"Bitch got cash…"
Eylin's thoughts spiral as his gaze locks onto the book.
ADVANCED GLYPH THEORY.
His fingers tremble as he flips through the pages roughly, breath ragged, eyes devouring symbols and diagrams. The knowledge flows through him unnaturally fast, patterns clicking into place like gears long waiting to turn.
"This… this… this…"
His thoughts stall.
For a split second, his brain short-circuits.
Slowly, his gaze lifts from the pages to the twin crimson flames staring at him.
Then—lower.
His eyes drift.
Locked.
"Glug."
He swallows thickly.
His gaze traces downward again—
To exposed thighs framed by the forest shadows.
Damn… what I would do to those thighs…
His brain freezes again.
Wait.
His eyes flick to her hand.
The ring.
That ring.
That's at least a thousand gold…
His mind shifts gears instantly.
Forget thighs. Focus. That's a walking treasury.
His pupils sharpen.
She's a gold mine. A literal one. He can't let this chance slip.
He inhales slowly.
To survive, I need to cling to those thighs ti—
He stops.
I mean… opportunity. I need to cling to the opportunity tightly.
And so, without filtering a single thought—
He speaks.
"YOU… I WANT YOU!! Hahaha—Lady Luck is smiling at me again! You've got cash, right? Then I desire you!"
Silence.
A single blink from Lady White.
Then—
BWOING.
His consciousness politely exits his body.
Lady White stares at the slumped figure, mildly amused.
"Why do I feel like I'm making a mistake here…" she murmurs.
She grabs him by the legs and begins dragging him deeper into the forest, his body bumping softly over roots and stone.
Darkness.
Eylin finds himself in the void once more.
Silence reigns supreme.
Pain lingers at the edges of existence, waiting patiently to return.
He looks around, sighs loudly, then folds into a lotus position mid-air.
"Again, huh…"
He closes his eyes.
The first wave hits like a crashing tide—stronger than before.
His jaw clenches.
His body trembles.
But he holds.
One breath.
Two.
Ten.
Fifty.
One hundred breaths later—
THUD.
His body collapses onto the floor—
—or whatever passes for a floor in the endless void.
And the pain continues.
His body is a mess—blood, snot, sweat, trembling muscle.
He stabilizes his breathing and forces himself back into the lotus position.
Inhale.
Exhale.
The reward comes quickly this time. His thoughts clear faster than before. No wandering. No chaos.
His mind locks onto the last brawl.
Frame by frame.
Every dodge.
Every slip.
Every wasted motion.
"That was a close call…" he mutters, dissecting his poor form, the avoidable missteps… and finally, his weak body.
"Pathetic…"
The word leaks into his thoughts.
His entire body trembles.
"Who—" he begins, but the voice that answers isn't fear.
It isn't even him.
"Human weak… practice now…"
Silence.
The void shifts.
The blackness peels away, reforming with terrifying precision. Trees. Roots. Wind. The exact forest.
"Wait… don't tell me…"
His brain short-circuits.
Ripple.
The void trembles.
From it emerges a viper—twice the size of the real one.
Its scales darker. Thicker. Its eyes colder.
"Fuck…" is all he manages.
WOOSH.
It vanishes.
A ripple forms where it once stood—the air itself distorting.
CRASH.
The blur slams into the ground where he stands.
Eylin rolls at the last possible instant, dirt exploding beside him. His hand shoots for his dagger—
Empty.
No blade.
No fragments.
No glyphs.
"FUCK!"
The blur comes again.
He dodges purely on instinct, spine bending, feet sliding over unstable ground. The air splits beside his ear—close enough that he feels the pressure tear at his skin.
His body hairs rise.
Imminent death.
Again.
And again.
The viper doesn't hiss.
Doesn't coil visibly.
It's simply gone—
Then impact.
A phantom streak across the forest floor.
After several near-death dodges, something clicks.
His burst of clarity is still active.
His brain begins tracking the blur.
Not the body—
The displacement.
The soil.
The grass.
The pressure lines.
A pattern emerges.
His mind latches onto it like prey turned predator.
"It slithers along the ground… searches for an opening… then commits to the strike…"
The realization forms on its own.
He stops reacting to the blur.
He starts watching the earth.
There—
A subtle ripple.
Left flank.
He pivots before the strike comes.
The massive body tears past him instead of through him.
For the first time—
It misses cleanly.
His heart pounds violently.
Another ripple.
Behind him.
He steps forward this time instead of back.
The viper erupts upward from where he stands a breath ago.
Air displacement. Soil shift. Coil tension.
He can see it now.
Not the speed.
The intention.
The ground whispers before it attacks.
And he is finally listening.
A thin, dangerous smile forms on his blood-smeared face.
"Got you."
The viper blurs again—
But this time, Eylin moves before it does.
SWISH…MISS…
The viper barely misses.
His body acts against him, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
"I'm running out of time…" he whispers, eyes locked onto the surroundings.
A ripple forms behind him, a faint breeze hitting his left ear.
Dodge… he moves in the opposite direction, rolling on the ground, his hands gaining more scratches.
"This can't go on…" his brain struggles to find a solution.
Nothing comes to mind.
His consciousness barely holds when an idea hits—his last vestiges of clarity expounding on it.
His eyes lock onto the void-viper, tracing its movements keenly.
He notices something. Its movements seem strange.
"Let me try…" his eyes close, his feet forming a rhythm, messy but there.
His body forms a strange phenomenon akin to a dance.
His body moves before thought catches up.
Twist, shift, roll—he becomes a conduit, every dodge a thread, every roll a redirection. The void-viper strikes again, a green blur of speed and weight, but this time—he doesn't meet it with force.
Instead, he flows with it.
The scales scrape past his arms, claws tear shallow lines along his palms—but the pain sharpens him, doesn't break him. He pivots, letting the blur's momentum carry him sideways, around, under, over. Each motion becomes part of a rhythm, a dance born from survival and instinct.
"Leverage…" he mutters, voice ragged. Force is wasted if it meets force. Energy must flow, be guided, redirected.
The viper lunges again—this time its head swings low, aimed to crush his ribs. Eylin ducks, grabs a coil mid-strike, and twists. The beast's own mass presses against the phantom trees of the void, slowing, misaligning.
He pushes, pivots, lets the momentum carry him forward—bare-handed but precise. The creature thrashes; its energy, once chaotic, is now bending to his rhythm.
Each dodge is no longer random. Each roll, each grasp, each push is a calculated interaction. The void-viper's strikes are no longer overwhelming—they are tools, weapons redirected against itself.
Blood streams down his face, sweat drips from his brow, and muscles scream—but he continues, step after step, dodge after dodge. The rhythm grows, pattern emerges. He predicts the next strike before it arrives, letting the blur carry him, waiting for the moment it falters.
Finally, the opening appears—a brief, perfect misstep in its momentum.
His hands find the neck. Not to crush, not to stab blindly. To guide. To control. To end it with the precision of leverage.
He pivots, turns its own force into the ground, twisting it into a snare of energy and weight, bare-handed and flawless.
He steps through the motion, every fiber of his body obeying instinct and calculation, the void itself bending to his newfound understanding of force, momentum, and control.
The viper crashes. Thrashes. Stops.
And for the first time, Eylin doesn't just survive. He commands the battlefield.
The void ripples again, returning to normal.
Exhaustion finally takes hold of him.
His mind does its last round, compounding every gain into the back of his head.
Finally, darkness takes him again, bringing him back to the world of the waking.