We walked away from the city,
Four hours of steady marching through broken coastline and dead forest, stopping only long enough for me to chug XP potions like a depressed college student at finals week.
They tasted exactly as advertised.
Slug.
Beans.
And something that used to be a kangaroo.
I gagged after the third one.
[Adam]: I swear, XP potions taste like slug mucus, canned beans, and something that definitely came from a kangaroo. Who decided this flavor profile? Because I want names.
[Lilith]: I don't know what a kangaroo is.
[Adam]: Imagine a deer that punches back and hates God.
She considered that.
[Lilith]: That explains the taste.
The coastline opened up again—rocky cliffs, dead coral, blackened sand.
And then—
Movement.
A lot of it.
Shapes rose from the surf.
Clawed silhouettes crawled out of tide pools.
Blue light pulsed beneath the water like a sick heartbeat.
Cultist.
Seaborn.
Too many.
They weren't charging.
They were forming ranks.
I stopped walking.
Lilith slowly stopped.
[Adam]: Wow. They really took their time to surround us.
I slowly turned in place.
Every direction—movement.
No rush. No ambush.
Just confidence.
[Lilith]: Yeah. They didn't even bother hiding when they followed us.
The Cultist formed the front line—tall, blade-limbed silhouettes wrapped in coral armor, bone masks carved into permanent expressions of worship and hunger. Their shields locked together with a wet click, cartilage knitting seamlessly.
Behind them, the Seaborn dragged themselves from the water.
Blue ichor dripped from half-healed wounds.
Flower-guns twitched as if remembering how they'd failed before.
Tendrils flexed—recognition, not fear.
They remembered me.
One of them stepped forward.
Bigger than the rest.
Smarter.
It didn't shriek.
Didn't roar.
It spoke.
[Seaborn Herald]: Sankata. You bleed improvement. You adapt faster than decay.
Its chest pulsed faintly, veins glowing beneath translucent flesh.
[Seaborn Herald]: You helped us evolve. Join us. Become one with the will of the swarm.
I stared at it.
Really stared.
Then I laughed.
Once.
Dry. Hoarse.
[Adam]: You know… for creatures born from eldritch seawater and bad ideas—
I gestured vaguely at the battlefield behind us.
[Adam]: —You're really annoying.
The Herald didn't react.
[Adam]: I've been running from you for a day and a half. Bitten. Spat on. Shot. And even stabbed.
My hand tightened on the scythe.
[Adam]: You hunted us like animals. You tore people apart. You turned yourselves into walking war crimes.
I lifted my head, eyes burning.
[Adam]: And now you think I'll join you?
The Herald tilted its head.
[Seaborn Herald]: Yes.
Silence.
No wind.
No waves.
Just the soft click of Cultists tightening their grips.
I felt Lilith shift beside me, holding her throwing potions of harm.
Then I spoke.
Quietly.
[Adam]: I'm going to fucking kill you for this.
The Herald's glow intensified.
[Seaborn Herald]: Resistance acknowledged. Assimilation will proceed violently.
The first Cultist moved.
Lilith moved faster.
She vanished in a blur of black and silver, blades flashing as she slammed into the shield wall. Coral shattered. Bone masks split. The line buckled.
At the same time, the Seaborn opened fire.
Flower-guns bloomed fully.
WHRRRRR—
BWOOOMPH—
Blue projectiles tore through the sand where I'd been standing a second earlier.
I stepped forward instead, welcoming it.
The scythe screamed as I swung.
Not a cut.
An execution.
Three Cultists fell in one arc, bodies folding in on themselves as the blade passed through armor, bone alike.
A Seaborn lunged—
I caught it by the face and slammed it into the ground hard enough to liquefy the sand beneath us.
[Adam]: You wanted me to join?
I drove the scythe down.
[Adam]: THIS is me participating!
The Herald screeched—not in pain.
In anger.
Seaborn began fusing again.
Cultists advanced in staggered formations.
Flower-guns spun up faster.
The battlefield lit blue.
Lilith landed beside me, blood on her cheek, eyes sharp.
[Lilith]: They're committing everything.
I rolled my shoulders, feeling power tear against my limits—muscles screaming, enchantments grinding, something inside me laughing and begging for more.
They didn't give me time to breathe.
A Cultist and a Seaborn lunged at the same time.
I fired first.
The Seaborn's head vanished in a spray of blue light and ruptured flesh, momentum carrying the corpse forward. I grabbed one of its still-twitching spiked tentacles mid-air, wrapped it around the Cultist's throat, and pulled.
Bone mask cracked.
Cartilage creaked.
He thrashed—once, twice—then went limp as I slammed him into the sand hard enough to leave a crater.
Another Cultist charged, screaming something about the Deep.
I met him head-on.
My forehead smashed into his mask with a wet CRACK. Before he could even stagger back, I sank my teeth into the exposed gap at his neck, tore a chunk free, and spat it sideways.
It hit another Cultist directly in the eye.
He screamed. Dropped his weapon. Clawed at his face.
[Adam]: You really should've stayed a cult.
Behind me, Lilith was a storm.
Potions of Harming flew from her hands in perfect arcs—glass shattering mid-air as she sliced them open with conjured blades. Purple-black clouds erupted among the Cutlets, corroding armor, melting joints, turning their shield wall into a collapsing pile of screaming bodies.
[Lilith]: Left flank is folding!
I pivoted, scythe humming as I tore through the gap she created. Flower-guns tracked me—too slow.
A Seaborn tried to fuse mid-charge.
I didn't let it finish.
The scythe bit deep, splitting the half-merged mass apart before it could stabilize. The two creatures screamed as separate things again—then stopped existing.
The Herald raised both arms.
The ground pulsed.
More Seaborn rose from beneath the sand itself, bodies extruding like nightmares being born in fast-forward. Their flower-guns were different now—shorter barrels, tighter rotations.
They'd adjusted.
[Lilith]: Adam—they're adapting again!
I grinned, blood dripping from my chin.
[Adam]: Good. Means they're learning.
I hurled myself forward, straight into the heaviest concentration of enemies. Shots tore past me, burned my coat, grazed skin—but I kept moving. The scythe became a blur, every swing a verdict.
The Herald finally moved.
It stepped down from its elevated perch, flesh rearranging as armor-like growths hardened along its frame. Its voice boomed—not shouted, but broadcast, echoing inside my skull.
[Seaborn Herald]: You are a catalyst. You will be harvested intact.
I locked eyes with it across the carnage.
Blue light.
Broken bodies.
Lilith breathing hard beside me.
I wiped blood from my mouth with the back of my hand, teeth stained red, mind racing.
I need a window. One second. One mistake.
And then—
It hit me.
A terrible idea.
The best kind.
I straightened, raised my voice, and shouted:
[Adam]: Hey! Do you know people die when they are killed?
Silence.
Not dramatic silence.
Processing silence.
The Seaborn froze—not all of them, but enough. Heads tilted. Tendrils stilled. Flower-guns slowed their spin by fractions of a second.
The Herald's glow flickered.
[Seaborn Herald]: Statement acknowledged. Cross-referencing.
Lilith snapped her head toward me.
[Lilith]: …Adam, what did you just—
Too late.
I was already moving.
I lunged forward, boots tearing through sand, both revolvers clearing leather in a single fluid motion. Lawbreaker and Lawbringer roared to life in my hands, runes flaring molten orange.
[Adam]: THEORY TEST IN PROGRESS!
I unloaded.
Not aimed shots.
Judgment.
Bullets became a continuous stream of fire, ripping through the stalled Seaborn ranks before their brains finished buffering reality. Flower-guns detonated mid-spin. Fused bodies came apart violently, blue ichor vaporizing under Inferno enchantments.
The Herald reacted—too slow.
Rounds punched into its torso, tearing chunks of adaptive flesh away faster than it could rearrange itself. Each hit disrupted its glow, its voice stuttering mid-thought.
[Seaborn Herald]: —logical incons—damage exceed—adaptive loop failing—
I didn't stop.
I advanced while firing, boots splashing through dissolving bodies, revolvers screaming until the air itself warped from heat. Cutlets collapsed into pieces. Seaborn burst like overripe fruit.
Lilith recovered instantly.
She hurled every remaining potion in a wide arc—Harming clouds blooming behind my advance, sealing off the horde's retreat, and corroding anything that tried to move.
The Herald shrieked.
Not anger.
Not pain.
Panic.
Its form destabilized, flesh flickering between shapes as it tried—and failed—to compensate for contradictory data and overwhelming force.
[Seaborn Herald]: Catalyst behavior exceeds predictive parameters—
I closed the distance.
Pressed both revolvers directly against its chest.
[Adam]: Cross-reference this.
I pulled the triggers.
The Herald's core imploded in a blinding flash of blue and orange, its body collapsing inward before erupting outward in a shockwave that flattened the remaining Seaborn like wet paper.
When the smoke cleared—
Nothing moved.
No glow.
No whispers.
No adaptation.
Just scorched sand, dissolving ichor, and broken coral armor.
I stood there, revolvers smoking, chest heaving.
Lilith walked up behind me slowly.
[Lilith]: …Did you just weaponize a stupid sentence?
I holstered the guns, my shoulders finally sagging.
I turned, exhausted, bloody, grinning like an idiot who survived anyway.
[Adam]: Never underestimate the power of confusing your enemy mid-monologue.
The sea went quiet.
No waves crashing.
No whispers from the Deep.
No movement in the blue-stained surf.
Just the crackle of cooling sand and the distant cry of seabirds that were very carefully pretending nothing unnatural had happened.
I finally exhaled.
[Adam]: Lil… are you tired and want to get back?
Lilith didn't answer immediately.
She just stood there for a second longer, wings slowly folding in, shoulders slumping as the adrenaline finally bled out of her system.
[Lilith]: Yes. Please. We've been stranded for a day and a half… and our food ran out hours ago.
She glanced at the battlefield—at the bodies, the smoke, the scorched coastline.
[Lilith]: And if I see one more blue thing with too many limbs, I'm going to start committing very personal violence.
I nodded.
Same.
I reached into my pack and pulled out the worn booklet—leather cover, cracked spine, runes etched deep into the pages like scars. The Trade Ledger. The thing that lets you cheat reality, at a cost.
I flipped it open.
[HOME]
— Penalty Applies
— Distance Extreme
— Hostile World State: ACTIVE
I clicked Teleport: Home anyway.
[Adam]: Worth it.
The runes flared crimson.
A warning pulsed across the page.
Teleport penalty detected.
Required compensation: High-value supplies or equivalent mass-energy.
I didn't even hesitate.
I dumped what we couldn't sell anyway into the offering circle—damaged Seaborn cores, corrupted Cutlet armor, half-melted flower-guns, broken relics that screamed when you touched them.
The booklet absorbed them greedily.
The screaming stopped.
The runes shifted from red to gold.
Penalty offset.
Teleport authorized.
Lilith stepped closer, gripping my arm.
[Lilith]: Next time… we bring more food.
[Adam]: Next time, we burn the coast first.
The world folded.
Light bent inward, space tearing like wet paper as the shoreline, the battlefield, the cursed sea—all of it collapsed into a spiraling tunnel of symbols and wind.
For a heartbeat, there was only weightlessness.
Then—
Warmth.
Stone beneath my boots.
Familiar air.
The quiet hum of home wards settling back into place.
We stumbled forward and nearly collapsed onto solid ground.
[Vlad]: Brother, how are... HOLY HELL, YOU LOOK LIKE A DEAD BODY.
I miss being angry at you, Vlad... Also, I have the stamina to kick your ass.
[Chapter end]
[New novel]
[Arknights: The Doctor Oath]
[In the year 2050, a young physician swears the timeless oath to protect life—only to be thrust into a brutal war months later. Conscripted as a combat medic, she saves countless soldiers without ever firing a shot. But her final act of mercy becomes her undoing: betrayed and blamed, she dies while trying to rescue the very life that ends hers.
Yet death is not the end.
A mysterious voice calls to her—"Your duty is needed somewhere, little one." She awakens in a new body, in a strange yet hauntingly familiar world: Terra. Ravaged by Catastrophes, plagued by Infected, and divided by the politics of nations like Ursus, Lungmen, and Laterano, Terra is a land where suffering is constant, and healers are needed more than ever.
Armed with nothing but her medical knowledge, her oath, and the remnants of her past, she must navigate the shadows of Originium, the weight of her reincarnation, and the ethical dilemmas of a world where saving a life can alter nations.
Here, her oath is not just a promise—
It is her identity.
And Terra may break it… or give it new meaning.]