_BOOOOOM!
The roar of an explosion thundered across the land, echoing for miles.
"WH… GOI… HOW… HAPPEN…!!"
Faint whispers reached Roy's ears along with a strange mechanical voice.
[Synchronizing… (10%)]
The noise sharpened bit by bit.
"EVERYONE!! THE BRIDGE IS BROKEN!" someone shouted.
"SOMEBODY STOP THE BLOODY TRAIN!!"
[Synchronizing… (20%)]
"IT'S TOO LATE! PROTECT THE YOUNG MISS!!" another voice bellowed.
His senses began to return.
'What!? What's going on?'
"Boy, this way!" Someone grabbed his arm and dragged him along.
[Synchronizing… (40%)]
His vision cleared, revealing a man with red hair and green eyes, gripping him firmly.
Roy's gaze drifted forward, and what he saw froze him in place.
A wide river cut through the land below, forests rising on either side.
_TOO! TOO!
The floor rattled beneath him. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that he was standing in the doorway of a moving train.
Startled, he tried to step back. But his body refused to obey, as if it no longer belonged to him.
'WHAT THE HELL!?'
"Boy, hold on to me tightly. We're going to jump."
'We're going to… what?' Roy tried to speak, but no sound came out of his mouth.
"Now, here we go." The man's voice was low and steady as he bent his knees, ready to leap.
'Wait! No, what the hel-'
He didn't get to finish the thought. The man held him tightly and hurled them both off the train, straight into the air.
'YOU MOTHERF**ER!' Roy screamed in his head.
The sound of rending metal followed them as the train collapsed behind. For a moment, he felt weightless, the wind roaring in his ears, his stomach twisting as the black ocean rushed to meet him.
He looked back. The train was falling, cars breaking away, windows bursting, guards in similar uniforms leaping after them.
_BOOOOOM!
The train crashed into the sea with a thunderous boom. Water exploded upward like a wall, swallowing everything.
Roy didn't even have time to breathe. Somewhere during the fall, the man had released him. Now, underwater, Roy's eyes widened as he saw the man's body drifting beside him, an arrow buried deep in his neck.
One thought crossed his mind. 'Ah… I'm screwed.'
His body wouldn't move. It sank like a stone, dragged down into the endless dark.
'What is this? Am I really dying a second time? Was the first not humiliating enough? I don't think I've sinned badly enough for this kind of punishment…'
He tried to clench his fist. This time, his fingers twitched.
Then he noticed a section of the train, torn apart in the fall, drifting straight toward him. Panic shot through him.
'MOVE! MOVE, YOU PIECE OF CRAP! MOVE!'
[Synchronizing… (60%)]
At last, with painful effort, his limbs responded. He could move again.
'YES!! FINALLY!'
Without wasting a second, he began to swim, narrowly dodging the train's section. But instead of heading straight for the surface, he loosened his body and let the current pull him along.
The others who had survived the fall seemed to think the same way. One by one, they drifted toward the riverbank beneath the broken bridge, staying underwater as long as they could.
When they neared the shore, they finally surfaced, gasping for breath before dragging themselves out of the water.
Roy didn't follow. He kept drifting, letting the river carry him farther downstream.
After putting some distance between himself and the others, he pulled off his shirt and let it drift on the surface. When no arrow came flying at it, he finally decided it was safe enough to rise.
He still waited for a few seconds.
Only when he judged it safe did he break the surface carefully, before making his way toward the shore.
After getting out, he sat on the ground, leaning against a rock, trying to catch his breath.
Finally, with some time to think, he tried to understand the current situation.
But nothing made any sense. He was supposed to be dead in that dead zone, turned into jagged crystals.
He carefully looked around, finding only tall trees and a quiet forest. It was nothing like that haunting dead zone.
'Just what is going on?'
Frustrated, he slammed his hand against the ground and felt something different.
Only then did he realize how light his body was. He looked at his hand, and his eyes went wide. They were far too smooth and a bit smaller than they should be.
He quickly tried to channel mana across his body.
'Gone! It's gone?!'
But the pain he was expecting from his fractured mana core didn't come.
Startled, he quickly leapt to the shore, checked his reflection, and froze at what he saw.
In the clear river water, the face reflected was not his.
Deep red eyes, black hair, sharp features, and an oval face that was definitely above average.
A face that belonged to a teenager.
[Synchronizing… (70%)]
[Integrating the core with void body…]
The strange mechanical sound rang out again, but Roy was too shocked to pay any attention to it.
'Who is this?'
Suddenly, a sharp pain coursed through his whole body.
"AGHH!!"
An agonizing groan escaped his mouth. He was familiar with this pain; it was the same pain he felt when he had forcefully tried to integrate the SS-rank core with his body last time.
'Why is this happening?'
There were many confusing things right now, but Roy didn't have time to focus on them all.
'Okay, one problem at a time.'
He quickly sat cross-legged, trying to resonate his mana core with the new core.
This step was important: to absorb a new core, he needed to shatter his previous one, match the frequency of the new core, and slowly merge the shattered pieces with it.
That was the method the old man had taught him. Last time, he failed because his previous core could never match the frequency of the SS-rank core.
And the result would be the same even if this core didn't match it.
Roy needed to be extra careful. So, he slowly started to channel mana in and out of his body. And one thing he noticed was…
There was no core in this body.
"What the hell!"