Sol was floating.

The pain was gone. The smell of blood rot, and snake musk was gone.

He was drifting in a warm, dark river, that flowed through a sky seemingly made of velvety white clouds. Above him, the stars were circling in slow, hypnotic patterns, leaving trails of silver light. They were beautiful. Incredibly beautiful. They were singing a lullaby that made him calm down and want to forget everything.

"Sol..."

A voice called out to him from the center of the light. It was sweet, melodic, and incredibly gentle. It sounded like Lyra, but younger mixed with Evara's huskiness, but purer and Nia' full devotion. It was the most beautiful voice he had ever heard.

"Come with me," the voice whispered, echoing in the velvet void. "You're tired, aren't you? You've run so far, and really tried your best. The fighting is over. Come I'll take you to a better place. A place with no hunger, pain or fighting."

A soft, pale hand reached out from the darkness, offering peace and salvation.

Sol instinctively reached back.

Honestly, he was tired. He was so incredibly tired of running, of bleeding, of fighting monsters that shouldn't exist. His soul felt heavy, scraped raw by the struggle. He wanted to rest. He wanted to close his eyes and let the current take him.

"Yes," Sol murmured, his spirit drifting toward the light, his fingers uncurling. "Take me."

His left fingers brushed the pale, cold hand.

CHOMP.

But instead of the salvation he was promised, suddenly, a spike of white-hot agony drove itself into the meat of his left palm.

"GAH!"

Sol's eyes snapped open.

The stars suddenly vanished. The sweet voice dissolved into a chorus of angry hisses. The warm river was replaced by the cold, sucking mud of the ravine floor, and the crushing weight of the humid air.

He was back in hell.

He looked at his hand. A small, crushed viper… one that hadn't been fully flattened by the lizard… had latched onto the web of skin between his thumb and index finger, diligently pumping venom into him like a good hardworking little serpent. But the most embarrassing part was it was him, who reached his hand towards him.

"You little shit!" Sol roared, adrenaline overriding the concussion.

He ripped the snake off and crushed its head in his fist, throwing the twitching body aside.

He blinked, trying to clear his vision. The world was spinning. He lay there, his chest heaving, the realization of what had just happened crashing down on him harder than the lizard had.

That wasn't a dream. That was the fucking Death Calling.

If he had taken that hand... if he had surrendered to that peace... he would have died. His heart would have stopped beating in this mud pit.

A cold sweat broke out over his skin, chilling him more than the river water.

I almost died, he thought, the horror of it gripping his throat.

Even though he was tired, even though he was injured... that didn't mean he wanted to die. He had already gotten a second chance at life. There was no guarantee he would get a third.

He thought of the hut. He thought of Lyra's smile when he healed her. He thought of Evara's warmth, Nia's fierce loyalty, the way Liora looked at him like he was a hero. He had just begun his new, beautiful life. He had just started to win.

"I didn't come this far to become fertilizer," Sol hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm not dying here. Not so soon."

He tried to move.

"Ghh—!"

His body screamed. It refused to obey. His ribs felt like a cage of broken glass. His legs were heavy as lead, the muscles trembling uncontrollably. The impact of the fall had stunned his nervous system. He couldn't stand. He couldn't even crawl.

He looked around, and realized that he was lying on top of the dead upside down Monitor. The lizard's heavy armored body had acted as a shield, crushing a circle of vipers beneath it into a bloody paste. It had bought him a momentary safe zone in the middle of the swarm.

But… the zone was shrinking. The snakes around the perimeter were recovering from the shockwave. They were slithering over the dead lizard's tail, their tongues flicking, their eyes locking onto the fresh meat lying on top of the carcass.

"Think, Sol think, you can't just die here."

He tried to sit up again, but his ribs screamed and his breath instantly hitched. Realizing that it wouldn't work, he looked down at the upside-down Granite-Scale Monitor beneath him.

It was a literal tank. A creature of immense endurance and defense. It had survived in this hellhole by being tougher than everything else.

An idea immediately cruised in his brain.

He immediately slammed his bloody hand onto the lizard's exposed belly scales.

Feast.

He didn't have the Ash Gray energy to spare for a command, but the connection was physical now. He urged his body to absorb. He pulled with a desperate, starving need.

And It really worked.

The rush came instantly.

It wasn't the sharp, icy clarity of the Cobra or the frantic twitchiness of the Viper. It was heavy. It was dense. It felt like molten lead being poured into his veins.

The lizard's soul power flooded his exhausted system. Even though it couldn't magically repair his broken bones in a second, it did something else. It acted as a catalyst.

The influx of raw, primitive vitality slammed into the dormant Charcoal energy in his chest.

Spark.

The Charcoal energy flared to life, reacting to the fuel. It rushed out from the cavity, flooding his limbs not with healing, but with Force. It numbed the pain receptors. It tightened the loose muscles. It forced the body to move through the damage.

Hardening.

Sol gasped as a wave of grounding solidity washed over him. His skin felt tighter, tougher, like cured leather. The agony in his ribs dulled to a distant throb.

"Move," Sol growled.

He scrambled up from the corpse of the Granite-Scale Monitor. His movements were heavy, mechanical, but moveable. The essence of the lizard had permeated his muscle fibers, turning his body into a dense, unyielding engine of survival.

He looked around. The path he had come from… the log, the ledge… was gone, blocked by the writhing swarm and the looming shadow of the Sovereign above.

He spun around.

On the opposite side of the ravine, through a gap in the rock wall, he saw a tangle of roots leading up a steep embankment. It led away from the Sovereign. It led to the other jungle… the unchecked wilderness on the far side of the gorge.

It wasn't clear, but it wasn't flooded with snakes yet.

"Out of the frying pan," Sol grunted.

He jumped off the lizard carcass and landed in the mud.

The horde hissed….like a sound like a thousand kettles boiling over. A carpet of vipers struck at him instantly.

Sol didn't dodge. He waded through. Not that he could dodge.

He kicked through the mass of coils, his boots crushing spines and bursting venom sacs. A Crimson-Krait launched itself from the crowd, and struck his calf.

Sol braced for the pain, for the burning ice of neurotoxin.

TINK.

He felt the impact, but the fangs didn't pierce deep. They scraped against his skin, which had taken on the dull, gray sheen of cured leather, deflected by the residual essence of the Granite-Scale Monitor. The snake fell back, its fangs broken.

It was like being bit by the force of a stapler.

"Is that it?" Sol roared, slashing a path through the writhing mass. "Is that all you've got?!"

Other snakes also tried to bite him, some on his shin, some calf and some even on his butt. But without exception, they all couldn't break through.

Seeing this, he laughed maniacally and fought with a new, brutal resolve. He wasn't the fast, panicked boy anymore. He was a tank. He took the hits, ignored the scratches, and plowed forward, his eyes fixed on the roots on the far side.

But the jungle always had an answer.

The horde realized their fangs were useless. The collective intelligence of the swarm shifted. As if they had decided that if they couldn't bleed him, they would bury him.

They stopped striking and started climbing.

"Get off!" Sol yelled, tearing a heavy Constrictor from his thigh.

But for every one he removed, three more took its place. They flowed over his boots, up his legs, wrapping around his waist like living chains. They weren't trying to bite; they were adding weight. They were trying to drag him down into the mud to suffocate him under a mountain of scales.

A Tar-Spitter reared up on a rock, hacking up a glob of black, sticky resin. It hit Sol's chest, gluing his arm to his side.

"You have got to be kidding me," Sol snarled, ripping his arm free with a sound like tearing velcro.

He trudged forward, every step a battle against hundreds of pounds of reptilian resistance. He was a titan wading through a river with every single drop of water dragging him down.

A Shock-Winder… a blue eel-like snake… coiled around his ankle and discharged. A jolt of bio-electricity seized Sol's leg. He stumbled, falling to one knee.

The swarm surged. They washed over his shoulders, hissing in his ears, their cold bellies sliding against his neck.

Darkness began to close in. The weight was crushing.

Give up, the pain whispered. Just lie down.

"No," Sol gritted out, his teeth grinding together.

He thought of the Evara's gengleness. He thought of the look in Nia's eyes when she was busy gulping his cock down. He even thought of Veyra's stupid, arrogant face.

He refused to die here. He refused to end as a lump in a snake pit.

"I am... gonna be the king of the jungle!" Sol screamed, channeling the last spark of Charcoal energy into an explosive burst of force.

He stood up, shedding the layer of snakes like a dog shaking off water. He stomped the Shock-Winder into paste and lunged for the gap in the wall.

He reached the embankment. He dug his fingers into the dirt, ignoring the snakes biting futilely at his wrists. He hauled himself up, kicking his legs to dislodge the hangers-on.

He clawed his way up the roots, panting, bleeding, covered in slime, but rising. He pulled himself over the lip of the embankment, collapsing onto the moss of the upper ledge.

He was out. He was free of the pit.

"Made it," he wheezed, rolling onto his back, staring up at the canopy. "I actually made it."

BOOM.

Sol's eyes flew open.

A shadow fell over him….a shadow so large it blocked out the light itself.

He mechanically turned his head slowly to the left.

"Oh fuck!" And only these civilized words could escape his mouth.

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