Consciousness snapped back all at once.
Eryon jerked upright, gasping, as if he had just broken the surface after drowning. Everything spun. The world was a blurred chaos of light, shadow, and a sharp pain drilling through his skull.
"Gh…" he let out a strangled sound, pressing a hand to his temple.
Without thinking, driven by a primal instinct, he looked down.
He saw his legs.
They were there.
Whole.
The relief lasted exactly one second.
The memories surged back like a filthy, violent river, impossible to stop. Sam's laughter. Perla's calm smile. Vicky's scream. Erick's shattered body. The blood. The claws. The floor falling away. The hollow sensation where his legs should have been.
"…ah…"
Eryon's body folded in on itself.
Vomiting was inevitable.
He dropped to his knees, retching miserably, again and again, emptying everything in his stomach as his breathing turned erratic. The shaking began in his hands and spread through his entire body.
Tears spilled without permission.
He didn't sob.
He didn't scream.
He just cried in silence.
His teeth were clenched so hard his jaw ached. His shoulders trembled as he fought to suppress sounds he refused to let escape. His face was twisted, drenched in sweat, tears, and the remnants of vomit.
He said nothing.
He simply stayed there, collapsed on the ground, broken inside, vomiting and crying in silence…
Moments later.
Eryon was still on the floor.
Many minutes had passed since his body had finally emptied itself. The trembling had lessened, though it hadn't vanished completely. His breathing was uneven and heavy, as if each breath required more effort than it should.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze.
His face was gaunt and pale, dark circles carved deep beneath his eyes, lips dry and cracked. Cold sweat ran down his forehead and neck. There was no relief in his eyes at being alive—only deep fear, tangled with a quiet anger he didn't yet know where to direct.
The memories were still there.
Not as clear images, but as vile fragments that returned again and again: the sound of flesh tearing, hot blood, screams cut short. No matter how hard he tried to push them away, they came back, insistent, digging into his mind.
"…," he opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
He didn't know what had happened.
Everything felt unreal. Too sudden. Too absurd. As if someone had ripped a piece of his life away and replaced it with a poorly stitched nightmare.
He looked down at his legs again.
They were there.
Intact.
He moved them slightly.
They responded.
And yet…
they didn't feel like his.
It was as if they belonged to someone else's body. As if they might vanish again at any moment. A strange, alien sensation ran through him, like something had been broken apart and reassembled incorrectly.
Eryon clenched his fists with difficulty.
He had survived.
He took a deep breath—or at least… he tried to.
His face was still filthy, streaked with dried vomit. His eyes, red and swollen from crying, burned every time he blinked. Even now, with the worst seemingly over, his body trembled faintly, betraying him.
With effort, he pushed himself up slightly, bracing on his arms. The simple movement sent a brief wave of dizziness through him, but he managed to stay conscious.
"What… happened…?" he murmured, his voice broken.
He tried to think clearly.
The treasure hall.
The attack.
The desperation.
And then… nothing.
The memory always stopped at the same point.
A blurred image.
A brutal sensation tearing through his body.
And something that had appeared in the system window.
"Skill: ??? activated."
The thought sent a chill down his spine.
With hands still trembling, Eryon closed his eyes for a second and focused, just as Sam had taught him.
"Status…" he whispered.
Nothing happened at first.
But just as he was about to try again—
CRASH.
A dry, heavy sound echoed to his right.
Eryon tensed instantly. His head snapped toward the noise, his heart slamming into overdrive. The dizziness vanished, replaced by a pure, almost animal alertness.
Something had hit the ground.
He wasn't alone.
The silence that followed was even more unsettling than the noise itself.
He kept his gaze fixed on the spot where the sound had come from.
Nothing.
No movement. No strange shadows. No immediate sign of danger.
Just… silence.
Somehow, that made it worse.
Breathing in short, uneven gasps, he began to register his surroundings clearly. His eyes swept the area slowly, as if moving them too fast might wake something.
He was standing—or at least it felt that way—on a wide patch of damp earth, soft beneath his feet. All around him, as far as he could see, rose rotting, twisted trees, some with blackened bark, others covered in unnaturally shaped fungi. Between them lay several pools of thick, viscous green water, perfectly still—as if nothing lived within them… or as if they were hiding something.
The air was heavy and humid, with a sour stench that scraped his throat.
A swamp…
No.
An especially ugly swamp.
That was the first clear thought he managed to form.
As he tried to assess the situation, his chest rose and fell irregularly, each breath costing him more than it should. The fear was still there, lodged deep in his gut.
Then—
Chap.
A wet sound, this time to his left.
Eryon snapped his head around.
And he saw it.
It looked like a lizard… but not quite. More like a gigantic salamander, its skin pitch-black, mottled with red patches that resembled open burns. Its body was long and muscular, easily over two meters, moving with a slow, unsettling grace.
But the worst part was its eyes.
Gray.
Empty.
Locked onto him.
The creature didn't attack immediately.
It just watched him.
The world seemed to freeze.
Eryon stood rigid, eyes fixed on the creature, unable to react. His body remembered before his mind did: blood, screams, claws, death. When he tried to take a step back, it was as if his legs no longer belonged to him.
Too late.
The salamander lunged with a heavy, abrupt motion. Eryon tried to dodge—he truly tried—but his body didn't respond; fear had pinned him in place, paralyzed by a terror burned deep into his very being.
The impact slammed him to the ground.
The air was ripped from his lungs in a strangled gasp as the creature crashed down on top of him. Then it opened that disgusting jaw—too wide, too unnatural—and a row of sharp, wet teeth sank violently into his shoulder.
The pain was searing.
Maybe that was it.
Or maybe it was something deeper.
Eryon screamed in agony—and finally reacted.
His hands clamped around the creature's neck as he tried to push it away, twist free, escape that monstrous weight. Hot blood poured out, and every movement multiplied the pain.
It was useless.
The salamander was stronger.
Much stronger.
Panic closed in on his mind again, but just then, like a desperate flash, he remembered.
He had his B-rank skill.
Focusing with everything he had, ignoring the pain, the fear, the revulsion, Eryon activated his physical enhancement. A familiar sound echoed in his mind: a cold, mechanical system message.
He didn't read it.
He couldn't.
He just fought.
The muscles in his arms tightened to their limit, fibers creaking under a strength that wasn't entirely his own. Veins bulged, his hands trembled… but he kept pushing, roaring as he fought for his life.
With a desperate shove—born more of panic than strength—Eryon did the impossible.
The creature lost its balance for an instant—just an instant—and that was enough. Eryon broke free, rolled across the ground, and staggered to his feet, blood gushing from his mangled shoulder.
He didn't think.
He didn't look back.
He ran.
Every step was a stab of pain, every breath a fire burning his chest, but he kept going as if his life depended on it—because it did. Behind him, the wet, heavy sound of the "salamander" chased him, snapping branches, crushing roots, drawing ever closer.
The swamp seemed to swallow everything.
Suddenly, the ground beneath his foot gave way.
There was no time to react.
The earth collapsed with a dull sound, and Eryon plunged straight into one of the swamps. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, and the green, viscous liquid enveloped him completely. He sank, disoriented, as the stench suffocated him.
He tried to swim, but the mud dragged him down.
He swallowed that disgusting water—thick, metallic, rotten—burning his throat. He coughed, choked, his arms flailing blindly as panic seized him again.
Then his fingers touched something solid.
With the last scraps of strength he had left, Eryon grabbed the twisted trunk of a half-dead tree and held on. It took several seconds before he managed to pull his head up and breathe, gasping, spitting green water and vomit, shaking from head to toe.
He stayed there, hanging on, exhausted.
The sounds of the pursuit faded into the distant croaking and bubbling of the swamp.
The creature…
was gone.
Eryon had managed to lose it.
But when he lifted his head, blood mixing with mud and fear still crushing his chest, he realized something worse.
He had no idea where he was.
Surrounded by rotting trees and stagnant waters, wounded and alone, Eryon was completely lost.