The sun didn't so much set as it dissolved, bleeding into a bruised, electric purple that turned the forest into a landscape of velvet and neon.
Fredrik didn't stop moving. In the trenches, "stationary" was a synonym for "target." He pushed through the waist-high violet grass, his eyes constantly flicking between the physical shadows and the shimmering gold of the System's HUD.
The forest was eerily quiet. For three hours, he tracked a jagged heading northward, his hand never leaving the grip of his .45. He passed trees that looked like petrified lightning and streams of liquid silver that hummed with a low-frequency vibration.
[SENSORY RADIUS: 15 METERS]
[THREAT DETECTION: NEGATIVE]
"Too quiet," Fredrik muttered.
It was a soldier's instinct. In a jungle this lush, there should have been the chatter of birds, the rustle of small prey. Instead, there was a heavy, suffocating stillness. The forest was holding its breath.
As the temperature dropped, Fredrik felt the first real bite of the Nexus's climate. His charcoal-gray wool tunic, designed for the damp mud of Europe, was a poor match for the thin, ozone-heavy chill here. It was beginning to fray at the cuffs, the fibers weakened by the strange atmospheric pressure.
He needed a hole. A defensible position where he could put his back to a wall.
He found it near a cluster of white-barked giants. A massive root system had buckled upward, creating a natural cavern. But as he approached, the HUD flared a sharp, warning amber.
[WARNING: OCCUPIED TERRITORY]
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: CLASS I - BURROW-SKULKER]
A low, wet growl vibrated from the dark hollow. Out of the shadows crawled a creature that looked like a cross between a badger and a jagged shard of flint. Its skin was a series of overlapping gray plates, and its eyes were small, red pinpricks of pure aggression.
Fredrik didn't want to waste the lead, but the Skulker lunged with a speed that defied its squat frame. He stepped to the left—a tight, professional pivot—and brought the butt of the .45 down on the creature's armored head.
The crack of bone and plate echoed through the trees. The Skulker hissed, snapping its mandibles inches from his thigh.
"My house now," Fredrik rasped.
He didn't fire. Instead, he drew his combat knife—a heavy, serrated blade of blackened steel. He waited for the next lunge, caught the creature's throat in a precise, brutal arc, and twisted.
The Skulker went limp.
[TARGET NEUTRALIZED]
[RECOVERY: 0.1% ARCANUM]
Fredrik dragged the carcass into the hollow. He wasn't throwing this away. His stomach had been cramping for the last hour, a hollow, gnawing ache that reminded him his last meal had been a handful of dry oats in a trench three lifetimes ago.
He reached into his tactical vest and pulled out his final emergency ration: a single, rock-hard biscuit of British-issue hardtack and a small, dented tin of corned beef. He stared at them. This was the last of the "Old World." Once this was gone, he was truly at the mercy of the Nexus.
He ate half the biscuit, the dry flour sticking to the roof of his mouth. He chased it with a measured swallow from his canteen, then looked at the Skulker.
"System," he whispered. "Scan for toxicity."
A thin blue light swept over the dead creature.
[BIOLOGICAL COMPATIBILITY: 82%]
[ANALYSIS: HIGH PROTEIN / HIGH ARCANUM DENSITY]
[WARNING: RAW CONSUMPTION POSES PARASITIC RISK. ACTIVATE BIOTIC FILTER?]
"Activate," Fredrik grunted.
He used his knife to peel back a section of the flint-like hide. The meat beneath was a deep, translucent purple, smelling faintly of copper and pine. He cut a thin strip and put it in his mouth.
Immediately, a sharp, electric tingle erupted on his tongue. It felt like chewing on a live wire. The System was working, its invisible nanites or magical equivalent neutralizing the alien pathogens before they could cross his throat. The taste was wretched—bitter and metallic—but as the meat hit his stomach, a strange warmth began to spread through his limbs.
It wasn't just calories. It was power.
[NUTRIENT ABSORPTION: OPTIMIZED]
[ARCANUM RECOVERY: +0.5%]
He ate until the gnawing stopped, his jaw aching from the tough, rubbery muscle. He wiped his blade on the mossy floor, the primal reality of his situation sinking in. He was a scavenger now. A predator eating predators.
He sat there in the dark, watching the purple twilight turn into a deep, abyssal indigo. He was exhausted, but the soldier in him demanded one more check. He stripped the .45, wiped the violet dust from the slide, and stared out at the silver-veined trees.
Finally, the weight of the day—the death, the transmigration, the sheer wrongness of the sky—crushed his resistance. His eyes drifted shut.