John's spatial awareness had degraded to approximately twenty meters of reliable perception. Blood loss, exhaustion, and the constant pain radiating from his ruined right hand had reduced his ki cultivation to basic survival functions. He could map immediate obstacles—trees, rocks, changes in terrain elevation—but the fine detail that had allowed him to navigate the estate grounds with precision was gone, replaced by crude approximation that made every step uncertain.
The forest floor was irregular. Root systems created natural barriers that his feet found through contact rather than prediction. Fallen branches hid under decomposing leaves, their presence only becoming apparent when his weight snapped them with sounds that seemed too loud in the relative quiet. His bare feet were past pain now—the nerve endings had been damaged enough that sensation had shifted from sharp agony to dull awareness that something was fundamentally wrong with the tissue.
But he kept moving, driven by logic that overrode physical limitations: distance from the estate meant reduced probability of recapture. Every meter traveled was incremental safety.
Water was the first priority. Human physiology could survive weeks without food but only days without hydration, and John's blood loss had accelerated dehydration beyond normal parameters. His enhanced hearing detected water movement approximately eighty meters northeast—not the major river he'd crossed during his initial escape but something smaller, possibly a stream feeding into the larger waterway.
He altered his trajectory, using trees for support when his legs threatened to give out, breathing through his mouth because his nose was packed with dried blood from some impact he didn't remember sustaining. The twenty-meter journey to the stream took seven minutes, his pace reduced to careful shuffling that prevented falls but consumed time he might not have.
The stream was shallow—maybe thirty centimeters at its deepest point, flowing over rock bed that created pleasant acoustic patterns as water moved around obstacles. John collapsed at its edge, his functioning left hand plunging into the cold water before his conscious mind had fully processed arrival.
He drank. Not the careful measured intake that proper survival training would recommend, but desperate gulping that his body demanded. The water was clean—upstream from human settlement, filtered through soil and stone—and it tasted like the most profound luxury he'd experienced since awakening in this body.
After drinking, he used the water to clean his injuries. His right hand was the most severe—the palm torn through, two fingers hanging at angles that indicated complete structural failure, the remaining three showing some mobility but compromised. He submerged the hand in the stream despite the pain, watching—perceiving—as blood and dirt washed away to reveal the full extent of damage.
The wound was catastrophic by conventional standards. Without medical intervention, infection was inevitable. Without proper treatment, he'd likely lose the hand entirely, if sepsis didn't kill him first.
But John had survived five hundred years of drowning. He understood pain as information rather than deterrent. The hand would heal or it wouldn't. Either way, he had other problems requiring attention.
Food was secondary priority after water but not distant secondary. His body's energy reserves were depleted past sustainable levels, running on adrenaline and survival instinct rather than actual fuel. He needed calories, needed protein for tissue repair, needed to replenish what blood loss and exertion had consumed.
Hunting would be necessary. John had never hunted in this body—hadn't hunted in any body for five centuries, given that gods-in-training didn't typically concern themselves with mundane food acquisition. But the principles were universal: identify prey, approach without detection, execute kill quickly to prevent suffering and escape.
His limited perception radius made traditional hunting difficult. He couldn't track prey from distance, couldn't stalk prey through terrain he couldn't map accurately. But he had advantages: his hearing was still enhanced enough to detect movement patterns, his enhanced sense of smell could identify animal presence through scent markers, and his Uncos—weak as it was—provided one additional option.
The light emission. It had temporarily blinded Soren during their fight, suggesting intensity sufficient to cause pain and disorientation even in individuals with developed visual systems. Animals with acute vision would be even more vulnerable to sudden bright light in forest environment where illumination levels were consistently low.
John moved upstream, using the water as navigation reference while his perception mapped the surrounding forest. He was looking for specific acoustic signatures—the sound of animals drinking, the movement patterns that indicated foraging rather than transit. Most animals were cautious around water sources, understanding that predators used them as hunting grounds. But necessity eventually outweighed caution.
He found signs thirty meters upstream from where he'd stopped to drink. The acoustic pattern of disturbed earth, the scent markers that indicated recent animal presence—something medium-sized based on the depression depth in the soft soil near the water's edge, quadrupedal from the gait pattern, herbivorous based on the scat composition his smell could analyze.
Deer or similar prey animal. Probably visiting this location regularly based on the established trail his tactile awareness detected through changes in ground vegetation density.
John positioned himself downwind—basic hunting principle that his ki-enhanced smell made obvious—and waited. Hunting was patience. Hunting was stillness that didn't register as threat. Hunting was recognizing that prey animals had evolved sophisticated threat detection, and overcoming that detection required reducing your presence to background noise.
He waited for approximately ninety minutes, his body motionless despite the pain, his breathing controlled to minimize acoustic signature. His spatial awareness was focused entirely on the approach trail, ready to detect movement the moment prey entered his perception radius.
The animal arrived as evening light began fading—timing that made sense for species that preferred reduced visibility during vulnerable activities like drinking. John's enhanced hearing caught it first: quadrupedal movement, cautious pace, periodic stops to assess the environment for threats.
It entered his perception radius. Medium-sized as predicted, maybe sixty kilograms, moving with the careful precision of prey that had survived by being appropriately paranoid. It approached the stream from the same trail, following established pattern, its attention divided between immediate terrain and broader environmental scan.
John remained motionless. The animal stopped seven meters from his position, its posture indicating elevated alertness. Something about the situation had triggered concern—possibly John's scent despite the downwind positioning, possibly just instinct that this location felt wrong.
If it bolted, John couldn't catch it. His physical condition precluded pursuit, and his perception radius was too limited to track escape trajectories. This was his one opportunity.
He activated his Uncos.
The light emission erupted from his left palm—his right hand was too damaged to channel anything reliably—with intensity that exceeded what he'd managed during the fight with Soren. Desperation and need had apparently amplified the output, turning what had been temporary blindness into something approaching genuine weapon.
The concentrated beam caught the animal directly in its visual system from seven meters. The creature screamed—high-pitched sound of prey experiencing unexpected agony—and stumbled backward, its threat detection completely overwhelmed by the sensory assault.
John moved. His body protested every aspect of the motion, but he forced it anyway, covering the seven meters in approximately four seconds—pathetically slow by any combat standard but sufficient for this context.
He'd prepared a weapon during his waiting period: a straight branch approximately one meter long, one end sharpened to point using a rock's sharp edge. Crude spear, barely functional by formal standards. But functional enough.
The animal was on the ground, thrashing in panic and pain, its visual system temporarily destroyed by the light intensity. John drove the sharpened branch down with both hands—even the ruined right hand contributing what strength it could—aiming for the neck where major blood vessels ran close to the surface.
The branch penetrated. Not cleanly—the wood wasn't sharp enough for clean penetration—but sufficiently. The animal's struggles intensified for three seconds, then began weakening as blood loss and shock took effect. John maintained pressure, keeping the makeshift spear in position until the movement stopped entirely.
Death occurred approximately twenty-three seconds after the light emission. Not quick by ideal hunting standards, but not unnecessarily prolonged. John had aimed for the most lethal target his knowledge suggested, and the animal had died faster than it would have from most natural predator kills.
He remained kneeling beside the corpse for additional thirty seconds, ensuring death was complete before beginning field processing. His left hand was shaking—partially from exertion, partially from the strange emotional response his body was having to taking life. The animal was food. Food was survival. But something about the killing process had triggered reaction his conscious mind couldn't fully control.
Field dressing was harder with one functional hand, but John managed. He used the same sharp rock that had formed the spear point, working from memory of anatomical structures that should be consistent across mammalian species. Remove the organs, separate the useful meat from the structural components, work quickly before decomposition began affecting the meat quality.
By the time he finished, night had arrived fully. The forest was nearly black, the canopy blocking most moonlight. But John's perception worked the same in darkness as in light—spatial awareness constructed from non-visual senses didn't care about illumination levels.
He built a small fire using techniques that were muscle memory from his previous existence: gather dry tinder, create spark using rock percussion, feed oxygen carefully while building heat to combustion threshold. The fire was tiny—just enough to cook meat without creating smoke column visible from distance—maintained in depression he'd dug to shield the light.
The meat cooked slowly. John forced himself to wait until it reached safe internal temperature, until the raw tissue had transformed into something his digestive system could process without risk of parasitic infection. His stomach was cramping with hunger, demanding immediate consumption, but discipline overrode impulse.
He ate. The meat was tough, poorly prepared, barely seasoned with natural salt content. It was the best thing he'd tasted since awakening in this body.
He ate until his stomach signaled satiation, then continued eating past that point because his body needed the calories more than it needed comfortable digestion. He ate until approximately forty percent of the usable meat was consumed, leaving the remainder for tomorrow's needs.
Then he climbed.
Trees offered advantages over ground-level sleeping: harder to detect from below, defensive position against most ground predators, escape routes in multiple directions if pursuit arrived. John selected an old-growth tree with branches thick enough to support his weight, climbed to approximately six meters elevation—high enough for safety, not so high that falling would be immediately fatal if he lost grip during sleep.
He positioned himself in the junction between trunk and major branch, his back against the bark, his ruined right hand cradled against his chest. The position wasn't comfortable—comfort wasn't available—but it was secure.
And then, for the first time since his consciousness had entered this body three months ago, John began to cry.
The tears surprised him. Not intellectually—he understood the physiological mechanism, understood that this body was twelve years old and had experienced more trauma in the past day than most humans experienced in lifetimes. But emotionally, the response felt alien. Kami Van Hellsin didn't cry. Kami Van Hellsin didn't break down from pain or fear or the accumulated weight of impossible circumstances.
But this body was crying anyway. Silent tears that ran down his face and dripped from his chin, chest-shaking sobs that he suppressed to prevent acoustic detection but couldn't eliminate entirely. His right hand hurt with intensity that exceeded pain and entered territory that was just absolute wrongness—his brain's insistent signal that something requiring immediate attention was catastrophically damaged.
"Weak," John whispered to himself, his voice barely audible even to his own enhanced hearing. "This body is so weak."
The crying continued despite the self-directed criticism. His body didn't care about his assessment of its limitations. It was responding to trauma with the tools biology provided, and no amount of six-century-old discipline could override the autonomic response.
So John allowed it. Let the body cry while his consciousness remained separate, observing the reaction with detached analysis. The tears would stop eventually. The pain would become normalized. The body would adapt because adaptation was what living organisms did when they wanted to continue living.
"I'll make you strong," he promised the body, his voice still barely above whisper. "Whatever you were before, whatever limitations you carried, I'll eliminate them. I'll forge you into something that can survive anything. Strong enough to reach Zenith Thronos again. Strong enough to make gods regret what they did."
The promises felt hollow in the moment—spoken by someone whose hand was destroyed, whose body was barely functional, whose immediate future consisted of surviving the next day rather than planning campaigns against divine beings. But John had learned over six centuries that progress was accumulated through small victories sustained over impossible timeframes.
Tonight: survive the night without being detected or killed by infection.
Tomorrow: heal sufficiently to begin serious ki cultivation.
Next week: develop enough strength to travel toward civilization.
Next month: find resources that could accelerate his development.
Next year: begin actually pursuing the path that led back to power.
Small victories. Sustained effort. Refusing to accept limitations as permanent.
The crying eventually stopped. His body had exhausted whatever neurochemical response had triggered the reaction, and he was left in the darkness with just the pain and the sound of his own controlled breathing.
He slept. Not deeply—his nervous system remained on alert for threats—but sufficiently. His consciousness drifted into something approaching rest while his body attempted the cellular repair processes that were inadequate to his injuries but better than nothing.
Morning arrived gradually. John felt it through temperature changes and shifts in ambient sound patterns before conscious awareness fully returned. His right hand was swollen, hot to the touch, definitely infected. His body felt like it had been systematically beaten, which wasn't far from truth. But he was alive, and alive meant opportunities remained.
He was reaching for his remaining meat supplies when his enhanced hearing detected something unexpected: breathing. Not his own—someone else's, close proximity, maybe three meters to his right along the same branch he was occupying.
John's left hand moved to the sharpened branch he'd used for hunting, which he'd kept close specifically for this kind of situation. His perception focused, trying to map the presence that had somehow approached without triggering his awareness earlier.
The presence was small—child-sized, maybe ten years old based on the body mass his acoustic awareness suggested. They were positioned facing away from John, their attention focused on something in their hands, their movements quick and nervous like they were trying to complete a task before being noticed.
John moved. Not attack—not yet—just repositioning to put himself between the intruder and the escape route down the tree. His foot found purchase on a smaller branch, his weight shifting with control that his injured body barely managed.
The presence heard him move. Froze. Their breathing accelerated—fear response, immediate and obvious.
"Don't move," John said, his voice low and carrying the kind of flat menace that made threats believable. He pressed the sharpened point of his makeshift spear against where his perception suggested the child's back was positioned. "Move again and I kill you. Understand?"
"I—I wasn't—please—" The voice was male, young, terrified. "I was just trying to help with your hand!"
John's perception focused more carefully on what the child was holding. Not a weapon. Something else. Plant material, leaves arranged in specific pattern, his enhanced smell detecting compounds that suggested medicinal properties.
"Where did you come from?" John demanded, maintaining the threat positioning while his mind processed the situation. A child alone in deep forest was unusual. A child approaching an injured stranger was suspicious. "Who sent you?"
"Nobody sent me! I heard—" the child's voice cracked slightly, "—I heard you crying last night. I wanted to help. And I—" he swallowed audibly, "—I wanted to thank you."
"Thank me." John's tone was flat. "For what."
"For killing my parents." The child said it quickly, like ripping off bandage. "The two animals you hunted yesterday. They were humans with Beast Uncos. They could transform. And they—they treated me like I was nothing. Like I was their slave. Beat me when I didn't work fast enough, starved me when they were angry, used me for—for—" His voice broke completely. "You freed me. So thank you."
John's stomach dropped. The meat he'd eaten. The meat currently sitting in his stomach, being digested, becoming part of his body's cellular structure.
Human meat.
He'd eaten humans.
The nausea was immediate and overwhelming. John turned away from the child, his body convulsing as his digestive system violently rejected its contents. He vomited over the side of the branch, his left hand gripping bark for stability while his stomach tried to expel everything he'd consumed.
The retching continued for approximately thirty seconds. When it finally stopped, John was shaking, his mouth tasting like bile and partially digested human tissue, his mind reeling from the violation he'd inadvertently committed.
"I'm sorry!" The child's voice was panicked now, apologetic. "I'm sorry, I should have told you different, I didn't think—I should have just let you think they were animals, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"
"Stop," John managed, his voice rough from vomiting. "Stop apologizing." He wiped his mouth with his left hand, taking controlled breaths to settle his stomach. "Some information you don't share with strangers. Consider whether people want to know something before you tell them. Basic courtesy."
"I'm sorry," the child said again, then caught himself. "I mean—I understand. I'll remember that."
John's perception focused back on the child now that the immediate crisis was passing. The medicinal leaves in his hands. The positioning that suggested he'd been genuinely trying to help rather than harm. The fear in his voice that indicated legitimate trauma rather than deception.
"What's your name?" John asked, his tone less threatening now.
"Kiran," the child responded. "Kiran... I don't have a family name. My parents never told me one."
"The parents you just thanked me for killing."
"Yes." No hesitation, no shame in the admission. "They had Beast Uncos—herbivore transformation. Deer form. It made them fast and strong when they changed. I have Beast Uncos too, but mine is predator. Wolf form. That's why they hated me. Said I was wrong, said I shouldn't exist, said—" He stopped himself. "They're dead now. That's what matters."
John's perception was scanning Kiran more carefully now, using his enhanced senses to gather information beyond just spatial positioning. The boy's body showed signs of sustained abuse—burn marks across his back and arms that John's tactile awareness could detect through temperature differentials in the scar tissue. The scars were old, layered, suggesting years of repeated burning.
Familiar. The pattern was familiar.
John's left hand moved to his own chest, touching the curse mark through his torn shirt. The burn marks on Kiran's body carried similar thermal signature—damage caused by mana-based punishment rather than natural fire. Curse marks or similar control mechanisms, used to enforce compliance through pain.
The boy had been a slave. Different context than John's situation, but same fundamental reality: property of people who could hurt him with impunity, with no authority to appeal to, with no escape except through their death.
"Why are you staring at me?" Kiran asked, his voice uncertain. "You're looking at me like—like you can't see. Are you blind?"
"Yes," John said simply. No point in elaborate deception with someone who'd already noticed. "I navigate through other senses. They're sufficient."
Kiran was quiet for a moment, processing this. "But you climbed up here. You're six meters off the ground. How did you—"
"My other senses work better than most people's. Good enough to climb trees, good enough to hunt, good enough to threaten you with a sharp stick." John gestured at the medicinal leaves still clutched in Kiran's hands. "You said you wanted to help with my hand. What are those?"
"Vitalis leaves," Kiran said, holding them up slightly. "They help with wounds. Close them up, prevent infection, reduce pain. My parents—" he stopped, corrected himself, "—the people who had me knew about forest medicine. Made me gather these when they got hurt during their transformations."
Kiran moved closer, his fear apparently overridden by desire to help. "Can I see your hand? The injured one?"
John extended his right hand, the damaged palm facing upward, the ruined fingers hanging at their wrong angles. Kiran's sharp intake of breath was audible even without enhanced hearing.
"That's—that's really bad," Kiran said quietly. "I don't know if Vitalis leaves can fix that completely. But they'll help. At least stop the infection from spreading."
He began applying the leaves, his small hands working with surprising competence. He pressed the largest leaf directly against the torn palm, then wrapped additional leaves around the damaged fingers, his movements suggesting someone who'd done this type of field medicine before.
John felt it the moment the leaves made full contact: mana flowing from the plant material into his damaged tissue. Not his own mana—he had none—but the natural mana stored in the plant itself, being transferred through direct contact, interfacing with his body's cellular repair mechanisms.
The sensation was familiar. Profoundly familiar.
John's mind, accessing memories from his existence as Kami Van Hellsin five hundred years ago, recognized the specific mana signature. This plant—these leaves—they'd been called something different back then. The name came to him with crystalline clarity: Sancti Vitae. Holy Life. The battlefield medicine that had saved thousands of soldiers during the God Wars, that had been cultivated in massive quantities because its healing properties were unmatched by any contemporary alternative.
But something was wrong with the mana flow. The quantity was correct—the leaves contained appropriate mana concentration for their species. But the potency was diminished. The healing effect that should have been immediate, that should have closed his wound within minutes and restored functionality within hours, was proceeding at fraction of expected speed.
Kiran was wrapping the leaves carefully, securing them with thin vine strips to keep them in position. "These usually take about two days to really work," he explained while working. "But for a wound this bad, maybe three or four days. You'll need to change them daily, and you'll need to keep the hand clean. If you have water nearby—"
"Two days," John interrupted, his voice distant as his mind processed implications. "It takes two days now."
Kiran looked up, confused. "Yes? That's what I said. Is that too long? I'm sorry, it's the best I can do with what's available—"
"No, you misunderstand." John's focus returned to the present conversation. "Tell me about these leaves. Their history. What you know about them."
Kiran seemed uncertain about the sudden topic shift but answered anyway. "Vitalis leaves are common in old-growth forests. They store mana naturally, use it for their growth processes. Humans discovered they could use that stored mana for healing maybe... five hundred years ago? During the God Wars? They were called something different back then—" he paused, trying to remember, "—Sancti Vitae, I think. The books said they were miracle medicine. Could heal major injuries in minutes, bring people back from near-death, even reverse some aging effects if used correctly by skilled doctors."
John's chest was tight. The boy was reciting almost exactly what John had been thinking, confirming the memories, providing historical context for observations John had made through direct experience centuries ago.
Kiran continued: "But over time, they became weaker. The healing slowed down. Nobody knows exactly why—some scholars think it's because the natural mana in the world is decreasing, others think the plants are adapting to different environmental conditions. Either way, about two hundred years ago, they changed the name to Vitalis because calling them Sancti Vitae was false advertising. Now they're just decent wound treatment instead of miracle medicine."
He finished securing the leaves and sat back, examining his work. "That's why it takes days instead of minutes. The plant's mana is less potent than it used to be. Still helpful, but not like the old stories describe."
John was silent, his mind working through what he'd just learned. The leaves' diminished potency wasn't an isolated phenomenon. It was symptom of larger pattern—natural mana sources losing their strength over centuries. Which suggested...
His thoughts raced through logical connections. Mana was energy. Energy couldn't be destroyed, only transformed or transferred. If natural mana was decreasing, it had to be going somewhere. Being consumed by something. Being drained through some process that exceeded the world's capacity to regenerate it.
The Supreme Gods. Their system. The Uncos they granted to humans. All of it required mana to function—massive quantities of mana being channeled constantly through millions of individuals across three continents, sustained for five hundred years.
What if that consumption was exceeding natural replenishment? What if the Supreme Gods' system was slowly draining the world's fundamental life force?
John's voice was quiet when he spoke, more to himself than to Kiran: "Is the world dying?"
Kiran tilted his head, confused. "What?"
"The mana in natural things is depleting. These leaves are weaker than they were centuries ago. If that pattern extends to everything—to soil fertility, to water purification, to the basic systems that sustain life—" John's hands clenched, the right hand sending pain signals he ignored. "What happens when the natural mana runs out completely?"
Kiran's expression showed he hadn't considered this. "I—I don't know. Nobody talks about it. The Supreme Gods maintain the world's systems, don't they? That's their role."
"The Supreme Gods maintain their own power systems," John said. "That's different from maintaining the world itself."
He thought about Mother Nature's disappearance, about how the world had degraded after she'd left. The official history said she'd abandoned humanity. But what if she hadn't abandoned—what if she'd simply ceased to exist? What if the Supreme Gods' mana consumption had been so extreme that it had killed the one being who'd maintained the world's natural balance?
And if Mother Nature was dead, if the world's fundamental life force was being systematically drained to fuel the Supreme Gods' power structure, then everything—the Order, the kingdoms, the civilization spanning three continents—was built on unsustainable foundation. A foundation that was slowly collapsing, being consumed from within, approaching some critical threshold where the accumulated damage would become irreversible.
The God Wars suddenly made more sense. Van Hellsin—his previous self—hadn't just been challenging the Supreme Gods' authority. He'd been responding to something he'd perceived about their system, some fundamental wrongness that nobody else acknowledged.
Had he known? Five hundred years ago, when Kami Van Hellsin had challenged the Supreme Eight, had he understood that their power structure was killing the world?
John didn't know. His memories from that time were fragmented, compressed by five centuries of near-death consciousness preservation. But the implications were clear enough: the Supreme Gods weren't just oppressive rulers. They were existential threats to the world's continued existence.
Which meant his personal vendetta—reclaiming his power, challenging them for his lost throne—wasn't just about pride. It was about survival. Not just his survival, but the survival of everything.
"Thank you," John said to Kiran, returning his attention to the present. "For the leaves. And for the information."
Kiran smiled tentatively. "You're welcome. Do you—" he hesitated, then continued, "—do you have somewhere to go? Or were you just running?"
"Just running." John admitted. "Do you have somewhere?"
"No. My parents—the people who had me—they lived in the deep forest, away from settlements. No other family." Kiran was quiet for a moment. "I could stay with you? I know the forest, I know which plants are safe, I can hunt in my wolf form. And you need someone to help change those leaves daily."
John considered this. A companion represented both advantage and liability—additional sensory coverage and local knowledge, but also someone whose survival became his responsibility. But pragmatically, his injured hand would limit his capabilities for the next week, and having assistance during that vulnerable period made tactical sense.
"You can stay," John said. "Temporarily. Until my hand heals and I can travel independently. After that, we reassess."
Kiran's smile widened. "Thank you! I'll help however I can. I promise I won't be a burden."
"Everyone's a burden," John said. "The question is whether you're useful enough to justify the cost. We'll find out."
They stayed in the tree through the day, John resting while his body attempted to process the infection and trauma, Kiran keeping watch and occasionally leaving to gather additional supplies. As evening approached, Kiran transformed—his body shifting through process that looked painful but was apparently routine for him—and hunted in wolf form, returning with prey that was definitely animal rather than human.
John didn't eat much. The memory of this morning's revelation had destroyed his appetite. But he forced down enough to sustain basic functions, understanding that survival required pragmatism over comfort.
That night, both of them slept in the tree. John's hand throbbed with persistent pain that the Vitalis leaves were slowly addressing, but the worst of the infection seemed to have been arrested. Kiran slept closer than necessary, his small form seeking proximity like he was afraid of being abandoned.
And John, lying awake in the darkness, thought about dying worlds and unsustainable power structures and the long path that lay ahead.
He'd escaped slavery. That was step one.
Next would be healing, strengthening, learning about how the world had changed during his five-hundred-year absence.
And then—eventually, impossibly—he would return to Zenith Thronos.
Not to take a throne this time.
To tear the entire system down before it consumed what remained of the world.