The world held its breath as the gryphon reached the woman amidst her desperate crawl away.
The canted sight on my rifle danced in my sweat-blurred vision while the reticle wobbled with every ragged breath.
With a final deep breath, my finger squeezed through the tremors anyway as I exhaled.
—Tissh!
And the rifle jolted as the suppressor coughed smoke as the bullet tore free.
A hundred grams of virtual mass stapled into it, turning the bullet into something obscene.
It hit the gryphon just as it reared back, its beak opening wide over the crawling woman.
-Thirld!
The bullet didn't just pierce; it annihilated.
The side of its skull erupted outward in a geyser of gore.
Its feathers, skull, and the wet brain matter burst out, spraying across the dirt, splattering the woman beneath in blood so hot it steamed against the cool evening air.
-AAAAH!
The shrill of her scream almost tore the clearing apart at the horror of it dying on her.
While the gryphon convulsed, its golden eye dangling from the socket, going dim as the rest of its bulk collapsed forward.
It hit the ground with a meat-sack thud, twitching once… then twice, before sagging into stillness as its blood pooled fast beneath it, soaking into the dirt.
[Hit! God, I hit it... It's down—]
The thought was a ragged rasp in my head, nearing disbelief.
But I couldn't even taste the victory. My vision swam as darkness crept at the edges.
My lungs clawed for air, heart battering my ribs like it wanted out.
Legs shook so bad it took everything out of me to just keep standing.
It wasn't mana drain.
My regen had already licked the wound shut.
This was the body — just body.
A couple of hundred meters of dead sprint in a full kit, cloak dragging, and the rifle pounding against me with every step.
While I had just normal lungs and normal legs to contend.
No stamina bar flashing red, it was just meat failing meat.
I staggered, keeping the rifle in a safe direction while my chest heaved.
The woman was still moving through her wounds.
Crawling through the muck with her elbow, leaving a streak of red behind her.
Her leg was mangled, her shoulder hanging wrong, and a chunk of her gut was missing with pieces of her insides jutting out.
"Damn, she's tenacious…"
She flinched with every step I took.
Her eyes locked on me now, wide and trembling — like she couldn't decide if I was salvation or just another monster.
While my boots dragged through dirt, each step was a fight against the fire in my lungs.
My shaking hands fumbled through pouches at my waist until I finally touched glass.
Grabbing on to it, I pull out a vial with shimmering gold liquid inside, pulsing faint light like it had a heartbeat of its own.
A Tier 9 healing potion… Just a step below Divine.
The only one I got.
[Fuck… if I knew I was gonna be isekai'd… I would've emptied the clan's treasury.]
The thought broke on a rasp of breath, bitter and half-laughing.
The vial almost slipped from my sweaty fingers, damn near shattering on the ground before I clutched it close.
As I staggered the last few steps to her, her crawl twisted—not toward me but away.
Her one good hand was clawing dirt, dragging her broken body through blood, eyes wild, and lips tearing open in a screamless plea.
"Friendly!" I spat, voice cracking between panting breaths. "Friendly!"
I dropped to my knees beside her, cloak dragging through the muck, and wrestled the cork free.
The potion's glow spilled between us, painting her terrified face in gold as I poured it across her wounds.
The potion spread fast.
Searing and healing, knitting flesh over bone as her wounds seared shut into smooth skin.
Her twisted leg straightened while her shoulder snapped back into place with a sick crack.
Her scream cut into a gasp before silence fell.
And just like that—the fight left her eyes.
Relief punched through terror, her chest heaving once in freedom… before her whole body slumped.
Out cold.
While I sat back on my knees, hands falling into the dirt.
Around us, the clearing stank of gore and blood, and feathers still drifting like ash.
And I finally pulled air deep into my lungs, letting it scrape through my dry tongue.
My chest hitched, my shoulders dropped as I stared at the mess I made.
Her body lay limp before me while the gryphon sprawled broken a few steps away.
I tilted my head back, inhaling deeply the bloody air while the forest held its silence, its quiet settling in heavy as the cloak across my back.
"Well," I whispered, lips curling at the insanity that was the last few minutes, "Now what?"
My breath finally caught up.
Ragged gasps slowed as lungs began dragging air that didn't taste like knives anymore.
And with it came thoughts.
And reason.
As the adrenaline haze peeled back, the scene slammed into me like a hammer.
Blood everywhere, and the grass drowning in it.
Gore spattered across the ground, the woman, and a bit on me too.
Both my boots and knees were covered in slimy red blood.
And then my eyes tracked a few steps ahead.
The gryphon.
Or what was left of it.
Its head was a gaping cavity, skull burst open like rotten fruit.
An eye dangled by its nerve while half its beak lay snapped in two beside its mouth, cracked and jagged like broken pottery.
Blood still leaked from the ruin in slow pulses, pooling black under its feathers while the stink of iron and meat baking in the air was heavy.
The sight and the smell hit together.
—Blurgh!
I folded, stomach twisting until it all came out hot across the dirt, splattering into the gryphon's mess as I added my own to the carnage.
Having puked my guts out, I wiped my mouth with the back of my glove and tried to breathe before looking up—
—Blurgh!
Even with nothing left to throw out, my body still tried as I crouched there on all fours like a dog, heaving dry with ribs shaking until I almost toppled sideways.
"Fuck," I rasped, spit stringing off my lip. "Fuck—I need to get out of here."
No more thinking, I moved on pure instinct.
I crawled to her on all fours, the cloak dragging wet behind me as my hand caught her collar, jerking it in my fist.
Her body twitched once, but she didn't wake.
The broken sword.
Still planted back by the river, now proving itself to be the best decision I ever made in my life.
I sucked in air, squeezing my eyes shut, and shoved mana into the tether.
Blue sparks cracked and the world folded.
That same gut-drop vertigo hit, like the ground had been ripped out from under me.
My vision shattered into streaks of blue and black, and then snapped back hard.
My fingers were already locked around the hilt of the broken sword buried in the dirt where I'd left it by the river.
Boots hitting ground a beat later, knees buckling under my weight.
The woman slammed down with me, both of us crashing onto the ground like we'd been dumped from the sky.
I gagged again, heaving dry as I crawled to the riverbank.
"Damn..." I wheezed, chest sawing for air. "…that's really gonna take some getting used to."