Akira rubbed their eyes with the back of a hand, blinking slowly as the light filtered in—not harsh, but dreamlike, diffused across the atmosphere in a way that didn't make sense by earthly standards. There was a softness to it, like the whole sky had been filtered through a watercolor wash and a mood stabilizer. Everything shimmered with just a touch too much saturation, like reality had finally given up on subtlety and decided to flex.

  And speaking of flexing.

  They turned their head to the side to the aesthetic assault that was Atan: over seven feet of bare-chested muscle and nonchalant ignorance. His body was sculpted in the exact way most mobile game ads falsely advertise: all definition and danger, the kind of physique that made lesser men question their gym routines and women quietly reassess their standards. Akira blinked again, slower this time.

  He had started chewing another piece of grass, staring blankly at the horizon like he was contemplating the metaphysical implications of anime filler arcs. Why he was shirtless—and why he looked like he was about to co-star in this week's "Top Ten Video Game Husbands Ranked By Their Abs" listicle—was beyond Akira, but honestly? They weren't about to complain.

  Some things were just gifts.

  And Akira, despite the chaos and trauma and multiversal upheaval, was still very much a creature of desire, vanity, and mild bisexual thirst. Alternatively, they would bitch, moan, and loudly curse the universe if their sock got slightly damp. Such was the curse of balancing two full sets of hormones: half mood swing half anxiety.

  They sighed and pushed themselves up to a sitting position, glancing down at their body. Still wrapped in bandages. Some were practical—around the ribs and shoulders—but others made no medical sense whatsoever. A strip around the left thigh. A diagonal band across the forearm. One just barely peeking out from the collar of their black shirt like it had been applied for aesthetic rather than function. Akira narrowed their eyes at it suspiciously, then muttered, "Okay, but who decided on the mummy-chic look?"

  They were dressed otherwise simply: plain black shirt, slightly too big, worn jeans that were only intact because Mikor or divine pity was holding the seams together. Dirt clung to the cuffs, and there was still a faint shimmer of some shimmering dust on their skin, like leftover glitter from some divine rave. Had that god snorted crack on them or something? Akira plucked at one of the bandages and, after a moment's thought, tucked the visible ends inside their shirt like stuffing loose ribbon back into a jacket.

  Then, finally, their gaze returned to Atan.

  Still shirtless. Still chewing grass. Still looking like the least emotional demigod to ever wander out of a JRPG side quest.

  Akira stared for a long moment.

  "...You're really committing to the shirtless forest guardian aesthetic, huh?" they muttered.

  Atan didn't respond.

  Just exhaled through his nose, jaw flexing slightly as he bit off another piece of grass and resumed chewing.

  Akira rubbed their temples.

  "Gods. I hope you're not my tutorial companion. I don't think I'm emotionally ready for that." They sighed before asking.

  "Atan, what are your stats?" Akira asked, propping themself up on an elbow and squinting at him with suspicion. The suns gleamed off his chest in a way that made it hard to focus, but they persevered. "Like, no offense, but you probably have over a hundred in Strength, three in Intelligence, and a special stat exclusively for how many threes you can shoot while simultaneously watching three different animes at once."

  Atan turned his head lazily, his eyes slow and unbothered like two boiled stones soaking in warm tea. "Stats?" he echoed, blinking at them as if the word was a moth flying in front of his face.

  "Yeah, big glowy screen that appears and reminds you of all your failures and the hard cap on your ability to improve as a person," Akira said, gesturing broadly with both hands. "Like divine UI. Life's Yelp review."

  Atan tilted his head slightly, chewing the grass with a blank, bovine expression. "I think you're just hallucinating your insecurities," he said flatly.

  Akira didn't even hesitate.

  They flipped him off—with both hands, middle fingers high, thumbs extended like they were trying to direct divine traffic. "Yeah? Take that. Language of the gods."

  Atan didn't react. He just stared at them like they were a particularly confusing item on a menu.

  "No, seriously," Akira continued, shaking off their spite like glitter from a cursed arts and crafts session. "Try saying something. I don't know. 'Status.' Or, like, 'Roses are red, violets are blue, you better pop up or I'll beat the ever-living shit out of you.' You know—something threatening. Something spiritual."

  He stared a little longer. Then gave a half-lidded blink. "Uh huh."

  Despite that, and in the very Atan way of doing things, he did try.

  First came the classics. "Status," he said flatly. No response.

  Then he tried clapping his hands. Nothing.

  Then came poses.

  Akira watched with growing dismay as Atan struck a power stance like a second-rate JoJo character, screamed "STAAATUUUUUS!" with no heart behind it, and waited.

  Nada.

  Next came the Kamehameha pose, which was weirdly accurate—hands cupped, body angled, eyes squinting like he actually believed energy might come out of his palms. Nothing. Not even a puff of dust.

  Then came the Super Saiyan bit.

  Veins popped. Teeth clenched. He roared into the grasslands like a lion raised on shonen anime. The birds in the trees scattered. The wind actually picked up for a moment.

  Still. No glowing screen.

  Akira collapsed back into the grass, panting, sweaty, mildly grass-stained, and morally defeated. "That's freaking weird, dude," they muttered. "Maybe it's because you walked over here instead of being summoned? Like, you slipped past the god radar or something?"

  They turned their head toward him, arms flopped out like an anime character who'd just failed a training arc.

  "How did you do that, by the way?"

  Atan blinked once. Then twice. Then said, "I don't know. I just walked."

  Akira stared at him like he had just confessed to solving climate change with a really good nap.

  "You just… walked?"

  "Yup."

  "Through a stopped time zone with a portal guarded by the cosmic firewall of Heaven."

  "Yup."

  Akira covered their face with a groan. "You absolute cryptid."

  He looked down at them, dreads shifting slightly with the wind, the shadows of five suns playing off the curve of his shoulders like some ancient mural. His massive frame blocked out the oddly shimmering light for a moment, and he shrugged—broad, slow, like gravity didn't quite reach him the same way it reached everyone else.

  "I really don't know," Atan said, his voice low but clear, more grounded than usual. "Everything changed. One second I was watching over you, next thing I know, you're disappearing—little motes of light, spiraling into some goddamn portal just dissapearing into nothing. What else was I supposed to do?"

  He paused, eyes narrowing a little. Not annoyed. Just... honest.

  "I followed you."

  Akira blinked up at him. The sky behind him was a kaleidoscope of slow-turning colors, cotton-candy clouds blending with unnatural geometry. Wind rustled the grass like it was brushing secrets into the earth. They turned their head away, pretending to adjust their shirt, just to hide the slight curve tugging at their lips.

  "I don't know, man," they said, voice full of faux suspicion. "Sounds pretty gay to me."

  A massive hand descended onto their skull, landing with a thump that was somehow the gentlest thing in the world. The impact was more like a firm pat from a mountain that wanted you to acknowledge it could break your spinne.

  "I'm sorry, sir," Akira muttered in a deadpan voice.

  Atan released them with a small snort of amusement.

  Snort.

  Akira shot upright, scandalized. "Le gasp! Was that emotion? What happened to my nonchalant dreadhead bestie?"

  Atan flopped down beside them like a great beast settling into the grass, the ground shifting beneath his weight. "Grown-ass man still saying bestie," he muttered, chewing on a new blade of glowing grass. "Anyways. How are we going to save the world?"

  Akira cracked their neck theatrically, stretching back with a soft groan like a drama student preparing to monologue. "Ah, let me explain to you the totality of existence. So, picture this: the universe was once a supermassive quadrupedal animal—specifically of the family Bovidae, genus Ovis. Yes, Atan. A sheep. A pure white cosmic sheep."

  Atan blinked slowly.

  "A divine creature of wool and wonder who nobly committed self-sacrifice, exploding itself across infinity to birth all life and matter," they said, gesturing with a hand like they were painting constellations. "From its blood: time. From its wool: space. From its bones: law. And from its leftover fluff, unfortunately, gods."

  Akira sighed, flopping backward again. "I met one. In the void. Glowing ball of light. Spoke like a dropout philosophy major with a messiah complex and access to divine privileges."

  "Sounds fake," Atan grunted.

  "Very real. Very annoying. They said I was the closest thing to perfection they'd ever seen. Like, soul-wise. Not fashion-wise, though that's obvious."

  Atan raised an eyebrow.

  Akira continued, "They dropped all this lore on me. Lamb sacrifice. Divine law. Reincarnation loopholes. Hive invasions. All the hot topics. Gave me a gemstone. Jumpstarted my soul. System screen. Magic energy called Mikor. Whole nine yards."

  They pursed their lips, eyes distant. "I need a name for them though. The Bastgod. Bastard God. Or... or maybe the God of Balls because they're just a hovering orb of sass and poor decision-making. Or! The Divine Driver of Irresponsibly Large Vehicles."

  Atan mulled that over with the same expression he used when choosing between two identical bags of chips. "Huh," he said eventually. "We need to beat the shit out of that god one day."

  "Right?!" Akira said, pointing at him like he'd just unlocked a new achievement. "But you're not, like, more surprised about any of this?"

  He rolled onto his side, stretching out with the grace of a lion who paid zero rent. "Not really," he said. "But we should get up. Find locals. Food. Maybe shelter. Before I resort to cannibalism."

  He stood up like the earth asked him for permission first, then offered a hand down toward them.

  Akira took it, allowing themself to be pulled up with theatrical flourish. Once upright, they brushed their shirt off, then turned, eyes twinkling with mischief.

  "Oh? You wanna eat me?" they said, voice thick with performative flirtation. They placed a hand dramatically over their chest and rubbed their legs together in mock seduction. "How bold~ But I wouldn't mind~"

  One disappointed stare later—long, flat, and so full of judgment it could've been packaged and sold as a Catholic school principal—Atan turned without a word and led the way into the forest.

  Akira followed, grumbling under their breath.

  The jungle—because let's be honest, this wasn't a "woods" or "forest" so much as a leafy, breathing torture chamber—closed around them in every direction. Vines dangled like smug organic nooses from twisted tree limbs. The foliage had an unnatural density, pulsing slightly in the breeze like it was waiting for something to die. Trees loomed tall and curled like someone had taken a batch of giant licorice and sculpted them into Medusa's dreadlocks. Their bark came in electric blues, soft pinks, black-veined reds, and the occasional boring old brown like a default NPC in a lineup of RPG protagonists.

  The ground was mossy, squishy, and alive in the wrong ways. Some of the roots glowed faintly. Some moved faintly. Akira didn't want to think about that.

  Atan took point, of course, because he was built like a forest-clearing machine. He parted branches and vines like they were little more than set dressing, his bare arms glinting under the fractured light that filtered down through the five-sunned canopy above. Akira, on the other hand, was constantly swatting away leaves, ducking under twisted roots, and hissing obscenities every time something brushed against their skin unexpectedly.

  They slapped at their leg. "Was that a bug? I swear to God if that was another bug—"

  Another vine snapped them across their thigh like the jungle itself was a dom with no safeword.

  "I hate this," Akira muttered to no one. "I'm a city guy. I like neon. I like ramen shops. I like air conditioning. If one more insect crawls on me, or another branch slaps my ass like I owe it money, I will tweak out. I will join the Hive. I will become their queen and lead a genocidal campaign to erase all forests and replace them with strip malls and Walmarts like the good little American I was raised to be."

  Shhwoooo.

  The breeze carried a distant sound—soft, rushing, fluid.

  Akira froze. Their ears perked.

  "Hold up," they said, grabbing Atan by the wrist with more urgency than grace. "Do you hear that?"

  Atan paused, tilting his head. His dreads swayed slightly, listening.

  "Sounds like... running water, right?" Akira pointed into the trees. "There might be a river that way."

  "Okay, Bear Grylls," he replied, already turning.

  "Indeed," Akira said, puffing out their chest and rubbing their nose. "Between the two of us, I'm the manlier one."

  He raised a brow.

  And then—poke.

  A massive finger jabbed Akira square in the side, right in the soft part where their shirt bunched slightly over their waistline. There was the betrayal squish, the soundless curse of the modern form.

  "Aight, lil bro," Atan said.

  Akira's mouth dropped open in disbelief. "That has nothing to do with being manly!"

  But Atan was already walking. "Aight, lil bro," he said again, deadpan as hell.

  Akira stood there a second longer, wounded in spirit. "Damn him," they whispered. "I'm not being a fatass. I'm being a happy ass. There's a difference. Doritos are joy incarnate. Food is happiness. This is spiritual healing."

  But Atan didn't respond. He was already making his way toward the sound of water like a egrigous over seven foot long-legged forest antelope.

  Akira had to jog to keep up, their legs working double time just to match his absurdly long stride. The man was built like a cross between a daddy longlegs and an armored personnel carrier, and it wasn't fair. Even worse, he wasn't lanky. He had mass. Bulk. They couldn't call him a stickbug either because he wasn't skinny. Two out of the three holy trinity of insults were useless against him—voided. Nullified. Nerfed.

  "Fuck," Akira muttered. "I need to invent new insults just for him."

  There were three core pillars in the holy trinity of insults, and Akira knew them by heart:

  1. Body shaming.

  2. Intelligence mockery.

  3. Calling a mofo ugly.

  Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how much bitterness was in their tank that morning—Atan was functionally immune to two of them. The man was built like the final boss of gym culture, and as much as Akira hated to admit it, he wasn't bad to look at either. Not in the classical sense, not in the soft-boy model sense, but in that rugged, "I may have been carved by accident" sense. Sharp jaw. Thick brows. He looked like if the concept of "You Up?" had been condensed into human flesh and then told to read Berserk.

  So no, they couldn't body shame him. Couldn't call him ugly.

  That left option three: intelligence. And Atan? He didn't give a single airborne fuck about being called dumb. He wore his emotional simplicity like a badge of apathy. Mock his brain? He'd just agree, then ask if they wanted ramen or violence. Usually violence.

  Now, some might think, Hey, wasn't Akira bullied as a kid? Shouldn't they, like, rise above all that? Show compassion?

  To which Akira replied, mentally and sometimes aloud:

  "Fuck that."

  Yeah, bullying sucked. Sure, it bruised the soul. But Akira had never been the "lie down and take it" type. They never cried in a locker. Never stared off into a rain-streaked window whispering "why me?" like some CW drama protagonist. Nah—they bit back. With sarcasm. With wit. With irony advanced enough to fry the synapses of your average ten-year-old bully who couldn't spell "existential." They weaponized language. Turned being different into a shield and then a sword. They were built in the fire. Baptized in mockery and jokes sharper than cafeteria knives.

  Still, that didn't help much when Atan suddenly grabbed them by the hips.

  "Wha—?"

  Before they could finish the sentence, he launched them.

  No warning. No prep. Just yoink and airborne. Their feet left the mossy ground and a scream—more indignation than fear—was yanked from their lungs as they flew up onto the thick trunk of a fallen tree, easily ten feet high. Their hands scrambled at the bark, which was rubbery and pulsing faintly with that same weird Mikor glow as everything else in this technicolor jungle.

  "Goddamn it, Atan!" they shouted, adjusting their footing.

  But he didn't reply.

  Instead, he crouched and leapt in a single, fluid motion—arms rising, knees bending—and soared after them like gravity was a polite suggestion. He landed with a dull thud beside them, sending a ripple through the trunk that made Akira flail for balance. Showoff.

  More proof that their best friend might not be human.

  Before they could say anything, he grabbed them again—same way, strong hands on their waist like they weighed nothing—and leapt. But this time, a sound came out of their mouth. A sharp, startled noise.

  A high-pitched yelp.

  Akira blinked.

  It was not a manly sound.

  He kicked off the top of the log, bounced off a nearby branch, and flipped them both through the air in a blur of motion. Akira clung like a reluctant sack of potatoes as he somersaulted once, twice, then slammed his foot into a nearby trunk, using it as a launchpad to bounce toward another tree. Then another. The final landing was a sliding descent down a sloped bark ramp that curved like a wave, trailing glowing moss and crushed leaves as they skid downward like a giant jungle skatepark.

  And then—without fanfare—he dropped them.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Unceremoniously.

  Face-first into the grass.

  Akira hit the ground with a grunt, hands sinking into the springy, too-green earth. The grass had that same unsettling shimmer, glowing faintly under their fingers like a power source humming to itself. Birds—or something pretending to be birds—cackled in the trees above.

  Atan stood beside them, arms crossed.

  "Manly, huh?" he asked, the faintest curl of amusement tugging at his lip.

  Akira groaned, slowly peeling themself off the ground like a sticker someone tried to remove too fast.

  "I don't want to hear it," they said through gritted teeth, blades of glowing grass stuck in their hair, cheeks, and ego. Veins bulged slightly at their temple. "Not a word."

  Akira turned away from the certified barbarian that was their closest friend, brushing off lingering grass blades from their sleeve and brushing some attitude back into their spine. Their eyes scanned ahead—and then widened.

  There, nestled between the roots of twisting rainbow-wood trees and framed by low-hanging vines that shimmered faintly with flecks of Mikor, was a brook.

  A glorious, bubbling, normal-looking brook.

  The water wasn't glowing. It wasn't red. It wasn't black like tar or some demon's armpit. It didn't shimmer with cosmic lies or pulse with eldritch meaning. It looked like... water. Clear. Wet. Earth's most underrated liquid. Compared to the rest of this Lisa-Frank-on-LSD jungle, it was a damn miracle.

  Akira's eyes sparkled.

  "Oh my god," they whispered. "It's not radioactive. It's not sentient. It's hydration."

  They took a step forward, visions of cupping that cold, clear joy dancing in their mind. Maybe they could splash their face. Maybe drink a little. Maybe just kneel dramatically and whisper thanks to whoever hadn't cursed this specific body of water with magical diarrhea energy.

  But then—

  BOOM.

  The air cracked like the earth had punched itself. Leaves shivered violently. Akira's instincts kicked in, and they froze mid-step.

  Something moved.

  A flash of motion—blinding, agile, fast as a thought—shot across the clearing. Whatever it was blurred between trees like it was skipping through space. A shape. A form. Humanoid, maybe? Definitely upright. Definitely running for its life. It leapt once, twice, then vanished into the forest canopy with a whoosh of displaced air and shivering branches.

  Akira barely caught more than a silhouette before it disappeared.

  But what followed?

  Oh.

  Oh hell no.

  What followed was a monster ripped straight out of a child's nightmare drawn during recess with four broken crayons and an unmedicated imagination.

  It burst into the clearing, shattering branches in its wake. Its body was long, thick, and segmented like some unholy cross between a centipede, a lobster, and a very angry hot dog. The outer shell gleamed a mix of deep brown and bone white, its segments flexing as it moved, each one chitinous and plated like armor forged in nightmare factories.

  On its back were jagged spines that shimmered with Mikor, twitching as if tasting the air. Its front half loomed up, revealing two massive clawed arms—each the size of a motorcycle and twice as deadly—flexing with unnatural strength. The claws ended in hooked points that scraped gouges into the dirt as it crawled. Its face—if one could call it that—had a gaping circular maw filled with teeth that spiraled inward like a grotesque blender.

  But most unsettling of all were its eyes.

  Two large, humanoid eyes. White sclera. Round pupils. Wet with focus. Not mindless. Not bestial.

  Aware.

  And sitting atop its head, like a final insult to logic and taste, was a patch of thick, black chitin shaped exactly like a top hat.

  Akira's mouth dropped open. "Holy smokes... it's Benny Worm."

  As if summoned by the name, the thing roared—or screeched—or belched an ungodly, alien scream that rattled the air.

  YAAAARGH!

  It turned its attention to them now, its quarry having escaped, and saw the next best thing: two confused bipedal snacks standing near the treeline.

  It charged.

  Full speed.

  It moved with all the grace of a semi-truck possessed by demonic intent. The desperate intent to isekai a random japanese person. Akira would know. The ground shook. Its body undulated, its claws tearing furrows into the dirt, its maw open like the world's worst kiss.

  Akira didn't even get to curse.

  Suddenly, the world tilted. Their feet left the ground in a blur of motion and instinct. Something massive gripped them by the waist and hurled them to the side with violent affection.

  "—oof!!"

  They hit the dirt, rolled, and skidded through a patch of glowing moss and sharp-rooted underbrush, their shoulder scraping painfully against a raised root. The bark caught and tore the edge of their shirt, and they bit down a sharp yelp as momentum finally gave way to stillness.

  Akira groaned, dazed, already brushing leaves off their face.

  Atan.

  Of course it was Atan.

  He'd thrown them like a football made of sass and poor survival instincts, getting them out of the blast zone before Benny Worm could make them lunch.

  They twisted onto their stomach and raised their head, hair clinging to their cheek, eyes already darting toward the battlefield.

  And there he was.

  Atan stood in front of the brook now, squared up, arms loose at his sides, dreadlocks swaying slightly with the air pressure of incoming doom.

  Benny Worm roared again, jaws wide.

  And Akira watched as the chaos began.

  Atan wasn't running.

  He never ran.

  There was a glint in his eyes. Something sharp. Something awake.

  Benny Worm lunged with a sound like grinding metal and a toilet overflowing in hell. Its massive claw-arms swung inward, aiming to crush and rip and dismember in one fluid motion.

  Atan caught both.

  Caught them.

  He gripped each claw with his bare hands, fingers clamped down around the chitinous limbs like industrial vises. The force sent tremors down his arms, dirt kicking up around his feet as his heels dug into the mossy soil. His muscles strained, veins rising along his forearms like ropes beneath the skin, but he held firm—like he was meant to be a wall between monsters and everything else.

  The worm shrieked, mouth gaping wide enough to bite his entire head off. Rows of spinning, spiral teeth rotated in its maw, wet with venom and rage.

  But Atan dropped low.

  He let go of the claws, ducking beneath the snapping jaws in a blur of movement unbefitting a man his size. In that instant, while the worm's momentum carried its face forward, he planted his heel and spun, unleashing a brutal roundhouse kick straight into its jaw.

  CRACK.

  The worm's head snapped sideways with a sickening crunch, its entire upper body rearing back as a howl tore from its lungs. Its weight slammed against a cluster of trees, cracking one of the thinner trunks as it stumbled like a drunk kaiju.

  It recovered fast.

  Too fast.

  A massive claw swept at Atan from the side, scythe-like and mean, and Akira's breath caught in their throat.

  But Atan weaved.

  Smooth. Precise. He slipped inside the arc of the swing, hooked the worm's elbow-joint under his own arm, twisted, and dropped his leg behind the creature's coiling body. Then, with a grunt of pure brute force, he pivoted, lifted, and hurled the behemoth sideways.

  Well, not hurled—more like tipped.

  But tipping a six-meter, armored murder-worm wasn't exactly easy either.

  The worm crashed sideways into the earth with a deep, wet boom, gouging up a wide trench of dirt and moss. Its tail slammed into the ground behind it, spines flaring, shrieking in frustration.

  But it wasn't done.

  The second claw came down in a vertical arc, and this time, Atan wasn't fast enough.

  The edge sliced across his upper arm—clean and deep. Not life-threatening, but enough to spill a bright flash of red against the earthy tones of the field. Blood streaked down his forearm, dripping into the grass, steam rising faintly from the contact with ambient Mikor.

  Akira's eyes went wide. "Shit—!"

  But Atan didn't stop.

  The moment the worm started to rise again, its many limbs writhing, its face snapping back into position, Atan charged.

  Not cautious.

  Aggressive.

  He ducked beneath its spines, surged forward like a bullet of wrath and meat, and slammed a devastating left hook into the worm's face. His fist struck just below its eye, right in the sweet spot where chitin thinned—where even divine armor had to bend.

  The impact was thunder.

  The worm's entire head jerked back, a high-pitched scream erupting from its spiraling maw as it reeled from the blow. It reared up instinctively, body arching, tail twitching, arms flailing—an animal response to sudden, overwhelming pain.

  But it recovered quick and it crashed down.

  BOOM.

  The ground exploded beneath it—dirt, moss, leaves, and chunks of broken tree launched into the air like confetti from a nuclear celebration. The shockwave rippled outward in a wave of raw kinetic force, sending birds scattering from the canopy and Akira flinching behind a half-fallen tree.

  Atan skidded back from the burst, boots carving trenches in the soil as he brought up his bleeding arm and rolled his shoulder.

  Akira, crouched low behind cover, stared with wide eyes.

  "Jesus fucking Christ," they whispered.

  Then, louder: "Okay… maybe I do want to hear it."

  The worm wasn't dumb.

  Not entirely.

  It may have been dazed and bloodied from Atan's thunderous left hook, but it wasn't done. No, Benny Worm didn't believe in clean endings. It had crashed into the dirt like that in order to create space for it's next attack to begin with. With a hiss that vibrated through the very roots of the trees, it shifted, burrowed its rear end into the soil, and twisted.

  The momentum carried its entire body into a pivot.

  Its massive stinger-tipped tail—broad, segmented, and lined with jagged chitin—whipped through the air with terrifying speed, a blur of brown and bone white.

  CRACK.

  It hit Atan square across the torso like a divine punishment from the god of blunt force trauma.

  He went flying.

  Launched like a ragdoll stuffed with bricks, Atan crashed through a tree at the far end of the clearing. The bark exploded in a shower of splinters as the thick trunk gave way with a deafening snap. Leaves, branches, and bits of glowing moss rained down around the impact site as his body carved a trench through the undergrowth.

  "ATAN!" Akira screamed, fists clenched so hard their nails dug crescent moons into their palms. Rage lit up in her chest like gasoline hitting flame, white-hot and feral. His breath came in sharp bursts, and for a moment the world blurred at the edges.

  But no way. No way was he dead.

  Before she could sprint toward the impact zone, something whistled through the air.

  A stick.

  Not a branch. A stick. Thrown with deadly accuracy, it flew toward the worm's left eye. The creature jerked back in surprise, the stick narrowly missing its target and embedding itself into the soft bark of a nearby tree with a heavy thunk.

  A decoy.

  Akira's eyes flicked back to the broken tree line.

  A shape emerged from the smoke and debris, low and fast.

  Atan.

  He surged forward like a battering ram made of muscle and vengeance. Every step sent dirt flying behind him. His torso was smeared with blood and bark, his left arm still bleeding, his face set in the kind of dead-serious calm that meant someone—or something—was about to get wrecked.

  The worm turned too slow.

  With a guttural growl and every ounce of rage buried in that mountain-shaped body, Atan slammed into the creature's midsection. His shoulder struck between two of its armored segments with a meaty, seismic CRUNCH.

  The impact made the worm's entire frame ripple.

  Veins popped along his arms—twisting, coiling, surging under the skin like worms of their own—as his hands dug into the carapace. Chitin groaned beneath his grip. Cracks spiderwebbed out beneath his fingers.

  Akira's breath hitched. "Holy shit…"

  Atan leaned back and piledrived the worm into the earth behind him, dragging its screaming body into the dirt like he was planting a tree made of nightmares.

  BOOM.

  The ground gave way beneath them. Dust exploded outward in a mushroom cloud of glowing soil and fragments of shattered carapace. Trees nearby shuddered from the impact.

  But he wasn't finished.

  Not even close.

  Before the worm could thrash, Atan moved with terrifying precision—wrapping his legs around one of its massive clawed arms. He twisted his body, locking into a brutal submission hold mid-battle like he was trying to earn a black belt from hell itself.

  And then—

  SNAP.

  The limb broke. The sound was wet. Splintered. Visceral.

  The worm screamed—again, again, again—but Atan took the severed limb and shoved the jagged edge into its eye with a brutal slam, stabbing it in the one place its armor didn't reach.

  The creature reared back, squealing in a pitch that made the trees shudder and birds scatter into the five-sunned sky. Fluids poured from its ruined eye socket—thick, glowing, and black like ink boiled with venom.

  But in its last violent effort, its maw snapped open and lunged.

  It clamped its spiral jaws around Atan's leg.

  CHOMP.

  He grunted—the sound raw and human and pain-laced—and his body tensed. The worm bit down, trying to saw through him with those rotating teeth. Akira saw his lips part, saw him grimace, saw the pain finally register on that usually impassive face.

  And something inside them snapped.

  They ran.

  No thoughts. No strategy. Just speed and intent and blind, sharp fury.

  The worm, distracted by its prey, didn't see her coming.

  It raised its shattered stump in defense—flailing the ruined claw like a shield—but Akira weaved under it, flipping forward with the grace of a gymnast and the force of a pissed-off god.

  Akira slammed their foot directly into the jagged limb still buried in the creature's eye.

  CRACK.

  The fragment plunged deeper with a sickening squelch. The worm shrieked once—high and deafening—and then spasmed violently.

  Its body convulsed.

  Twitched.

  Collapsed.

  And Benny Worm was still.

  Akira stood there, panting hard, blood-splattered and shaking, foot still pressed against its broken eye, eyes wide with adrenaline.

  Atan was breathing heavily too, still trapped in its jaws—but those jaws had stopped moving.

  "...This reminds me of how you always kill stealed when we played games together," he muttered faintly.

  Akira, chest heaving, looked down at him with the faintest twitch of a grin.

  "Shut up," she said. "You still owe me for throwing me like a dodgeball."

  The moment the worm stopped twitching completely, Akira collapsed backward into the grass like a victorious gladiator crossed with a winded dog. Sweat clung to their brow, and worm blood—not theirs—coated one boot, their sleeve, and somehow a strand of their hair. Akira didn't even remember leaning in close enough for that to happen.

  Then the screen appeared.

  It blinked into reality like a rude thought: uninvited and loud, accompanied by the faint sound of a typewriter being thrown off a cliff.

  ________________

  {

  Level 12 Low Blackhead Hive Worm Killed.

  +1200 XP

  +5% Hive Bonus (Enemy was part of a localized Hive Node. You're welcome for the extra existential trauma.)

  Achievement: Riding Coattails

  You rode your best friend's effort to victory, you shameless moocher. The hell do you have to be proud of? Seriously. That worm wasn't even looking at you when it died. You stole its eye kill like an emotional support barbarian.

  XP Progress:

  Level Up! Level 4 Reached.

  +48 Free Stat Points

  (Not because you earned them. The universe just felt bad.)

  }

  __________

  Akira sneered at the last line like the screen had just farted in her face.

  "Oh, fuck off," she hissed, waving it away with one hand like it was an annoying waiter offering a gluten-free menu.

  But before the bitterness could fully marinate, another notification blinked in—brighter this time. More golden. Almost smug.

  Akira focused on it, narrowing his eyes and mentally poking it with the concentration of someone trying to kill a mosquito in VR. The window snapped open like a curtain pulled back with a middle finger.

  __________________

  {

  Name: Akira Owlman

  Sex: Hermaphrodite

  Age: 20

  Level: 4 (Against all odds)

  Unique Traits:

  …(How about you get a unique job application?)

  Unique Title – Lambchop (They Who Are Closest to the Lamb)

  +12 Free Stat Points Per Level

  No Level Cap

  ??? (You're not emotionally ready for this)

  ??? (Get therapy and try again)

  ??? (Seriously though, therapy.)

  Title Description:

  We call it Lambchop because, realistically, that's all you're worth: meat for higher entities. But hey—25 bucks a pound is nothing to scoff at. More than you made doing free child labor in your mom's old zen tea shop.

  Side effects of title include divine agnosticism, multiversal attention, a faint smell of rosemary, and the occasional spontaneous divine affection from eldritch deities with parental abandonment issues.

  Stats:

  Strength (STR): 14

  You're stronger than the average peasant, maybe even stronger than Atan's left arm—but only if he's asleep and dreaming of marshmallows. Good for lifting logs and punching racists.

  Dexterity (DEX): 11

  You won't trip over your own feet in a swordfight, but you're not parkouring off castle walls either. You can juggle two apples. Badly.

  Endurance (END): 13

  You can survive being hit by a truck once. Anything past that is pushing it. Good stamina for sarcastic monologues and post-battle dramatic poses.

  Vitality (VIT): 16

  Your body heals faster than most. You probably have an iron liver. One time you drank expired milk and felt invigorated.

  Intelligence (INT): 9

  You tried to read Plato's Republic in high school and stopped after five pages. You understand sarcasm but not metaphysics. You're more clever than smart. Great at insulting smart people using big words you mostly guess the meaning of.

  Wisdom (WIS): 8

  You once dated a guy who said "sigma male grindset" unironically. This is your punishment. You do have gut instinct, but it's mostly gas.

  Charisma (CHA): 25

  You are hot. And confusing. People don't know whether to flirt with you, pray to you, or scream. Some will do all three. You could lead a cult accidentally.

  Luck (LCK): 2

  A literal truck hit you. A child yeeted you off a bridge. Your one friend might be an eldritch basketball experiment. This checks out.

  ______________

  Free Stat Points: +48

  You've been granted the ability to improve yourself without actually working for it. The system recognizes emotional damage as a viable XP source. Please spend responsibly or irresponsibly. Honestly, no one's expecting maturity at this point.

  }

  ___________

  Akira stood, blinking at the screen. "Lambchop?" they said aloud, voice dripping with the betrayal of a thousand unpaid internships. "The section in parentheses straight-up sounds better."

  They scoffed and shook their head, tossing the notification away with a flick of the mind.

  Then they turned to Atan.

  He was sitting on a rock now, one arm resting across his knee, the other pressed against the torn, still-bleeding bite on his leg. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but the tension in his jaw spoke volumes.

  Just there.

  Still and steady like he was waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to the pain.

  Akira's brow furrowed as they stepped closer. They looked past the dead worm's still-steaming body—now oozing black ichor across the moss—and down at Atan. Her voice lowered.

  "That... wasn't my glorious King Benny Worm," Akira muttered, gaze flicking to the thing's weird, off-brand top hat crown. "Not glorious enough. This was like... Deputy Benny. The tutorial worm. A filler episode boss."

  They looked down at him, mouth quirking with dark amusement.

  "And he still took a chunk out of you."

  Atan glanced up, eyes calm despite the pain. "I let him. Had to make you look useful."

  Akira snorted. "Bleed more, bitch."

  "Come here," Akira said, voice lower now, the humor drained out of it and replaced with something tight and raw. "It looks bad."

  They didn't wait for a response. Just moved—quick, fluid, urgent—and crouched beside him. The adrenaline was still there, thumping under their skin like a second heartbeat, but it was quieter now. Focused. Her hands hovered for a moment before gently brushing Atan's away from the leg he was pressing.

  They rolled up the fabric of his torn shorts, slowly, carefully, like the cloth might protest. And then Akira saw it.

  The bite was ugly. Deep indentations carved through skin and muscle like someone had tried to brand him with jagged rings. The flesh was swollen and red, the edges already turning an angry color. Not to mention there were still traces of that black-green ichor smeared around the edges.

  "What kind of fucking worm even has teeth?" they muttered, as if indignation could heal wounds.

  Then, with the absolute disrespect of a petty monarch, she stood and kicked the worm corpse. Not hard. Not helpful. Just enough to scuff its hide and let the universe know she was done with its bullshit.

  "Stupid oversized goddamn top-hatted invertebrate," they grumbled.

  The worm, mercifully, stayed dead.

  Akira walked over to the brook, the one from earlier—the only thing in this damn landscape that didn't feel like a trap. It still ran clear, babbling gently over stones that shimmered like opals dipped in moonlight. The water was cold when they touched it. Sharp. Alive in a way nothing else here seemed to be.

  He scooped it off the very top—he wasn't a survivalist, but he remembered something from a documentary or maybe some weeb survival anime. The water at the surface, in fast flow, was supposed to be cleaner. Probably. Hopefully. Either way, it had to be better than letting hivemind worm spit fester in his bloodstream.

  They returned to him with damp fabric in one hand and a frown hard enough to cut stone.

  Atan didn't flinch when she started cleaning the wound.

  Didn't move.

  Didn't even blink.

  Just sat there like a statue made of muscle and mild sarcasm, letting Akira dab, wipe, wrap. When she got to his arm, it was more of the same—silent permission, unflinching stillness, as if pain was just another thing to catalog and ignore.

  "You're... strangely tough," Akira murmured while bandaging him. "Like, dumbly so. Your body doesn't make sense. You're built like an anime protagonist's older brother who dies in the first arc to fuel character development."

  "Such is the power of muscle," Atan said, looking down at them dryly. "You'd know that if you ever lifted anything heavier than chip bags and Playboy magazines."

  Akira scoffed and flicked him in the forehead with all the force of divine annoyance. "You really want to antagonize the healer? I've got a pointy stick and an ancient vendetta. Don't test me."

  He didn't react. Akira just rolled their eyes.

  But then the mood shifted again, like a ripple beneath still water.

  They looked him in the eyes, voice dropping lower, the laughter gone now. What replaced it was steel. Polished, deliberate, deadly.

  "And don't ever put yourself in danger like that again."

  Atan blinked.

  "I know you're big," Akira continued. "And strong. And probably built from the shredded muscles of tentacle gods and NBA players, but I am not weak. I'm not your burden. I'm not your reason to get hurt."

  Their hands paused on his bandage, tightening it slightly as if to emphasize every word.

  "I'm being serious, Atan."

  Silence stretched between them for a moment. Just the wind whispering through the trees, the brook babbling beside them, and the faint, unsettling hum of Mikor in the atmosphere like a heartbeat buried under the earth.

  Atan didn't argue. Didn't protest. Didn't say a damn word.

  He just looked at them—steady, unreadable—then closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly, giving Akira silent permission to keep working. A rare act of trust, and even rarer: a quiet nod.

  Akira exhaled through his nose and resumed bandaging, fingers deft now, focused. The fabric wrapped snug around Atan's calf, knot firm but not choking. He checked for bleeding, pressed against the muscle to check resistance, and adjusted where needed. His mind, though, wandered.

  Because, honestly?

  What the hell was Atan?

  No normal human could've taken that hit. The creature's jaw had spiraling teeth—like biological grinders, evolution's very own kitchen appliance. That thing could've chewed through rebar, through car doors, probably through full battle armor if it had a mind to. And Atan had taken that bite. With his leg. Then kept fighting. Then won. Well, Akira won actually. Heh. But still–

  It wasn't normal.

  It was something else. Something deeper. Something wrong. But wrong in the same way the sun is wrong for blinding you—too much, too bright, too endless.

  Akira tilted their head slightly as they tightened the last wrap.

  So what if he was some eldritch basketball experiment birthed in a pentagram ritual from a virgin?

  He was stille Akira's friend.

  Akira's experiment. Akira's seven-foot monument to emotional repression and brute-force problem solving.

  They allowed themself a tiny smile.

  But then—

  The wind shifted.

  Branches creaked.

  And from the tree line came movement.

  Akira's head snapped up.

  A figure stepped through the underbrush—slow, cautious, robed in dark green and gray that clung like mist to their form. The robe looked almost woven from vines and moss, stitched together by some forest spirit with a decent aesthetic sense. The figure's face was half-hidden under a hood, but enough showed to mark them clearly inhuman.

  Pale gray skin like fog at midnight. Slender frame. Ears long and knife-sharp, pointing out from the hood in slight angles. Eyes pale and luminous, like dying stars filtered through pondwater.

  Akira blinked. Gray elf, they thought immediately. This was the person—the thing—they'd seen fleeing before the worm appeared.

  The robed figure took a breath and began to speak. Their voice was soft, almost melodic, but the words were warbled. Broken. Stuttering through syllables that made Akira's brain feel like it was trying to buffer a corrupted MP3 file.

  Then—

  ____________

  {

  Skill Unlocked – Universal Language Translator

  Congratulations, you can now understand the things trying to thank you, flirt with you, or threaten you. I sincerely doubt this will help your communication skills all that much, but at least we can try.

  }

  _______________

  The garbled sounds restructured. Clarity slammed into Akira's skull like an audio file realigning mid-play.

  "-eetings, benefactors!" the figure said suddenly, voice now smooth and slightly accented. "Thank you, deeply, for saving my life. I am Salhou, of the Gray Elf Clan."

  The elf lowered her hood and let the robe fall away like a curtain unveiling an artwork that had no business being this aesthetically curated in a murder-worm jungle.

  Akira's breath caught for a half-second—just enough to be noticeable, not enough to be incriminating. But oh, they noticed.

  The elf—Salhou—stood in full view now, her posture poised, elegant in that effortless I've-never-fallen-on-my-face-on-a-sidewalk way. Her skin was still that gray-silver hue, moonlight poured into clay, but up close, it had warmth to it. Not cold and sterile like marble—alive. Her cheeks were flushed, like she'd just run a mile through an alien forest or narrowly avoided death-by-top-hatted-worm. Either way, she looked vital.

  A small, upturned button nose broke the smooth flow of her elven features—cute, disarmingly so. Her eyes were wide and alert, with black sclera and light gray irises that shimmered faintly under the filtered light of the five suns. Alien. Striking. Way-too-close-for-comfort pretty.

  Two tiny, sharp black horns curled up from her forehead—elegant, not imposing. A subtle addition, but they gave her a faintly demonic edge that shouldn't have worked with her soft features but absolutely did.

  Akira's eyes trailed downward on autopilot.

  And then—

  Oh.

  Black crop top.

  Muscle definition.

  Abs.

  Flat, toned, gleaming slightly under the multicolored light like some divine sculptor had a thing for lithe murder fae. Girl abs always hit different. Not better. Not worse. Just... different. A good different. A "might snap your spine but kiss your forehead after" different.

  Then Akira noticed the hands. Or rather—the fingers. Three fingers and a thumb. Slender, clawless, efficient-looking. Dexterity incarnate. That was new. Maybe a cultural or evolutionary divergence? Akira's inner nerd started spiraling while their outer bisexual was already preparing a shrine.

  And the legs?

  Digitigrade.

  Of course she had digitigrade legs.

  Hoofless, yes, but the muscle structure bent backward slightly, built for speed and spring, hinting at a different kind of kinetic grace. Practical. Beautiful. Kind of unfair.

  And then—

  The skirt.

  And under the skirt—no, don't look under the skirt, Akira—

  Skirt-covered hips.

  Wide. Wide.

  A marvel of divine elven architecture. Not child-bearing wide, no. These hips were existence-defining. The kind of hips bards would write illegal ballads about.

  In their head, Akira heard a familiar internal scream.

  Shakira! Shakira!

  "Oh my god," they mouthed silently. Their brain shorted out somewhere between girl crush and holy pilgrimage and I'd let her stab me once if she asked nicely.

  Atan, somehow still bandaged and emotionally unchanged, gave them a look out of the corner of his eye—flat, unimpressed, knowing. He didn't say anything.

  He didn't have to.

  Akira coughed. Straightened up. Cleared their throat in that I'm-totally-fine-I'm-totally-functional kind of way.

  "Uhhm... sure," they said, voice an octave too high. "If you could lead the way."

  They were totally thinking with both heads now.

  One might argue which was in charge. But let's be real.

  Neither was steering.