As Alex heard the monsters, he felt a presence rushing toward him.
Without looking, he cast his new spell, the Twisted Water Shield.
The spell was designed to improve the shield's deflection ability by weaving wind into the water. The additional speed made the water bouncier as a side effect.
A heavy impact struck him immediately after the spell formed, sending him flying backward from the force. Yet the shield didn't break, and despite the violent tumble, he remained unharmed inside it.
When he landed, he bounced several times across the dirt until he finally skidded to a stop. Alex released the spell, chest heaving.
'It seems that I have to deepen my disease,' Alex thought. The moment he took the Tear, the entire island turned hostile.
And he had to survive here for a full month.
'With a bit of luck, I won't find anything too hard to handle,' he hoped, though the optimism faded fast. Before he could think about the future, he had to survive the present.
He started to flee, weaving through thick vegetation. He couldn't afford to fight blindly—not here.
As he rushed forward, he evaded attacks that came from angles he barely registered in time. In several moments he was forced to counter, but only briefly; stopping too long was death.
Up ahead, a bluish snake slithered into his path. Alex didn't hesitate. He cast Water Spear and shot it toward the creature's head.
The monster's skull burst in a wet spray. Alex slowed just enough to retrieve the core—dangerous, but necessary—before pivoting sharply to dodge a bull-like monster charging straight for him.
He cast Water Spear again and dropped the creature. Its size made the kill satisfying, but he couldn't stay long. He plucked both cores, shoved them into his storage, and continued running.
The island devolved into pure carnage. The air thickened with the metallic stench of blood. Wet sounds of tearing flesh mixed with guttural shrieks and roars.
'This is a fucking disaster!' Alex thought.
That moment of distraction cost him. A sharp pain erupted in his shoulder.
He grimaced and looked backwards, spotting the monster that caught him off guard.
"Fucking wolf!" Alex barked.
It was a wolf capable of masking its presence—dangerous solely because it turned predators invisible.
Alex thrust his hand backward and cast Wind Slicer, cutting the wolf cleanly in half.
No sooner had the body fallen than five more wolves burst from the bushes. With the alpha dead, the pack became uncoordinated and desperate.
Alex cast Wind Blast, sending a shockwave rippling outward. The explosive gust blasted everything within a few meters away, even shaking the trees.
He immediately used Gentle Ascend, leaping high and landing on a thick branch. There, he gulped down a healing potion, then a mana potion.
Then he drank a mental-enhancement set.
He suddenly felt calm, like nothing else mattered, and he only had one focus: To kill before being killed.
From the vantage of the tree, he cast Water Spear and skewered two wolves with a single shot.
Another lunged from below, and Alex braced with his shield spell. The impact launched him backward; he fell from the tree, hit the ground hard, and released a surge of water.
As another wolf pounced, Alex cast Water Scape, dissolving into water and reappearing at a distance.
He finished that wolf with a Wind Slicer. The last two wolves attempted to flee, but Alex was faster—two more Water Spears ended them swiftly.
Breathing heavily, he forced himself onward.
Being a portable alchemy shop was his only saving grace. Alex uncorked a stamina potion and downed it in one swallow.
Then he collected every core he could find, except the one from the wolf he bisected.
Afterward, he kept moving, cutting down monsters as they came and taking his own damage in return. Hours blurred into a haze of blood, dirt, magic, and exhaustion. It took him more than double the time he spent earlier to reach the island's shore.
'Fucking finally,' Alex thought, wiping sweat from his forehead.
But the moment he stepped onto sand, a massive shape burst from the water.
A giant clawed creature slammed into him. Bones cracked—his arm and ribs—and Alex was flung sideways, tumbling violently.
He landed hard, vision swimming, and saw the craw-like monster rushing at him. Despite the agony, he estimated he had enough time for a spell and launched a Water Spear.
It pierced the creature's eye and burrowed deep. The monster writhed, then collapsed.
Alex hissed, clutching his fractured arm as he downed two healing potions in quick succession.
After retrieving the core, he realized the shore was no longer a safe option. He had to retreat inland again.
Surviving until the island stabilized would be hell, but he had no choice.
Alex fought for a day and a half without true rest. As a novice mage, he needed less sleep, but the strain was immense. He rationed stamina and mana potions carefully, terrified his condition would worsen if he relied on them too much.
The only blessing was the hundreds of monster cores he gathered along the way—cores from beasts he killed and cores from beasts killed by other beasts.
Now perched atop a tall tree, Alex sat cross-legged, forcing himself to meditate. His body trembled from exhaustion.
'How the fuck did the other guy survive this at all?' Alex wondered.
He had burned through most of his potion reserves, and still, he barely managed.
Fortunately, he hadn't encountered a tier 2 monster. Otherwise, he doubted he'd be alive.
There were moments he fought one monster only to be blindsided by another—sometimes two or three.
Now that the chaos had calmed, he climbed down and harvested cores from monsters slain by others. Not all had cores remaining; creatures devoured similar-element beasts to level up, leaving nothing behind.
This madness lasted only two days. Yet he still had twenty-eight ahead of him.
First, he found a reliable spot to build a small base.
Then the routine began: collect herbs, kill monsters, harvest cores, avoid unnecessary fights, survive.
During his trips, he found corpses of enormous monsters—far bigger than the ones he fought.
'It seems the bigger and stronger they are, the worse they fare when starving,' he thought. Their bodies required constant nourishment. With the Tear suppressing them for god knows how long, they wasted away and died.
Their remains would have sold for a fortune, but the lesser monsters devoured them entirely.
Days blended together, and before long, a full month passed.
Alex now had an abundance of cores of every type and level. With luck, he had enough to tier up.
When he finally reached the meeting place, he waited until he saw Stain's familiar silhouette.
"long taim, Marc," Stain said.
"Hello to you too, Stain," Alex replied, grateful to see a human—any human—after so long.
"Wer two naw," Stain asked.
"Well, buddy, to the north from here. Once you're side to side with the lighthouse, head straight west," Alex said, handing him the promised gold.
"Oh'kay, hop in," Stain replied.
Alex climbed aboard, and Stain spun the paddle, speeding across the water with his absurd martial strength.