[Day 908]
My body still screamed in agony, but I forced it to move. Step by step, limb by broken limb, I pushed myself farther from that cursed battlefield. I didn't look back. I couldn't.
I had to go. I had to move. Staying in one place felt like death.
The Southern Shelter was gone. Burned out of existence. Vaporized. The lightning wolf… that monster… it hadn't even fought seriously. I was nothing but a joke to it.
[Day 930]
It had been weeks. I no longer counted in hours or minutes. Time didn't exist anymore—just the endless rhythm of hunt, kill, eat, rest, repeat.
My wounds healed. Slowly. Painfully.
But my mind? It festered.
I'd gone deeper into the forest—beyond anywhere I had ever dared to tread. Trees taller than towers stretched across the horizon. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of blood and earth. I became a shadow, a beast in human skin.
I hunted like a madman. My movements grew mechanical. Crystal after crystal I tore from beast after beast. Red ones, gray ones, the occasional transparent gem—each one pulsed faintly with power, but never enough.
[Day 945]
It didn't matter anymore.
I killed everything I saw. Deer-like creatures, armored wolves, serpent-fox hybrids, shadow-pelted panthers. They weren't weak, but I was… no, I had become a monster. A demon with sunken eyes and dried blood crusted under his fingernails.
Every fight blurred into the next. Every victory was followed by a desperate carving of their chest, a plunge of my hand, a search for the crystal buried deep within. The weaker ones only carried small red shards, barely a bite's worth of power.
I had hoped to find another core like the python's—something potent, something alive. But all I found were fleeting sparks, not the infernos I needed.
Until…
I saw it.
The crocodile.
It was massive. At least thirty feet long. Thick scales covered its body like obsidian armor, and its maw could tear boulders in half. Its yellow eyes locked with mine, and we both knew—this would not end until one of us died.
I didn't hesitate. I lunged.
It was stronger than the python. Far stronger. Its tail could break trees with a single swing. But I had changed. I had grown. My strength outclassed it—barely.
I refused to let it enter the water. I struck its legs, its tail, drove it back with all the fury that had been building in me since that cursed day. It roared, tried to snap its jaws around me—I slipped, jumped, tore into it again.
Its eye.
That was my opening.
I plunged my hand in, ripped it out. The beast thrashed in agony, but I didn't stop. I didn't show mercy.
Over and over, I slammed my fists down until its skull cracked open. The moment it stilled, I dug into its chest and found it—a brilliant core, dark green with a swirling blue mist inside. Heavy in my hand, pulsing like a heart.
I grinned.
I howled.
Then I cut up its meat, cooked it over a fire made from its broken bones, and ate.
[Day 950+]
Time blurred.
I didn't know what day it was anymore.
I found a cave. Isolated. Safe. The perfect place to become something more.
I gathered all my crystals. I had so many now.
12 large transparent crystals
34 gray shards
70 red ones
1 core the size of my palm—multi-layered, with three gems fused inside
I sat cross-legged. My body buzzed with latent power, and yet… it wasn't enough.
I started with the red ones. One by one. Each gave me a faint warmth, a shiver in my muscles, a whisper of energy. But nothing major.
Then the gray ones. Heavier. More substantial. My veins glowed faintly. My senses sharpened. Still—not enough.
Then the transparent ones.
They burned. Oh, they burned.
Each crystal set fire to my insides, turning marrow to molten light. My mind cracked, visions flooded in—of beasts I'd never seen, of lands I'd never touched. Of things… beyond this world.
I vomited blood. Passed out. Woke up screaming. But I kept going.
I kept eating.
Days passed. Weeks. Months.
I lost track of who I was.
A man? A monster?
I didn't care anymore.
[Day 1170]
I collapsed.
My body couldn't take anymore. The last transparent crystal had taken everything. I fell into the wilderness like a discarded husk.
[Day 1200]
I woke up in a pool of my own dried blood. My body had changed again. Taller. More muscular. My bones denser, skin tougher.
I didn't feel human anymore.
But even now, with all this power, I knew—if I met the lightning wolf again… it would end the same way.
Me on the ground. Bleeding. Powerless. A toy beneath its claws.
I couldn't let that happen again.
I wouldn't.
So I hunted again. Feverishly. Relentlessly. My fingers twitched in my sleep. I mumbled in beast tongue. My dreams were full of blood and bones.
I became something else.
A monster of the wild.
A beast draped in the memory of a man.
Until one day…
I saw them.
Humans.
Three of them. Scouting, maybe. Or lost.
They looked at me with wide eyes—terror, awe, confusion. Their weapons weren't drawn, but their hands hovered close to their holsters.
I stared at them. Silent.
Their faces—so unfamiliar. Their skin carried different tones, their clothes mismatched. Outsiders. Just like me.
I stepped forward.
They flinched.
I raised a hand.
One of them shouted in some language I didn't understand.
I tilted my head.
They didn't shoot.
Interesting.
A strange feeling bloomed in my chest—foreign, unwanted.
Hope?
Or just another opportunity to gather information?
I didn't care.
I needed to know more.
Because deep in my bones, I felt it.
The storm was coming.
And I was still far too weak.