[Day 2680]
I ran.
Deeper into the Endless Forest, farther than I'd ever dared go. Trees blurred past, leaves sliced by the wind I conjured at my heels. My body ached from the battle, but I couldn't stop. Something was wrong—deeply wrong.
And then it began.
A distant rumble. Not thunder. Not the wind. No—a stampede. A thousand footfalls. A thousand heartbeats. All pulsing toward me.
The beasts of the forest—all of them—charged as one. Their minds gone. Their eyes blank. Their bodies twisted, deformed, mutating as if some malevolent force poured through their veins. Claws where hooves once were, teeth where antlers had grown.
They wanted one thing.Me.The anomaly. The devourer. The thief of the deer's core.
I roared, body exploding in a violent shimmer of silver light. My flesh twisted and reformed, fur shifting from midnight black to a pale silver-white. Electricity arced across my shoulders as I took the form of a lightning bear, larger and more monstrous than ever before.
I didn't hesitate.
I unleashed hell.
Lightning tore through the forest. Trees exploded. Craters formed. Wind howled at my call, slicing down weaker beasts like paper. The rain came at my command—thunder crashed and echoed. Every time I struck, dozens died. Hundreds.
But it wasn't enough.
They just kept coming. For every one I killed, ten more appeared. The Endless Forest was emptying itself to consume me. I could feel it—the world itself rejecting my existence.
I fought for days.[Day 2680]I stopped counting bodies. I stopped caring. My claws were drenched in blood. My lightning burned my own skin. I was running out of energy. Sleep clawed at the edges of my mind.
I killed a giant, mutated boar. Ate its core raw. That gave me maybe an hour.
Then came a serpent—ten meters long, scales like steel. I crushed its skull and devoured its essence. Another reprieve.
But no matter what I did... they still came.
[Day 2700]
I was exhausted. My muscles ached beyond pain. My bones cracked with every movement. My lightning barely sparked.
I had to hide.
I remembered the blood potions. I poured one down the throat of a dying lizard. It shrieked—mutated instantly, twisted into something that shouldn't exist. I killed it before it even stood. Ate the core. Ran again.
Untransformed. Weak.
I found a crocodile. Killed it. Cut open its belly. Slid inside. It stank of rot and swamp water. But it would hide my scent—maybe buy me time.
That's when it hit me.
The memories.
They came like a flood. Not mine. The deer's.
I saw its first thoughts. Its hunger. Its growth. How it wandered through ruined realms, devouring fragments of shattered worlds. How it met humans and learned to mimic divinity. How it created offspring with its blood, only to consume them to grow stronger. How it slipped between time and space—and how the yellow eyes came to be.
I saw the wolf it tried to raise, only for the wolf to resist and grow beyond its control.
I saw it infect the rivers of this forest, spreading its curse. How it awakened monsters. How it tried to become a god.
And how I killed it.
It was like watching a movie—its entire life replaying inside me. I wasn't just seeing it. I was becoming it. My body cracked. Skin split. I felt nothing. Not the ground. Not the blood. Not even the pain.
Just... emptiness.
Then the world cracked.
Something broke. The realm itself began to collapse.
A sound like tearing silk and thunder collided. My soul was torn from my body, hovering outside. I was dead. But I wasn't.
It was night. I floated above myself. My soul flickered like a candle in a hurricane.
I burned some lume essence. It held my soul together—for now.
Days passed.
Then months.
My body lay still. Cold. I couldn't return. I couldn't move. I was trapped.
Then it came.
They came.
The sky shattered like glass. Through it poured shapes I couldn't comprehend—beings too vast, too alien, too wrong. Just glimpsing them nearly erased me.
Minor ones slipped through—a massive leech, as big as a car, slithered toward my body.
I panicked. Flew back. Possessed myself. Tried to move.
The leech paused. It tasted the air. Then turned away.
It left me alone.
The world... this forest realm... it's dying.
And I think it's because of me.
What have I done?