The first rule of the Dead Zone was simple: The ground is hungry.
Draven learned this four hours after leaving the camp. He hadn't encountered an enemy patrol or a monster yet. He had encountered mud. But not the churned, brown mud of the trenches. This was black, sticky mire that seemed to pulse faintly with a cold heat. It clung to his boots like tar, dragging him down, making every step a negotiation with the earth.
He was perched in the crook of a massive, gnarled oak tree, twenty feet off the ground. Below him, the forest floor was a graveyard of previous wars. Rusted helmets half-buried in the roots. Bones that had been picked clean by scavengers so thoroughly that they gleamed white in the gloom.
Draven took a sip from his waterskin. The water tasted metallic. He checked the compass Captain Harth had given him. The needle spun lazily, refusing to settle North. Magic interference, Draven thought. The mana density here is higher.
In the camp, the air had been stale with sweat and smoke. Here, the air was sharp, electric. It prickled against his skin like static electricity, removing the filter that usually dulled a man's senses. He could smell the ozone in the wind. He could hear the sap moving in the trees.
Crack.
A twig snapped. Draven didn't flinch. He froze. He became part of the bark. Below, from the dense undergrowth of ferns, a shape emerged.
It wasn't a wolf. It wasn't a man. It was a Boar, but twisted by the ambient mana of the Dead Zone. It was the size of a pony, its fur matted with dried mud and bone shards. But the most terrifying part was its tusks. They weren't ivory. They were jagged, crystalline protrusions that glowed with a faint, sickly green light.
Draven tightened his grip on the spear. A normal boar would charge blindly. A mana-beast? He didn't know. He was stronger than a normal soldier now, but against a beast of this mass? If that thing hit him, his ribs would turn to powder.
He didn't jump down. That would be suicide. He had to use the terrain.
Draven unhooked the heavy wool cloak he had stolen. He bunched it up into a ball. He waited until the boar was sniffing the base of the tree. Then, he threw the cloak to the far side of the clearing.
Thump.
The boar whipped around with terrifying speed. It let out a guttural squeal and charged the cloak, its crystal tusks tearing up the earth as it accelerated.
Draven dropped.
He fell twenty feet. Gravity was his weapon. He didn't aim for the head—the skull would be too thick. He aimed for the spine, just behind the shoulder blades.
He landed hard. The impact jarred his teeth, sending a shockwave through his injured shoulder. But the spear struck true.
CRACK.
The iron tip punched through the thick hide, driven by the velocity of the fall. It sank deep into the beast's back. The boar screamed—a sound that was half animal, half grinding stone.
It bucked violently. Draven tried to hold on, but the force was overwhelming. He was thrown off, crashing into the mud. His spear remained stuck in the beast's spine.
"Damn it," Draven hissed, scrambling to his feet.
The boar turned. It was bleeding black blood, its back legs dragging slightly, paralyzed. But its front legs were massive, churning the earth. Its eyes burned with red madness. It didn't care about pain. It only wanted to kill.
It charged.
Without his spear, Draven had only the rusted dagger. Range: Zero. He had to get inside the reach of those glowing tusks.
The boar closed the distance in a heartbeat. Draven didn't dodge sideways; the boar's neck sweep would catch him. He waited until the last possible second. His muscles coiled, screaming for release.
He jumped over the tusks.
It was a gamble. A moment of pure insanity. He planted one foot on the boar's snout as it lowered its head to gore him, and vaulted. He wasn't an acrobat. He was clumsy. He slipped on the wet snout. One of the crystal tusks grazed his calf, slicing through the leather boot like it was paper.
Draven crashed onto the boar's back, grabbing the shaft of his stuck spear with both hands. The beast thrashed, slamming its side against a tree to dislodge him. Draven's ribs screamed. The air was knocked out of his lungs. He tasted blood.
Push.
He roared, not a word, but a primal sound. He wrenched the spear, not trying to pull it out, but to twist it inside. To sever the cord. The boar slammed him against the tree again. His vision blurred. Twist.
SNAP.
The beast went rigid. Then, it collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. Draven fell with it, trapped under its massive bulk. Silence returned to the forest.
Draven lay there for a long minute, just breathing. The smell of the beast was overpowering—musk and ozone. He wiggled his leg free. The cut on his calf was burning. Mana poisoning? Maybe.
[+1 Strength]
Draven closed his eyes and felt the warmth spread through his chest. It was a familiar sensation now—the sudden tightening of fibers, the surge of new power replacing the fatigue.
He pushed the heavy carcass off his legs with a grunt. It felt... lighter. Not light, but manageable. He stood up, limping slightly. He retrieved his spear, wiping the black gore on the grass. Then, he looked at the beast. Food.
He used the dagger to carve a slab of meat from the flank, avoiding the glowing green veins. He didn't have a fire—fire attracted unwanted attention. He looked at the raw meat. He hesitated. Then, he remembered the taste of the mud in the trench. He remembered the look in the Cleaners' eyes.
He took a bite. It was tough, gamey, and tasted faintly of copper. But his stomach didn't reject it.
[ Consumable Ingested: Mana-infused Flesh ] [ Trace amounts of Will residue detected. Body adapting... ]
Draven paused mid-chew. Will residue? He looked at the meat again. So that was the secret. The beasts here absorbed the mana. If he ate them... could he speed up the process?
He ate another bite. And another.
Night fell quickly in the Dead Zone. Draven found a small hollow beneath the roots of a fallen giant redwood. It was damp, but hidden. He camouflaged the entrance with ferns and dead branches.
He sat in the dark, listening to the forest wake up. Howls. Distant screeches. The thumping of things that were too big to be natural. He was a flea in a kennel of wolves.
The cut on his calf was itching furiously. He poured some of the metallic water on it and wrapped it with a strip of cloth from his old tunic. It wasn't healing instantly, but he could feel his skin knitting together with a stubborn, mechanical efficiency. His body was learning to prioritize survival over comfort.
"Day one," he whispered to himself.
He wasn't dead. That was a victory. But he couldn't just survive. He needed to hunt more. The boar had been a brute. It had power, but no technique. It had almost killed him with sheer mass. He needed to be smarter.
Draven closed his eyes, but he didn't sleep deep. He drifted in that grey area between wakefulness and rest, his hand wrapped around the shaft of his spear. Sometime past midnight, his eyes snapped open.
A sensation prickled at the base of his skull. Not a beast. The rhythm of the footsteps was different. Bipedal. Two legs. Clink. Clink. Metal hitting stone. Soft, but present.
Draven held his breath. Through the gaps in the roots, he saw a faint light moving through the trees about fifty meters away. A pale blue glow. Not a torch. A magelight.
A figure walked into the clearing where Draven had killed the boar. It was wearing robes, tattered and grey. It held a staff tipped with a glowing crystal. A Mage? Here? Alone?
The figure stopped at the carcass of the boar. It knelt down, examining the butchered flank. "Crude," a voice drifted on the wind. "Very crude."
Draven's heart hammered against his ribs. The figure stood up and looked around. The magelight flared brighter, casting long, dancing shadows against the trees. "Come out, little rat," the Mage said. "I can smell the blood on you."
Draven didn't move. Mages were the artillery of this world. Even a weak initiate could turn a man to ash from a distance. But this one... this one was alone. And looking for tracks.
Enemy scout? Or a rogue like me?
The Mage turned, the light sweeping toward Draven's hiding spot. Draven gripped his spear. The boar had been a test of strength. This... this would be a test of cunning.
The light passed over his hiding spot. The Mage paused. Then, he moved on, turning West.
Draven let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He waited ten minutes. Then twenty. Then, he crawled out of his hole.
He didn't run away from the Mage. He looked at the muddy footprints glowing faintly with mana residue. If the Mage was here, he was hunting something. Or guarding something. And Draven needed whatever power that Mage had.
Draven Velor, the Anomaly, looked at the tracks. And began to follow.