Leon slowly pried open his eyelids, which felt as stiff as charred crust. His body was still struggling to mend the wounds that by all rights should have claimed his life. Suddenly, fresh blood erupted from his mouth—the residue of shattered internal organs regenerating while he was unconscious. The black, clotted mass was forced out just as his awareness returned in full.
Leon's condition might have been considered far better, were he not currently lashed to a basalt chair by living muscle-tendrils of a ghastly, mutating plant. The vines gripped his wrists and ankles with crushing strength, reacting with an automatic tightening every time he attempted to struggle.
Leon had seen the prisons of Wilwatikta before, but they were never used to incarcerate fellow monsters. Those cells were typically reserved for Mana Species captured before the "brainwashing" process began. Yet, the room where he now awoke bore no resemblance to any prison he could have imagined.
