The river didn't care about his pain.
It carried his blood away as easily as it carried silt.
But the koi cared.
He had learned Harden. A skill born not of triumph, but of despair. It was his only weapon against a world too cruel for him.
And if that was all he had, then he would sharpen it until his scales bled.
—
He began with stone.
Not smooth pebbles or polished rocks. No. He chose the cruel ones — jagged shards of shale, black glass, twisted fragments scattered from Ember Lake's death.
He hurled his body against them. Again and again. Headfirst, side-first, tail-first.
Each slam split his scales. Flesh tore. Blood spiraled into the current, painting it red. His vision blurred from the pain, but still he struck.
[Harden activated]
His body stiffened. The tearing dulled. His scales hardened under the punishment.
Not enough.
He smashed harder. The edges cut him open like knives. His flesh screamed, but he clamped down on the pain, forcing it deeper inside.
[Harden proficiency +1]
Still not enough.
He wanted more. He needed more. Stones dulled too quickly beneath his fury. Their edges wore down. His agony became familiar, tolerable.
That was not enough to grow.
—
So he swam down.
Deeper. Into the riverbed where light drowned and silence thickened. Where shadows curled, and the mud itself seemed to breathe.
Something was waiting there.
It stirred as he approached — a shape vast and terrible, built of stone and flesh. Its hide was rough with sediment, its jaw wider than a house. A riverbed beast, one that had slept in silence for decades, its body half-buried in the earth.
The koi darted closer, his tiny heart pounding.
And then, deliberately, he brushed its teeth.
The monster's eyes snapped open.
The ground split as its maw gaped wide, and water thundered with the force of its bite. Teeth like obsidian pillars came crashing down.
The koi didn't run. He flung himself straight into its mouth.
The jaws slammed shut.
Agony exploded.
Its teeth crushed his body, shredding flesh and scale alike. Blood burst out in torrents, flooding the water crimson. His bones bent. His mind screamed. He was nothing but pulp in its maw.
[Harden activated]
His scales stiffened under the grinding pressure. He clung to consciousness, forcing himself to endure.
The monster chewed. Teeth ripped through him, tearing chunks of his flesh. Pain tore him apart, so sharp he could barely think. His vision burned white.
[Harden proficiency +2]
[Harden proficiency +3]
But he didn't give up.
Every bite was a hammer. Every tear a forge. He let the pain mold him, let the agony beat his weakness into something harder.
The water boiled with his blood. His golden scales darkened, soaked in red. With each crack, each wound, they hardened more. The blood didn't just stain them — it clung, seeping into the cracks, transforming.
[Skill evolving: Harden → Blood Scales]
The koi gasped in his mind. His scales pulsed with a sick glow, harder than before, their edges sharpened with his suffering. Blood coated them until they gleamed like iron dipped in flame.
And then the beast paused.
Its eyes flickered. Its jaw slackened.
A faint numbness spread through its gums, through the cracks where the koi's blood had smeared. The koi felt it: a strange, poisonous quality in his scales now. Not venom, not acid — but pain given back, transferred into his enemy.
The monster shook its head violently, annoyed. To it, this wasn't prey anymore — it was a shard of pain lodged in its mouth.
With a guttural growl, it spat him out.
—
The koi tumbled into the current, body shredded and barely whole. His fins were ribbons, his flesh torn, the river a cloud of his blood. He twitched, half-dead, but still alive.
And his scales — red, gleaming, poisoned — held him together.
[Skill confirmed: Blood Scales]
Type: Passive/Active
Description: Scales harden with pain and blood. Each wound increases defense. Blood-tainted scales release numbing toxins, dulling enemy nerves on contact.
Effect: Survival extended under extreme strain. Damage resisted. Enemy weakened on bite or clash.
He shivered, his body screaming. He had not killed the monster. He had not even come close.
But he had endured. He had escaped.
And that was enough.
The koi flicked his torn tail weakly, dragging himself back toward the current. His blood drifted behind him like a trail, but his heart still burned.
No matter how much it hurts… I will not stop. If blood is the price, then let the river run red.
The beast rumbled in the depths, glaring but unmoving. It did not chase him. Perhaps even it understood: some prey was too mad to be worth swallowing.
The koi rose slowly, every movement pain. Yet in that agony, his scales gleamed. Stronger. Redder. Sharper.
Blood scales.
Born from his own suffering.