The golden light receded with a sound like a physical snap, and Kaelen fell. She didn't fall through space, but through a reality that had been momentarily unstitched. One moment she was guarding the window in xxxxxxxxxxx, India, smelling the turmeric and cumin of home; the next, she was standing on a bed of silver-tufted grass beneath a sky the color of a fresh bruise.
The transition was violent. The air here didn't taste like the dusty, humid heat of the city; it was cold, sterile, and smelled of ancient, undisturbed rot. Kaelen clutched her Basic Iron Sword, the metal cold and slightly pitted, feeling its weight drag at her untrained wrist.
Around her, the "Labyrinth of Verdant Shadows" lived up to its name. The trees weren't wood and leaf; they were pillars of twisted, black fiber that bled a glowing green sap. The timer in the sky—a cruel, glowing—began to tick down.
The first wolf didn't howl. It emerged from the gloom like a smudge of ink, its bark-skinned hide scraping against the silver grass with a sound like sandpaper on bone. It was huge, the size of a small car, with eyes that burned like embers in a dying fire.
Kaelen's heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She wasn't a warrior. She was a girl who handled the heavy crates of lentils because her brother was "too tired." But as the wolf lunged, its jaws snapping inches from her throat, that protective, older-sister instinct turned into a jagged blade of adrenaline.
She swung the iron sword. It was a clumsy, desperate horizontal arc. The blade bit into the wolf's shoulder, but the creature's skin was as tough as seasoned oak. The impact vibrated up Kaelen's arms, numbing her elbows and sending a jolt of white-hot pain through her shoulders. The wolf didn't flinch; it slammed its massive head into her chest, throwing her backward into a thicket of thorned vines.
The thorns were long, jagged needles that pierced her skin, drawing blood that looked unnervingly bright against the green flora. Kaelen screamed, a raw, guttural sound, as she scrambled to her feet. The wolf was on her again. It swiped a claw—five talons like obsidian daggers—raking across her left arm. The fabric of her shirt vanished, replaced by four deep, weeping trenches in her flesh.
"No!" Kaelen hissed, her vision blurring with tears of pain. "I am not... dying... in a hedge!"
She ducked a second swipe, feeling the wind of the claw pass over her scalp. She didn't think; she reacted. She remembered the way she had to heave the 50kg rice bags—using her legs, pivoting her hips, finding the center of gravity. She stepped into the wolf's guard, the iron sword held in both hands now. She thrust upward, aiming for the soft glow of the creature's throat.
The sword sank in. A geyser of thick, bioluminescent green ichor sprayed over her face, stinging her eyes. The wolf thrashed, its weight nearly pinning her to the ground, but she twisted the blade, feeling the internal structures of the beast snap. With a final, wet crunch, the wolf went still.
Kaelen didn't have time to breathe. The shadows were moving.
Three more bark-wolves emerged, followed by a swarm of shadow-wasps—insects the size of dinner plates with stingers that hummed with a necrotic purple light. Kaelen turned and ran. Her boots splashed through stagnant, black puddles. She swung her sword at the low-hanging vines that tried to trip her.
She reached a narrow ravine where a Shadow Treant—a towering, multi-limbed monstrosity of rotted wood—blocked the path. It swung a limb that looked like a gnarled club. Kaelen dived, rolling over the sharp stones of the ravine floor, the club shattering a boulder exactly where her head had been a second before.
She hacked at the Treant's "legs," her iron sword chipping and dulling with every strike. The wasps dived at her, their stingers glancing off her leather belt or burying themselves in her back. Each sting felt like a shot of liquid nitrogen. Her movements grew sluggish. Her lungs felt like they were filled with hot lead.
"Get up," she whispered to herself, parrying a Treant's branch with the flat of her blade. The impact sent her spinning. "Harish is... Harish is probably... eating my snacks right now. If I don't get back... he'll eat the whole cabinet."
With a final, explosive burst of speed, she ignored the pain in her legs and lunged forward. She used the Treant's own massive limb as a ramp, running up the wood and plunging her dulled sword into the knot of glowing energy that served as its eye. The Treant let out a silent, vibrating shriek and collapsed into ash.
Kaelen didn't look back. She saw the shimmering portal of the exit gate. The timer read. She dived, her fingers grazing the threshold just as the world turned white.
She collapsed on a cold marble floor, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she thought it might actually break. The silence of the transition zone was absolute until the Tower's voice boomed directly into her soul.
[Evaluation: S-Rank (Surviving through Pure Tenacity)]
[Distributing Rewards...]
Two orbs of light descended. One was a shimmering violet; the other was a deep, blood-red gold. They slammed into her chest, and Kaelen arched her back as information flooded her brain—thousands of years of combat, the weight of a billion strikes, and a voice that sounded like grinding stones.
[Rare Skill Acquired: 'Hyper-Comprehension']
[Unique Reward: Soul-Inheritance: Chu-mu, The Primordial Martial God]
Suddenly, the space behind Kaelen distorted. A towering, ethereal figure clad in ancient, tattered armor appeared. He had long, flowing hair and eyes that contained the stillness of a graveyard. This was Chu-mu.
The Martial God looked down at his new host—a bruised, exhausted girl from a small town in India—and then he paused. He looked toward the "exit" that led back to the mortal world, his spectral eyes narrowing as if he could sense something through the dimensions.
"A strange era," Chu-mu's voice echoed like thunder in Kaelen's mind. "And a strange lineage you carry, girl. Why does your soul smell like the beginning of the universe? Why is your essence anchored to a point of such absolute Zero?"
The transition back to xxxxxxxxxxx was a sudden, jarring slap of humid air and the smell of fried onions. Kaelen landed in the middle of the living room, her tattered, blood-stained clothes a stark contrast to the colorful rug.
Ravi, who had been frozen in a state of panic for what felt like an eternity (but was only seconds in Earth time), let out a strangled cry. "Kaelen! You're... you're covered in... is that green blood? What happened to your shirt? Harish! Do something! Your sister is melting!"
Harish, who was still sitting by the spice jars, didn't move. He held out a glass of water toward the space Kaelen had just filled.
"You're late for dinner," Harish said, his voice as flat as a week-old soda. "I told you the crows were getting aggressive. Look at those scratches. You really shouldn't play in the park after dark, Sis. It's dangerous for someone so clumsy."
Kaelen took the water, her hand shaking. "Harish... I was in a tower. There was a God. I have... I have a God in my head."
"That's nice," Harish said, scratching his ear. "I have a headache. Maybe it's the same thing? Anyway, Takeo-ji is still talking about his 'breathing' thing. You should probably go wash up before Dad sees how much that shirt cost."
Takeo leaned over, his eyes widening as he looked at the invisible (to him) pressure radiating from Kaelen. "Kaelen-chan! You look... taller? Did the light make you grow? And your eyes... they look like they've seen the end of the world and decided it was a bit boring."
Soo-jin stood up, her hand hovering over her sword hilt. Unlike Takeo, she could see the faint, blood-red gold aura flickering around Kaelen. And she could see the towering, ethereal figure of Chu-mu standing behind her, his tattered cape fluttering in a wind that didn't exist in the room.
"Kaelen-ssi," Soo-jin whispered, her voice trembling. "Who... who is that behind you? Why does the air feel like it's being crushed by a mountain?"
"I am Chu-mu!" the Martial God's voice boomed, intending to shake the very foundations of the city. He stepped forward, his spectral hand reaching out to claim the space. "I am the Sovereign of the Seven Hells, the Father of the—"
Harish suddenly looked up from his spice jars. His eyes met the exact point where the invisible Martial God was hovering. For a micro-second, Harish's eyes didn't look brown. They looked like two endless tunnels into a void where gods go to die.
"It's too loud in here," Harish murmured.
Chu-mu's voice was instantly cut off. He was still there, his mouth moving frantically, but no sound came out. It wasn't just silence; it was a conceptual gag. The Martial God realized with a jolt of pure horror that the "Zero-Frequency" coming from Harish's kitchen sink was now wrapping around his throat like a collar.
"Harish," Kaelen said, her voice small. "Did you... did you just mute a Primordial God?"
"I think the incense is too strong, Dad," Harish said, turning back to Ravi. "It's making everyone acting weird. Kaelen's talking to invisible people and Soo-jin is looking at me like I'm a bug. Can we just eat? I'm hungry."
Ravi blinked, looking at his daughter's shredded clothes and then at his son's bored expression. "I... I don't know what's happening. Kaelen, go change! Harish, stop being so casual! Your sister just fell out of the ceiling! And Takeo, stop eating the sawdust from the practice dummy!"
Kaelen stood there, clutching the glass of water. In her mind, she could feel Chu-mu—the being who had conquered heavens—curled into a fetal position in the corner of her soul, weeping silently because the "clerk" had looked at him.
"I'll... I'll go wash up," Kaelen whispered.
"Good idea," Harish said, handing her a napkin. "And don't worry about the God. He'll be a good janitor once he calms down. We really need someone to help Four with the heavy lifting in the storage room."
Kaelen walked toward the bathroom, her legs feeling like jelly. Every step she took left a faint, glowing footprint of violet energy, but all she could think about was how Harish had just treated a Martial God like a misbehaving puppy.