The bleeding didn't stop.
That was the first lesson.
With gritted teeth, I pressed my hand harder against my side while warm blood was soaking through the cloth that the observer had wrapped around me. Every step held a sharp reminder through my body—no fading numbness, no sudden flash of recovery, no soothing wave of strength to knit flesh back together.
Only loss.
Every drop was precious now.
Deeper and deeper into the jungle we went, but not through.
Around it.
I noticed the change even before the observer spoke. The air felt wrong. Not heavy with pressure, not sharp with danger- rather thin, hollow, as though something vital were being drained out of it. The jungle's usual undercurrent of noise was gone.
No whisper.
No pull.
No acknowledgment.
The trees ahead appeared plaster-white, their bark cracked and dry, fizzed out of glowing runes. Leaves lay unmoving on the ground, untouched by rot or life. Even the mist avoided the vicinity, curling round an invisible perimeter.
"This is it," the observer said quietly. "An anomaly-only zone."
I frowned. "Looks dead."
"It is," he said. "To the jungle."
We crossed the boundary.
The moment my foot came down on that pale soil, I felt a tightness in my chest. Not from pressure—from absence. The fire within me flickered hesitantly, like a flame starved for air.
I staggered.
The observer caught my shoulder. "Careful. You won't get support here. No environmental reinforcement. No adaptive pressure."
"No help," I muttered. "No punishment either?"
He shook his head. "This place exists because the jungle doesn't know what to do with things like you. So it isolates them."
I looked around.
Remains, many of them human, littered the ground in circles and in lines, symbols worn smooth by time. There were weapons nearby, rusted beyond use, armor cracked and broken. Each skeleton showed signs of extreme alteration-fractured, gouged, cut clean.
An execution ground.
"They came here to rest?" I asked.
The observer's jaw clenched. "They came here to decide."
A sudden wave of dizziness hit me. I dropped to one knee, gasping for breath. The wound in my side burned fiercely, and my vision dimmed at the edges.
Blood loss.
I clamped down harder, still to no avail.
The observer next to me knelt, his eyes glinting. "You need to sit. Now."
"I can't," I growled. "If I stop—"
"You'll bleed out is you don't," he snapped. "And this zone won't stabilize you."
I sat.
The pale ground felt cold and lifeless under my weight. The hunger in my chest stirred uneasily, stirred by the absence of jungle response. It wanted more. More pressure. More conflict.
More fuel.
"The anomalies passing through this zone have a choice—this is neither symbolic nor philosophical," said the observer.
He pointed at the bones. "Physical."
I followed his gaze.
The stone structure stood at the clearing's center. Low and circular, it had shallow etched grooves across its surface filled with dried black residue. Even now, that residue pulsed faintly.
"What is that?" I asked.
"A converter," he answered, "built by anomalies who lived long enough to understand their dilemma."
Nausea twisted within.
"Your body is unstable," he continued. "You've grown beyond regeneration. Your evolution is crude. Every fight from now will be bringing the end closer."
I clenched my fists. "Then tell it."
His gaze met mine. "You either refine what you've become… or you burn out."
The word burn made hunger rise sharply.
Grinding my teeth, I asked, "How?"
He stood and walked toward the stone structure. "This device was designed to do one thing—force stabilization by consuming something you cannot recover."
The effort to lift myself up required slow, painful endurance. "What does it take?"
He delayed his answer.
But he did tap the stone.
And the grooves lit up.
Images slammed into my consciousness.
Anomalies!—screaming as their bodies twisted violently. Some collapsed into lifeless husks. Others emerged changed, unrecognizable, monstrous, barely sane.
And a few...
Standing tall. Controlled. Stable.
Next came the price.
Loss of sensation.
Loss of emotion.
Loss of humanity.
My breath hitched.
"This will take what you rely on most," the observer said. "What keeps you fighting."
I thought of fear.
Pain.
Hope.
Then I felt it clearly.
My will.
The heat inside my chest flared in protest.
"If I do this," I said slowly, "I won't be the same."
He nodded. "No anomaly is."
I looked again into the dead zone. At the remains. At the silence.
"And if I don't?" I asked.
He did not even pause. "You'll die in the jungle within weeks. Hunters will cripple you. Guardians will corner you. You'll bleed out the first time you misjudge a fight."
Bitterly, I laughed. "You really know how to sell a choice."
He held my gaze. "This isn't about survival anymore. It's about what kind of existence you choose."
The hunger roared back, this time with claws digging into my chest. My mutated arm throbbed, the veins glowing brighter.
I felt it then.
The temptation.
If I let go—if I stopped caring; if I stopped hesitating; I could burn through everything. Power without restraint. Violence without regret.
A monster.
But monsters don't bleed out slowly.
They don't hesitate.
They don't fear losing what they have given up long ago.
With my legs shaking I rose and walked towards the converter.
The observed stiffened. "Think carefully."
"I am," I said.
I placed my transformed arm inside the grooves.
The stone was freezing.
The instant I made contact, pain erupted through me with an intensity I had never felt before. I screamed as something burrowed deep into my chest, seizing my heat, my hunger, the very foundations I had forged from my suffering.
My will ignited in a volatile flare.
The converter drank it away.
I fell forward. My vision exploded white. Uninvited, memories surfaced—faces I barely remembered, choices I regretted, fear I had buried under survival.
All of it got pulled off.
Stripped.
Refined.
My scream cut short.
Silence.
A far cry from unconsciousness.
Stillness.
The hunger had not disappeared.
It grew focused.
I sensed something lock into place inside me, heavy and cold. It cemented my previously unstable core into a new formation. Pain faded like an echo from a distance. My heartbeat slowed down, solid and steady.
I opened my eyes.
The world appeared… sharper.
Not brighter. Not clearer.
Simpler.
I yanked my arm free from the stone. The grooves had darkened, cracked. All this while, the device had drained itself dry.
Staring at me, eyes wide, was the observer.
"You are still conscious," he said quietly. "That means-"
"I know," I retorted.
My voice sounded different.
It was calmer now.
It was colder.
I touched my chest.
The hunger was still there.
But it no longer screamed.
It was there, waiting.
"What did I lose?" I asked.
The observer swallowed. "Your emotional recovery," he said. "Fear will dull. Empathy will fade. You won't break easily—but you won't heal inside either."
I nodded slowly.
A fair trade.
The ground quivered faintly beyond the dead zone.
The jungle was aware.
I turned to the boundary, narrowing my eyes.
"Which way leads back?" I asked.
The observer hesitated. "You're going back in?"
I flexed my altered arm; power, restrained though it was, hummed beneath the surface.
"Yes," I said. "I'm done being corrected."
From somewhere in the depths of the jungle came a roaring.
Not a guardian.
Not a hunter.
Something else entirely.
The observer appraised me, unease flickering across his face. "You should know," he said softly, "once you step out, the jungle will no longer attempt to fix you."
A faint smile crossed my lips.
"Good," I said. "I know what I want to become."
With that, I stepped out across the boundary.
The jungle responded without delay.
Not as pressure as recognition.