The portal peeled open with a hiss of light, spilling a figure onto the stone floor.
Eron stumbled forward, boots scraping against the cavern rock. His hiking backpack swung loosely on one shoulder, straps frayed and fabric scorched as if dragged through storms of fire. Ash clung stubbornly to the seams. It sagged almost empty, reduced to a faint rattle of metal and scraps inside.
His clothes fared no better. Jacket half-blackened, sleeves in tatters, pants ripped at the knees. Boots cracked and half-melted, threatening to fall apart with every step. He looked like a man who had walked through two decades of war. Burned and battered. And yet, his eyes had changed.
No longer wide with fear. Sharp, steady, hardened with weight that belied his years.
The portal sealed behind him, silence of the cavern rushing back in. But for Eron, another silence still rang in his ears.
---
White. Endless white.
At first, the void had nearly driven him insane.
He had screamed until his throat cracked raw, fists bruised from pounding the ground. He walked in one direction for what felt like days, only to find the same blank horizon stretching forever. There was no sky, no stars, no sun. Just pale nothing, and the suffocating knowledge that he was trapped.
His backpack had been his only comfort. Stove, tarp, kettle, packets of food—none of it spoiled, yet none of it was needed. In that place, hunger never came. The chronomagic sustained his body.
And yet, sometimes, he still ate. Not for survival. Out of memory. To chew stale rations, to sip lukewarm water, was to remind himself: I'm alive. I still exist.
But the silence pressed on. The void never answered.
Then came the fire.
It began pitifully, tiny sparks that fizzled before leaving his palm. He scorched his arms, his clothes, the ground itself until it blackened. Smoke clung to his lungs, never dispersing.
Dozens became hundreds. Hundreds became thousands.
He failed until numbers lost meaning. He wept, he cursed, he collapsed, but always rose again.
An ember became a flame. The flame grew to a torch. The torch to a sphere the size of his fist.
And larger.
And brighter.
Each time, the Pocket obeyed too easily. The fire bloomed without resistance, as if the air itself was hollow, waiting to be filled. He noticed it, the strange muteness of power in that place. The void never pushed back. Mana flowed like water into a bottomless well.
Twenty years of endless practice honed that pathetic spark into something else entirely.
---
Now, time resumed.
The serpent loomed exactly where it had been, fangs gleaming, maw wide, tongue snapping forward. Its massive coils rippled across the cavern floor. Water droplets, once frozen in midair, now fell and splashed into the black lake.
But Eron did not flinch.
His hand rose slowly. Sparks danced at his fingertips, steady, obedient, as if waiting for command. His voice cut through the cavern, low and unshaken.
"Fireball… Number 1 Big Boom."
The serpent's pupils narrowed.
Mana erupted outward. A sphere of flame surged into being, swelling to the size of a boulder. Its core burned white-orange, its surface swirling with molten arcs of red plasma. The cavern air screamed as it superheated, cracks spiderwebbing across the walls.
The fireball launched.
It struck the serpent's skull head-on.
BOOOOM.
The explosion tore the world apart.
A shockwave roared across the lake, flattening waves into walls of steam. Water nearest the blast boiled instantly, vanishing in clouds that scalded the ceiling. Rock shattered, fragments exploding outward like shrapnel. Molten fissures opened beneath Eron's boots, glowing veins splitting the floor.
The serpent shrieked, scales blackening and splitting as fire consumed its flesh. Its massive body thrashed violently, smashing against the cavern walls, only to collapse back into the inferno swallowing its head whole. Its scream died, drowned by the roar of flames.
Heat poured through every crevice. Shadows fled. The cavern glowed orange. The lake bulged upward, swelled from pressure, then crashed down in waves that slapped violently against the stone.
The blast was merciless.
And then recoil struck.
The shockwave slammed into Eron's chest like a hammer. He hadn't braced, not here, not in reality. The force hurled him backward, boots skidding before his back cracked against the cavern wall. Jagged rock dug into his shoulders, the impact rattling his ribs. Vision spun, ears rang, lungs struggled for air.
Inside the Pocket, Fireball No. 1 had felt controlled. Contained. Dreamlike, its shockwave muted.
Here, the world fought back.
Here, the fire screamed. The explosion crushed. Mana ripped through air and stone with a weight the void had never shown.
Eron coughed violently, soot filling his mouth. He dragged himself upright, one arm trembling against the wall. Smoke clung to his scorched sleeve, his hair singed at the edges.
"Fvck—" He spat, coughing harder, chest burning. "Cough—dammit… didn't adjust the mana. Way too much."
The cavern stank of charred flesh and blood. The serpent floated limply, its ruined head steaming in the boiling lake. For a moment, its body twitched once before sinking deeper, swallowed by waves of ash and steam. Eron's fist clenched reflexively, ready for another strike, but silence held.
He staggered forward. The floor cracked beneath his boots, glowing faintly from molten veins. His body ached, but his hand still burned. Sparks flickered stubbornly across his fingertips, refusing to die.
His lungs rasped, but his eyes burned with the same fire he had unleashed.
"Number One… works," he muttered hoarsely, staring at the ruin he had wrought.
His body hadn't aged a day, but his mind carried twenty years of smoke, fire, and silence.
For the first time in two decades, though only seconds had passed in this world, Eron allowed himself a thin, exhausted smile.