The black mist figure stood silently. It glanced at Renzo before turning away, vanishing like a phantom—phasing through worlds.
Zay remained still, processing everything. The words he'd heard from the Resonance Lens about his Resonance name, the black mist kneeling, the new passive, and the Resonance Echo he had received—it all weighed on him.
His mind felt clearer than before, though thoughts he had long buried now hovered dangerously close to the surface. His heart still ached from Renzo's betrayal. He clenched his chest tightly, exhaling as he continued walking forward. His aura had begun to recover more quickly, even as his heavy breathing persisted.
His amethyst eyes had darkened slightly.
He walked for another thirty minutes before spotting a throne in the distance. It was empty—no gold, no weapons, nothing but still silence.
He stood there for five long minutes, scanning the area. No movement. No sign. Just silence.
Then, his eyes twitched.
"Damn it all to hell," Zay muttered to himself, over and over, before finally turning around and beginning to walk back.
After forty of walking, Zay blinked a few times to stay awake as he entered the room with the tent, the couches, and the fishing rod. He glanced at it and sighed.
"It's better than nothing."
He walked over to the fishing rod, noting its all-black color, and picked it up. It rested easily in his hands as he made his way to one of the couches and collapsed onto it. He set the rod down on the ground and closed his eyes.
He was asleep in an instant.
At first, it was the memory—no, the nightmare.
Renzo's betrayal played again, only this time it wasn't a scene, but a sensation. Cold, and sharp. Like the moment a blade pierces bone. Zay watched himself hesitate, then watched Renzo stand behind the guards, eyes full of guilt and resolve.
Then the world cracked.
The ground beneath him gave way and Zay fell—tumbling endlessly into a darkness that didn't feel like falling, but did at the same time. The nightmare cliff yawned wide beneath his feet, and he plunged into silence.
Then suddenly—
A silver light.
Zay found himself sitting beneath a massive silver tree, its glowing branches swaying gently in a breeze. Everything was quiet. Before him sat a woman, poised gracefully on a stone bench, her posture still, her gaze turned toward him—but her eyes, hidden beneath a veil of silver, and she smiled towards him.
They faced each other without speaking.
A man in white appeared behind her abruptly, without warning. Silent. Unseen by the woman.
Zay's lips parted to speak, to warn—but he couldn't move. The air had turned to glass.
The man raised a gleaming white sword and, without hesitation, drove it through her back. The blade pierced cleanly through her chest.
Before she could scream, cry, flinch—anything at all—she collapsed onto her side, falling to the ground, motionless, the blade having pierced her heart.
Zay saw the sword jutting out from her chest, saw the shimmer of blood like melted moonlight.
Then the man vanished—leaving only the sword behind, embedded in her still body.
Zay abruptly jolted upright on the couch, drenched in sweat. His breath came in ragged gasps as he looked around, chest rising and falling. The dream lingered like smoke in his lungs.
Slowly, he raised his gloved left hand and wiped the sweat from his face.
"Damn it all... Why am I dreaming that... of all things? Damn it!"
He spoke aloud, frustration thick in his voice, before reaching down and grabbing the fishing rod.
Slowly, he stood with the rod in hand, his gaze sweeping the area around him as he remembered—he was still in the cave where he'd taken shelter from the acid rain.
'How long was I out for?' he wondered, his breathing slowly beginning to steady.
Zay's eyes moved around the space, landing on the wooden door he had walked through earlier. It was still open. He gave a small nod.
Without hesitation, he walked toward it and began ascending the cave. The wide passage began to narrow, but he could still make his way through with the fishing rod in hand.
After several minutes of twisting paths, curves, and steady walking, he finally reached the mouth of the cave. The rain had stopped.
He looked down at his shirt, halfway dissolved in patches where the acid rain had touched it.
"Good thing I took it off... I would've hated for that to happen while I was asleep", he whispered, glancing around once more before stepping outside.
What greeted him was unexpected.
When he first entered the cave, the world outside had been pale and lifeless. Now, everything was awash with color.
The tree trunks were rich brown. The leaves glowed in shades of green and red. The dirt was warm and earthen, the grass vivid and alive.
He paused—and smiled.
He didn't know what had changed, or why… but he felt as if he had overcome something—faced something buried deep within. He saw the world in color again.
Or maybe… not again.
Maybe, for the first time, he was truly seeing the colors—and appreciating them.
Zay left the cave and tightened his grip on the fishing rod in his hand and ventured through the jungle terrain.
As he walked, he noticed the sound had became normal as well. No more delays between sounds and he continued.
Zay froze slightly as a faint rustling stirred behind him—subtle, almost like the whisper of wind brushing over dead leaves. He glanced over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes, but saw nothing out of place.
But when he turned his attention back ahead, a massive tree now loomed in front of him—towering, and gnarled—yet he was certain it hadn't been there a heartbeat ago. Its trunk twitched. Then it shuddered violently, bark cracking and splintering with sickening groans, until the entire thing shattered outward like broken glass.
From within the ruined shell stepped a creature dragged from a nightmare.
Its body was a patchwork of bark and decay, the wood twisted and darkened by rot. Black, pupil-less eyes stared out from a long, sinewy extension of flesh that drooped like a crooked neck, swaying back and forth as if struggling to support its own cursed weight. The thing loomed above Zay, that nightmarish "neck" twisting unnaturally, its eyes tracking him with a slow, deliberate rhythm.
Then came the arms—gnarled limbs of cracked bark, pulsing with sickly green aura. Legs formed beneath the creature, stretching from the roots like something trying to mimic a human stance but getting it horribly wrong. The entire form surged taller as it stood.
And then it screamed.
A shriek tore from its chest—a sound loud and shrill, almost squeaky in pitch, yet layered with an unnatural coldness that sliced through the forest like frost from an ancient era that's been trapped. The creature raised one of its grotesque hands and brought it down toward Zay in a blinding sweep.
Zay leapt back just in time, narrowly dodging the creature's descending hand. It crashed into the ground with a sickening thud, sending a shockwave of decay through the earth. The soil beneath blackened instantly, as if infected, and the once-lush grass shriveled into ash. Rot spread like a plague, crawling out from the impact point in jagged lines.
The creature screamed again—louder, more frenzied this time. It raised its grotesque arms to the sky, and a swirling wave of green aura coalesced in its palms, pulsing with malice. Then it launched the condensed energy forward like a cannon shot.
Zay's violet aura flared around him, the incoming blast tore through the air with howling force, like a blizzard of corruption barreling straight for him. He twisted his body and dove to the left, barely evading it.
The blast struck a nearby tree.
There was no pause—no dramatic delay. The instant the aura touched the bark, the tree decayed from the inside out. Wood cracked and buckled, its trunk hollowed in a heartbeat. It collapsed to the ground in a single breath, reduced to brittle husks and rot. The infection didn't simply spread—it devoured the entire tree... instantly.
Then suddenly—three more shrieks tore through the forest, sharp enough to make the trees tremble. The sound echoed from every direction, and before Zay could move, three more of the grotesque creatures emerged from the shadows, stepping beside the first like summoned nightmares.
Each was identical—bodies of rotted bark, black eyes that swayed on unnatural, twisted necks. And each one locked their hollow gaze onto Zay.
They screamed in unison, a sound that rattled the air and clawed at the inside of his skull.
Zay's body tensed, instincts roaring, but even so, he found himself frozen. Not in fear—but in grim realization.
'Is this… how I die?' Zay thought as he wiped more sweat from his earlier nightmares, still lingering on his mind.
All four creatures raised their arms, green aura pulsing in their cracked wooden hands. Aura condensed again—thicker than before. The very air grew heavier, even suffocating.
Zay swallowed hard as aura surged into his fishing rod, ready to fight with whatever strength he could muster.
The creatures shrieked again, and four large, condensed orbs of aura were hurled toward him.
Without hesitation, Zay whipped his rod forward. The line shot out, and the hook at its end struck one of the orbs dead-on—shattering it on impact. A burst of rot exploded in the air, spreading like a disease before falling to the earth, where it instantly killed the grass below.
He jumped into the air, narrowly dodging the remaining blasts. All of them flew at the same speed, without any variation.
The creatures screamed louder, their fury rising as they charged toward him.
Zay wiped sweat from his forehead and lunged into the branches of a nearby tree. From above, he caught sight of one of the creatures—its hands glowing ominously with concentrated aura.
Without hesitation, he leapt to another tree just as the one he'd been perched on decayed, instantly. The extended branch withered, cracked, and collapsed in a lifeless heap beneath him.
As Zay darted from tree to tree, his breaths came sharp and fast, each landing more desperate than the last.
'I can't win this—not like this,' he thought, gritting his teeth. 'Not with the restrictions… and not against four of those... things. If it were just one—maybe. Maybe I could take it.'
With that thought, he stopped searching for an opening to strike. Instead, he started looking for a path to escape—a way to vanish, to run, to disappear into the forest. Not to face them head-on. And, if he could help it… not to face them at all.