
Like unfair didn't have to last forever.
God.
That was the first time I'd ever felt like I'd fixed something.
Like I mattered.
I swallowed hard.
The meat stayed down.
Didn't feel like fuel anymore.
"Nothing to say this time, huh?" I muttered. "Fine. Gimme those goddamn meal bars."
Blood slicked the stone under my boots.
The pile on the crystal steamed and dripped.
Five of them. Gone in seconds.
I remembered when one goblin had nearly killed me.
When two had left me bleeding and screaming in the dirt.
This time? Nothing.
Yeah, the stats helped.
Yeah, Battlelust made them twitch.
But that wasn't it.
The difference was simple.
I didn't keep it chained anymore.
I let it off the leash.
And it felt good.
Maybe I should've been scared by that. I wasn't.
[ROOT RESONANCE: RAGEBOUND – Norse Line: 12% → 13%]
Alignment deepened. Symbolic self-recognition recorded. ✦ RESONANCE EVENT DETECTED ✦
User has deepened connection with Root: [Ragebound – Norse Line]
Trigger Classification: Overwhelming Force Display / Symbolic Domination
→ Effect: +1 Strength
Thirteen percent.
Whatever the hell that means.
But I felt it, in the set of my shoulders, in the way my hands curled like they knew what to do next.
The rage wasn't just burning anymore.
It was carving.
Shaping.
Fitting itself to me like it had plans.
The ache in my ribs was dull now, and the gash in my thigh had stopped leaking.
rolled my shoulders. One wave down. I wasn't tired. 'Come on,' I growled. 'Send the next.'