When Kyne resurrected for the fourth time, the Horned Monkey was standing ten meters away, completely motionless.
Its yellow eyes were wide open, and a thin layer of sweat covered its dark fur.
The two stared at each other for a long moment. The nocturnal forest was strangely silent, as if all the other creatures were watching.
Then, without warning, the monkey spun on its heels and fled.
It was not an orderly retreat nor a tactical withdrawal. It was a complete, desperate escape. The creature disappeared among the trees, its heavy footsteps echoing through the forest until they were lost in the distance.
Kyne was left alone, under the bluish light of the giant moon.
For a moment, he simply stood there. Then he began to laugh. Not the frenetic laughter from before, but a low, continuous laugh, filled with pure satisfaction.
"It worked somehow." He murmured between laughs.
"I just… came back so many times that it got scared."
He looked at his own arms and his torso. Four deaths to the same creature, and he came out stronger. His slash resistance was now Rank F+, a significant improvement from the original F-.
The euphoria of the moment, however, was quickly replaced by another sensation. Fatigue.
It was not physical fatigue, his body was in perfect condition, rejuvenated after each resurrection. It was mental and emotional fatigue.
The last… how many hours? He had lost track of time. Transmigration, multiple deaths, encounters with strange creatures, and a new world.
His eyes grew heavy. The adrenaline that had kept him alert began to dissipate, and the reality that he was in a completely unknown world, without shelter, without food, without water, hit hard.
But curiously, it was not such a frightening reality. It was just… a new reality. His new reality.
Kyne looked around. The night was deep, but the giant moon provided enough light to navigate. He needed to rest. He needed to sleep for a while.
He walked to a particularly large tree. Not the same one he had tried to climb before, but another with a thicker trunk and lower branches. He climbed a few meters until he found a fork where two thick branches met, forming a kind of natural platform.
It was uncomfortable. The wood was hard, the bark rough. The night air was getting cold, and a heavy humidity was beginning to settle in. Kyne had no blanket, no shelter, nothing.
But when he lay down on the improvised platform, closed his eyes, and felt the fatigue wash over him, a single thought dominated his mind before he fell asleep with a small smile.
'I am immortal.'
The dream of his life, not exactly in this form, but close enough, had come true. He could die, yes. But he would always come back. Always learn. Always adapt.
A soft smile appeared on his face as he drifted off. The cold did not matter. The humidity did not matter. The unknown and dangerous world did not matter. He was finally free to satisfy his curiosity, regardless of the consequences.
Kyne Fritz fell asleep with a smile on his face, completely at peace for the first time he could remember.
What Kyne did not see, because he was sleeping deeply, exhausted by the day's experiences, were the two narrow eyes watching him from the branch above.
They did not glow like the eyes of the Horned Monkey. Instead, they seemed to absorb the light, two points of darkness deeper than the night. The creature to which they belonged was almost invisible against the night sky, its dark-gray feathers camouflaging it perfectly.
The Steel Eagle was a Rank D predator, far more dangerous than the territorial monkey.
The Steel Eagle silently glided from the higher branch, its enormous wings, with a wingspan of nearly three meters, opening without producing the slightest sound.
It was a perfect predator, evolved to hunt in nocturnal forests.
Its eyes, adapted to see heat, studied the sleeping creature below. It could see the slow, almost imperceptible pulse. A deep sleep, almost in a state of hibernation.
The eagle hovered for an instant, calculating. The prey was strange. Hairless, without scales, sleeping exposed on a low branch. Easy. Too easy.
With a fluid motion, it dove.
Kyne woke with the sensation of falling. Not just falling, but being dragged.
Steel talons, literal steel talons, had closed around his shoulder and back, piercing flesh and muscle with ease.
"Ah, shi—
The rest of the words were lost in the air as the Steel Eagle tore him from the platform of branches, rising rapidly toward the night sky.
The pain was excruciating. The talons did not just pierce. They crushed. Kyne heard his clavicles crack like dry twigs.
Warm blood ran down his back, bathing the creature's metallic talons.
But even through the sharp pain, his mind worked with crystalline clarity. He did not struggle. He did not scream for help. Instead, his gray eyes widened with fascination.
He was flying.
Not in the way he had always imagined. With his own imaginary wings. But he was in the air, rising higher and higher. The forest became a dark blue carpet below, dotted with the occasional luminescence of plants or nocturnal creatures.
The giant moon seemed even larger from above, a pale, cold disk illuminating the thin clouds that drifted past.
"What a view…" he whispered, the wind carrying his words away.
The Steel Eagle emitted a low sound, as if responding. It seemed confused by the lack of struggle, by the lack of panic. Its prey usually thrashed, screamed, and tried to escape. This one was… just observing.