Aaron was sitting on the ground in the middle of the night, in the endless plains.
If one looked in every direction, the world was nothing but darkness.
The sky had no stars, no constellations. Nothing but black, and more black.
This kind of environment could drive even the most resilient man insane.
That's why Aaron had been forced to light a fire.
With no one to talk to, no sounds to animate the world, the light of the fire had become his last anchor to sanity during those nights that seemed to stretch on forever.
It had been fifteen days since he'd started hunting the Titans of the plains.
Fifteen days without stopping.
He hunted, hunted, and hunted again.
During those fifteen days, he had come close to death more times than in two months in the forest.
The most dangerous moment had been when he had to face three Titans at once.
That day, he had truly believed he wouldn't survive.
And yet, here he was.
Sitting on the hard, dry ground of the plains, legs folded, back hunched. The flame sputtered before him, forming a bubble of flickering light at the heart of absolute nothingness. It didn't light far, but it was enough to remind him that something still existed around him. Warmth. Color. Reality.
His breathing was slow. Controlled. But with every inhale, his lungs still rumbled with the blood he had nearly coughed up more than once these past few days.
He didn't even know how many points he had gained. He hadn't checked in fifteen days. It was no longer about gain. It was about rhythm. Survival. Pure instinct.
He had stopped talking to himself. Even Noraa, in a rare show of compassion, had gone silent for five whole days. Maybe she understood. Maybe even that part of his mind was afraid to disturb the fragile balance.
Aaron looked up at the sky. No moon. No light. Just that bottomless ink ceiling, pressing down on his shoulders like an inverted mountain.
There was nothing alive here, except him… and what was hunting him.
He had realized the Titans of the plains were not alone.
He had ventured extremely far during the early days.
He had probably crossed more than 250 kilometers.
He had reached a strange border where the color of the sky suddenly shifted to red.
Not a gradient. Not a natural transition.
An invisible wall, beyond which the very atmosphere seemed different.
He had seen it from afar at first. A line on the horizon. A crack in the continuity of the landscape. And like everything he didn't understand immediately, he had approached.
Two hundred kilometers. Maybe more. He no longer counted the days or the distances. Only the fights. Only the beats of his heart between silences.
When he stepped into this new zone, the feeling changed.
It wasn't just the sky — a dark red, like ancient blood frozen in the clouds.
It was the ground too. Darker, almost black. Denser underfoot. The air, heavier. As if every breath had to carve a path through some invisible substance. Even the silence had changed.
It had become thick, like a sheet pulled over a corpse.
And he hadn't gone much further.
Because over there, in that scarlet-hued land, the shapes in the shadows were looking back at him.
Not the Titans.
Not the instinct-driven animal creatures of the forest or the plains.
No.
Something else.
Something that wasn't waiting to be hunted.
Something waiting to be entered.
Aaron had stopped dead that day. Both feet on the border, his gaze lost in what seemed like the threshold of another world, even within the vast nightmare that was this one.
— "You feel that?" he whispered aloud.
— "Yes," Noraa answered immediately. Her voice lacked its usual distant coldness. It was… low. Watchful. "You're not ready."
Aaron hadn't answered. He had just stood there for a long moment, staring at that red, dead expanse, where nothing moved… and yet everything seemed to wait.
Then he had stepped back.
Not out of fear.
But out of clarity.
He wasn't ready, indeed.
Not yet.
That memory returned as he stared at the fire.
The flames danced before him, but in his mind, it was still that red sky he saw.
He closed his eyes.
That day, he had felt something strange in the very core of his being.
He wasn't enough, and he probably never would be.
It was truly a strange feeling. No matter how much he improved his strength, he would die there.
Like a 2D character entering a 3D world.
He leaned forward slightly, arms resting on his knees.
His spear was propped against a rock.
The metal was scratched, worn, as if he had struck the very skin of the world.
The fire crackled softly.
Aaron sat up straighter, his gaze sweeping the endless darkness around him.
Even the Titans didn't approach this zone.
It was another border. A higher filter.
And he had crossed it… just enough to understand he wasn't allowed to.
He took a deep breath.
He settled into a meditation posture and closed his eyes. Diving deep into his mind.
Diving deep into his mind.
There, in that bodiless space, there was no more torn flesh, no more short breath, no more fatigue in his muscles.
Just him.
Him… and her.
— "You never sleep, do you?"
— "Not when you're like this."
Noraa was there, in that inner void.
She had no defined shape. Sometimes a voice, sometimes a silhouette.
But that night, she was just a calm presence. Far from sarcasm.
Almost human.
— "You could've died three times this week."
— "I know."
— "And yet you keep going."
— "I must."
— "Fifteen days left until the journey ends. We can't go on like this forever."
— "I want to cross that line, no matter the cost. After that, we'll see."
A silence.
In that mental bubble, Aaron replayed the recent battles.
The twisted faces of the Titans.
The moment he had slipped.
The moment he had screamed soundlessly, plunging his blade into a throat of stone and sap.
The moment he thought… it was the end, again.
— "You're no longer progressing," Noraa murmured. "You're adapting. But not surpassing."
— "I'm walking a ridgeline. Too fast and I fall. Too slow and I die."
— "And then ? "
— "I go back."
She froze.
— "The forest ? "
— "Roy. Anne. The altar. The next group will arrive soon. I have to see… if I'm still human. Or if I've become… something else."
— "You want to talk to them ? "
— "No. Just observe. Ground myself again. If I stay here, I'll disappear. Dissolve into this night."
A breath. Not of air. Just a mental sensation.
— "You know they're no longer waiting for you."
— "Neither am I."
When Aaron opened his eyes, the sky was already light.
Without another word, he stood.
And set off in search of his next target.
His body was no longer what it once was… but it wasn't an improvement. Not really.It was a transformation.
His muscles were no longer just strong.
They were efficient.
His reflexes were no longer human — they were brutal automatisms, born of hundreds of battles, near-misses, decisions made in moments where death had already reached out a hand.
He walked straight ahead, gaze fixed, but he felt everything.
The ground beneath his feet, the air on his skin, the tiny variations of light in the tall grass twenty meters around him.
His now-awakened mind sensed presences his eyes couldn't yet see.
His hair had grown again. He kept it tied in a ponytail.
His clothes were nearly all gone from the constant fights. Only a pair of pants, torn at the knees, remained. Nothing to cover his torso.
Had he been dropped into a human city at that exact moment, he would've looked like a homeless man.
Scars covered his chest — some recent, still red and tight, others old, nearly erased by layers of regeneration and adaptation.
His gaze…
That gaze no longer belonged to the boy who had been torn from his reality.It was a gaze with no expectations. Almost dead, if not for a faint spark of will still burning deep within.
His bare feet crushed the tall grass without a sound.
His breath was calm, even if his body still screamed from past battles.
His spear, repaired as best he could, hung across his back.
Not straight. Not perfect. But still capable of killing.
Out there, on the horizon, a massive silhouette loomed. Another Titan.Another challenge.…
It had been 25 days since Aaron left for the plains.
Roy and Anne were currently settled in a treehouse.
They had built it over the past ten days.
It wasn't perfect, but it allowed them to rest peacefully at night without fearing that a monster would jump them in their sleep.
Silence reigned in the treehouse.
Roy was eating his lunch — one of those grey, tasteless nutrient paste cylinders the altar sold as "food."
Anne was sharpening her metal knife, the one she had bought for 700 points.
Their strength had improved a bit in the past ten days.
Roy and Anne had both reached level 7 in BODY.
But no matter how much he thought about it, Roy couldn't understand how Aaron had reached his previous level in less than a month.
Roy stared at the last bite of his grey cylinder.
Even the lack of taste eventually left a bitter aftertaste.
— "You know," he said softly, "I think I could eat a bunch of raw leeks just to remember what it's like… to chew something with a soul."
Anne gave a tired smile without lifting her eyes from the blade.
— "You could always ask the altar. Maybe in exchange for your leg, it'll give you a tomato."
Silence returned for a few seconds. Then a small laugh escaped Roy's lips.
Rough. Genuine.
It had become rare, but he needed it.
He sat up slowly and watched Anne sharpen her knife with an almost ritual method.
She was slimmer than him, but her movements had become precise, confident.
The metal had cost 700 points — nearly four days of joint hunting.
But it was a good investment.
— "Do you believe it?" Roy asked. "What he did, what he became?"
Anne paused, sharpening stone in mid-air.
— "You mean Aaron?"
Roy nodded.
— "Twenty-five days ago, he was snapping branches with his bare hands like they were twigs. He could kill a monster in one hit. And that… was before he left."
Anne resumed her movement gently, eyes downcast.
— "Exactly. He became something else. He's not playing the same game as us."
Roy leaned against the wooden wall, arms crossed.
— "Or maybe he just found a shortcut. Maybe he knows something we don't."
— "If there was a shortcut… do you think he wouldn't have told us?" she replied, without anger. Just stating a fact.
Roy didn't answer right away. He looked outside, through a small gap between two planks.
The trees. The shadows. Nothing had changed here.
And yet, everything felt different.
— "Level 7, huh…" he whispered. "I already feel the difference. But if each level costs more than the last, then he must've burned through an insane number of points to get where he is."
— "And he did it in a month," Anne murmured. "Hunting alone. Sleeping alone. Surviving alone."
Roy winced.
— "I don't even know if what I feel when I think of him is admiration… or fear."
Silence settled.
Then Anne spoke in a softer voice.
— "I don't think he found a shortcut. I think he just burned his wings faster than us."
— "You think he made the wrong choice?"
Anne stayed silent for a moment, hands resting on her knees. The wood creaked softly under their weight, as if even the treehouse hesitated to breathe.
— "I think…" she finally said, "he had no choice."
Roy raised an eyebrow, curious. Anne continued, without looking at him:
— "He was alone. He didn't know if anyone would ever come. He didn't know if he'd survive another day. He didn't know where he was or why… Honestly, he's a lot more sane than I would've bet on."
Roy froze, thoughtful, his nutrient cylinder hanging between his fingers.
— "It's true… I tend to forget that," he murmured. "He was already in this world when we arrived. He survived a month… alone."
Anne slowly nodded.
— "And yet he helped us. Not much, not kindly… but he did. He shared what he knew. He protected us for three days. And then he left."
A heavy silence settled.
Then Roy spoke again, voice a little rough:
— "Do you think he'll come back?"
Anne shrugged gently.
— "I think he's already far away. But yes… I think he'll come back. Not for us. Not to apologize. Just because there's still something he needs here."
— "And in what state he'll be…"
— "…that's what scares me."
Roy closed his eyes.
A long moment passed.
Then he stood up, grabbed the canteen from the corner.
— "You coming? We've still got a monster to find today."
Anne got up too, sliding the knife into the strap on her thigh.
— "One per day. As always."
— "As always."
They climbed down from the treehouse, slow but determined.
In the morning's misty woods, their silhouettes merged with the vegetation.
They weren't the strongest.
They weren't the fastest.
But they were still here.
And sometimes, that was enough.