Noctis descended the jagged slope, each step sending shards of violet stone tumbling beneath his feet. Hunger gnawed at his insides—a sensation stripped of feeling, insistent and cold, reminding him of the body's relentless demands.
The Echoframe buzzed quietly in the air beside him, its glow faint against the surreal landscape.
"Danger detected. Remain vigilant," it intoned.
He scanned the terrain with logical precision. The forest at the mountain's base pulsed with shifting shadows, and the red lake shimmered oddly in the unnatural sunlight.
Suddenly, from behind a twisted silver tree, a creature emerged.
The beast was enormous, towering over Noctis with an imposing profile. Its body resembled a sheep, but only in mockery—hunched, covered in coarse, midnight-black wool that rippled with every measured breath. Long, disturbingly human legs ended in cloven hooves that scraped sparks from the purple stone.
Its face was a terror. The skull elongated, horns arcing in intricate spirals above its head, etched with blue symbols that pulsed with eerie light. Eyes blazed an unbroken, pupil-less white, shining with cold, predatory intelligence.
The creature's nostrils flared, drawing in the alien air as it lowered its head and stared. The horns glowed, casting trembling shapes across the mountain. Its mouth parted—a deep, jagged row of glasslike teeth catching the light, and from between its jaws drifted a visible vapor, cold as shadow.
Muscles bulged beneath the wool as the beast advanced, each step calculated and silent. Noctis recognized the intention in its gaze: he was prey, and this world respected only power.
The Echoframe flashed a warning:
"Threat classified: Predatory anomaly. Recommendations: evade, confront, analyze."
Noctis readied himself, calculating his odds and searching for potential escape or confrontation strategies. The mountain, the beast, and the surreal world pressed in—logic and hunger his only companions in the coming trial.
Suddenly, the creature's midnight wool bristled and its horns blazed—its body doubled in size in a surge of unnatural growth, muscle and shadow expanding until Noctis felt dwarfed by its presence. With a guttural snarl, the beast lunged down the slope, hooves pounding the violet stone and sending showers of red dust into the purple air.
Noctis reacted instantly, calculation outpacing panic. He sprinted sideways, weaving between twisted silver trees and jagged shards of rock, watching how the terrain shifted with every step. The forest's branches arched and writhed above him, leaves flickering in gold and violet, masking the mountain's dangerous drops.
The Echoframe flashed tactical advice:
"Obstacle detected: fallen trunk, right. Slope unstable, left. Enemy trajectory: charging."
Noctis dove toward a fallen trunk, rolling behind it as the beast barreled past, horns scraping deep gouges in the wood. He scrambled up the incline, searching for unstable ground. Spotting a patch of loose, glassy scree, he leapt across it; when the monster charged after him, its towering weight shattered the stone layer, sending the creature sliding down amid a shower of razor-sharp shards.
But the beast was relentless. It twisted, regaining balance, fury flashing in its white eyes. Noctis seized a heavy branch, launching it toward the creature's legs—a distraction, not a weapon. As the monster stumbled, he darted around a tree and climbed higher, putting the slope between them.
The world warped with every move—trees bent away, the red lake glimmered beneath, surreal and inviting but dangerously unknown. Noctis grabbed a handful of rocks, hurling them at the beast's horns, producing a brief flare of blue light and slowing its pursuit for a heartbeat.
His every action was calculated, born from survival logic and environmental awareness. He sought angles, unstable ground, anything to turn the fight from a slaughter into an escape. Yet the beast endured—unharmed, unbroken, eyes locked on its prey.
Noctis read the situation, knowing that his power alone couldn't fell this dream-born monster. He retreated, using the alien forest to shield and reroute, hoping—at least for now—that outsmarting would grant him another day within the illogical wilds of the new universe and this world.
Unlike the void, this realm offered tangible danger, tangible survival—a universe ready to test him, with every step threatening both mind and body. Noctis braced himself, already calculating how to use this world's strange resources to elude, confront, and eventually master the powers at work.
After retreating through the alien forest, Noctis had almost dared to feel the relief of distance when the Echoframe flared with urgent warning:
Unknown monster approaching. Prepare for evasion.
A primal sound—half roar, half haunting shriek—split the strange violet air. Instinct spurred Noctis into sprinting, muscles screaming as he bolted down a jagged slope toward the crimson lake's edge.
Noctis pushed deeper into the gleaming forest, driven by exhaustion, hunger, and the blunt, animal need to find shelter. The strange air throbbed with alien noise—the whisper of branches that moved like living veins, the hum of unseen energy crawling through the ground beneath his boots. His shoulder ached from the earlier fight, blood dried into the seams of his dark tunic.
The world here was too alive. Every breath he took felt as if the forest itself were studying him.
Up ahead, a narrow clearing opened between the trunks, where crystal-pale trees leaned together to form a hollow just large enough to hide in. Relief—quiet, mechanical—flickered through his mind. He started toward it.
The ground shuddered.
A sound like cracking ice rolled through the trees.
Noctis turned. The forest seemed to dim around the single shape emerging from the violet mist.
The horned beast had returned.
It was larger than before. Its wool rippled like tar, thick and slick over bulging mass, and its eyes burned white-hot—mad with the insult of an unfinished kill. Each step left faint scorch marks on the crystalline soil.
Cold blue light flared against Noctis's vision as the Echoframe pulsed.
Threat detected: Aberrant-class entity (previous encounter). Survival probability: 24%. Advice: flee or utilize external modifiers.
Noctis tensed. His blood crackled like static under his skin. He could run, but the clearing was too open; there was nowhere to break the beast's charge, nowhere to vanish. Every logical path his mind traced ended the same way: death.
Then a new pane of light shimmered before his eyes.
Would you like to activate ability modulation? Temporary enhancement boost—duration: 5 minutes. Warning: Consequences unknown.
He hesitated for only a fraction of a second.
"Accept," he said.
The world broke open.
Light knifed through his body. Strength and speed surged like lightning in his veins; muscles locked, then coiled with impossible power. His vision sharpened, thoughts snapping into cold, clean lines until even the air seemed to move slower around him. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
The beast bellowed and charged.
Noctis moved first.
The ground cracked under his step as he exploded forward. He vanished from the creature's sightline and reappeared at its flank, blade already in motion. Steel carved upward through black wool in a single, fluid arc. Sparks flew; flesh tore.
The monster screamed, rearing back, its horns tearing molten paths through the air. Noctis twisted away, flipping onto a jut of glowing stone, shadows of speed trailing like ghosts behind him. The next blow met his sword mid-swing—impact booming through the forest, sending waves rippling across the distant crimson lake.
He moved without hesitation, each strike a line of pure intent. The enhancement turned thought into motion before doubt could exist. His attacks blurred, a storm of controlled violence pushed to the edge of what his body could contain.
The beast answered with raw force. It slammed its hooves into the earth, and shockwaves rolled out in rings, shattering trees and knocking crystal shards into the air like glittering rain.
Noctis dropped low, enhanced senses marking every twitch of muscle, every shift of weight. He feinted left, then cut deep across a hind leg as it overcommitted. Spinning with the motion, he drove his blade into the exposed flank. Thick black ichor poured out, hissing into smoke where it met the open air.
The creature staggered, roaring.
Noctis didn't give it time to recover. He dashed forward and leapt, seizing one horn with his free hand as an anchor. With both hands on the blade, he brought it down in a brutal, cleaving strike.
Bone split. Sinew burned.
The monster's final scream ripped the air open.
Then, at last, silence.
Noctis hit the ground hard, lungs dragging in ragged breaths, the echo of battle still roaring in his head. Behind him, the beast sagged and collapsed into itself, its massive frame dissolving into a pool of fading light before breaking apart into drifting motes that flowed toward the lake.
The Echoframe flickered in his vision.
Target neutralized. Biomass assimilated. Inventory update complete. Duration limit reached—shutdown imminent.
The light inside him went out.
Pain returned all at once. His legs buckled. His body convulsed under the recoil of spent power, sharp electrical agony tearing through his arms and legs. He crashed onto the crystalline ground, the forest spinning around him.
Every nerve howled, but no sound left his throat. His arms shook uncontrollably as the Echoframe's glow dimmed toward nothing.
Only one quiet message still pulsed at the edge of his vision:
Stored entity: "Aberrant Horned-Class (Neutralized). Condition: preserved."
His fingers slipped. He fell forward, cheek pressed to the strange, warm soil.
Above him, the towering silver trees leaned in, branches swaying gently in a wind that whispered like a heartbeat—his, or the world's.
Then everything went dark.
Night swallowed the foreign sky.
The purple heavens deepened into velvet, scattered with stars that pulsed instead of shone, their slow light beating like distant hearts. The red lake slept under a ghost-pale moon. The forest crouched around it all, alive with quiet hunger.
Noctis stirred.
His breathing steadied as fractures in bone and flesh drew closed in soft flashes of golden light. The Echoframe glowed faintly across his skin, threads of energy tracing his veins in a subtle, healing rhythm. Data whispered along his nerves, knitting torn muscle, washing away the worst of the fatigue.