He didn't know how long he had been lying there.
Time lost its shape when you were dying.
The sounds of the forest came and went—distant, hollow. Light faded, returned, faded again. Heat and chill chased each other across his skin. His muscles spasmed at random, each twitch a small rebellion. The poison didn't kill him outright—but it stripped him, slowly and thoroughly, until even breathing became a battle.
His body regenerated, over and over.
It didn't matter.
The venom clung to him like a second death.
Michael curled into the dirt, his head pressed against his forearm, lips cracked, sweat cold against his burning skin.
'This is stupid.'
He wasn't going to die. Not here. Not like this.
But he couldn't fight either.
His fingers trembled as he reached into his coat, dragging out a small pouch sealed with faded, enchanted thread. Inside were four blood-red crystals, pulsing faintly even now.
Demon cores.
He stared at them through blurred vision, his heart hammering unevenly.
He didn't know what they would do.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe worse.
'You either get stronger… or you die messier.'
Michael tipped the pouch.
The first core struck his tongue like molten iron. His body seized, muscles locking up.
The second slid down his throat in a blaze of agony, fire clawing through his gut.
The third made him scream—loud and raw, a sound ripped from somewhere deep inside.
The fourth crushed that scream into silence.
Every nerve detonated. His vision went stark white. Bones cracked—not breaking, but reshaping. Regeneration kicked into overdrive, frantic, desperate to keep up with the damage.
Then—
Darkness.
POV: Michael (Fragmented Memory)
He was standing.
Somehow.
The world around him shimmered, unreal. A long corridor stretched forward, walls not made of stone but of ash and fractured light, shot through with veins of molten gold.
He moved—or tried to. His body felt distant, underwater, lagging behind every command.
'What is this...?'
He looked down.
No coat. No wounds.
No breath.
The corridor yawned wider ahead.
He stepped forward—or thought he did—and the world shifted again.
The corridor fell away.
He stood in a shattered throne room. Columns broken. A jagged sword embedded in the cracked floor, humming with forgotten violence.
In the center of the room stood a woman.
Tall. Cloaked in black.
Her back to him.
He tried to call out—nothing.
The woman turned slightly, just enough for him to catch a glimpse of her face.
He didn't recognize it.
But her eyes—
Those he knew.
'Wait—'
The world crumbled beneath him like sand slipping through fingers.
He fell.
POV: Michael
He awoke choking.
His hands clawed at the earth, dragging in shallow, burning breaths.
Heat flared under his skin, wild and unchecked.
But he was alive.
The poison—gone.
No. Not gone.
Consumed.
The crystals lay shattered beside him, reduced to dust, their power spent.
But it had worked.
Michael pushed himself up, slow and unsteady. His body trembled, soaked in cold sweat, but his vision was clear again. The mist curled thinly across the clearing, the trees standing silent around him.
He sat there for a moment, feeling the beat of his heart, the pull of his breath.
And something else.
Stillness.
Weight.
Like the earth itself had shifted under his skin.
His hand curled into a fist.
Something had changed.
And it wasn't over yet.