42 hours ago...
Bepnis Strait.
Mount Albur, inside the Base.
Melissa was left dumbfounded upon seeing the face of the goddess of wisdom.
The goddess she had believed in and served with great devotion.
And she remembered her harsh treatment when she needed her the most.
Inevitably, tears welled from her emerald eyes, while the snakes on her head hissed with hostility toward the goddess.
Athena, seeing her in person—and watching the tears slide down that monstrous face— remembered the time she had seen her when she made her vow to become a priestess of her temple.
Despite being so beautiful, able to have a thousand men at her feet—and seeing her current condition—she felt a deep disgust and wanted to rid herself of her repugnant presence.
But she remembered those words she had spoken in Olympus:
«I would destroy the heavens for someone genuine, and I would face anything… to protect a heart like that.»
Her desire to dispose of Melissa was dissuaded.
And considering that the Zones had already evaluated him as a threat on the level of the Martial God, she knew they would probably not want a new enemy of that caliber.
One of the many vipers on Melissa's headdelicately wiped her tears, and gathering her courage,Melissa shouted at Athena:
Melissa: —"Why did you make me like this?! If I served you with all the devotion my heart held… why did you have to take everything from me?!"
Indifferent to Melissa's cries and complaints, Athena maintained her composure and said coldly:
Athena: —"I took nothing from you… And serving with devotion was your duty as a former priestess of my temple. And I made you that way so no man would ever covet you again. Shouldn't you be thanking me instead of questioning me?"
Melissa fell to her knees, left completely silent by Athena's words.
And after a few seconds, she suddenly began to laugh—she… had finally broken, and began to murmur to herself:
Melissa: —"Who needs gods? If they are nothing more than beings who don't care about humanity… who needs a religion? If it's nothing more than chasing false hopes…"
Lilith, upon witnessing the state of the young woman who had received her sister's curse,approached her and asked directly:
Lilith: —"Who are you to receive his protection?"
Coming slightly back to her senses, and seeing the strange appearance of that goddess, not understanding the question, she asked in confusion:
Melissa: —"A demon?"
Lilith: —"I am not a demon. Answer my question: who are you to him?"
Melissa: —"What do you mean, to him? Are you referring to Sam?"
Hearing her mention his name so naturally,Lilith replied while beginning to question herself internally:
Lilith: —"I see…" (So it's her. They really are that close after all… but what does he see in her now? She's a monster, and obviously I'm far more attractive.)
Amid the discomfort of the situation, Melissa finally noticed that both goddesses bore a Stigmawith a strange pattern.
But after examining it closely, she was surprised to see they were slave stigmas.
It was then that she voiced a thought she hadn't realized she had spoken:
Melissa: —"Why do goddesses have stigmas that belong to slaves?"
Hearing that question, both of them immediately realizedthat she had never, at any moment, asked him for revenge.
Athena, above all, had already held that suspicion.
Lilith smiled, pleased, remembering the drive he had shown in Olympus…
But Athena was left speechless.
And thought:
"He literally upheld his words… he did exactly what he declared."
Lilith could only bite her lower lip.
Remembering that dominant and incisive character he displayed—but she questioned:
"What kind of life has he experienced to begin showing such a mindset so early?"
And just like that, a single question from Melissa collapsed Athena's assumption about his actions in Olympus.
Internally, she felt ashamed.
Her pride had been wounded once again.
The goddess of wisdom lowered her gaze.
Now witnessing that mortalwas, apparently, different from what she had foreseen.
But she was displeased—and enraged—by the mere idea that her perception of him might change
----
Somewhere in a subdimension.
I stayed near the river's perimeter, hidden among bushes and trees.
There, I managed to make myself a shaft.
I took my kitchen knife, grabbed a vine, and made myself a spear.
With my injuries, I couldn't afford close combat—it was too risky.
Until another tribal appeared, lighting the darkness with a torch. He seemed to be searching for something—or someone.
He stopped where the other tribal's body was, cut off one of the arms with an obsidian knife,and threw the rest of the body into the river.
And I could see that further down, from where I had dragged myself out—
there was a school of piranhas.
I drew the bow and aimed at the tribal, holding my breath.
But the ground trembled.
I looked around, trying to locate the threat.
When I looked back at where the tribal had been, the torch was on the ground—and he was being devoured by a massive reptile.
It was so large it almost looked like a damn dinosaur.
And it saw me…
I ran—more out of panic than survival instinct.
I could no longer bear the swelling in my foot, or my broken rib.
I spotted what looked like a cave and went in without hesitation.
The cave smelled so foul it nearly made me vomit.
A profane mix of excrement, corpses, and animal urine.
The reptile stopped several meters from the cave, turned around, and left.
I was almost relieved—until a chill ran down my spine.
And when I turned, a titanic serpent was staring at me, its jaws open.
It was so enormous it made the Titanoboas I faced in the Cartag coliseum look like babies.
By pure instinct, I moved toward a corner—but the colossal serpent was already falling onto me.
I breathed.
Adrenaline surged through my veins with heart-attack intensity.
And it struck.
I felt both shoulders dislocate.
The cracking of my bones.
The whisper of death.
Waiting for me.
"No… I'm not dying here."
And then I—
Silence.
A foul stench from its jaws.
The spear I had made moments ago had saved my life.
My shoulders dislocated—useless. The pain was so intense tears streamed from my eyes.
I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming.
And I set the first one using the beast's massive fangs.
And my thought was: "AAAAAHHH!"
My breathing turned heavy.
My heart nearly collapsed.
But the other shoulder remained.
I did the same…
and the thought was the same: "AAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Hours ago, my body had already surpassed its limit.
But now I was trapped in the jaws of a reptile.
Outside, it was still raining.
The rain eased near dawn.
Not out of mercy—but from the exhaustion of a night-long hell.
The sky remained heavy, gray—like a wound that refused to close.
I walked hunched over, covered in blood, after hours of being trapped.
I no longer ran.
Running meant dying fast.
I learned to move when the wind stirred the treetops.
To stop when the world became too still.
Each step was a negotiation with extreme pain.
My broken rib burned.
My shoulders still ached.
My ankle no longer bled—it was swollen, maybe infected… that meant nothing good.
I killed so many things before dawn, I lost count.
Bizarre things.
Deformed.
Dangerous.
I don't know exactly what they were.
Some thin, some fast, some with too many teeth.
I didn't let them scream.
And I didn't allow myself to stay afraid.
Time started to feel strange.
As if the air had thinned.
As if the world was losing definition at the edges.
I looked at the sky.
Maybe I had completed my twelve hours in this place.
I didn't know it from a clock.
I knew it because this world began to reject me.
The shadows stopped pointing at me.
The sounds faded, little by little.
Even distant roars turned into echoes without intent.
The mud no longer clung to my steps.
And the forest seemed… indifferent.
—Maybe I… I made it.—I murmured, my voice broken.
I leaned against a fallen trunk.
I breathed deeply, slowly, counting as I had learned.
Inhaling hurt.
Exhaling hurt more.
But I kept breathing.
"I survived this shit."
I thought that.
And that was the final mistake.
The first impact came without warning.
A blunt hit between my shoulder blades.
I didn't understand what it was until the air escaped my lungs as if someone had ripped them out.
The second came an instant later.
The third.
The fourth.
When I brought my hand back, I knew by the texture.
Four arrows.
Buried halfway in.
My body arched without permission.
My mouth opened, searching for air that wasn't there.
The world turned white, then black, then into a high-pitched noise from nowhere.
I dropped to my knees.
I felt the mud in my hands.
Felt my strength leave all at once, like something inside me had been unplugged.
I didn't have the strength to scream.
I barely had the clarity to keep breathing.
Only one thought, clear and cold:
"So… this is what it feels like… to be at the limit."
The ground received me sideways.
My face against the earth.
My cheeks felt the cold soil.
A metallic taste filled my mouth.
My heart struck once, twice more… slower each time.
I heard footsteps approaching.
And I saw who they were.
Tribals—with spears and obsidian knives.
My eyes, filled with desperation, met theirs.
They were smiling…
They were going to kill me.
Without a trace of mercy, they ripped the arrows from my back.
I couldn't scream—the air kept escaping me.
As if life itself were slipping away.
And when I received the first stab from one of the spears—
I resigned myself to diein pain.
But as if it were some damn joke of fate—or of the cruel system—
I finally saw that damned blue panel, as I bled out on the ground and the dark spears pointed at me.
[System Message: You have successfully survived for 12 hours. The permanent penalty in the Random subdimension. You will be teleported again to your last location in War Of Kindoms.]
"Damn it… you won't let me die."
And the world began to stretch.
The tribals froze in time.
The pain stopped—but their weapons were still embedded in my body.
The weight and exhaustion of my injuries disappeared.
The forest became a blurred image—like a memory that was no longer mine.
And just as the darkness finished closing in…
Something pulled me.
Not gently.
Not kindly.
A brutal yank, straight from the center of my chest.
The mud, the blood, the arrows, the war…
Everything shattered like glass.
And I vanished.
[System Message: Time remaining until next forced teleportation to random war subdimensions: 30 days.]