Kael lay motionless on the ground for two whole days. The aura he released—and the massacre that followed—was enough to keep every living thing away. Within a three-kilometer radius, not even the smallest creature dared to come close. He stayed like that, unconscious, until morning.
When he finally opened his eyes, sunlight was already spilling through the branches, lighting up the forest in scattered fragments.
Kael tried to push himself up using a tree, but his legs gave out immediately. He tried again. And again. In the end, he gave up, falling flat on his back with a heavy sigh.
What even happened last night? The only thing he remembered clearly was being surrounded by wolves with no way out. The scar on his chest was a blur, and the reason his bones felt shattered was a mystery. Every cell in his body burned like it was trying to destroy him from the inside. Even his heart was beating slower and weaker than it should.
And if that wasn't strange enough, when Kael used his mana sight, he noticed something terrifying: not a single living thing was left around him. Every creature in sight had been killed—horribly.
"Oi, narrator. Shut it for a second, will you? Leave me some dialogue."
"As if. Worry about whether you're dead or alive, you corpse. Let the narrator do the job."
Whoever, or whatever, had done this had nearly broken him too. That's when Kael remembered—the regeneration skill he had seen in his status.
He activated it right away, burning one-fifth of his mana. The effect was instant. The bleeding in his chest stopped. His failing cells calmed. Encouraged, Kael used regeneration again. Some of his broken bones began to mend.
A blue screen popped up before him:
[Regeneration has leveled up → Lv.2]
Kael's lips curled into a grin. Without hesitation, he cast it a third time. The wound on his stomach closed almost completely, and his larger bone fractures started to knit together. The bruises and decay across his body disappeared. But the price was steep—half of his mana was gone.
"Here you go, Mr. Main Character. Keep the spotlight," the narrator teased.
"Tch… If I use it one more time, I'll be fully healed. Activate regeneration!"
The moment he said it, his body healed completely—every wound, every fracture. But as his mana ran dry, darkness swallowed him, and Kael collapsed once again.