He felt his hands tremble.
Was it fear? Or excitement? He honestly couldn't tell.
His breath was shallow, and his legs stiff. This new body... he didn't even know if he could handle it. He could barely hold his ground against low-tier beasts back then, always just surviving by chance. But now... now he stood face-to-face with a full grown scorpion beast. tall as a hut, armored in dark chitin, and far stronger than anything he had ever fought.
It didn't wait.
With a sharp screech, the monster lunged its tail snapping down like a spear. He reacted on instinct, sidestepping just barely as the tail grazed his shoulder, leaving a burning line of pain. He gasped and stumbled backward, his body still sluggish, his grip still shaky. Without thinking, he turned and ran pushing his legs as fast as they would carry him.
Behind him, the scorpion gave chase. Its legs scraped the ground, fast and heavy, and its tail lashed out again. A near miss, the wind from it whistled past his ear.
His lungs burned. He weaved through the narrow alleys, turning corners quickly, ducking under fallen beams, leaping over debris. He knew this part of the village like the back of his hand but the beast was relentless. Faster than he expected, and growing more aggressive.
"Think, damn it... think—!"
He spun around a tree, hoping to slow it down, but it wasn't enough. One of the beast's front legs slammed into him, flinging him like a rag doll through the air. His body hit a thick tree trunk with a brutal thud, the air knocked from his lungs. Blood spilled from his mouth as he collapsed to the ground.
"D-Damn that hurts..." he muttered through clenched teeth, trying to lift himself. His limbs trembled, barely listening to him.
The scorpion crept closer, towering over him now, its tail poised high above, ready to strike and finish the job. He gritted his teeth and His thoughts spun in chaos,This wasn't how his second life was supposed to go...not like this, not so soon.
Still, he refused to go down quietly.
"Come on then," he spat, laughing in a mix of pain and madness. "If I die again... I'm dragging you with me."
The tail came down again. but this time, he rolled aside, letting it crash into the dirt. His body flung toward the beast's side, near its abdomen. Somewhere in the folds of his clothes, a broken iron blade something he took from the village ruins was still with him. He gripped it with shaking hands and jammed it into the monster's side with all the force he could muster.
Snap.
The sword broke instantly as if the beast's armor laughed at him.
Before he could recover, the scorpion struck again and its leg slammed into his stomach, throwing him hard against a nearby house wall. He crashed down like dead weight. Blood poured from his mouth as his vision blurred. Everything started to go dim.
Is this it...? Already...?
The world went silent.
Only the sound of the wind remained, whistling gently through the broken walls.
The scorpion crawled closer, looming above the unconscious boy, its hunger undeniable. Victory was just one final sting away.
And then something changed.
His body, limp and bloodied began to glow faintly. A soft pink, mixed with a dark hue like dying embers. The glow grew brighter, slowly outlining strange patterns on his skin.
A mark appeared at the back of his neck, runic in design, ancient and wild forming a circular seal with a dragon's head at its center. The runes pulsed, alive, and began crawling across his limbs like living ink. In moments, his entire body was covered in glowing tattoos, a tapestry of power etched across his flesh.
His eyes opened.
There was no white in them. Only deep crimson, glowing like fire. His breathing steadied. The trembling stopped. He stood slowly, calmly. The monster sensed the change and readied to strike again, but this time... it was too late.
He vanished from its view for a moment and in the next breath, he stood near its leg. With a sudden, unnatural strength, he struck with his bare hand a sharp crack echoed through the air as the monster's limb bent the wrong way.
No surprise flickered in his eyes. No hesitation.
Another strike, a punch under the chin of the beast sent its head jerking backward. The scorpion shrieked, enraged and shaken. It lashed out wildly, its tail snapping in all directions, but he moved faster far beyond what his human body should have allowed.
He darted beneath its belly, sliding low, and drove his hand upward with frightening precision. His palm sliced through the armored underbelly like it was wet paper. Green blood sprayed into the air as the scorpion screeched in agony.
With one last twist, he tore the wound wider and the monster collapsed, its legs twitching, its body sinking into the ground in death.
He stood still.
His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. The runes on his body glowed one final time, then slowly receded crawling back toward the back of his neck, vanishing like shadows melting into light.
His eyes turned back to normal. The crimson replaced with white, and the fury replaced with exhaustion.
He looked at his blood-stained hands, blinking slowly, before his legs gave out. He collapsed onto the cold earth, just inches from the monster's corpse. As his consciousness faded, only one question drifted through his mind, hazy and unfinished.
"Who... did this...?"
Then everything turned black.