As several beasts crumpled and fell, Leon stood amidst them, panting heavily. Green sticky liquid clung to him so thickly that it covered his vision so much he brushed his palm across his face before he could see.
He was so tired, body screaming, but something inside him just wouldn't quit. The creatures weren't stopping, so he had to keep going. No other option. No going back. No rest. Not even a second to breathe.
Step by step, he forced himself forward, pushing the lifeless beasts aside and at the same time crashing down others.
He began to feel his heartbeat pulsing in every punch he threw. Each blow doubled the raw, relentless force in him.
Every time a beast howled as it died, it made him feel stronger inside, like a boost. But his body was weakening, draining of energy, about to buckle. But he kept moving.
Wind swept through the canyon kicking dust around him like a spiral veil. The ground shook with a deep rumble that felt like the world was going to break apart. It was so fierce that even some of the creatures freaked out and jumped back.
But Leon wasn't done. He stayed where he was, eyes burning, striking with the very last breath his lungs could give until a twelve-foot spider-ant hybrid loomed before him.
At that instant, his limbs refused to move as his body betrayed him. Then, the creature slammed him into the ground as if he were nothing more than paper.
As he crashed to the mixture of broken glass, spears, metal, and stone debris, everything in hm died as blood gushed from his eye sockets and turned his vision to a red haze.
Pain exploded in him. But his eyes weren't the ones that screamed the loudest. His leg was.
He lay broken in the warm slick of blood seeping out of his torn leg. The beast didn't stop there; it drove its spear-legs deep into his shoulders, into his waist, and dragged him mercilessly across the jagged stone.
A jagged stone caught his back – a fresh, white – hot strip of agony as something tore. Then another scrap, and the fire spread, the feeling of his own skin grating off against the stone.
His jaw locked, teeth grinding so hard he thought they'd crack. His arm, trembling like a plucked wire, fought against the drag.
He managed to curl his fingers in the air, and with a guttural sound ripped from his throat, he swung his fist upward. A wet crack echoed, louder than the stone grinding his bones.
A piercing sound that cut through the roaring in his ears as the creature shrieked. The pressure in his shoulder vanished as the spear-leg impaling him jerked away.
Through a film of blood and sweat, he saw it stumble back. A wet, red smear stretched his lips wide. His chest hitched with something that was part cough and part laugh.
His jaw slackened as his vision swam. But he could still hear the roars and shrieks of the battlefield, though each sound grew dimmer, fading into silence.
His body hummed and trembled against the dirt as the creature continued stamping on his still body with a healed leg.
When the creature finally stopped, he remained there unmoving, dead.
Then, a tiny white glow pierced through his still mind and swallowed him whole.
His eyes cracked open instantly; then, he saw himself standing in an endless plain filled with countless versions of himself and heard them speaking in an alien language that twisted the air.
He spun around in confusion, desperate to understand what was going on, until his eyes caught his very own corpse lying in blood.
Fear surged in him so violently that the other versions shattered into dust one after the other, leaving only one standing before him – the one he saw before his memories returned.
"Why are you here!" it roared in a voice that sounded like a storm of tsunami and lightning, shaking Leon's very form.
The ground quaked with each step it took, causing Leon to stumble back.
Even with the distance between them, the aura it carried crashed into Leon with a weight no book, no memory, and no god had ever described.
"Why didn't I heal like before?" Leon cried, but his own voice echoed back at him, hollow.
Without a mouth chorus of voices erupted from the being. And without eyes, Leon felt a deep gaze clawing at his soul and stripping it apart.
Among the voices, two statements burned into the air – searing in Leon's heart with venomous fear:
"You had three chances. But you wasted them all."
Leon's body turned pale and boney as the words crushed into his ears. His skin wrinkled as his veins collapsed on themselves.
Another question rumbled from the voices: "Allow yourself to undergo the first transformation. Then you can regenerate your body – with mastery over the lost control."
The words dripped like Leon's last fragile hope. He staggered forward, knees collapsing onto the blinding white floor, clasped his hands, and bowed his head, pleading.
Then, another voice thundered pushing Leon back: "You must choose – lose yourself… or lose your loved ones."
The choice pierced him deeper than any wound. Sweat beaded across his still body in the real world.
His mother's face flickered in his mind – weak, blind, and paralyzed. His sister followed – frail, undeserving of this world, yet still fighting. And then his father.
Leon opened his eyes, forced his back straight, and faced the being. "I… choose… to… lose… myself."
The words echoed like thunder, shattering the soul realm around.
"So be it!" the chorus of voices roared, grinning as both the being and the endless plain collapsed into nothingness.
Wind tore across the battlefield again, blasting over Leon's broken body.
A starving wolf-creature prowled closer, jaws parting to sink its teeth into his neck. But before it struck, spiraling light erupted from Leon's body, flinging debris into the air and squeezing more blood as it crushes harder upon him.
His body turned pale as snow, yet he didn't flinch. Didn't move. The wolf crept closer, lowering its jaws – then roared.
The sound tore across the land, shaking and pulling buried stones from the ground. When the roar died, the wolf collapsed.
Leon's right hand full of ichor stood rigid at the point where the creature's head had been. As his arm fell back, two streams of light coiled around his body, knitting his wounds shut.
It mended every gash and puncture – except for the torn leg, which remained untouched. When the last wound sealed, the light exploded outward in a blinding flare.
It burned across the swarm, vaporizing every creature that dared to charge him, leaving nothing but ash where they had once stood.
"This is not the beginning of my journey into the top tier of human awakening, and also not the end."
"My name is Leon Storm… and this is the price of my third death."