A seventeen-year-old boy lay sprawled across a cluster of shattered trees.
The trunks were split and crushed beneath his body, as if he had slammed into them with violent force. He lay on his back, motionless. A thin trail of blood slipped from the corner of his lips, and yet he wore a crooked, clearly sarcastic smile, aimed at the gray sky stretching over the swamp.
His breathing was uneven.
At the center of his chest was a large, dark bruise, the skin swollen and purplish, as if something large and heavy had struck him directly, without holding back its strength.
He let out a short breath.
"Wow…" he murmured, the smile never fading. "That hurt."
Eryon remembered how he had ended up in this state.
He had been walking for quite some time toward the point he had seen from above. The terrain hadn't improved. The swamp remained dense and hostile, and it didn't take long for creatures to appear.
Some attacked him along the way.
Strange, deformed animals emerged from the water or from among the rotting trees. Eryon fought without lingering. Not every battle was clean, but none of them posed a real threat.
At one point, he even ran into a black salamander with red patches—the same species that had attacked him when he first woke up in the swamp.
He recognized it immediately.
He didn't hesitate.
He used his new strength without restraint. The fight was brief, though not entirely easy. The creature was tough and violent, but Eryon ultimately overpowered it. He didn't just kill it quickly—he unleashed his pent-up rage until it stopped moving.
Then he kept going.
The real problem came later.
Through the swamp's mist, a red serpent appeared—so large that its body rose higher than the trees. Its mere presence crushed the vegetation around it.
Eryon stopped, and for a moment, he thought he could kill it.
The confidence he had built up, combined with his newfound strength, led him to make the mistake of trying to face it head-on.
The serpent didn't give him the chance.
With a single sweep of its tail, it struck him squarely.
He was sent flying through the air like a rag doll. The impact against the trees was brutal, snapping trunks and branches until his body finally came to rest among the wreckage.
As he lay there, his chest burning from the blow, one thing became painfully clear.
If he hadn't been under the effect of Transcendent Physique, that attack would have killed him.
With difficulty, he pushed himself to his feet.
The pain in his chest was still there—dull and heavy—but his legs held. He leaned briefly against a split trunk and, as he caught his breath, opened the status window almost by reflex.
The information appeared immediately.
HP: 356 / 2500
Mana: 232 / 400
Eryon frowned.
He stared at his health value. Only then did he understand how close he had come to dying. A single strike from that serpent had reduced his life to a tiny fraction. There was no room for error.
He also noticed that his health was slowly increasing—one point per second—thanks to the effect of Transcendent Physique. It was steady. Regular.
But insufficient.
He did a quick calculation.
By the time the effect ended, he would have recovered barely two hundred and thirty health points—a ridiculous amount compared to the damage he had just taken.
"Tch…" he clicked his tongue.
He closed the window.
That was when he saw it.
In the distance, between shattered trees and the low swamp fog, something moved. A massive red body slid forward, crushing the ground as it approached with unsettling calm.
The serpent.
Eryon clenched his teeth.
He looked around, trying to get his bearings.
He searched for the direction he had been walking before—the distant point he had taken as a reference—but the landscape was unrecognizable. Broken trees, crushed trunks, deep gouges in the ground. The chaos of the swamp had erased any clear trace.
There was no time to think.
He turned and ran in the first open direction he could find. Taking advantage of Transcendent Physique still being active, he fled at full speed.
Behind him, the serpent moved immediately.
Its gigantic body slid through the mud at a speed that didn't match its size. Each movement made the ground tremble, trees breaking in its wake. The distance between them didn't clearly increase.
Eryon ran for a long time.
He leapt over roots, dodged deep pools, and pushed through areas where the water reached his knees. As he ran, he opened a small window to monitor his mana.
The number dropped without pause.
100…
80…
65…
When he saw that only 50 mana points remained, a knot formed in his stomach.
The serpent was still behind him.
Now he was truly worried.
He knew what would happen when the skill deactivated. He had felt it before. His body would become heavy, sluggish, as if invisible chains had been wrapped around him. Without mana, he wouldn't have the speed to escape.
And if the serpent caught him in that state…
He didn't need to finish the thought.
Cold sweat running down his back, he kept running as his mana ticked down second by second, fully aware that time was against him.
The pace was starting to wear on him, but he didn't slow down. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something to his right.
A gigantic tree.
Its trunk was so wide and tall that it was strange he hadn't noticed it earlier. It towered above the rest, thick branches disappearing into the mist. Eryon didn't stop to think.
It didn't matter.
It could be his way out.
He changed direction and ran toward the tree with what little strength he had left. When he reached it, he jumped and grabbed onto one of the lower branches. The wood creaked, but held. Without wasting time, he began to climb, using arms and legs, leaping from branch to branch with clumsy but rapid movements.
He climbed as high as he could.
Then, all at once, he felt it. His body grew heavy, his muscles stopped responding as easily, and his breathing turned uneven. His mana was gone.
Eryon froze, clinging to a thick branch, gasping. His chest burned and his arms trembled, but he had climbed high enough.
It took him a few seconds to catch his breath.
Then he looked down.
Only then did he realize how high he was. The swamp looked distant, and the tree rose far above the surrounding ground.
The giant serpent was there.
It moved slowly around the trunk, lifting its head, searching. For a moment, it tried to circle the tree, even raising part of its body as if to climb—but it couldn't. After several seconds, it lashed its tail against the trunk in frustration, with no effect.
Finally, it retreated.
Sliding between the trees, it disappeared into the swamp's mist, clearly irritated.
From that height, its size looked… different.
Almost like a normal snake.
Eryon leaned against the branch, closed his eyes for a moment, and let out the breath he had been holding.
He had barely survived.