Suddenly, the world started spinning as Satya was hurled into a nearby tree.
His chest was in a mountain of pain.
He was bleeding.
The collision had almost sent him unconscious, but he pulled through.
He gasped, trying to breathe, but even a simple task such as this was proving difficult for Satya.
Then he looked ahead and saw the wolf pounce on him.
He desperately rolled to the side, but unbeknownst to him, he started rolling downward.
The wolf chased after him.
Satya was like a ragdoll rolling down the cliff.
"H-Help... Help me, Shadow,"
he desperately cried out.
"Your narrow path of arrogance and power got you into this, Traveller...
So take care of your shortcomings yourself."
Hearing the Shadow's words, Satya lost all hope of him helping.
Satya stopped falling because he had reached an even surface.
Just as he was taking a breath, he looked ahead to see that the wolf had also reached him.
The wolf pounced again.
This time, it didn't give Satya any chance to slip away and pinned him down.
Satya looked the wolf in the eyes.
Seeing his scared self
within the broken reflection.
At that moment, the voice of the Shadow resounded in his ears.
"It is a mere physical beast, human.
How can it tie down someone who has an incandescent sun burning in his heart?
Use the sun to burn this beast apart."
Hearing the Shadow's words and seeing his fearful expression in the broken mirror,
something within Satya snapped.
He stopped fearing.
Not just the wolf—
but everything.
The next second, as the wolf tried to bite his neck,
Satya covered its mouth with his left hand.
His hand started bleeding, but he didn't care anymore.
With his right hand, he took the machete from his bag and slashed at the wolf.
The wolf backed away and cried out in pain.
Satya got back up.
No matter how fierce Satya had become because of the adrenaline rush,
he wasn't a trained fighter.
Neither in this life nor his old one.
One of his hands was broken, and the other was barely functioning from the fall.
Suddenly, Satya remembered the Shadow's words.
[Burn the wolf.]
Satya repeated those words inside his head,
as if sharpening his will.
But even though he could use fire magic, he could only use it to light wood on fire.
He didn't know why,
and the villagers weren't knowledgeable enough to teach him.
So he didn't think about what he couldn't do.
He only thought about the best way to get rid of the wolf with what he currently had.
He looked around at the nearby trees,
but they were too far away to reach with his broken body.
The wolf would get to him before he reached them.
So he looked around to find something—
anything—to help him fight the wolf.
"You are standing upon the graveyard of ancient trees and still looking for something as fuel for your imagination."
The Shadow's words hit him with a sense of clarity,
and he started going through the dirt around him.
Suddenly, his hand landed upon a wooden stick.
By then, the wolf had recovered and ferociously pounced on him again.
Its bloodlust leaked onto the world itself.
Satya couldn't do anything but be pinned down by the wolf once more.
But this time—
he was ready.
Just as the wolf was about to bite him,
he shoved the wooden stick into the wolf's mouth and chanted:
"Kasthagni."
Suddenly, a ferocious fire exploded within the wolf's mouth.
Satya's hand was also burned by the violent burst of flames.
As his hand burned, instinctively his grip on the stick loosened.
The wolf seized the opportunity and spat out the burning stick.
Most of its face had been burned,
along with one of its eyes.
So it disregarded Satya and fled,
deeming him too dangerous.
But Satya had enough of it.
He had already seen before that if he left a creature alive,
it would definitely come back.
Just like the Human Sketch.
So Satya intended to finish the job.
By chance, the wolf had also run into the dense side of the forest packed with wood.
So Satya chanted once again:
"Kasthagni."
This time, the fire was more ferocious than anything Satya had ever created.
Satya burned the entire wolf on the same spot,
not wanting to burn down the entire forest around him.
After a few moments, Satya stopped using fire magic and used water magic instead.
His water magic succeeded because his body, while rolling down the cliff, had accidentally made a passage through which he could summon water.
And finally—
the fire was extinguished.
Still not completely sure the wolf was dead,
Satya walked over to the body and slashed its throat.
The Human Sketch had truly made Satya want to completely finish everything he faced.
Seeing that the wolf was truly dead,
Satya fell down in exhaustion.
He was in a world of pain.
He lay there and breathed a sigh of relief.
Unbeknownst to him,
something was watching him from beyond his sight.
---
{Facing a physical hurdle,
Feeling panic for life,
Seeing such a terrible state of myself,
I die inside.
Something is born from the ashes
Of the being I once was—
Something that never loses its shine.}