The demon stepped fully into view, and whatever fragile courage Jay had scraped together collapsed inward.
It moved on four limbs, but not like any animal he knew. Its gait was wrong. The front limbs dragged, bent too many times, while the rear ones pushed with jerky, uneven force. From its back spilled thick, dark tentacles, slapping and whipping through the air with wet, snapping sounds, like soaked ropes striking stone. Each movement made them hiss, slicing the air just short of Jay's face.
The smell hit him next.
Rot. Wet earth. Something dead that had been left too long underground and then dragged back into the light.
Jay gagged behind the mask.
His fingers tightened around the rusted iron bar, slick with sweat. It felt heavier than it had any right to be. His arms trembled, not from effort, but from pure panic.
'This is real. This isn't training. This isn't a thought experiment.'
The demon's head twitched toward him. Its mouth opened sideways, flesh pulling apart in a way that made Jay's stomach churn. Strings of saliva stretched and snapped.
"Maaaat…" it gurgled. "Eaaaat…"
Jay swung.
The bar cut through empty air with a useless whistle. Too slow. Way too slow.
'Idiot. Too wide. You left everything open.'
The demon lunged.
Jay barely stumbled back in time, boots sliding in the dirt. A tentacle lashed past his chest and cracked against a tree behind him with a sound like breaking bone. Bark exploded outward.
His lungs burned already. He hadn't even been fighting for a minute.
'I know the theory. Distance. Timing. Don't panic.'
'So why can't I move?'
He swung again, this time tighter, faster. The bar clipped one of the front limbs. The impact sent a painful jolt up his arms, numbing his fingers. The demon barely reacted. Its body twisted, and something slammed into Jay's side.
Pain detonated.
He flew backward and crashed into a tree trunk. The air blasted out of his lungs in a sharp, humiliating wheeze. Stars burst across his vision. The world tilted.
Before he could recover, a tentacle wrapped around his ankle.
"No—!"
The forest floor tore at his back as he was dragged several meters through dirt and roots. His mask scraped against the ground, clogging with mud. Something warm ran down his forehead. Blood. He tasted iron as he bit his tongue.
'Get up. GET UP.'
Jay slammed the bar down on the tentacle. Once. Twice. Rust flaked off. The creature hissed, annoyed more than hurt, and flung him aside.
He rolled, shoulder screaming, and barely stopped himself from vomiting.
The demon loomed closer now. Its tentacles whipped faster, more confident. It knew.
Jay forced himself upright, legs shaking so badly he thought they might fold. His chest burned. Every breath scraped raw, like inhaling fire.
'I can't win. I know it. My body knows it.'
He tried to steady his stance the way the manuals described. Feet apart. Weight balanced.
The demon charged anyway.
Jay raised the bar with both hands and screamed as he brought it down. The strike landed on its head with a dull, wet sound. The recoil nearly tore the bar from his grip. His arms went numb.
The demon headbutted him.
Pain exploded across his face. His mask cracked against the creature's skull, and Jay hit the ground hard. Dirt filled his mouth. His vision blurred. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably.
He lay there, shaking, chest heaving, the iron bar half out of reach.
'This is how it ends?'
'Pathetic. Couldn't even last a minute.'
The demon's shadow fell over him. Tentacles coiled, rising.
Jay clawed at the ground, dragging himself backward inch by inch, lungs screaming, body refusing to cooperate.
'I don't want to die like this.'
His fingers brushed the iron bar again.
He grabbed it, knuckles white, and pulled it close to his chest as the demon closed in, fear and fury knotting together until he couldn't tell them apart anymore.
Jay lay on the ground, staring up at a sky he could barely see through the blur.
His vision pulsed in and out, edges dark, center swimming. Every muscle in his body trembled, not with fear anymore, but with overload. His arms twitched uselessly. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else.
The demon loomed above him, tentacles uncoiling, confident. It had learned the shape of him. The weight. The weakness.
Pain flared again, sharp and hot, radiating from his ribs and shoulder.
Then something changed.
The pain didn't grow.
It clarified.
It became an alarm.
Get up.
Jay sucked in a breath that burned like acid. His lungs screamed. He coughed, wet and ugly, and the sound snapped something loose in his head.
It sounded like his mother.
Late at night. In the kitchen. Trying not to wake him. That dry, broken cough she pretended wasn't there.
Then another sound, layered on top.
The neighbors' voices. Lazy. Cruel.
Parasite.
Useless.
Throw him out.
His fingers dug into the mud.
'No.'
The demon struck again. A tentacle slammed down where his head had been a second earlier, cracking into the earth. Jay rolled on instinct, pain exploding through his spine.
And he saw it.
The tentacles were strong. Fast. But when they struck together, the demon's body lagged. Just for a breath. It had to pull its mass around. Its back end dragged. Slow to turn.
'You're not perfect,' Jay thought. 'You're just bigger.'
He laughed. A raw, broken sound that tore at his throat.
Jay crawled forward instead of back.
The demon hesitated.
Good.
He grabbed a thick root jutting from the ground and yanked himself upright, boots sliding in mud. A tentacle lashed out. He let it hit his arm. Pain detonated, white and blinding.
He didn't stop.
Jay surged forward, closing the distance the manuals said never to close. He rammed the iron bar upward, not swinging, just shoving it with everything he had.
It sank into the demon's eye.
The creature shrieked. The sound rattled Jay's teeth. Black ichor sprayed across his mask, warm and stinking.
He didn't pull the bar out.
He leaned into it.
The demon thrashed, tentacles whipping blindly. One wrapped around Jay's torso, crushing the air from his lungs. His ribs screamed. Spots burst across his vision.
'Not yet.'
Jay dropped the bar and grabbed the tentacle with both hands. His fingers slipped in slime. He snarled and bit down.
Flesh tore between his teeth.
The taste was foul. Bitter. Oily.
He bit again.
The tentacle loosened. Jay wrenched free and lunged, tackling the creature's neck. They went down together in the mud. Jay's hands found the base of the tentacles, where flesh met spine.
He wrapped his arms around it and squeezed.
The demon bucked, slamming him into the ground again and again. His back screamed. Something popped in his shoulder.
Jay didn't let go.
He slammed his forehead into the creature's skull. Once. Twice. Again.
Ichor coated his face. Filled his mouth. He spat and screamed and tightened his grip until his vision went dark at the edges.
'You don't get to decide what I am.'
The demon's movements slowed. Then weakened. Then stopped.
Jay kept going.
Punching. Strangling. Smashing its head against a rock until there was no shape left to recognize.
Only when his arms finally gave out did he collapse forward, chest heaving, body shaking uncontrollably.
Silence.
The forest breathed again.
Then, softly, a blue window appeared at the edge of his vision.
[Level 2 reached.]
Jay laughed, a hoarse, broken sound.
'I didn't need you, did I?' he thought. 'I'm not a spectator.'
He pushed himself up, swaying, drenched in dark ichor and mud.
'Aaaah...'
Alone in the dark forest, exhausted, bleeding, Level 2 by his own hands, Jay Orlen stood breathing hard.