Kael hit the ground like a meteor.
The impact drove the air from his lungs and sent him tumbling across rough, uneven terrain. Rock tore through fabric. Skin split against stone. His body rolled uncontrollably, momentum carrying him through dirt and debris until he slammed into something solid enough to stop him.
Pain flooded his senses.
Real, visceral, undeniable pain.
His ribs screamed. His palms were shredded. Blood ran hot down his forearm from a gash he couldn't see but definitely felt. The cold air bit into exposed wounds, and gravity pressed against him with unfamiliar weight—not crushing, but *different*, like the planet itself was slightly denser than Earth.
Kael forced himself to breathe. Slow. Controlled. He cataloged the damage without moving.
Ribs bruised, not broken. Cuts shallow. Vision clearing. Limbs functional.
He was alive.
The interface pulsed in his vision, text overlaying reality with clinical detachment.
**[STABILIZATION COMPLETE.]**
**[BLACKOUT PREVENTED.]**
It had kept him conscious. Overridden the body's natural shutdown response to trauma. Whether that was mercy or cruelty, Kael didn't know.
He forced himself to remain still.
Sound filtered in—ambient noise that didn't belong to any forest or city he'd ever known. Low, guttural growls echoed in the distance. Something heavy dragged across stone. Wind carried the scent of decay and sulfur.
Kael's eyes adjusted.
The sky was wrong. Too dark for midday, too bright for night. A sickly crimson haze clung to the horizon, and the clouds moved in jagged, unnatural patterns like they were being pulled by invisible currents. The vegetation around him was twisted—trees with bark that oozed black sap, grass that grew in spirals, roots that writhed faintly as if alive.
This wasn't Earth.
This was something else entirely.
A roar split the air. Close. Too close.
Kael moved.
He dragged himself behind the nearest cover—a cluster of rocks jutting from the corrupted soil—and pressed his back against cold stone. His breath came shallow and silent as he scanned the terrain.
The landscape was hostile by design. Unstable ground riddled with sinkholes. Sparse vegetation offering minimal concealment. Low-visibility zones where fog pooled like liquid shadow. No shelter. No tools. No supplies.
He'd been dropped here to die.
Kael tested his body.
He flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders, shifted his weight. Everything responded. The pain was still there, but it was manageable. More than that—his stamina felt slightly elevated, his breathing steadier than it should be after that impact.
The interface calibration hadn't just measured him. It had *adjusted* him.
He pushed himself into a low crouch, testing his balance. His legs held. His core engaged without tremor. He was stronger than he'd been eighteen hours ago. Not by much, but enough to notice.
Enough to matter.
Movement caught his eye.
A creature emerged from the fog two hundred meters out—low to the ground, quadrupedal, covered in matted fur that looked more like hardened quills. Its head swiveled with predatory focus, sniffing the air. Hunting.
Kael stayed perfectly still.
The creature moved on, disappearing into the underbrush with disturbing silence for something that size.
He waited thirty seconds. Then moved.
His first step confirmed the terrain was as treacherous as it looked. The ground crumbled beneath his boot, forcing him to shift his weight mid-stride. He adjusted, compensating for the instability, and continued forward in a low crouch.
More movement. Further out this time.
A pack of smaller creatures—bipedal, lean, covered in chitinous plating—stalked through the terrain in coordinated formation. They weren't the top of the food chain here. They moved with caution, eyes scanning constantly.
Prey and predator coexisted in layers.
A scream tore through the air.
Human. Male. Distant but distinct.
It cut off abruptly.
Kael's jaw tightened. Other survivors had been dropped here too. And they were dying.
The interface pulsed.
**[SURVIVAL ZONE CLASSIFICATION: CORRUPTED LOWLANDS.]**
**[AMBIENT DANGER RATING: MODERATE-HIGH.]**
**[MANDATORY SURVIVAL DURATION: 72 HOURS.]**
A countdown appeared in the corner of his vision.
**[71:58:42]**
Three days. Seventy-two hours of survival before exit eligibility unlocked.
No tutorials. No maps. No guidance on what to eat, where to shelter, or how to fight.
Abandonment by design.
Kael memorized the information and dismissed the panels. Distraction was death.
He moved again, using sound to navigate. The creatures vocalized when they hunted—clicks, growls, hisses. He listened for patterns, mapped their patrol routes mentally, and adjusted his path to avoid intersection points.
The terrain sloped downward. He followed it, reasoning that low ground offered better concealment even if it meant risking water hazards or ambush zones.
A flash of light erupted ahead.
Transfer light. Another spawn.
Kael stopped, watching from behind a ridge as a figure materialized—a girl, maybe nineteen, stumbling forward in confusion. She looked around, eyes wide, breathing ragged.
She didn't get five seconds.
The creature came from above.
It dropped from an overhang Kael hadn't even noticed, claws extended, jaws wide. The girl didn't scream. She didn't have time. The impact drove her into the ground, and the killing blow followed immediately—efficient, brutal, final.
The interface above her body flickered once.
**[IDENTITY DELETED.]**
Then it vanished entirely.
Kael didn't look away. He couldn't afford to. This was the standard. Hesitation meant extinction. Ignorance meant death. The system wasn't going to save anyone.
He memorized the creature's attack pattern—ambush from elevation, silent approach, overwhelming force—and moved on.
His path took him through a narrow defile between two rock formations. The ground here was more stable, the visibility slightly better. He paused halfway through, pressing himself against the stone as another patrol passed within twenty meters.
His breathing slowed to nothing. His heartbeat steadied. The creatures moved on without detecting him.
Kael exhaled and continued.
He reached a depression in the terrain—a natural blind zone where the fog pooled thick and the rock formations created overlapping shadows. It wasn't safe, but it was *safer*. He crouched low and allowed himself sixty seconds to think.
Water. Shelter. Visibility reduction. Escape routes.
Those were the immediate priorities. Water he could locate by following creature movement—they'd need it too. Shelter would have to be improvised or scavenged. Visibility reduction meant staying low, staying silent, and moving only when necessary. Escape routes required mapping the terrain through observation and sound.
He studied the landscape again, this time with tactical intent. The creatures avoided certain areas—zones where the ground was too unstable or where larger predators likely claimed territory. Those were potential safe zones, assuming he could survive the environmental hazards.
The fog moved in predictable patterns, thickening and thinning with what might be wind or temperature shifts. He could use that for concealment during movement.
The rock formations created natural bottlenecks. Defensive positions if he needed to fight. Death traps if he got cornered.
Kael marked everything mentally. No navigation system meant memory was his only map.
He was about to move when the interface pulsed again.
**[KILL-PROXIMITY ALERT.]**
**[EXPERIENCE POTENTIAL DETECTED.]**
His eyes narrowed. In the distance, two creatures clashed—territorial dispute or hunt gone wrong. One was the quill-covered quadruped he'd seen earlier. The other was something larger, bipedal, with limbs that ended in serrated bone blades.
They tore into each other with savage efficiency.
Kael watched the fight unfold. The larger creature won, driving its blade-limbs through the quadruped's neck and ripping out its throat. The body collapsed. The victor fed.
A faint indicator appeared in Kael's interface.
**[EXPERIENCE GAIN OPPORTUNITY: AVAILABLE.]**
Growth required lethal confrontation. Not passive survival. The system rewarded violence.
Kael weighed the risk.
He had no weapons. No armor. No experience fighting creatures like this. Engaging now would be suicide.
But starvation and stagnation were also death sentences. Just slower.
He filed the information away. Combat would come. But it would come on his terms, when the conditions favored him.
He turned to leave the blind zone.
Then stopped.
The air pressure changed.
It was subtle—barely perceptible—but Kael had learned to trust his instincts long before the system existed. Something was wrong.
He scanned the terrain. Nothing moved. The fog remained still. The distant creatures continued their patrol routes.
But the pressure remained.
And it was focused on him.
The interface flickered.
**[THREAT DETECTION: DELAYED.]**
**[HOSTILE ENTITY CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN.]**
Kael's pulse spiked.
*Delayed* detection. That meant the entity had been tracking him long enough to bypass initial scans. That meant intelligence. Strategy.
He didn't move. Didn't breathe. He listened.
A shadow shifted in the fog.
Not a creature passing through. Not a patrol. This was deliberate. Patient. Hunting.
Kael's mind raced. His concealment was compromised. Evasion required speed he didn't have. Fighting required weapons he didn't possess.
The shadow moved closer.
The interface pulsed again, colder this time.
**[HOSTILE ENTITY APPROACHING.]**
**[EVASION PROBABILITY: LOW.]**
Kael's hand closed around a loose stone.
It wasn't much. But it was something.
The shadow took form—tall, humanoid, covered in segmented plating that reflected no light. Its head was eyeless, but Kael felt its focus lock onto him with absolute certainty.
It moved forward.
And Kael prepared to fight for his life.