Ray's arms and legs had nothing left.
All those frantic punches, kicks—every scrap of aura he'd thrown—they hadn't even slowed the beast down. They'd only emptied him, drained him hollow.
He pushed against the dirt, trying to stand, but his knees buckled. His legs trembled like soggy twigs. His arms felt packed with wet sand. His breath came out in thin, wispy strings—more wheeze than inhale.
He didn't even see the tail coming.
It hit him first.
CRACK.
Pain detonated through his ribs as he was sent flying—a limp sack tossed by a storm. He slammed into a tree, the impact exploding bark across his back like shrapnel. His vision spun in dizzy spirals of color. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Just air. Just shock.
He slid down the trunk and collapsed onto the forest floor.
The beast approached—not with hunger, but with boredom. Slow, deliberate, inevitable. Each thunderous step felt like the earth counting down his last seconds.
Ray tried to move.
Nothing.
Not a twitch.
His heart didn't race. It… sank. Like a stone in cold water.
So this is it.
He stared at the dirt beneath his cheek, at broken branches, at the faint tremble in his fingertips that wasn't from strength but from dying adrenaline.
And the thoughts came—
not panicked, not rushed—
but cold, merciless, and disgustingly clear.
What did I even do in this world?
I complained. Constantly.
Blamed fate, blamed the world, blamed everything except myself.
I thought reincarnation meant cheat powers would just… show up.
I thought talent would magically unfold.
I fantasized more than I tried.
I… was pathetic.
The beast's roar shook the treetops. Magenta eyes flared. Claws rose for the final strike.
Ray shut his eyes.
I don't want to die.
Not because I'm scared.
Because I never tried.
Because I wasted everything.
Something cracked inside him.
Not bone.
Not mana.
Something deeper.
A hot, humiliating, furious emotion surged upward—raw and wild.
No.
Not like this.
Not some pointless, pathetic death on my first real test.
Not before I even tried to become something.
He reached inward—deeper than ever—into the chaotic, molten core of his mana.
And it answered.
Not gently.
Not safely.
It roared up through him like liquid metal.
His veins felt like they were igniting. His muscles seized. His vision blazed white around the edges. He screamed—not in fear, but in pure, violent effort—as he forced the savage mana into his palm.
The air around his hand warped, twisting like heat over a furnace.
The beast lunged—
—and Ray thrust his hand forward.
"BUUUURN—!!"
The fireball didn't fire.
It erupted.
A volcanic blast of white-orange flame swallowed the clearing. The shockwave hurled Ray backward. Light flooded the world—blinding, searing, consuming.
When the flames finally guttered out…
What remained of the beast was a smoldering, half-charred carcass lying in a heap.
Ray stared at it. Wide-eyed. Shaking. Disbelieving.
"I… killed it," he whispered.
A breathless, manic laugh bubbled out. "Holy sh— I killed it."
Branches snapped behind him—fast, urgent.
Kael burst into view, sword half-drawn. Joren stumbled behind him, and Kiba sprinted ahead, barking wildly.
They froze at the sight—Ray standing amid smoke and ruin, pale and shaking, next to the dead monster.
"Ray!" Kael shouted, bolting toward him.
Ray turned, still smiling—half triumph, half shock—
—but the smile broke instantly.
Pain hit like a hammer from inside.
His entire body convulsed. Mana backlash. Pure, unforgiving. His vision fractured in white cracks. His knees buckled, slamming into the dirt. His hands shook violently, barely holding him up.
His blood felt like boiling tar.
His bones felt like they were splitting open.
His pulse thundered in his ears, too fast, too wrong.
He tried to suck in air.
Nothing came.
His body spasmed, fingers clawing the ground.
Kael dropped beside him, grabbing his shoulders. "Ray! Ray—what did you do?!"
Ray's mouth moved, desperate to speak. To explain. To say I'm okay even though he wasn't.
Only a strangled, broken gasp escaped.
He wasn't dying.
But the world was making him pay—
bone-deep, nerve-deep, soul-deep—
for surviving something he had no right to survive.
No voice.
Just pain.
His jaw clenched with a crack; blood welled between his teeth. His fingers clawed at the dirt in ragged, frantic scrapes.
Kael's voice blurred, panicked and sharp.
"Ray—Ray! Look at me! Stay awake!"
But Ray's vision warped, bending and twisting like melted glass.
Joren dropped to his knees beside them, hands hovering helplessly. "Gods—his mana's rupturing—Kael, this is—this is bad, this is really—"
Ray screamed.
Finally.
Sound ripped out of him, raw and torn, like his lungs were being shredded from the inside.
Kael flinched, horror flickering across his face. "Soul deterioration—?! No. No, no, it can't be—he's too young—he shouldn't even have enough mana to—"
Ray spasmed again, body jerking violently as another shockwave of agony tore through him. It wasn't a physical attack. Not even mana burn.
This was deeper.
Lower.
A clawing, devouring force chewing at the inside of his being.
The air around Ray shimmered with unstable mana, flickering like a breaking flame. Every pulse of it sent him into another convulsion.
Joren's voice trembled. "Kael… if this really is soul deterioration, we have—what? Two days? Maybe?"
Kael shook his head sharply. "No. Less. He blew out too much power at once—his soul matrix is tearing. He's already in Stage One."
Joren paled. "Stage One shouldn't hurt this much—"
Ray screamed again, louder.
It wasn't a normal scream.
It was the kind that made Kiba flatten himself to the ground.
The kind that made birds explode out of the canopy in panicked swarms.
The kind that sounded like someone being peeled apart from the inside.
Ray's nails tore as he dragged trenches in the soil, legs kicking involuntarily. His eyes were wide, glassy, unfocused. Tears streamed down his cheeks without him even noticing.
Kael grabbed Ray's cheeks and forced his face toward him. "Ray! Listen to me—stay with me! Don't fall unconscious. Do you hear me? Don't you dare!"
Ray couldn't answer.
Couldn't focus.
Every heartbeat was a detonation.
Every nerve screamed.
Every second carved deeper into him.
Soul deterioration—
a catastrophic backlash when someone forces power far beyond what their soul can safely channel.
It didn't kill the body.
It ate the soul.
Slowly.
Precisely.
Agonizingly.
Three days.
Those who reached the third never woke up again.
Ray was already minutes in, and it felt like he was being flayed alive in silence and fire.
The next wave hit.
Ray's body arched again—so hard Kael had to pin him down to keep him from snapping his own spine. Joren grabbed Ray's wrists, holding them against the ground as Ray thrashed.
"Kael!" Joren shouted over Ray's broken cries. "We don't have the potions for this! The village's the captain or even some nobles couldn't afford the potion!"
Kael's face was stone. Cold. Terrified. Determined.