Blue fog drifted low across the stones, thick enough to swallow sound.
Except for that sound.
Dragging. Wet and heavy.
My grip tightened on the rusted sword until my knuckles ached. The hilt was slick with a mixture of sweat and ichor—the monster's and mine alike.
Breathe.
I tried. The air tasted like mold and electricity.
Something big pushed through the fog, slow and deliberate, like it knew I was watching.
I clenched the sword until the metal groaned, a single thought crossing my mind.
I won't die here.
I didn't know why I believed that. My body sure as hell didn't.
KRAAAM—!!
The stone floor erupted like a mine. Blue grass sprayed into the air along with dirt and bits of bone. A shockwave punched into my ribs and threw me backward across the ground.
I skidded until my back slammed a half-buried slab of stone.
The world shook around me, as my eyes strained to regain focus.
Then it rose.
A mass of vines and sinew, tangled into a torso that split down the center like a vertical mouth—teeth layered deep like a zipper forged for devouring.
Blue saliva dripped from between those teeth, sizzling into the grass.
Two vine-tails whipped behind it, cracking the air with each sweep.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ENTITY DETECTED: Mawglut
Level: ???
DOOMCYCLE - Possible
Recommended Action: Fight
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Even from here, its presence pressed against me—an invisible weight settling over my lungs.
I swallowed hard.
A part of me whispered: You could run.
Another part answered: You're too slow. You always were.
"Resonance Shift—!"
The air warped, bending like heat off metal.
A vine slammed into me before the distortion fully locked.
THWACK—!!
White swallowed my vision. Breath emptied from my lungs in a single violent moment. My body spun, crashed, rolled—until a jagged rock caught my shoulder.
Something cracked.
A breath clawed at my throat like broken glass.
The system flickered:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING: CRITICAL IMPACT DETECTED]
[MUSCLE DAMAGE: LEFT SIDE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Mawglut roared—a sound like bone being churned in a grinder—and charged.
I pushed up but...
My stance buckled beneath me.
Happening again. Body quitting before I could even think.
"Move—damn it—MOVE!"
I forced Resonance Shift again—just a flicker.
A vine carved downward where my skull had been.
The recoil buzzed behind my eyes.
My stomach twisted.
And the Mawglut didn't slow.
CRASH—!!
Its bulk rammed into me, lifting me off my feet. My back slammed a pillar hard enough to rattle bone.
"GAH!"
Warmth slid down my spine. Blood. Had to be.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING: INTERNAL TRAUMA DETECTED]
[CONTINUED ENGAGEMENT MAY RESULT IN DOOMCYCLE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"No kidding…"
My voice scraped out of my throat.
The Mawglut's jaw opened wider, strings of saliva hissing against the ground.
"Stand… stand up…"
My legs shook. My fingers felt distant.
Move. Move. MOVE!
A vine lashed my thigh.
PAKK—!!
I didn't even realize the scream was mine.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING: MOBILITY IMPAIRED]
[BLEEDING: MODERATE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Mawglut didn't hesitate.
A thick vine reeled back—aimed right at me.
I triggered Resonance Shift—
—but my body buckled.
My sight flickered.
Disappeared.
"No—!"
The vine hit me dead center.
THUD—!
Agony surged in every limb.
My vision narrowed to a red pinhole.
I lifted off the ground helplessly.
Skidded.
Dug the sword into the ground to stop myself.
My fingers went numb.
The Mawglut's shadow swallowed me.
If it reached me like this, I wouldn't have enough of a body left to fight back.
The system flickered urgently:
[EMERGENCY ALERT: FATAL STRIKE INCOMIN-...]
The warning cut out.
My mind felt crushed between two stones.
"This isn't survivable," I whispered.
Unless—
Unless I risked everything.
Mana gathered in my skull like shards of burning glass.
One more time. Resonance shift.
My eyes burned like lava, flashes of bright red masking the Mawglut.
The world snapped into vibrating clarity. Every motion-line converged on one truth:
I wasn't fast enough.
The Mawglut's maw tore open.
I twisted—just before the Shift collapsed.
A vine caught my ankle.
YANK—!!
My jaw slammed the ground. Stars exploded behind my eyes.
The Mawglut reeled me in.
My hands raked at the dirt. Blood made it slick.
Bones ground. Tendons strained.
"Let go—! LET GO!"
It didn't.
Its breath rolled over me, thick with rot and sweet chemical decay.
This was it.
The moment.
The certainty.
This is where I die again.
Clarity bloomed cold and final.
I didn't have speed.
I didn't have strength.
I didn't have time.
But I had force.
My hand twitched upward.
The Mawglut's teeth descended.
"Kinetic—!!"
BLAST—!!
The shockwave slammed upward into its mouth. The Mawglut's head recoiled backwards.
The vine slackened.
Enough.
I tore my leg free.
Pain flared like molten iron.
But I was alive.
I staggered upright, knees shaking.
The Mawglut screeched, flailing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS - MANA SICKNESS
MANA - 0/195]
Continued use of resonance shift will cause permanent blindness.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Blind? Huh.
Sure.
Add it to the list.
I spat blood.
The Mawglut oriented on me again.
I sprinted somehow. Without thinking.
Resonance Shift again.
Pain tore down every nerve.
The world slowed.
I slid under another whipping vine. Rolled. Stood.
My emotions felt… separate. Like they stepped back and left me here to deal with this alone.
The Mawglut pivoted.
As strong as ever.
I felt weak.
Magic flickered at my fingertips.
I needed to get close.
Close enough to stab.
Close enough to die.
"…Okay," I whispered. "Then come on."
The Mawglut lunged.
And I ran to meet it.
A vine lashed.
WHUMP—!!
I spun sideways. Hit stone.
Another vine.
THAK—!!
Air hissed out of me. Couldn't pull it back in.
[CRITICAL IMPACT DETECTED][BONE FRACTURE: MINOR]
A third vine struck.
I rolled—too slow.
CRACK—!!
Pain shot up my leg.
I couldn't breathe.
Couldn't think.
The Mawglut reeled me in again.
I clawed the ground.
"Fuck...this..."
Something inside of my mind tore loose.
Not again.
I don't want to die. Not like last time. Not begging.
I grabbed the vine around my leg.
Pulled myself closer to my death.
To my only chance.
My fingers brushed the sword.
The Mawglut yanked me up.
I thrust my hand.
"KINETIC—!!"
BLAST—!!
Its head jerked.
Its teeth missed.
I used the momentum.
Drove the sword upward.
SCHK—!!!
The blade pierced through flesh and something hard.
The Mawglut convulsed.
Not dead.
Not yet.
I braced my foot on its chest torso.
"ONE—MORE—!!"
Kinetic Blast.
The shockwave rammed the sword deeper.
All the way to the hilt.
The Mawglut howled.
Its body collapsed.
The vine around my leg slackened.
I hit the ground.
White static filled my vision.
Then—
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[LEVEL UP!][LEVEL 11 ACHIEVED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Cold washed through my limbs.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NEW SPELL UNLOCKED — RARE: VOIDLASH]
A condensed whip of void that slices flesh and destabilizes spell matrices.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A laugh almost escaped me.
A real upgrade.
A real lifeline.
But then—
A final warning tore across my vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WARNING: BOSS SIGNATURE STRAIGHT AHEADDISTANCE: 42 METERS…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My stomach hollowed.
The Mawglut wasn't the apex predator.
Something worse was waiting.
And I was in no shape to fight.