Night had devoured the forest.
And the fire in the center of the clearing burned weakly, a dying thing struggling against the dark.
Its light reached only far enough to remind me how endless the black beyond was.
Every flicker made the shadows twitch.
Every crackle sounded too loud.
And beyond it all… silence.
That heavy, stretched silence as if the forest itself was holding its breath, waiting to see who would move first.
I sat there, knees pulled up and every muscle in my body tensed as I stared into the fire.
My heart wouldn't quiet down. It kept pounding like it was trying to crawl out of my chest, loud enough to make me think something might hear it.
My shirt was wet with sweat even in the cold.
I didn't blink. I couldn't.
Because the moment I did, I'd start imagining what was standing just outside the light.
The forest wasn't empty. And I could feel that.
Something was out there, several things maybe.
[Come on, man… what happened to your resolve?]
And then…
-Thump.
The sound cut through the silence like a stone dropped into still water.
Not close enough to see what it really was, but close enough to feel the ground trembling faintly beneath me.
I had barely taken a breath when another came.
-Thump.
Then another.
-Thump.
And then,
-Thump.Thump.Thump.
It was then I realised… these were footsteps.
And whatever it was, it was fast.
Whatever it was, it didn't come into the clearing.
Just tore past, maybe twenty meters from the fire.
My fingers dug into the dirt. I couldn't even swallow right.
I knew why it didn't come closer.
Because even I could smell Victor's scent mark, wafting its faint, metallic, and almost sour scent throughout the clearing like an invisible wall.
"…This had better not be pee, old man," I muttered, my voice smaller than I intended, barely audible above the crackle.
My gaze then turned to the faint blue line of the compass bar at the top of my vision.
6.7 KM
That's how far the Wyvern was.
"Reaching it alone…" I whispered, a laugh catching somewhere between my words and breath, "…might be the craziest dare I've ever given myself."
My hand shook as I raised it, watching it tremble in the orange light.
I pressed my other hand over it, gripping tight.
"Not now…" I breathed. "Not ever!"
The wind picked up again, sweeping through the clearing, dragging the fire sideways. The shadows around me crawled and stretched as though reaching back for me.
And in that moment, I realized the true meaning of impossible.
The word lingered in my head.
Impossible.
And yet here I was, sitting in the middle of monster territory, staring at a fire that looked as close to dying as I probably was.
And it all sounded like defeat.
[System… map.]
With a flicker of blue, a satellite view of the forest opened up with my position displayed in a blue arrow.
A small red dot pulsed far off in the corner.
Target: Wyvern, 6.7 kilometres away.
The line between us was jagged, cut by rivers, and a stretch labelled Obsidian Hollow.
"Perfect," I muttered, my voice barely above a whisper yet dripping with apparent sarcasm. "Just what I needed…"
But still, there were three hours, twenty minutes left on the quest completion timer.
I leaned back, letting out a low breath.
"I'd make a great horror story," I said under my breath, half laughing. "Dumb kid walks into the woods for his own approval."
With a final exhale that half sounded like a laugh, I muttered, "System, buy me a mana potion."
-Ding!
{Purchase complete. Item stored in Inventory. Credits left: 18.}
"Now show me your cheapest painkillers…" I said, already knowing how this was gonna go.
No delusions here.
I wasn't walking out of this with just scratches and poetic metaphors.
-Ding!
{
Painkillers (Tablets): A bottle containing five tablets designed to dull the user's pain receptors.
Warning: Inflicts a High. Extremely addictive. Continuous use will reduce effectiveness and increase dependency.
Dosage Limit: Two tablets at a time.
Price: 5 Credits.
}
I huffed out a dry laugh.
"Damn, System… Aren't you a shady little drug dealer? Alright, I'll bite.
-Ding!
{Purchase complete. Item stored in Inventory. Credits left: 12.}
"Alright… now gimme a torch. Or anything that glows that I can afford."
For a second, the system stayed quiet before the next chime.
-Ding!
{
Mana Stone Lantern: A compact lantern powered by a refined mana stone.
Illumination Radius: 10 meters.
Duration: 3 hours per charge.
Price: 10 Credits.
}
"Hmm… works." I nodded to no one in particular. "Purchase away."
-Ding!
{Purchase complete. Item stored in Inventory. Credits left: 2.}
The lantern blinked into my hand, no wider than my palm.
The whole thing was decorated with intricate designs.
Turning the little dial on its base, a soft blue light flared to life inside.
"Good enough." I muttered, hoisting it up toward the dark, "Now all that's left… is growing a damn pair."
I let out a long breath and set the lantern down beside me before getting back on my feet.
My heart still pounded like a caged beast. My shirt was still stuck to my back, drenched with cold sweat.
"Alright…" I muttered, rolling my shoulders, stretching my arms till the joints cracked. "Let's get this over with."
A shimmer of blue light blinked above my palm, and a beat later, a small glass bottle materialized before plopping onto my palm.
I popped the cap, tipped it sideways, and two white tablets clicked into my hand.
And down they went.
No hesitation, no water, just grit, spit, and swallow, tasting its bitterness as it crawled across my tongue, chalky and chemical.
I grimaced, forcing them down, feeling them scrape my throat before disappearing.
"Here's hoping addiction takes its time," I muttered.
I bent and picked up the lantern again and ran my belt through its hook before tightening it until it all fit snug and perfectly balanced.
I watched its blue glow settled around me like mist as I whispered, "That should keep my hands free…"
Then another thought hit me.
"Oh, right. System, buy me a small glass vial."
-Ding!
{Purchase complete. Item stored in Inventory. Credits left: 1.}
The shimmer came again, and a plain vial landed softly in my hand.
"Perfect."
I summoned the mana potion next, before carefully uncorking both bottles.
Steadying my fingers despite the adrenaline buzzing through them, I slide half of the MP Potion into the new vial.
Heh. Sixty-six MP.
A single mana potion gave one hundred MP. While my MP now sat at sixty-six.
I could either divide the potion 60 – 40, giving me a full tank on my first charge.
Or go 50 – 50.
And I chose the latter.
"Efficiency, baby…" I muttered, slipping one veil into my left hand before covering the lid with my thumb.
The other bottle went back into my inventory uncorked.
I wasn't about to fumble with corks mid-battle… again.
Besides, every drop counted now.
And so, with a deep breath that didn't calm a damn thing, I started walking toward the dark.
The lantern's blue light barely reached ten meters ahead, like it too was afraid.
Just a trembling circle of glow trying to hold back an ocean of pitch black darkness.
I stopped for a second at the edge and looked back once.
The fire was still there, small and harmless, and that wafting stench of Victor's make, the only set of proof that safety existed at all.
Then I turned away before I could start convincing myself to stay, as I summoned Laro's sword in my right hand.
And with the vial in my left hand, with thumb sealing the lid … I took that first step.
The air instantly shifted into something much colder.
Step by step, the light pushed forward.
Everything within ten meters looked almost normal. The moss, the bark, the branches overhead. But beyond that?
A void.
A suffocating wall of nothing that swallowed the rest of the world whole.
I kept walking, slow and steady. Each crunch of a twig resounding like gunshots in my ears.
And god, my breath. It felt like listening to someone else breathing in my ear.
And then -
-Thump.
I froze.
Did I imagine that?
-Thump. Thump. Thump.
No. It was real.
"Something's coming…" I whispered before my brain even confirmed it.
And the next moment, those thumps grew sharper.
-Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump! Thump! Thump! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Every hair on my body stood on end. My throat went dry. My lungs forgot how to breathe.
Then-
-Whoosh!
Gone.
The noise vanished like it had never existed.
I stood there shaking, sweat running cold down my temple, my eyes darting through the dark.
And that's when I heard it.
"Arlen…"
My mother's voice called my name from behind, but as though on instinct, my blood froze solid.
Slowly, I turned my head.
And there it was.
A massive, hairless face peeking from behind a tree with skin stretched thin and grey, eye sockets hollow, a maw of jagged teeth, dripping black pus.
It was tall. So tall I had to tilt my head back just to see it.
At least thirty feet.
Its breath steamed in the cold. Its head tilted as though curious.
And then, it spoke in my mother's voice, "Arlen…"
-Ding!
{Advisory: Don't look into its eyes. Run.}
But I already had, and I couldn't move. My knees locked. My lungs forgot how.
The thing tilted its head like it was studying me… and then that grin got wider.
-Ding!
{Host, Run!}
I couldn't.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out. Every cell in my body screamed to move, but nothing listened.
The creature stepped out from behind the tree, its body both thin and impossibly tall, thirty feet of hunger and bone.
Its each movement was too slow, too careful.
Like it wanted me to watch as it spoke once again, "Arlen…"
-Ding!
{RUN!}
And suddenly… something snapped.
My teeth slammed shut hard enough to bite through my tongue, and the pain finally cut the fear clean from my nerves."
And I raised the vial of that mana potion to my mouth and growled -
"No."
And for a heartbeat, everything stopped.
The wind. The trees. Even the dark seemed to hold its breath while the potion's liquid fire hit my throat.
And the next moment - Crack!
Red lightning tore through me.
And the night screamed back.