Pain dragged him back into the world. Not a dull ache — raw, searing pain that made him suck in a breath he didn't realize he still had.
Dust. Blood. Fire in his lungs.
Russo coughed and rolled to his side, his limbs screaming with each movement. His muscles refused to cooperate. Everything hurt.
He blinked up at the sky — and froze. It wasn't the sky he knew. The stars above were strange, cold, and wrong. The clouds hung low and burned at the edges with hues he'd never seen before. The air itself felt heavier, thicker, like it didn't belong to him. He wasn't on Earth. The last thing he remembered — lightning. A flash bright enough to blind, a sound sharp enough to shatter bone. Then blackness.
And now this.
His clothes were shredded, body bruised and bleeding, and the standard-issue gear he once carried was nowhere to be found. No rifle. No comms. Not even a knife.
"Where the hell…" he muttered, trying to stand. His legs shook. His shoulder burned. He was already half-dead. The ground beneath him looked volcanic — cracked like cooled magma, black and jagged, stretching out into a twisted wasteland. No birds. No trees. No life.
Just silence.
A silence so complete, it was deafening.
Then — instinct.
That soldier's sixth sense. The hairs on his neck rose.
Something was watching him.
A shadow moved. Fast. Wrong.
From the corner of his eye, he saw it — a creature unlike anything he'd faced in war. Six legs. Insectoid plating. A tail ending in a jagged spike. Its eyes glowed faintly with a primal, hungry light.
It didn't roar. It didn't hiss. It just came straight at him — fast and lethal.
Russo reacted on pure muscle memory — roll, dive, move. Training kicked in, but he had no weapon. Nothing to fight with. Until— There. Half-buried in the dirt — a jagged chunk of metal.
He grabbed it.
The monster lunged again. Russo swung. Metal met shell. Sparks flew — but the thing's hide was tough. Too tough.
Pain exploded in his shoulder as claws tore through flesh. He stumbled back, blood pouring down his arm, vision spinning.
He was going to die.
No.
No.
He saw an opening — a soft, unarmored patch beneath its stomach. It came at him one more time. He didn't dodge. He stepped in, driving the crude blade upward with all the strength he had left. A sickening crunch. A shriek. The creature thrashed, then dropped — dead. Russo dropped with it.
His knees hit the cracked earth. His breath came in shallow gasps. He felt cold. Heavy. The pain wasn't fading — it was spreading. I'm dying… His vision blurred. One leg wouldn't move. His ribs felt shattered. He could feel death — close, waiting.
Then — light. Golden. Gentle. Floating in front of him like a dying ember refusing to go out.
A voice — no, a presence — whispered into his fading mind.
[Entity: Armored Hunter (Level 2) Defeated.]
[Lineage eligible for extraction.]
[Do you accept? Y/N]
Was this real?
His lips were cracked. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth. He didn't know if he was hallucinating or not.
But deep inside, beneath the fear, beneath the pain — something burned.
A will.
I must survive… no matter what it costs.
"…Yes," he whispered.
The light surged forward — and everything changed.
It wasn't warmth. It was clarity. Like ice water rushing through his veins. Cool. Clean. Alive.
The pain dulled. His heartbeat steadied. His breath came easier.
[Lineage Infused: "Armored Hunter"]
[+1 Strength / +1 Endurance]
[Physical Recovery: 17% Initiated]
He gasped — alive. Wounded, yes, but no longer dying. Then— A howl echoed through the wasteland. Deeper. Louder. Closer. Another monster.
Bigger.
Russo forced himself to his feet. Every nerve screamed, but something was different now. Something inside had changed. Strength. Not his. But now part of him. He looked back at the corpse of the beast he'd slain — then turned and limped into the darkness.
He wasn't safe.
Not yet.
But he was alive.
And he would stay that way.
No matter what it takes.