Raven and the beast locked eyes, a silent declaration of war between two apex predators.
In that moment, Damian was forgotten. He was untethered, a ghost in the periphery. He could have run.
The sect's protective barrier was just a short, desperate sprint away. He could have saved himself and let the powerful Hazelwood prodigy handle the monster.But he didn't. He chose to be a brave fool.
'A brave fool is better than a coward, I guess,' he thought, a grim smile touching his lips.
The fear was still there, a cold, hard knot in his gut, but it was overshadowed by a strange, defiant resolve.
'Besides, I don't truly fear death anymore.' He began to move, his steps quiet and deliberate, closing the distance between himself and the colossal bear.
The wild bear roared and lunged at Raven, its claws scything through the air, each one the size of a dagger.
With a flash of steel, Raven drew the massive broadsword from his back, meeting the attack with a deafening clang of metal on claw. Sparks flew, illuminating his strained but determined face.
Seeing his opening, Damian moved quickly, darting under the beast's thrashing legs.
He aimed for the soft underbelly, a plan born of desperation. He realized a second too late what a catastrophic mistake it was.
The bear, wounded by Raven's counter-attack, recoiled and then simply.... sat down.
Damian was crushed, the immense weight of the beast driving the air from his lungs in a single, agonizing burst.
A sharp, sickening crack echoed from his ribs. The bear, seemingly content, ignored the human pinned beneath it and focused its fury on swatting away Raven's relentless attacks.
Damian's vision tunneled. He twisted his kitchen knife, putting every ounce of his remaining strength into the motion.
The blade bit deeper, but then snapped with a sharp ping, half of it lost within the bear's thick hide.
'I feel death approaching,' Damian thought, his mind growing hazy. His lungs were on fire, screaming for air they couldn't get. The world was fading to black.
'Yes... Die. Die. Die!'A voice, cold and malevolent, hissed in his mind, jolting him from the edge of oblivion.
It was the same sinister presence from the lecture hall. With a final, defiant surge of adrenaline, he pushed against the bear's crushing weight. The beast didn't even flinch.
And then… there was nothing. An empty, silent, black space stretched before his eyes.
'Died again,' a new voice echoed, and this one was different. It was not the malevolent whisper but a deep, resonant, and impossibly ancient sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Damian floated in the void, a disembodied consciousness. He tried to find the source of the voice, but there was nothing to see. "Who are you?" he called out, his own voice a mere thought in the emptiness.
There was no reply, only a profound, timeless silence. Then, after what felt like an eternity, the voice returned.
'You do not need to know that now. Just know this: your lives are infinite. And Your only goal is to reach the Pinnacle... again.'
"What? Again?" Damian's mind reeled. "What do you mean, again? Have I reached the Pinnacle before? Are you talking about me, or the real Damian Ashborn? Hey! Speak! What do you mean!?"
He screamed his questions into the void, but his only answer was the unending silence.
A wave of dizziness washed over his consciousness, and he tumbled into unconsciousness.
He awoke with a gasp, his eyes flying open. He was back in the forest, perched precariously on a tree branch.
Below him, the same wild boar he had killed—what felt like an eternity ago but was in reality only twenty minutes in the past—was beginning to wander away.
"What was that?" Damian whispered, clutching his head, which throbbed with a dull ache. He had died.
He remembered the crushing weight, the snapping of his bones. He should be terrified, trembling, a mess of post-traumatic stress. But he felt… nothing. No fear. No trauma. Just a strange, unsettling calm.
'Cause of Death: Bear's Ass,' he thought, and a dry, humorless chuckle escaped his lips.
The absurdity was the only thing he could cling to. He watched the boar leave, just as it had in the previous timeline. He leaped down from the tree.
This time, his movements were different. There was no hesitation, no wasted motion.
The clumsiness of his first jump was replaced by a fluid, predatory grace. He knew exactly how much force to use, exactly where to land.
This was his true strength, his greatest cheat: the ability to learn anything, to perfect any motion, through the ultimate price of death.
'Reach the Pinnacle?' he thought, a maniacal smile spreading across his lips as he recalled the voice's command. 'When I get there, I'll kick your ass for being so cryptic.'
The boar, sensing him, sidestepped just as before. But this time, Damian was ready. He adjusted his trajectory mid-air, landing lightly on its back.
The boar squealed and tried to shake him off, but Damian was already rolling clear.
As the beast scrambled to its feet, disoriented, Damian took his stance.
He channeled the memory of Raven's instruction, combining his breath and his form into a single, perfect motion.He punched.
The impact sent the wild boar flying several feet through the air. It coughed up a spray of blood and landed with a soft, final thud. It was dead.
Damian looked down at his fist, now looking a little tougher, a little more masculine. 'See that, Raven?' he thought with a smirk. 'Now come on out. Let's see what knowledge you have for me in this life.'
He took out his kitchen knife and, with a single, practiced slash, retrieved the beast core.
"Clap! Clap! Clap!"The sound of applause echoed from behind him, louder and more deliberate than the first time.
Damian turned slowly. He saw Raven Hazelwood, but the amused smirk he remembered was gone. In its place was the wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression of an amazed child who had just witnessed an impossible magic trick.
"Oh, you're finally out?" Damian said, his voice laced with a cool, dangerous confidence he hadn't possessed before. "I thought you were going to hide all day."
Raven's jaw snapped shut. "Another surprise? How could you possibly know I was here?" he asked, his voice a mixture of shock and disbelief.
He knew it should be impossible for any Body Refiner to sense his concealed presence.
"Just a trick," Damian said with an enigmatic smile. He decided to press his advantage, to try and steer this strange relationship in a direction he could control.
He wanted Raven to see him as an enigma, someone so far beyond him that a rivalry was pointless. "So? What are you following me for?"
He hoped the display of power and foreknowledge would intimidate Raven.
Well.... It did the exact opposite.Raven's eyes lit up with the fervent fire of a battle enthusiast "That punch! Your control, your form—it was perfect! I want to have a spar! Are you open for it?" he asked, taking an eager step forward.
Damian stumbled back a step, his carefully constructed composure cracking. 'This blockhead!' he thought, utterly flabbergasted. His plan had backfired spectacularly.
He needed a new tactic. He couldn't shake this guy, so maybe... he could use him for revenge.
A slight, calculating smile returned to his face. "Not right now," he said, looking Raven dead in the eye. "But we could be partners. There's a Stage 5 Bear deeper in these woods. Are you up for a real hunt?"