The forest fell silent for hours. Fironi didn't move.
Just waited. A voice slithered from the shadows.
Got seventeen lives. and you choose to starve arrogant brat.
The demon stepped out. Skin like drowned flesh.
Eyes milky as a dead fish. It raised webbed hands, knuckles swollen like waterlogged timber.
The ground exploded. Not water—liquid suffocation, thick and briny, geysering upward.
Rivers erupted, swallowing trees whole. Ancient trunks groaned as roots tore free.
Fironi's perch splintered beneath him. He leaped backward as piranha demons surged through the churning flood, crackling electric fins casting jagged blue light across the drowning forest.
No ground. No cover.
Just a sinking forest-turned-ocean. He danced across falling debris.
Jump. Roll.
Slide. A flash of metal glinted deep underwater—a sword.
Its hilt crusted in knotted coral, blade etched with a single throbbing crimson spiral sigil. Fironi dove.
Icy water swallowed him. His fingers closed around the hilt.
Power hummed up his arm, cold and eager. He breached the surface, gasping.
The demon waited atop a churning whirlpool, lipless mouth stretched in triumph. Ten piranha-demons launched from the foam, jaws crackling with volatile electricity.
Fironi swung. Not skill—instinct.
The blade moved faster than thought. Ten arcs of light split the gloom.
Ten halves of demon-fish hit the water, sizzling as their severed corpses dissolved into acrid smoke. 'Impossible,' the demon choked, milky eyes widening.
Fironi was already behind him. Sword dripping void-blood.
'You talk too much. ' The demon split clean down the middle.
Fironi crouched on the last dry rock. The water receded, leaving steaming mud and dissolving carcasses.
He stared at the sword. The spiral sigil pulsed against his palm like a trapped heartbeat.
He found the clearing where he'd first woken. Chicka was gone.
Only a floating share screen flickered in the air. On it, Chicka strained against a splintering crystal wall, silver hair matted with blood.
'CHICKA!' Fironi roared into the screen. No answer.
Just guttural snarls. Chicka whirled, golden eyes wide.
'Fironi?! How? I didn't see you enter!.'Fironi glanced at the sword. Silent.
Invisible to her?.. how did i get to her?..
He lied fast: 'New ability.
Don't worry about it. ' He raised the spiral-etched blade.
'Worry about him…'The scene was set for a new battle. Fironi stood firm, ready to defend.
The demon lunged forward, its grotesque form erupting from the shadows with an unsettling fury. Fironi anticipated the attack, muscles coiled like a spring as he braced himself, ready to unleash his power.
With an explosive motion, Fironi swung the sword, a burst of light erupting as it sliced through the air toward the demon. The moment of impact sent shockwaves rippling through the environment.
The demon recoiled in pain as the sword pierced its flesh, shock and agony spreading across its grotesque features. Fironi stood strong, determination etched on his face as he drove the sword deeper.
The creature's body began to disintegrate into dark smoke and ashes.