After formulating his plan, Lennon felt the heavy presence of the guardian approaching.
"Perfect timing! " – he thought, clenching his fists.
Chains appeared around his arms and legs, tightening like living shackles. The guardian materialized before him, an imposing shadow that filled the entire cell.
Before he could be silenced, Lennon tried to take the initiative:
"Guardian, I have a—!"
He didn't finish. The scythe appeared in the creature's hands, black and colossal, cutting the air with violent force. The impact struck Lennon's chest, smashing him against the stone wall. Air escaped his lungs in a stifled groan.
Breathless and incredulous, he heard the guardian's deep, metallic voice echo:
"You know what happens when a rule is broken! Now you shall die."
Blood ran cold in his veins. Speaking to him seemed nearly impossible… but Lennon didn't back down. Fear burned inside him, mingled with fury.
"I WANT TO BE AN ADAPTED!" – he shouted, even as the blade hovered, ready to split him in two.
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating. The scythe froze millimeters from his flesh. Lennon's heart seemed ready to leap from his chest.
The chains vibrated as if echoing the tension of the moment. The guardian, motionless, the scythe poised mere centimeters from tearing Lennon apart, tilted his head slowly, empty eyes burning with a dark gleam.
The silence pressed down. Lennon's heart hammered in his chest like a war drum.
Then the guardian's deep, metallic voice resonated in the cell:
"Request accepted."
The scythe vanished like smoke. The chains tightened further, burning Lennon's skin as if marking his choice. The ground beneath his feet trembled, the entire cell seeming to warp, and he understood: there was no turning back.
The guardian stepped back, watching him like a predator observing a newly cornered prey:
"Forgotten 666, from now on, you are an Adapted. May your hunt never end…"
The chains pulled Lennon into darkness, dragging him toward the Eternal Hunting Arena.
Lennon awakened as if emerging from a deep, heavy sleep. His eyes shot open in shock – panic consuming him.
The world spun. There was no up or down, only a whirl of distorted colors and a void in his stomach.
When his senses reorganized, the only certainty was that he was falling.
Below, a sea of tree canopies stretched as far as the eye could see, a sickly, pulsating green promising nothing but more danger.
"I will never get used to entering the arena like this…! I'm going to die again, for sure!"
The wind howled in his ears, crushing his body like an invisible fist.
The fear was not only of impact – it was of what repeated death did to the soul.
Each time, a part of him shattered, dissolving like sand blown by the wind.
He covered his face with his arms, refusing to witness his own destruction again.
But the shock didn't come.
Instead, the ground swallowed him. He was drawn into a living mass of mud, sand, and surrounding trees, as if the earth itself were a dark, viscous sea, pulling him into the depths of an even stranger world.
Eyes shut tight, Lennon swam desperately upward, feeling his heavy body dragged down by the living mud. The book, in his mind, gave him clarity: he knew where he was.
Forest Land Sea.
The forests of the hunting arena – where the ground was no more than a muddy ocean and colossal trees rose like columns, rooted deep in this dense earth-sea. A hellish habitat, home to monsters of every kind.
With one final effort, he broke the surface. Air rushed into his lungs like fire.
His hands grasped the wet trunk of a colossal tree, and he climbed with rage, each pull an act of survival. Sweat and mud ran, but Lennon did not relent until he flung himself onto a high branch, panting like a cornered animal.
His chest rose and fell in a frantic rhythm. The strength he had summoned was absurd; the Lennon from before would have died here, without a chance.
He spat mud and shouted into the void of the forest:
"Damned demons! You won't kill me so easily!"
Lennon forced himself to catch his breath, but his mind was already racing.
He returned to his original plan: collect stones and monster parts for the seed-planting rituals.
He even laughed at himself, bitterly ironic.
"Even with this damn IQ, I stumble on the basics. If I try to hunt everything at once, I'll end up with no focus at all."
He decided to start with the Rite of the Hunger of Voices and Echoes.
Thanks to the guide-book, he knew every detail: he needed three vocal cords from Black-Clay bats and three ear ossicles from Stridulous Amphibians. Without the book, he wouldn't even know what to look for – the names would be faceless nightmares.
The Forest Land Sea stretched beneath him like a monstrous jungle.
It was a distorted reflection of the world of the forgotten, a cruel replica of Earth: here, there were no herbivores. Every creature was carnivorous, predatory, shaped to hunt and tear apart.
The larger fed on the smaller, and the cycle was only blood and flesh.
From the treetop, Lennon narrowed his eyes, alert for any sign of movement. Silence was treacherous – the forest breathed as if hiding something.
Then, his prisoner-guide pulsed, vibrating in his mind.
A message appeared before his eyes.
Lennon held his breath.
"What…?"
The content struck him immediately.
The words burned in his vision, not as a message, but as a sentence.
[Adapted]
[Active Service Time: 00:00:01:20…21…22…23…]
[…AND COUNTING]