"Ahh, damn it!"
The [Knight] slammed into the open sea, water swallowing him whole before he clawed his way back to the surface for a desperate gulp of air. Vikram froze mid-breath as an instinctive chill locked onto his back. Something had marked him.
He twisted his neck and cursed under his breath."Damn it all!"
Without hesitation, he dismissed his armor into [Inventory], freeing his body for speed, and thrashed forward with every ounce of strength toward the faint outline of land.
Behind him came the sound he dreaded, hoarse giggles bubbling up from the deep, followed by a cascade of splashes. The water churned with pursuit.
'Yeah, you stupid shits just had to get hostile, didn't you.'
He flared his Aura, driving his muscles harder, the strokes growing sharper. For a moment, hope sparked, he was gaining distance. Then the splashes quickened, laughter rising, mocking him. They were toying with him.
One broke the surface.
A glistening, bald-skinned body arced through the air before diving straight at him, saliva streaming, its round black eyes glinting with manic hunger.
"Dolphin shits," Vikram growled, stomach sinking. The creatures were fast, cunning, and utterly sadistic. If he died here, it wouldn't just be death, it would be humiliation to the extreme.
His three avatars weren't separate toys to respawn. They were anchors, supplements, complements. If one died, a whole chunk of his soul would be torn away, destabilizing the others. And if that balance broke, so did he. Game over.
Not fair. But then, nothing ever was.
As panic warred with instinct, a shift stirred beneath. Vikram felt it instantly, the undercurrent, a pulling tide far too deliberate. His body stiffened.
He tried to escape, forcing himself forward, but the sea betrayed him. The current surged, dragging him down. Water rose like a pillar, swallowing him whole, tossing him skyward only to send him plunging with the rest of the dolphins.
And then he saw it.
The maw.
A mouth of serrated teeth, wide enough to swallow ships, stretched open to devour them all. Darkness, pure, suffocating, poured from its depths.
Vikram's pulse roared in his ears. He cloaked himself in Aura, spread his limbs wide, trying to shape a wingsuit, to carve air into resistance. But the Aura shredded like mist. Nothing held.
"Damn it!"
He ripped the Great Sword into his grip, eyes narrowing on the abyss. He would not die thrashing like prey.
The descent was merciless. He swung the blade in one brutal arc, driving its edge deep into the creature's gums. Metal screeched against flesh, and his fall screeched to a halt.
'Can't expect this thing to brush.'
Balancing atop the sword as the beast writhed, Vikram crouched low, stealing a glance downward.
And froze.
Because when he stared at the Abyss.
It was staring back.
Multiple pupils glimmered in the dark, all of them locking onto Vikram's body like he was nothing more than fresh meat. His instincts screamed. Compressing his Aura to the absolute limit, he launched himself upward like a rocket breaking free of the abyss. The maw closed behind him, but he didn't spare a glance. His Sword vanished into [Inventory] with a flicker of will as he swam with frantic, desperate strokes.
The shore finally greeted him, and Vikram collapsed onto the wet sand, chest heaving. Relief almost spilled into a sigh, until his eyes rose to the sea.
And froze.
It wasn't the sea anymore.
It was an eye.
A single, reptilian eye that dwarfed his body, staring at him with unblinking coldness. His breath caught in his throat. His body refused to move. Tremors overtook his limbs as he faced that enormous gaze, a gaze that made him feel as though he had been reduced to less than dust.
Then, a reverberation struck his chest. The colossal eye shifted away. Slowly, agonizingly, it receded. Only then did Vikram see what it belonged to, a serpent, its scales glistening white like divine marble, rising from the ocean to cast a shadow that blanketed the sky.
The snake glanced upward, then down at him again, before vanishing beneath the waters with a ripple too calm for a being so monstrous.
'W-What the hell…?'
Vikram collapsed fully onto his knees, lungs burning as he tried to force breath back into his body. In the [Knight]'s form, panic clawed at him harder than ever before. He was nearly hyperventilating until a thought finally struck him.
Aura.
Aura could calm his mind, ground his body.
Shakily, he steadied himself, each breath drawn deeper than the last. His eyes shifted to the horizon. What he saw turned his blood cold once again.
The sea wasn't blue. It wasn't green. It wasn't even water as he knew it.
It was white. Pure white, as though snow had melted into liquid form. Small white particles drifted from the sky, dissolving seamlessly into the ocean's surface. They weren't snow, at least, not snow he recognized. He couldn't even name what they were.
He had been so rattled that he had forgotten even the simplest uses of Aura. But could anyone blame him? It was his first time seeing something that big, that menacing, that alive.
"Damn it, don't use it out of context…" he muttered, shaking his head.
Vikram turned toward the shore, and froze once more."Damned Hell…"
The landscape was littered with statues. White, gleaming figures of every size, scattered across the plains as far as his eyes could see.
One raised its arms to the heavens, another clawed at the earth, a third cried out in frozen rage. Each figure stood in dramatic, almost holy poses. And yet… their faces were blank. Smooth. Featureless.
Even so, he felt their emotions pressing down on him. Rage. Despair. Desperation. Their silence screamed louder than words.
The emptiness of their faces made it worse. So much worse.
A shiver worked its way through his armored body. His Great Sword weighed heavy in his hands as he stepped forward cautiously. The statues were spaced apart, leaving just enough room for him to weave between them. He kept his distance.
Not because he had to.Because he wanted to.
Because something about them demanded distance.
He exhaled, pulling up his panel for comfort.
The shimmering screen unfolded before him:
[Name: Unnamed]
[Titles: Nil]
[Existence Rank: Pre-Existence]
[Cultivation: Nil]
[Soul Memoirs: {The Black Steel}, {Blade of Honor}](Revoked)
[Soul Manifestations: Nil] (Revoked)[Trait Cord: {Supreme Foundation}]