Sol stumbled, pinching blindly at a Green-Back Viper that tried to strike his groin. He crushed it, throwing the carcass into the faces of the others.

As he finally managed to crush the one closest to him, he suddenly realized that the world had gone eerily quiet.

The frantic attacks had stopped. The horde had pulled back a dozen yards, forming a writhing, undulating wall of fangs. They were a sea of golden and red eyes, all fixed on his wounded form, waiting for the final command to feast. They didn't need to risk any more lives; they could see him swaying. They could see the light fading from his Charcoal eyes.

He looked at the snakes. He then looked at his broken, injured body, his shredded palms, his leg that was turning a sickly shade of blue, the blood soaking his shredded remnant of cobra hide and clothes.

And then he finally looked up at the Sovereign.

The massive head was slowly descending, blocking out the sky, the stars, and the moon. It was like watching a mountain fall in slow motion.

The sulfurous breath of the beast washed over him, hot and suffocating.

"Okay, universe," Sol whispered, coughing up a thick glob of blood that splattered onto the moss like a dark, ironic flower. "You win."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his vision swimming.

"If I get out of here alive," he wheezed, a delirious, blood-stained grin touching his lips, "I promise I'll not sue the manhua industry. I get it now. Being the protagonist sucks. Creating a plot armor is a heavy work."

He looked at the nearest snake—a massive, black-hooded cobra with fangs the size of daggers, poised to strike. He didn't have the strength to run. His ribs were grinding together, each breath a victory of will over physics, his vision was narrowing into a dark tunnel, and the Charcoal energy… the borrowed power of the lizard… was a flickering candle in a hurricane.

"Alas," he muttered, his eyelids drooping. "This is where the 'great protagonist' finally stays down, right? No secret manual. No dragon egg. Just a lot of snake-shit."

It was a pathetic end. But at least he had taken a few with him.

He closed his eyes, waiting for the crushing weight of the Sovereign's jaws.

…

But just as the lead cobra launched itself… a blur of black muscle aimed for his throat—the air directly behind Sol began to jitter.

KRRR-ZZZT.

It wasn't a sound of the forest. It wasn't the hiss of a snake or the tectonic groan of the Sovereign. It sounded like a high-voltage cable snapping underwater.

It was like the the very fabric of reality being ripped up by a massive static charge. It vibrated in the fillings of Sol's teeth, a frequency that shouldn't exist in nature.

Sol's Charcoal vision flared with an agonizing new light, forcing his eyes to snap open.

And he gasped.

Just a few meters away from him, suspended in mid-air to his left, the space was tearing.

A jagged, flickering rip had appeared in the atmosphere. It wasn't a cave or a hole in the rock. It was a crack in the world itself. It shimmered with a chaotic instability, the edges vibrating like a bad video signal.

Inside the fissure, Sol could see... nothing. Just pitch black darkness. But it wasn't the darkness of a cave; it was the darkness of the Void. It clashed with the shadows of the ravine, looking like a tear in a painting that revealed the canvas underneath.

ZZZT-POP.

The snakes hissed, recoiling violently from the sound. The lead cobra that had launched itself at Sol fell short, actually twisting in the air to avoid the anomaly, landing in a heap and scurrying backward.

Their primitive brains, wired for the laws of the jungle… eat, sleep, kill couldn't process the non-linear existence of the rift.

Even the Sovereign of the Gorge pulled back its massive head, its ancient, window-sized pupils dilating in confusion and an instinctive, primordial fear. It had ruled this gorge for centuries, but it had never seen the world being ripped part before. The hum in its throat died, replaced by a wary silence.

Sol looked at the snakes. Then he looked at the rift hovering in the air, buzzing like a broken neon sign.

"Jump into a hole in reality, or be turned into snake-shit?" Sol asked himself. A mad, jagged laugh tore through his throat, tasting of copper and triumph. "Actually, I have always did like a good mystery, before on the earth they used to call me little Sherlock."

…

But seeing the crack not moving, or perhaps angry at its own cowardice, the Sovereign recovered its wits. Or maybe it was just insulted by Sol's laughter. The primal fear was replaced by a god's rage. It didn't care if the air was broken, it simply wanted to rip this "hairless monkey" apart.

It roared… a sound that flattened the grass and shook the nearby trees hard.

And then, It lunged.

Its massive head descended like a falling sky, jaws opening to reveal a throat like a dark, ribbed tunnel large enough to swallow a house. At the same time, the thousands of smaller snakes, emboldened by their god, launched themselves in a final, unified strike.

Sol didn't wait.

He didn't have the luxury of a second guess. He didn't check for a "cheat" or an ancient manual. He didn't ask if the rift was safe.

He would be definitely dead if he stayed here, but the rift was different. It at least gave a chance for survival, and even if he really died, he would not have any complaint, at least he didn't died at the hands of these snakes.

He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the agony in his chest, ignoring the venom burning in his veins. He channeled the absolute last spark of his will into his legs.

He launched himself sideways toward the flickering crack.

"ON SECOND THOUGHT," Sol screamed, his voice reaching a pitch of pure, unhinged mania, as he flew through the air, "IF I SURVIVE, I'M SUING EVERYONE!"

He leaped.

The Sovereign's jaws snapped shut with a thunderous CLAP on the empty air where he had been standing a microsecond before. It echoed like a mountain collapsing. The displacement of air from the bite nearly knocked Sol off course, but his momentum carried him true. But surrounding eager snakes weren't so lucky, the pressure wave instantly turned the surrounding snakes into a meat paste.

Sol hit the crack.

***

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