Raka considered himself a level-headed person. Sure, he could lose his temper from time to time, but he usually kept his cool.
Not this time.
He stood in the facility's ruins, now overtaken by dense forest and weather-scabbed concrete. The only evidence that anything had ever stood here were a few broken pillars jutting from the undergrowth.
He walked toward where the courtyard should have been and saw… nothing: an open scar of grass.
Were they attacked while he was asleep? But if that was the case, how was he still alive? He'd seen the skeleton in B50 with him—its ribs gouged, cracks spidering across the skull.
Meaning that their death had been caused by something or someone.
Even after threading the length of the ruin, Raka found little worth searching. He realized that looking for anyone here was a waste of time.
He needed a plan.
Sitting on a flat slab of fallen concrete, he gathered his thoughts. "So everyone in the facility is gone, the entire building is destroyed, and I'm all alone. What the hell do I do?"
His first course of action should be… to ensure his body is alright. Yeah, that sounds about right. He'd been asleep for a year—probably a bit more, if the state of the place counted for anything.
His body should have been modified and enhanced to be able to wield the Sunpiercer's mana, along with the four cores that should boost his power.
But he had no idea how to use them.
The plan was that after he awoke from his one-year stasis, he would be trained to wield his new powers. But now, he has to find out what to do on his own.
Raka glanced once again at the remnants of the facility. If whatever caused this was still around, he'd die fast without a way to defend himself.
Even if he was enhanced, if whatever thing could destroy the entire facility. Then, he was definitely going to die if he came across it.
The next step was to find out where he was. He knew the facility sat at the border of Arche and Earth, but looking at the forest around him, who knew how much the land had changed.
So he made up his mind: find a town or village while gaining control over his new abilities—which he had no clue where to start.
Raka closed his eyes, took a deep breath, rubbed his face, and stood up. After taking one last look at the remnants of the facility, he took his first steps.
"Alright, let's do this."
/ - /
"How far does this forest go?" Raka muttered, irritation undercutting his calm. After he left the facility he'd assumed the treeline wouldn't stretch far—after all, it had only been a bit over a year.
How much forest could even grow in that short amount of time?
But it turns out that after what felt like hours of walking, his sights were still filled with trees and leaves. The forest turned out to be quite vast.
There wasn't even open ground to rest in anymore. He could sit beneath a tree, sure, but the dense undergrowth felt unsafe.
Even with sunlight peeking through the canopy, his surroundings were still decently dark.
Come to think of it, he didn't feel even slightly tired, he found this odd. Sure, he was trained physically and in magic—sadly, he was never outstanding in either.
This must be because of the stasis. Amplifications are pretty neat.
He could practically hear Recca's voice, excited to see the results of his experiment, while Freya would hover nearby to keep him in line and make sure he was okay.
All of you. Please be ok… Yet the only thing that answered him was the forest with nothing but rustling leaves.
He kept walking farther and farther until he heard a sound. He slowed, careful not to snap a twig in case it was a monster.
Focusing on the sound, it was like something flowing. Wait, that's the sound of water!
He broke into a jog, weaving between trunks until the forest opened at the bank of a river.
"Whoa."
Before him stretched a broad ribbon of water, its surface slow-moving yet restless, mirroring the cloud-dappled sky in fractured panes.
Near the far bank, the river widened even more, so wide that treetops on the opposite shore were softened by a faint blue haze, as if distance itself clung to them.
In the shallows close by, sandbars rose like pale islands, their edges combed into ripples by the current.
Tall long-legged birds, a species he didn't recognize, clustered on those sandbars.
They stepped cautiously, lifting each foot clear of the water before settling it again, not even disturbing the surface of the water, necks angling in perfect stillness just long enough to strike.
Now and then, a beak speared downward, droplets scattering in the sunlight; a silver flash of fish vanished into a throat, and the birds drifted apart, rearranging their loose formation without a sound.
"Beautiful" Raka could only say after the damp and depressing sight of the facility. The beauty of nature was a welcome change.
Suddenly, he became aware of just how thirsty he was. He realized that while the pod provided him with the nutrients needed to stay alive, his body still felt hunger and thirst.
And oh boy was he thirsty.
He ran towards the river's edge, dropped to his knees, and shoved his face into the water. The sudden sound caused the nearby birds to scatter.
*Gulp* *Gulp* Gulp*
He kept drinking for at least a minute straight before stopping. Lying down on the river rocks with a satisfied sign.
"Yeah, *Burp* That's the stuff"
Was the water fully clean? No. Was it possible that it carried some disease that could make him sick? Yes.
But he couldn't give a rat's ass right now. He was too busy enjoying the gifts of nature.
Sitting upright, he took a moment to enjoy the wind on his skin. This is nice. Standing up, he walked back towards the river's edge.
The water had calmed down enough for him to see his reflection, and oh boy, was he dirty. His face was cleaner than the rest because he had dunked it into the river just a few minutes earlier.
But everything else was covered in dust, dirt, and grime.
Crouching down and using two hands to scoop up some water, he used it to clean himself up. He considered jumping into the river to fully clean himself, but he decided to clean his arms and legs first.
Dipping in a river with animals and possibly monsters was not a good idea.
After cleaning up, he was finally able to notice his face. A crack-like pattern trailed from his left eye all the way down to his neck.
It didn't look grotesque-thankfully-but it was still unnerving. Though he did expect that the experimentation would leave him with some physical changes, he expected a lot worse than just cracks.
Touching his face, he trailed his fingers gently across the cracks. At Least they don't hurt, though it does tingle when I touch it.
For an instant, the pattern in the reflection rippled as if the cracks themselves were crawling under his skin. Raka recoiled, pulse spiking. Cracks aren't supposed to move.
He patted his cheek and felt… nothing. It was perfectly still.
Frowning, he leaned closer to the river's surface. The pattern shifted again, but this time he saw it clearly: overlapping plates … scales, gliding over one another just beneath the waterline.
Scales.
A second pair of pupils blinked inside his mirrored silhouette, yellow and unblinking.
Another set of eyes was staring back.
"Oh, fuck me."
/ - /
Raka's shout hung over the river when the water right beneath his reflection bulged.
A mountain-sized shadow rose, scales flashing like broken mirrors as they breached the surface.
Sunlight scattered in blades of color across a head as wide as a wagon. Two gold-lensed eyes locked onto him.
"Nonononono—!"
He spun and sprinted for the tree line. He barely made it three strides away when a tail thicker than a log smashed out of the water and slammed down in front of him with a wet THUD. Bark and river mud spattered his face.
"Come on! I just got clean!"
The serpent—no, riverglass basilisk, some frantic part of him supplied—coiled onto the bank. Its scales kept flickering: river-brown, leaf-green, sky-blue, as if the thing couldn't decide which backdrop to borrow.
Pale turquoise runes pulsed along its spine, and the river behind it bulged into a knee-high wave that chased Raka in a horseshoe, herding him back toward the water.
"Great. It can use magic. Love that for me!"
He juked left. The water-whip shifted with him. He vaulted a fallen log—only for the basilisk's snout to shoot past the trunk and snap at empty air inches from his calf.
Raka landed, stumbling. "Leave me alone!"
Another strike. He dove and rolled. The ground shook as the head plowed a groove where he'd been.
The basilisk hissed and shot forward. Its jaws missed his torso but the neck kept going past him. "Oh no," coils looped around him faster than he could blink.
He felt pressure surrounding him before it suddenly stopped. Its hold was firm but not bone-snapping.
Instead, it started to gather up water into a floating little ball.
"W-what?
A second later, he remembered what Recca had taught him: Riverside Basilisks don't kill prey with constriction or poison. They use their water magic to drown their prey and mush up its insides!
He needed to get out of its grip somehow. Since his hands were still able to move, he pinched, grabbed, and even hit the serpent.
While he could move it, that didn't stop it from charging its attack.
"Oh come on!"
In his desperation, Raka felt his heartbeat hammer in his ears and felt his body get hotter and hotter. Before grabbing the serpent's body again and squeezing.
HISSSSSS!
The beast hissed in pain, losing its concentration on the water magic and loosening its grip on Raka. Letting him force his way out of its grip.
Seeing the beast still stunned, he took this opportunity to run away. Rushing towards the treeline, Raka thought he would make it until he looked back.
And saw a wall of water heading his way.
He barely had time to react when the water smashed into him like a canon and sent him flying through an entire tree. "Agh!" Sending him crashing on the hard ground with a thud.
Raka lay half-buried in splintered wood and churned earth, lungs wheezing for air that refused to come fast enough.
His brain told him the impact should have shattered bone and ruptured organs—left him broken and gasping. Yet nothing felt completely intact.
How am I still moving?
He pushed up, boots slipping in the mud, and staggered into a crouch as the basilisk surged out of the river.
The creature's ruined snout was a wall of scale and fury. It barreled straight toward him, pulverizing boulders and saplings with each coil-powered heave. Raka's heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out the crashing forest.
Panic licked at the edges of thought, but beneath it simmered anger—at the monster, at his own helplessness, at the impossible world that had greeted him from the pod.
The cracks down his cheek suddenly flared gold. Light bled across his skin, racing through every vein until his entire body glowed a dim yellow.
Hotter and hotter, his body felt scorching. A tingling feeling suddenly settled in his right hand.
Instinctively, he planted his back foot, drew the glowing fist beside his ribs, and met the charging nightmare head-on.
The serpent lunged. Raka struck.
The impact detonated in a white-gold flash. A concussive blast rolled across the clearing, snapping branches and whipping a ring of wind through the treetops. Birds erupted from their perches in a panicked storm of wings.
When the glare faded, the basilisk's head was gone—scales, bone, and rune-etched plates vaporized in a spreading cloud of steam and misty red.
The corpse collapsed, momentum carrying the headless mass another few body lengths before it slumped into the river with a dull, resigned splash.
Raka held the follow-through for a heartbeat, arm still smoldering. He stared at the empty space where a monster had been.
"That was… an experience."
Strength fled as the words left his lips. He couldn't feel his legs, his knees folded, dropping him to the churned earth amid drifting steam and the distant hiss of settling water.
He was going to need a moment.