The aroma of roasting meat was the first scent of Devon's new life. Inside the sturdy stone hearth, atop a heavy, black iron skillet—one of Corvus's countless relics—thick cuts of venison sizzled and rendered fat. The sound was soothing music, a simple accompaniment to a silent world. Devon had sprinkled them with a pinch of dried "King's Weed," and the pungent, peppery-lemon scent now mingled with the savory aroma of browning meat, filling the cabin with a fragrance that made his empty stomach clench in anticipation.
He had processed the rest of the deer carcass with the efficiency of a butcher who had done it a thousand times, not a teenager who had only just butchered an animal larger than himself for the first time. He had slathered the choicest cuts with coarse salt—another treasure he had found in the kitchen—and hung them in the cold cellar to cure. The parts he didn't want he had buried deep in the woods, far from the cabin, a lesson in caution he had absorbed from Corvus's journals. Nothing should be wasted, but no trace should be left behind either.
While waiting for his meal to finish cooking, with silence as his only companion, Devon descended once more into the den of his predecessor's thoughts. The light of the lantern, which he had refilled with a strange, viscous oil, greeted him, casting dancing shadows on the roughly hewn stone walls. He passed the gruesome specimen tubes without a glance; their horror had become commonplace, a bizarre fixture in his new home. He walked straight to the massive map on the wall, the centerpiece of Corvus's obsession and planning.
He traced the map with his finger, his clean skin a stark contrast to the yellowed, brittle parchment. The cabin's location, marked as "Rest," was in an odd position, wedged between two worlds. To the west, the vast and relatively tranquil Silverwood Forest. To the east, the Grimfang Forest—the Monster Forest—a sprawling dark stain on the map.
"Eeeh… is this really what the world is like?" he muttered to himself, his voice sounding flat in the cold air. "Why does it seem so small?"
He compared the scale indicated in the corner of the map. If his calculations were correct, this entire mapped region—from the mountains in the north to the swamps in the south—was perhaps only slightly larger than the Kanto region in Japan. That felt… wrong. Too limited for a world that was supposed to be vast. He didn't know, of course, that what he was looking at wasn't a map of the world. It was merely a map of Tenebris, the "Severed Continent," a country-sized prison isolated from all of Veridia. This map wasn't an atlas; it was a cell block blueprint.
A cold curiosity tickled him. He began to search, his methodical hands examining every scroll of parchment stored on the shelves beneath the map. Perhaps there was another map, a larger one. As he busied himself sorting through blueprints of horrific weapons and notes on magical ballistics, a sound shattered the thick silence of the cellar.
TOK. TOK. TOK.
Devon froze. His hand stopped on a half-unrolled scroll. The sound was so ordinary, so normal, that it felt utterly out of place in this world. It was the sound of knocking on a front door. A sound of civilization, of human interaction. A sound that shouldn't exist here, in the middle of this cursed wilderness, at the doorstep of a dead serial killer's home.
Huh… why is there knocking? Is there a guest?
The thought, an echo of the old Devon, surfaced momentarily before being dismissed by the cold analysis of the new Devon. A guest? Here? The probability was near zero. This was an anomaly. And anomalies were potential threats.
TOK. TOK. TOK. TOK.
The knocking returned, this time louder, more impatient. There was no longer a polite pause. The sound had a demanding rhythm, as if whatever was out there knew someone was inside, and it wasn't going away.
Devon placed the scroll back on the shelf, his movements deliberate and silent. He didn't reach for a weapon. Not yet. He simply listened. He ascended the wooden steps, each footfall carefully placed to avoid a creak. He reached the main room. The aroma of cooked venison was pungent, a scent of life amidst this sudden tension.
TOK! TOK! TOK! TOK! TOK!
The knocking had become a pounding, a battering that made the sturdy wooden door tremble on its hinges.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" Devon called out, his voice sounding strangely calm, even slightly annoyed, as if he were being bothered by a persistent salesman. He walked across the room, his boots making no sound on the clean wooden floor. Who could it be? Could it be natives? Hmm… must be friendly.
He reached the door. He could feel the vibrations from the pounding through the floor. He placed his hand on the cold iron doorknob. He took a deep breath, not out of fear, but to steady his analytical mind. He was ready for anything. Wolves. Goblins. Another contaminated bear.
He opened the door.
"Hello, good after—"
The words died in his throat. Standing before him wasn't a lost native. Not a hunter. Not a monster he recognized.
Standing before him was the embodiment of a fever-born nightmare. It was The Red Leech. It easily reached the porch ceiling in height, its lower body a mass of indistinct red and pink matter, spreading like the sickly roots of a tree across the wooden planks. Its neck, an impossibly long and thin column of flesh, writhed in the air like an inquisitive snake. And at the end of that neck was its head: a smooth, oval shape, with two large, black eyes that were empty and pupil-less, and a mouth that curved upward in the most unnatural, most impossibly wide smile Devon had ever seen. The smile held no joy. The smile simply… was, a permanent fixture etched onto its featureless face, a mockery of all genuine emotion.
"Oh great… what kind of creature is this now," Devon sighed, the words coming out not as a shriek of terror, but as the weary exhalation of someone who was simply fed up with the strangeness of this world.
He simply stood there, in the doorway, staring at the creature. And the creature stared back at him with its unblinking, empty eyes. Silence descended, broken only by the soft sizzle of the cooking venison inside and the rustle of wind through the trees. Then, the creature moved.
Its long, flexible neck began to descend, coiling downward with a fluid, horrifying grace. Its smiling head drew closer, and closer, until their faces were only inches apart. Devon could smell it now—a faint, sickly-sweet odor, like rotting flowers and flesh preserved in formaldehyde. The empty black eyes stared directly into his, searching for something, trying to find a fear that wasn't there.
They both stared at each other in absolute silence for ten seconds that felt like an hour. Devon didn't blink. The creature couldn't blink.
Then, Devon reacted.
Driven by the violation of his personal space, driven by the predatory instincts that were now hardwired into him, his hand shot forward. He didn't punch. He grabbed. His fingers wrapped around The Red Leech's thin neck. It felt… disgusting. Not like flesh or skin. It felt like gripping a rubber hose filled with dense, cold jelly, slick yet unnervingly strong.
The creature made a sound for the first time. Not a scream. Not a growl. A wet, muffled 'squelch' escaped from somewhere within its body as Devon's grip tightened. The smiling face didn't change, but the empty black eyes seemed to widen slightly.
Then, the creature retaliated. From its mass of a lower body, a thick, crimson tendril lashed out with lightning speed. The tendril wasn't flesh; it seemed like solidified liquid. It wrapped around Devon's torso, constricting him like a python. Before Devon could react, the creature exerted a tremendous force.
It threw Devon.
Devon's grip broke, and he was flung backward, across the porch, and landed hard several yards away in the meadow, his back slamming into the ground with a force that would have shattered a normal person's ribs. The air was forced from his lungs in a painful whoosh. He choked, his mouth filled with the bitter taste of grass and dirt.
"Damn… thing!" he rasped, as he rolled over and pushed himself to his feet, every muscle in his body protesting. He could feel the gentle warmth of the green magic stone necklace on his chest, already working, easing the dull ache in his back. But the sensation of the impact remained, a painful echo.
He stood, drawing the hatchet from his belt, its heavy blade glinting in the sunlight. The Red Leech had slithered off the porch, its fluid body cascading down the steps like a viscous, crimson waterfall, before reassembling itself on the grass. Its long neck swayed gently, its perpetual smile seeming to mock him.
"Disturbing me already?! Let's finish this!" Devon growled, a cold, controlled fury now burning within him. This was no longer just an inconvenience. This was an invasion. This creature had dared to come to his home, to touch him, to hurt him. It was a mistake it wouldn't live to regret.
He charged. He surged forward, hatchet raised high. He swung it with all his might, aiming to cleave the smiling head in two.
The creature didn't dodge. Instead, its fluid body shifted. Just before the hatchet landed, a section of its mass surged upward, forming a thick, jelly-like shield of flesh. The hatchet struck the shield with a wet, dull 'thwump.' Instead of cleaving, the hatchet blade only sank a few inches into the yielding mass before being stopped, trapped as if in solid rubber.
Before Devon could wrench his weapon free, the shield transformed into a gigantic hand with tendril-like fingers. The fingers wrapped around the hatchet, then around his wrist. With a single, powerful jerk, the creature ripped the hatchet from his grip and hurled it far into the woods.
Then, the real fight began. It wasn't a fight; it was a torment. The creature was a fluid, unstoppable nightmare. Dozens of tendrils, large and small, erupted from its main body, lashing out at Devon from every direction. He tried to dodge, to leap, to roll, but the tendrils were too many, too fast.
One tendril wrapped around his ankle, yanking him off his feet. Before he could rise, two more tendrils ensnared his arms, stretching him out like a starfish. Then, the creature began to slam him.
It lifted him high into the air, then slammed him into the ground with earth-shattering force. CRACK! Devon felt his left shoulder blade shatter. A sharp, white-hot pain exploded in his shoulder, but almost instantly, the warmth from the green stone on his chest spread to the area, and he felt the bizarre, horrifying sensation of his bone knitting itself back together. He screamed, not just from the pain, but from the violation of his body.
The creature slammed him again. And again. Sideways, against the trunk of a sturdy silver birch tree. CRUNCH! Several of his ribs broke, and he felt one of his lungs puncture. He coughed, spitting blood onto his own face. The necklace glowed brighter beneath his shirt, healing the damage almost as quickly as it occurred. But the pain… the pain remained, each impact a fresh wave of unbearable agony.
"DAMN YOU!" he roared, as he was lifted into the air once more.
This time, the tendrils didn't slam him. They began to squeeze. The pressure was immense, as if he were being crushed by a hydraulic python. He could hear his bones creaking. His vision began to blacken at the edges. The necklace could heal broken bones, but it couldn't give him air to breathe.
He was going to die. Crushed to death by this ridiculous, smiling monster. As he was thrown several yards away for the last time, landing in a broken heap, a single, crystalline thought pierced through the fog of his pain.
Wait a minute… I have magic stones.
He was an idiot. He had been fighting like a barbarian, relying on physical strength against a creature that had no definite physical form. He had been fighting on his enemy's level. It was time to change the rules.
With the last of his strength, as the tendrils began to creep toward him again, he reached into his pocket. His trembling fingers closed around the red magic stone. The fire stone.
He didn't just want fire. He wanted restraint. He imagined chains. Chains made of pure, searing, unbreakable fire.
"NOW YOU'LL FEEL IT!" he screamed, his voice raw with blood and hatred.
He raised his hand. A circle of magic, a fierce red-orange color, formed in the air above The Red Leech. From the swirling runes, not fireballs, but six thick chains of fire lashed downward. The chains hissed as they touched the creature's fluid body, steam rising with the odor of burning chemicals. The Red Leech emitted a long 'hiss,' its first sound of pain, as the chains wrapped around its body, tightening, and searing its ever-shifting flesh, forcing it into a single, unyielding form.
The creature was bound, writhing and struggling against its fiery shackles. But it wasn't enough. Devon didn't want to just restrain it. He wanted to obliterate it.
He reached into his other pocket, his hand closing around the pale yellow magic stone. The lightning stone. He felt the wild, untamed energy surge through him. He would be a conduit for a storm.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!" he shrieked, each word a command.
He aimed his other hand at the bound creature. This time, he wouldn't just unleash the lightning. He would connect it. He imagined the fire chains no longer just as shackles, but as conductors.
A jagged, unstable circle of lightning magic formed before his palm.
"YOU'VE ANNOYED ME FOR THE LAST TIME!"
He unleashed everything. A bolt of pure lightning, brighter than the sun, shot from his hand and struck one of the fire chains. Instantly, all the chains blazed with a blinding, white-blue light. Pure electricity, millions of volts, surged through the magical conductors he had created and directly into the heart of The Red Leech's mass.
The world went silent for a split second. Then, the explosion came.
The creature detonated from the inside out. Not an explosion of fire, but an explosion of light and force. Its fluid body vaporized instantly, transforming into a cloud of pink mist that smelled of ozone and burnt sugar. Its final shriek wasn't a sound, but a psychic shockwave that made Devon's teeth rattle.
Silence returned. The fire chains vanished. All that remained where The Red Leech had been was a circle of scorched, blackened grass, and a strange odor in the air.
Devon collapsed backward, gasping for breath, his body a symphony of dull aches from the forced healing. He had won. But the price of that victory was etched into every nerve in his body.
As he lay there, staring up at the indifferent lavender sky, a faint but delicious aroma began to reach his nose, cutting through the stench of battle. It was the aroma of perfectly cooked venison, wafting out from the open door of the cabin. His stew was ready.
With a soft groan, he pushed himself to his feet. He staggered back to the cabin, ignoring the mess in his meadow. He entered, grabbed the largest wooden bowl he could find, and ladled in the rich, steaming venison stew.
He sat on the floor, in the same spot where he had once cleaned his own blood. His back leaned against the wall. He raised the spoon to his lips. He didn't think about the battle. He didn't think about the pain. He didn't think about the horrors of this world.
He only thought about one thing.
He was hungry.
And as he savored the first mouthful of tender, succulent venison, a meal he had won twice over today, he felt nothing but the cold, primal satisfaction of a predator who had successfully defended his territory and was now enjoying the spoils of his hunt.