Chapter 2 – The Hard Zone
The world came back like a hammer to the chest.
John hit the ground hard, dirt and ash exploding beneath him. His lungs burned as he sucked in a breath that tasted of iron and smoke.
When he lifted his head, the world around him didn't feel like Earth.
Twisted trees stretched high into a colorless sky, their bark black and cracked, leaking faint white light from within—like molten veins under obsidian skin. The air hummed faintly, as if the forest itself were alive, whispering in a language he wasn't meant to hear.
There was no wind. No sound. Just that quiet, impossible hum.
He staggered to his feet, clothes coated in gray dust. His heartbeat filled the silence, ragged and too loud.
Then came the sound. A wet skitter.
He froze.
Something moved between the trees—slow at first, then suddenly fluid and quick. A shape crawled out of the shadows.
It was tall when it rose, thin as a shadow stretched too far, its limbs bending at wrong angles. Each step made a faint, sticky crackle, like sap tearing from bark. Its body was segmented like an insect's, but its chest swelled and sank as if lungs still tried to remember how to breathe.
Where a head should've been hung a pale, half-formed face—eyes too large, mouth too wide, human features smeared across chitin. When it tilted forward, the mouth split open sideways, a spiral of teeth glinting inside.
The whispering began again—but this time, inside his skull. hungry hungry hungry.
John stumbled back, pulse detonating into panic.
"Stay away—"
The creature lunged.
Instinct saved him. He dove sideways, rolling across the dirt as the thing's fangs slammed into the ground, hissing steam. The air reeked of acid.
He crawled backward, palms burning, eyes raking the ground for anything he could use. His hand hit a broken branch. He grabbed it.
The monster twisted, those pale, swollen eyes locking on him. It lunged again.
He swung. The branch slammed into its face, cracking something soft. The monster screamed—a wet, bubbling sound—and John didn't think. He swung again. And again.
It reared to strike, limbs flaring. One of its forelegs smashed into the trunk of a dead sapling and stuck, joint sunk deep into wood. The creature thrashed, pinned for a breath. John saw the chance and moved.
He seized the leg where it met the bark and pulled. The joint tore free with a wet snap. The limb came away in his hands—slick, armored, ending in a hooked claw that gleamed with dark residue. He dropped the branch. This was better—heavier, sharper, real.
It lunged.
He stepped in. The makeshift spear drove through the open mouth, bit deep, and kept going until his knuckles hit chitin. The thing convulsed, a high, layered keening shredding the air, then went still.
Silence collapsed over the clearing. John stood above the corpse, breath sawing in and out, the torn leg trembling in his hands.
Then—light.
A faint shimmer rose from the body—white-gold, drifting upward like smoke from a dying flame. Tiny fragments of glowing dust floated in the air, slow and directionless, as if waiting to decide what to be.
John stared. "What… is that?"
The moment his fingers brushed a mote, the air tightened.
A voice unfolded in his mind—cold, measured, inescapable.
[Light Released]
[Fragment Type: Level 1 F-Tier]
[Absorb?]
He swallowed. "Yes."
The Light moved.
It struck him like liquid fire. Heat raced under his skin; his vision blurred; the world tilted and then steadied. He nearly fell to one knee and forced himself upright, teeth clenched until the ache passed.
When it settled, the pain receded into warmth. The air felt sharper. The ache in his arms dulled. Something faint pulsed in his chest—quiet, distant, like a heartbeat that wasn't his.
Another line shimmered across his vision before fading.
[Level 1 F-Tier Monster Defeated: Human-Faced Spider]
[Light Fragment Absorbed]
The corpse sagged and began to crumble, the chitin collapsing into ashen flakes that peeled away and vanished into the dirt. The whisper in his head was gone. The forest's hum returned, patient and indifferent.
John let out a slow breath. He shifted the torn leg in his grip, tested its weight. The hooked claw had a mean bite; the shaft was rigid and just long enough to matter. Ugly, but a weapon.
He glanced once more at the spot where the creature had fallen. The faint motes of light still hovered for a heartbeat before vanishing into the air.
He didn't know what he had absorbed. He didn't know what it meant.
But something inside him felt… different.
Not stronger. Not safer.
Just changed.
John exhaled through his teeth and started walking. The forest swallowed him in silence once more.