CG Cycle 2
To my dear son.
I may not be able to hold you yet… but let me give you the wisdom I possess—
so that you do not fall to chaos.
— The Savior
Scene 1
"Aww—my head… why does it feel like it's giving me nightmares?"
The words came out rough as my eyes snapped open.
Sky.
Too wide. Too clean.
For a moment I didn't move—not because my body wouldn't listen, but because my thoughts felt loose, like they hadn't decided where they belonged yet.
I tried to sit up.
Pain detonated behind my eyes and I dropped back into the grass with a hiss. My hands came up automatically, fingers digging into my scalp like I could hold my mind together by force.
The pain didn't fade. It pulsed—slow, heavy, relentless.
Sea Shock.
That part I knew.
Every rescue team that made it back talked about it. Not the same way twice, but always with the same warning: the Sea doesn't ease you in. You adapt fast, or you don't adapt at all.
Preparation helped. Training helped.
Neither made it gentle.
"Nicole!" I called, forcing my voice to carry.
Nothing answered.
Just wind rolling through tall grass.
I pushed myself onto one knee, breathing carefully until the horizon stopped swaying. The land stretched out in every direction—flat, open, and unsettled in a way I couldn't explain. Not hostile. Not safe.
Just… unfinished.
My sword lay nearby, half-hidden in the grass. The sight of it grounded me more than it should have. Training blade. Familiar weight. Something solid to remind me I was still me.
I grabbed it and scanned the field again.
No people.
No bodies.
No wreckage.
No portal scar.
Nothing.
The veterans called places like this micro worlds. Testing grounds. Fringe regions. The kind of place teams got dropped before pushing deeper.
Deeper was always said like a warning.
No one explained what was down there—just that the rules stopped behaving, and the people who survived didn't come back the same. Some didn't come back at all.
I swallowed and forced the thought away.
"I need to find Nicole first."
Saying it out loud steadied me.
Nicole was my anchor. If I found her, I could plan. I could stop bleeding strength into panic.
I stood carefully, letting my legs adjust, and looked toward the sun hanging low.
West would do.
Not because I knew it was right.
Because moving was better than waiting for the Sea to decide something for me.
Scene 2
The scream came first.
Sharp. Human. Terrified.
My body moved before my mind finished catching up.
I sprinted, grass tearing at my legs as I broke through brush and burst into a clearing—
—and stopped cold.
Wolves.
A pack of them, but nothing like Earth's.
Their fur was pitch black, swallowing dusk. Their eyes reflected light wrong—too focused, too aware. They didn't rush blindly.
They coordinated.
Ahead, a rough village gate was half-barricaded. Four warriors braced behind wooden shields, spears tipped with jagged stone held tight in disciplined hands.
They were holding the line.
Better than most first-year Travelers I'd seen hold a dungeon choke point.
That should've comforted me.
It didn't.
Because these wolves felt heavier than dungeon monsters. Not just stronger—denser, like the world had reinforced them on purpose.
My eyes searched automatically.
There—the alpha, locked in combat with a massive warrior swinging with brutal precision. The man was twice my size, yet the wolf—only around my height—was forcing him back inch by inch.
No opening there.
Then I saw movement near the gate—one wolf peeling away, slipping toward the defenders' blind side.
I moved.
I drove my sword into its ribs—
—and hit resistance so hard it shocked me.
The blade sank only halfway before stopping dead, like I'd struck something reinforced beneath the hide.
For a stupid heartbeat, I stared.
The wolf didn't.
A claw flashed toward my face. I twisted aside, barely, wind burning across my cheek—
and its jaws snapped up immediately after.
I was a fraction too slow.
Teeth tore into my left arm and dragged down, ripping flesh open in a deep, ugly line. Pain detonated and my arm went numb, hanging useless at my side.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Heal later.
It won't matter if I die before I find Nicole.
The wolf lunged again.
So I did the dumb thing.
I slammed my forehead into its skull.
Bone cracked against bone. Stars burst across my vision—but it staggered, head dipping low for half a heartbeat.
That half heartbeat was enough.
I raised my sword with one hand and forced astral energy through my arm like I was trying to shove pressure through a broken pipe. My wrist screamed. My body protested.
Then something shifted.
My blade felt light.
Not balanced. Not sharp.
Light—like it wanted to float out of my grip.
Instinct answered before thought.
I forced weight into it.
Not muscle. Not momentum.
Something deeper. Heavier. Like the strike itself demanded the ground acknowledge it.
I stepped forward.
The earth cratered under my foot.
The blade fell.
The wolf split cleanly in two.
Blood sprayed hot.
I barely had time to breathe before something smashed into my back, claws shredding my coat like it was paper. I staggered, spun—
—and saw them.
Five wolves closing in.
Across the field, the gate defenders were still standing—barely. The giant and the alpha were tearing into each other like titans, dusk turning their blood into ink.
And I was pinned with the "smaller" problem.
I backed into a broken fence, forcing my breathing steady as astral energy surged harder than I thought my body could handle.
A grin slipped out before fear could settle in.
"Alright," I muttered. "Who's first?"
For the first time since waking, the pain in my head felt distant.
Like the Sea had stopped testing my mind—
and decided to test something else instead.
Scene 3
I didn't remember the fight cleanly.
Only fragments.
Claws. Teeth. My breath ripping in and out. My sword turning light—then heavy—again and again, like my body had found a switch it wasn't supposed to have.
When it ended, five bodies lay around me.
I stood over them with my sword planted in the dirt, using it to stay upright. My left arm hung useless and numb, blood drying dark along my side.
I focused on the feeling.
The timing.
The shift.
The moment where light became weight.
If I could remember that—if I could do it again—then maybe I wouldn't die the next time the Sea decided to push back.
A shadow fell over me.
I looked up.
The giant warrior stood there—close enough that I should've heard him approach.
I hadn't.
No footsteps. No grass shifting. No armor sound.
Just presence.
"Great warrior," he rumbled. "What be your name, and what tribe do you descend from?"
His gaze passed over the bodies, then settled on me with something like approval.
"Are you one of the berserkers of the north tribes?"
I swallowed, forcing my voice steady.
"My name is Troy."
He waited, like the second half mattered more.
"My family is the Johns family," I said, voice rough but clear. "So… Troy of Johns tribe."
For a beat, he studied me like he was weighing the name itself.
Then he grinned.
He extended his forearm.
A warrior's greeting.
I took it.
The moment our arms locked, the world shifted.
His towering frame compressed until he matched my height—mass folding inward instead of disappearing. My eyes widened before I could stop them.
He chuckled.
"You're surprised by basic Asura techniques?"
Then he released it, expanding back into a giant, and clapped my shoulder hard enough to make my knees threaten to buckle.
"Come, Troy of Johns," he boomed. "You've earned the right to celebrate with the Warriors of Illos!"
The gate opened wider.
Drums began to strike inside—slow at first, then faster, louder, like a heartbeat turning into a war-song.
Villagers dragged wolf corpses inward. Fires rose. Torches flared.
Night settled over the field.
And as I was guided toward light and noise and life, one thought kept cutting through everything else—sharp as the wound on my arm:
I still hadn't found Nicole.
But whatever waited deeper in this Sea—
I'd just taken my first real step toward it.