About an hour into my increasingly unhinged forest marathon, something twitched against the edge of my perception.

A flicker.

A spark.

A disturbance in the otherwise depressingly empty void of trees and bugs and my rapidly deteriorating mental state.

I skidded to a stop so abruptly I nearly face-planted into a stump.

"There," I whispered. "Finally."

My mana had mostly recovered by now, which meant it was time for something stupid.

Something risky.

Something Belle would absolutely murder me for doing without supervision.

I cracked my fingers.

"Alright, Belle. I'm borrowing this. Just… pretend you didn't see it."

I raised a hand.

Breathed out.

And spoke the word.

"Die."

The air around me shuddered.

Mana rushed toward me like every particle in the atmosphere suddenly developed terrible judgment and decided I was a good investment.

Raw mana flooded in, thick and heavy, swirling like a storm funnel around my head. A massive, swirling current of energy funneled into a single point in my forehead, cold, bright, and painfully pure.

It tingled.

It burned.

It felt like dunking my skull into a tub of electrified glitter.

"Okay-okay too much," I muttered through clenched teeth as the cluster grew. The mana compacted into a tight, trembling sphere, swirling violently like it was trying to escape.

Pure mana was dangerous.

Unaligned mana was worse.

But my willpower?

Stupidly stubborn.

Built different.

Built wrong.

I slammed my mind into the sphere.

My will seeped into the raw mana, pressing, staining, reshaping it. Slowly, painstakingly, inch by inch, the pure energy corroded under my intent, turning a deep, muted black. Then darker. Then colder.

Death.

My affinity.

My nature.

My stupid life choices distilled into a single element.

I grit my teeth as the corruption spread. Tendrils of dark energy crawled through the bright core, dimming it, warping it, until the cluster wasn't pure anymore.

It was mine.

Death mana.

Pressurized.

Hungry.

I took a shuddering breath.

And released it.

The death mana spread across my skin in a thin, precise layer, coating me head to toe in an invisible second skin. Not armor. Not a shield. Something subtler. Colder.

A veil.

My presence winked out like someone hit a cosmic off-switch.

My heartbeat dulled.

My scent dissolved.

My aura evaporated.

Even the sound of my breathing vanished, swallowed by the death cloak wrapping around my body.

For one moment, I felt like a ghost.

"Okay," I whispered. "That worked way too well. Kind of worrying, actually."

I crouched low, body coiled, ready to spring at whatever I had sensed. Friend or foe, it didn't matter; I'd figure it out once I was either hugging them or kicking their teeth in.

My senses sharpened.

My muscles tensed.

I was ready.

I was quiet.

I was deadly.

I was...

Weaponless.

A slow, horrible realization settled into my bones.

I stared down at my empty hands.

"Right."

A pause.

"I don't have Sacha."

The silence of the forest pressed in.

"…This is awkward."

I sighed, stood up slightly, crouched again, stood again, then crouched halfway like I was trying to decide whether I was hunting or preparing for a bowel movement.

"Okay," I muttered. "Calm down. You can fight without a sword. You've done it before. Sort of. Once. Badly. But still."

Leaves rustled in the distance where the presence was.

I crouched again, this time with a lot more anxiety than intimidation.

"Alright, whoever you are," I whispered to the dark, "friend, foe, or extremely confused wildlife… please don't let me die barehanded in a swamp dimension. That would be embarrassing."

I gathered the death mana tighter around me.

Silent.

Still.

Invisible.

Then I lowered myself even further, muscles coiling—

And launched toward the presence.

I launched.

One heartbeat, I was crouched in perfect silence, wrapped in a second skin of Death. Next, I was a blurred projectile cutting through branches and shadows alike, hurtling toward the presence I'd sensed.

Mid-flight, a problem hit me again.

No weapon.

Right.

Brilliant hunter, mighty warrior, apex predator of doom… and I was about to pounce on something armed with nothing but my bare hands and questionable decision-making skills.

So I improvised.

As I passed a thick, low-hanging branch, I reached out and ripped it clean off the tree. Bark exploded. Leaves went flying. The branch bucked in my hands like it regretted existing.

"Alright," I muttered mid-air, "work with me."

Then I flooded it with Soulflame.

Purple fire erupted from my palms in a violent storm, swirling and snarling like it wanted to burn a hole through reality itself. It raced down the branch in a single pulse, WHOOM, devouring it in a regal blaze of violet. The branch didn't turn to ash; no, it hardened, warped, became something else entirely. For a second, it was almost majestic.

Almost.

Then I broke out of the treeline, and a scythe tip was already there.

A single millimeter from my eyeball.

"Oh, come on!"

I twisted mid-lunge, spine bending in ways that would've snapped the old me like a twig. My feet slammed into the ground with enough force to crack the dirt apart. I planted, pivoted, and swung my flaming branch with everything I had.

Metal rang.

The scythe was knocked off course, not by much, but enough that I didn't die in a way that would've been embarrassingly preventable. My branch shattered into twelve useless pieces, Soulflame bursting into sparks.

Didn't matter.

I still had one weapon left.

My fist.

With the same motion, I snapped my arm forward and slammed my knuckles directly into the face of the attacker.

A very satisfying CRACK echoed across the forest.

The figure, poor bastard, went flying like I'd yeeted a life-size scarecrow off a catapult. They tore through the first tree. Then the second. Then the third. Tree after tree splintered and collapsed until, finally, the body stopped somewhere around the twelfth trunk, buried in a pile of broken wood.

I exhaled, shaking the splinters off my hand.

The Death mana coating my skin hummed again. Good. Still intact.

I walked toward the crater of trees… and when the dust settled, I saw him.

Kent.

Flat on his back. Groaning. Half a tree branch lodged in his hair like some kind of cheap discount crown.

I stared down at him.

"…You deserved that," I muttered. "Attacking me out of nowhere like a psychopath."

He wheezed something that might've been my name. Or a curse. Hard to tell, honestly.

I shrugged.

"Next time, maybe announce yourself instead of trying to decapitate the guy who's been wandering lost in a death forest for an hour."

Kent groaned again.

Honestly? Fair.

Kent was still lying there like someone had unplugged him from reality, so I sighed, walked over, and crouched beside his unconscious-ish, tree-flattened body.

"You look great," I said. "Very regal. Very 'forest lawn ornament.'"

He groaned something that sounded suspiciously like "go to hell."

Progress.

I grabbed his arm and hauled him upright. He wobbled like a baby deer learning what legs were, so I pressed my palm against his shoulder and let a warm pulse of Life mana flow out.

Soft golden light seeped through him, knitting whatever minor damage my impeccable greeting punch had caused. His breathing eased. His eyes cleared. A little of the "I just plowed through twelve trees" glaze faded.

He blinked at me. "You… hit me."

"You tried to behead me."

"I didn't know it was you!"

"And whose fault is that?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "You were invisible!"

"I call it stealth."

"You call it being dramatic."

"That too."

Kent brushed bark out of his hair, then winced. "You didn't have to punch me that hard."

"I disagree," I said. "Wholeheartedly."

He gave me a flat look. "Sebastian."

"Look, if you lunge at me with a scythe, I reserve the right to send you through a few trees. It's in the friendship manual. Page three."

"There's a manual?"

"There is now."

He muttered something about me being a menace to all civilized life, but he followed when I gestured for us to start moving.

We walked.

The forest, if you could call this hellscape a forest, was unnervingly quiet. Too quiet. The canopy bled shadows thick as oil, and the air hummed with mana so dense it felt like walking through fog made of static.

Kent glanced around nervously. "Do you know where we're going?"

"Nope."

"Great."

"But," I said, raising a finger, "I am confident that if we keep moving in a straight line, we will eventually find someone or something."

"Please specify something."

"Preferably someone that isn't trying to eat my soul."

"So that leaves… like… one person?"

"Two, if Belle is in a good mood."

Kent sighed.

We trekked over twisted roots and under archways of gnarled branches. The ground squished ominously underfoot more times than I liked. A few times, I could've sworn the trees were leaning closer just to eavesdrop.

"So," Kent said after a minute. "You used Death mana."

"Yep."

"And Soulflame."

"Yep."

We kept walking. The silence stretched.

Then...

Kent said, "You really threw me like a football."

"You had a very aerodynamic shape."

"That's not a compliment."

"It is if you believe in yourself."

He groaned again.

The poor man was having a rough day.

I nudged him with my elbow. "Hey. At least we found each other. One down, six more idiots to locate."

Kent smirked despite himself. "Yeah. Good start."

"Also," I added, "if anyone else tries to attack me on sight, I'm punching them too."

"No," Kent said instantly. "No more punching the team."

"I can make no promises."

"Sebastian—"

"None."

He sighed. "Why do I even try?"

Because he cared, obviously.

But I didn't say that.

Instead, I grinned and said, "Because you love my charming personality."

"No," he said. "Because someone has to make sure you don't die doing something stupid."

"Then you're going to be very busy."

"Unfortunately."

We continued deeper into the forest, side by side, bantering like idiots on a mission to find more idiots.

It was almost comforting.

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