Leon couldn't feel his legs.
That was the first coherent thought that managed to form through the white-hot agony. He was lying face-down on the concrete sidewalk, a massive weight pressing down on his back and lower body. Dust filled his nose and mouth. Blood pooled warm beneath him.
He tried to move. Couldn't. The concrete panel had him pinned completely.
Breathing was agony. Each tiny gasp felt like knives sliding between his ribs. Something was broken there. Multiple somethings. His chest wouldn't expand properly. The air he managed to pull in wasn't enough.
Panic clawed at the edges of his mind. He was going to suffocate here. Die slowly under this concrete slab while the sun set and—
No. No, don't panic.
The thought came from somewhere calmer, more rational. Panicking would make him breathe faster. Faster breathing meant more pain, less oxygen actually getting in. Panicking would kill him faster than the injuries would.
Leon forced himself to focus. Small breaths. Just small ones. Don't try to fill his lungs.
He took a tiny sip of air through his nose. The pain was still there, still terrible, but manageable. He held it for a moment, then let it out slowly through his mouth.
Another small breath. Hold. Release.
The panic receded slightly. His mind cleared just a fraction. He could think again, even if every thought had to swim through an ocean of pain.
His right leg was definitely broken. He could feel it—the wrongness of bone fragments grinding where they shouldn't be. His ribs were cracked, multiple fractures from the impact. Blood was running down his face from a cut somewhere on his scalp. More blood from somewhere on his side, soaking into his shirt.
This was bad. Really bad.
Where were people? Someone had to have heard the collapse. Someone would call for help.
He just had to stay alive until they arrived.
Small breath in. Hold. Slow breath out.
His heart was hammering in his chest, trying to compensate for blood loss, for shock, for trauma. Too fast. That wasn't good either. Fast heartbeat meant faster bleeding.
Small breath in. Hold. Slow breath out.
Leon fell into the rhythm without meaning to. His body searching for anything that hurt less, any pattern that gave him a fraction more air. The breathing became automatic. Steady. Controlled.
In through the nose, two counts. Hold for two. Out through the mouth, two counts. Pause for two.
Then something strange happened.
His racing heart began to slow. Not dangerously slow, but steadier. Calmer. Like his body was responding to the breathing pattern, synchronizing with it.
The panic faded further. The pain was still there—God, it was still there—but it became distant. Observable. Like it was happening to someone else and he was just watching.
In. Hold. Out. Pause.
His nervous system was doing something weird. Leon could feel it, even if he couldn't explain it. The part of him that should be screaming fight-or-flight was quieting down. And the part that should be saying rest-and-digest was humming along peacefully despite the trauma.
Both systems. Running at the same time. Overlapping.
How was that possible?
In. Hold. Out. Pause.
Warmth bloomed in his chest. Not painful warmth, not the heat of inflammation. Something else. Something that felt almost comfortable despite everything.
Leon noticed it immediately. This was wrong. No, not wrong—different. Abnormal. He needed to pay attention to this.
He kept breathing in the same pattern, desperate not to lose whatever was happening. The warmth spread outward from his core, moving through his torso, down his arms, into his legs.
And with the warmth came something else. A sensation he had no name for. Like hot and cold at the same time. Like liquid light flowing into him with each breath. Coming from the air itself, or from somewhere beyond the air.
Energy.
He could feel it entering his body, moving through him, spreading through tissues and bones and blood.
In. Hold. Out. Pause.
More energy flowed in. His body pulled at it hungrily, drawing it in faster. The warmth intensified, becoming almost electric.
Time seemed to slow down. Each heartbeat took forever. Each breath lasted an eternity. Leon existed in the spaces between moments, feeling this strange energy saturate his body.
And then something broke.
Not his body. Something deeper. Something buried in his genes, in the very blueprint of what he was.
It felt like a dam shattering. Like a sealed door being torn from its hinges. Like a lock that had been fastened his entire life suddenly snapping open.
Energy flooded him.
Not the gentle trickle from before. This was a deluge. A tsunami of pure force that poured into every cell, every molecule, every atom of his being.
His injuries began to heal.
Leon could feel it happening. Broken bones grinding back into alignment. Torn blood vessels sealing themselves. Fractured ribs knitting together. The energy flowed into the damaged areas and simply fixed them, rebuilding tissue at a speed that should have been impossible.
But it wasn't just healing. The energy was integrating with him. Becoming part of him.
It merged with his cells, enhancing them, strengthening them. It flowed through his muscles, making them denser. It saturated his blood cells, his blood vessels, his organs. His bones absorbed it, becoming harder than they'd ever been. Even his eyes—he could feel the energy seeping into them, changing them in ways he couldn't comprehend.
Every single part of his body was being transformed on a fundamental level.
The pain faded. Not disappeared, but pushed aside as his body frantically worked to repair itself.
And then his vision exploded with light.
Golden light. Brilliant and warm and overwhelming. It surrounded him, filled him, poured through him like he was transparent.
Leon saw—or felt, or knew—something vast beyond comprehension. A tree. Impossibly large, impossibly ancient. Its roots reached down through infinite layers of reality. Its branches spread across infinite space. And every leaf, every tiny part of it, pulsed with the same golden energy that was currently remaking his body.
The World Tree.
He didn't know how he knew that name. But he knew it with absolute certainty. This was the source. The origin. The fundamental connection between all living things.
And he had just tapped into it.
"What was that...?"
The thought barely formed before a new sensation overwhelmed him. His consciousness was rising. Elevating. Expanding beyond the boundaries of his skull.
The energy was flooding his brain now. Integrating with every neuron, every synapse, every neural pathway. Not just healing or strengthening—transforming. His brain cells were multiplying, rewiring, becoming something more than they'd been.
Information poured in. Understanding. Knowledge. Not specific facts, but deeper comprehension. Like the structure of reality itself was being explained to him in a language beyond words.
It was too much. Too fast. Too intense.
Leon's consciousness couldn't handle it. His mind, still human despite the changes, simply shut down to protect itself.
The golden light faded.
The sensation of the World Tree vanished.
Darkness took him, and Leon knew nothing at all.