The pain did not come all at once.
It came in waves— slow, suffocating, and patient— like the Hellscape itself was making sure Leo understood that survival always came at a cost.
He groaned as he forced himself upright and staggered through the thick shrubs, blood soaking into his shredded clothes. Every step sent fresh agony tearing through his body causing him to groan and scowl.
Two thoughts gnawed at him relentlessly.
The first was the man who that had called to him was— was he the one who had frightened the awakened beast into a retreat and if he was, who was he?
The second was far simpler.
Would he die before he found out?
Leo had suffered injuries before. Plenty of them. That was the reality of being a lone hunter. But wounds inflicted by an awakened beast were different— they were deeper, heavier, tainted with something cruel.
Without supplies or treatment, he feared this time would be his last.
He hadn't walked for more than a minute before he saw him...
An old man sat slumped at the base of a tree, his thick grey beard soaked black with blood. He looked well past seventy. His chest, arms, and neck were carved open by deep gashes, several inches wide, flesh torn apart and bleeding freely.
Leo froze.
He had never seen so much blood coming from one person.
Questions raced through his mind. What kind of beast could do this? Had the man killed it? Or was it still nearby, watching? For a moment, Leo even wondered if the old man was the sole survivor of a slaughtered hunting party. There were many possibilities to consider when hunting in Hellscape.
Before he could come to a conclusion however, the man spoke.
"Come closer, boy," the old man rasped, each breath accompanied by a wet wheeze. "I did save your life."
Leo hesitated for a moment but approached cautiously, stopping a few feet away. He kept his expression neutral, even as curiosity dragged his gaze across the man's ruined body.
In the pale moonlight, it was hard to make out the man's true appearance beneath the blood.
One thing, however, was unmistakable.
He was dying.
"That was you?" Leo asked, his voice weak, the pain blurring his vision.
The old man's lips twitched into something resembling a smirk before collapsing into a cough. Blood spilled from his mouth in large gushes causing Leo to want to look away.
"It's over for me," he wheezed. "My damn pack… they tore me apart. I don't have much time."
Leo frowned. "I can't help much, I'm barely standing myself. But if you tell me where you're from, I'll pass on a message."
The man laughed, then choked violently, coughing up more blood. "You don't look any better yourself, you sure you won't die before me boy?"
Leo scowled at him, "You can still make jokes in your condition."
"I won't die like this," he said hoarsely. "Take my storage ring. If it falls into their hands, they'll destroy the family I built."
With shaking fingers, he pulled a ring from his pocket and held it up, blood dripping from it.
After a brief hesitation, Leo crouched and took the ring, slipping it into his pocket.
"Maybe I can get you somewhere safer," Leo said quietly.
The old man's hand snapped out like it had been set off by a landmine.
His grip clamped around Leo's wrist with an iron-hard force.
Leo gasped and tried to pull away, but the strength holding him was impossibly strong.
"What the hell! How are you so damn strong?" He said in a startled voice. "Let go of me you old bastard."
The dying man lurched forward with sudden, unnatural speed, dragging Leo close in the same instant.
Their faces were inches apart now.
The old man's voice dropped, cold, hollow and lifeless, whispering directly into Leo's ear.
"I'm sorry… but I won't go without passing on my legacy."
Leo didn't even have time to react.
The man opened his mouth.
Massive, inhuman fangs grew out of it connected by strings of viscous saliva. They flashed for a second before they sank into Leo's shoulder.
The pain that erupted from them was beyond anything he had felt, even the combines wounds he had received from the red eyed hyena did not come anywhere close to compare to it.
His flesh tore like paper. His bone cracked like glass. Leo felt his arm snap as something hot surged into his veins, flooding his body with alien force.
For a heartbeat, the world went silent.
Then Leo screamed.
The sound ripped from his lungs, echoing through the forest as his blood burned violently, racing faster than his heart could control. His vision swam as strange growls rumbled from the old man's throat— it was no longer human.
The fangs drove in deeper.
Warm blood poured down Leo's neck as his body convulsed uncontrollably. He threw his head back, eyes locking onto the moon as it blazed white above the trees.
For reasons he didn't understand, he felt… connected to it.
His body felt on fire, everything within him being burned out in seconds.
A voice echoed inside his mind.
[You have received a legacy]
[Your system has been corrupted]
"What are you doing to me?!" Leo screamed, his voice wild and broken.
The man shoved him away violently.
"Run," he roared. "Run before they come."
Leo didn't choose to obey, his mind was still swirling in a world of pain and chaos.
But his body did as the man had ordered.
He bolted through the forest, legs moving without permission, terror and fury twisting inside him as the tree and the dying man vanished behind him. The bite burned like a brand seared into his very soul.
'Why can't I stop?' Leo screamed silently.
There was no answer.
He could feel the warm red liquid still gushing out of his shoulder and painting his clothes a darker shade of red. He could feel his body burning at a temperature no human should.
As he ran, something inside him grew cold— like a part of him had been torn away. Seconds later, a pained howl echoed through the forest.
Leo collapsed feeling the command on his be lifted off.
The world spun as exhaustion crushed him into the dirt, his breath coming in broken gasps.
'Why…' he thought weakly but his mind was quickly fading, '...does it feel like something just died inside me?'