The forest exploded.
Draven's body tore through the treeline like a cannonball—limbs limp, flailing, ragdolling as he shattered thick trunks and ripped through underbrush. Each impact came with a sickening crunch. Bark cracked. Limbs split. The earth trembled beneath his violent passage.
He didn't stop.
He smashed through tree after tree, rebounding off one into another—bones cracking louder than the wood around him. His trail was a wake of destruction: splinters, blood, and broken greenery.
And then—
CRASH.
One final tree split in half as he slammed through it back-first. The momentum finally gave out.
He dropped.
Cratered into the forest floor. Bounced once off a half-rotted log. Then came to a stop—half-buried in wreckage, motionless.
Silence swallowed the forest.
The wind held its breath. Only the faint creak of a broken limb swaying above marked the passage of time.
Draven lay there—sprawled in ruin, like a broken doll tossed aside.
His arms were twisted grotesquely—one bent backward at the elbow, the other snapped at the forearm, white bone jutting through muscle. His legs sprawled wide, one foot turned completely the wrong way. His neck was crooked, head tilted at an unnatural angle, cheek pressed against a bed of shattered twigs.
Blood soaked the ground beneath him. It coated his chest, his jaw, the tips of his fingers.
He wasn't breathing.
Not properly.
Each breath came like a faulty engine trying to catch—wet, shuddering, labored. One eye blinked slowly. The other refused to open, sealed by blood.
Above him, the forest canopy framed a pale, cloud-streaked sky.
Peaceful. Empty.
He stared up at it sideways, head still twisted—his expression unreadable. A cold, hollow look.
Then—
Fuck.
hhggkk—
A violent cough tore through him. Blood sprayed across the dirt—thick, dark, bubbling.
SNAP.
His left shoulder jerked.
Something inside him shifted with a sickening crunch. Bone realigning. The healing had begun.
He gagged. Choked. Sucked in a wheezing breath—and hacked again, worse. His whole body seized with the motion. More blood spilled from his lips, running down his jaw into the grass.
> "Jesus f**king Christ…"
His right arm twitched—bent at an unnatural angle. Muscle spasmed. Bone twisted. The fracture began to pull itself back into shape.
His voice was hoarse, barely more than a rasp.
> "…What the hell kinda punch was that…"
Another wet cough. He wheezed, jaw clenched tight. The effort to breathe made his spine twitch with agony.
> "It's like I got hit by a goddamn train…"
He groaned—deep and ragged—as his head slumped against the broken earth. Pale clouds drifted overhead. Soft. Untouched.
> "…Maybe two."
Another breath. Shallow. Cracked.
> "Damn bastard…"
He coughed again—sharp this time. It pulled a low grunt from his chest. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
> "I can feel… my ribs poking my organs…"
As if in response, his ribcage gave a low, wet creak. The jagged bones shifted. Regeneration clawed its way through him—agonizing, deliberate. Skin pulled tight across exposed muscle. Veins pulsed. Flesh began to rebuild.
It was fast. It was clean.
His fingers—still gripping his dagger the entire time—twitched, dragging across the dirt. His foot flexed… then snapped back into proper alignment.
Piece by piece, he was coming back.
Except—
His neck didn't move.
Didn't even try.
Still bent. Crooked. Twisted wrong. His head remained tilted at a sickening angle, eyes staring off-kilter at the world.
A pause.
Then a rasping, broken chuckle—twisted, like the rest of him.
Draven's neck jerked.
His head rolled. Not the awkward, crooked tilt that had clung to him like a wound—but cleanly, like a lock clicking into place. Pain flared white-hot… then receded, leaving a numb, humming quiet in its wake.
He lay on his back.
Blood pooled beneath him. The forest groaned around him.
He stared at the sky. The clouds moved—indifferent. The canopy framed a pale, treacherous calm.
His face was blank—flat as a blade.
Nothing soft left in it. Not shock. Not fear.
Just a slow, simmering violence behind his one open eye.
He breathed. The sound was a rasp—shallow, but steady.
He spoke, voice calm:
> "Guess now I know I'm not gonna die that easily…"
> "…Still got it, though…"
His hand moved of its own accord—slow, deliberate. Dirt fell from his fingers. In his palm, cupped, the Spirit Egg lay intact.
He raised it until it hovered before his face. For a moment, he only watched it—the world narrowing to the shell's smooth curve, the way the light shimmered over its surface.
> "It's not as fragile as I thought," he muttered, with something like astonished contempt. He turned the egg the length of a finger. No cracks. No scratches. Unmarked. Whole.
> "It held...
> "Not… a… scratch. This is one tough-ass egg."
The smirk that pulled across his lips was tiny. Vicious. Murder and gratitude braided together in that look.
He tightened his grip around the egg, as if testing it against his hand.
Then he moved—slowly, rising from the wreckage.
> I need to get back. don't have time to be lying around. My family's still there.
Now fully standing, body stained with blood, his once-shut eye flickered open. He turned to the side and spat a mouthful of red into the dirt.
Raising his dagger, he wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
He spoke again, voice low, unreadable:
> "So… they're already here."
His gaze swept the trees—unblinking.
> "Damn. There's a lot."