A broken sword screamed through the air—a shard of legend hurled like a shuriken.
Its steel flashed against the sun before sinking halfway into the trunk of a towering oak, splitting it's bark.
And then, blue sparks cracked reality and the world folded.
One blink I was on the ground, walking.
And the next, I was crouched thirty feet up, on the thick branch just below the blade with my palm clamped around the hilt of the blade still buried in the oak.
My heart didn't skip from fear or the adrenaline.
But from what it to took pull that off.
That impossible gut-drop, like the vertigo of falling without moving.
That's what fifty percent of your mana felt like when you burned it in one go.
In Endlessness, it had always been numbers — a bar dipping, or a cooldown ticking down.
But here? It was my stomach hollowing, my lungs tightening like I'd just sprinted three miles uphill.
["Half my pool… gone in an instant. God, I can feel the void of it."]
And then — my stomach.
That little burn… Like I'd downed liquor on an empty gut.
Mana trickled back ten percent a second.
Ten percent… twenty… thirty…
And five beats later, I was back to being full.
While I sat with my back pressed to the trunk, forcing slow breaths as I counted each second.
In Endlessness, it would've been a blue bar crawling upward.
But, here, I felt every drip.
That pressure in my skull easing as mana regenerated.
["Really need to get used to this feeling..."]
I exhaled through my teeth, letting the branch creak under me.
My pulse was steady again, but my grin… it wouldn't leave.
Below, the forest spread out in an endless quilt of green.
Between the folds, silver vein of a river flashed, glinting sunlight as it stretched into the horizon.
All the while, in my palm — the sword hummed.
Not a sound or vibration.
But a hum of awareness blooming out like concentric circles in water.
Everything in a ten-meter radius lit up inside my skull.
I knew the tree and every knot in its bark.
The ants crawling along its skin.
And the way the branch sagged as the wind teased it.
The air itself had weight, as though a thousand invisible threads tugging at me.
[This is… sharper. Endlessness never gave this much detail. It just drew the wireframe. Here? It's like I'm plugged into the damn world.]
I yanked the blade free, chunks of its bark flying as the broken edge tore loose.
To the untrained eye, it looked useless.
But this legendary scrap of steel — too short, jagged tip with its gold trim faded like old memories – was my lucky legendary drop.
It's the reason why I managed to escape Game Over more times than I could remember.
I let it hang at my side in my loose arm, feeling the weight of it tug my shoulder.
As I sat there, perched high, eyes tracking the horizon, and the river that lay just ahead.
"Alright," I muttered to no one, scanning the glint of water below. "Guns work, so does the cloak's temp control… And the blade, well..."
The grin widened with a crooked edge.
"Let's follow that river. Hopefully there's a settlement along the way… if not, at least water."
And with that I loosened the grip on the sword letting the gravity sink it halfway into the ground below.
The blue sparks flared again, and with a blink I was on the ground, boots crunching dirt, hand clamped back on the hilt.
Fifty percent mana gone. And five seconds later, in a trickle of ten percent a sec… Fifty percent mana was back.
Yeah, that fast.
And breathing felt easy again.
My build only had two things going for it – Mana Regen, and Control.
Take that, and I'm basically just another dude that can maybe add a few grams into stuff.
Had I tried jumping off, I'd be sitting here with an ankle twisted to hell or worse.
So, I took the mortal man's way.
One step at a time with my rifle raised, safety on but finger hovering, eyes flicking with every sound in the underbrush.
The cloak tugged around me as the forest swallowed me whole.
It didn't take long to reach the river.
Water flashed crystal-blue as it flowed over rocks.
The river carving through the forest like it owned the stretch.
I crouched low, letting the rifle hang on its sling, and cupped water into my hands.
Cold yet the best water my tongue ever touched.
I drank until my chest stopped burning and my tongue wasn't sandpaper anymore before splashing the rest across my face.
When I finally looked up, the sun had already dipped lower, casting its orange hue over the forest.
And then—
— AAAAHH!
A scream tore through the forest.
High pitched and desperate and most importantly... human.
My neck snapped toward it with a gasp.
Across the fading sky something moved—huge wings tearing through the clouds, every beat throwing echoes down the forest.
The scream hadn't even left my ears when my brain caught up with what I was seeing.
A gryphon.
Not the polished models from Endlessness—this thing was raw.
Its wings, covered in feathers dark with grime and blood, were wide enough to throw shadows across the treeline.
Its beak was cracked with blood dripping below, yet its golden eyes burned like molten metal.
Each wingbeat looked like it hurt—one side stuttered mid-arc, leaking a spray of blood into the air that rained down in a fine mist with each beat of its wing.
And clenched in its beak—kicking, writhing, and screaming was…
"Holy shit… that person is alive!"
The words tore out of me, cracked, and panicked.
My hands were already fumbling the rifle up through heart hammering and palms already slick in sweat.
My finger slapped against the safety, flicking it down.
I dragged the scope up through shallow breaths, trying to steady my hands.
The gryphon was struggling—its one wing faltering with wounds, and the weight of the struggling body was dragging it uneven.
Its cry—half eagle scream, half lion's roar—split the air so sharp it stabbed into my skull.
[Steady. Steady. It's just like the game. Just like the game—]
But it wasn't.
The sights jittered as my pulse shoved the reticle off the beast with every beat.
I sucked in air through clenched teeth.
And the mana moved.
The scope's reticle steadied, locking onto the beast's ribcage just behind the wing.
My hands tingled as I pushed the flow up my arms and into the rifle.
Just ten percent.
Just a hundred grams.
A mere sliver, as I breathed, "Iṣṭva."