Crouched and bow held at the ready, I stepped out of the empty lair. The tunnel leading out was like the walls, woven with vines and branches. My senses stretched out. What was I missing?

I stepped slowly, pausing between each step and listening. The cautious stepping turned out to be a long, boring mile. The end was nowhere in sight, and I was convinced I wasn't walking in a straight path. It was gradual, but the path curved to the right. Based on my observation outside of the tunnel, the curve should have been to the left.

Step, pause, lis—the ground rumbled, walls shook, and the light at the end of the tunnel faded. The tunnel constricted its walls, closing in. The path in front of me shut off. I turned to flee and found my retreat blocked as well. I summoned a dome of ice and reinforced it with all the mana I could pump into it. As the tunnel collapsed on my shell, I added pillars of support. Water pooled at my feet. I didn't fear puddles. If anything, it would be a source of power. The water absorbed back into the ground, replaced by tendrils of roots reaching out.

A flower bloomed on the ground.

I screamed because it felt like the correct response.

The monster plant sunk its teeth into my skin, froze and shattered. More flowers blossomed. I covered the ground in ice, creating a barrier. The tenacious life found a way to get through. Pressure outside my shell created cracks in my barrier. If I forced in more mana, my support pillars would crumble. A vine wrapped my leg. Another flower bit into my back. This biter didn't freeze, and neither did the next three. I couldn't tear them off. My hands were placed on my shell. I was trying to keep it from shattering.

The pressure from all sides proved to be too much. I collapsed just as ice shattered around me. I didn't even manage to scream.

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That wasn't a terrible way to die. The dying part wasn't great; it never was. Nothing quite screamed failure louder.

I lowered my hand and stepped out of my puddle. There was no time to waste. I had a tunnel to kill…

I woke up with my hand stretched out, my scream still fresh in my mouth. Why were there bugs in the tunnel? There were no bugs in the tunnel…

I needed fire…

The trick was getting enough fire…

The entire jungle needed to burn…

Jungles, unlike forests, weren't susceptible to fire. The solution was to bring the forest with me…

I need a better method to haul a lot of wood…

Damn snakes…

Damn crawlers…

And damn the rat bastard king…

And damn the jungle tunnel... That wasn't even a real boss.

The dungeon had me beat twelve to zero, and I was no closer to earning that one than when I first stepped through the barrier. Or was it fourteen? I shook the failures from my mind. Despite my repeated losses, my determination remained mostly solid. I was sure I would burn the tunnel down if it took a hundred lives.

Scientifically speaking, the tunnel made no sense. Was it sentient? Was it just an open mouth? It wasn't even a mouth. It was a throat at best, which was disgusting and morbid. What monster laid around, open gullet, waiting for a fool to step in? No one walked into a throat… and I only did it for science.

Fire worked the best. The problem was maintaining the flame while fighting off all the beasts that had pledged loyalty to the wooded gullet. I didn't think they wanted the gullet to survive. I sensed coercion in some of those fights, which meant a double obligation to slay the monster. Or did it? I didn't like snakes or rats and loathed the crawlers. The freaks were bigger in the forest, and they hid in every crack and crevice of the tunnel. So maybe I was saving the tunnel…

Whether I was the hero or villain, the quest remained clear. I needed to remove the esophagus and cleanse the jungle of its corruption. Too many vile critters called the trees and grasses a sanctuary. Their presence tainted the essence of the grove. To let them live was to let the jungle suffer. I was no druid, but even I could feel the plight of the plants.

I cemented my pathway with a warped rationale. At the end of the day, if I was being honest, the jungle was a challenge, and I needed to grow. If I lied enough to myself, my past loops and those to come next wouldn't weigh on my mind for too long.

I needed fire, weapons, and an endless supply of grit for my plan to work. The throat wouldn't let me just burn it; it would send its minions to block my path. I needed to dislodge the blockers and burn the gullet. I was careless before and placed the cart before the horse. This time, I will kill the horse and burn the cart.

So maybe I was just a straight villain in this scenario. That would have to do.

I lingered at my recursion point for an entire day, cultivating mana and scheming up plans by patching up my past failed attempts. I worked through katas and inspected my progress. Strength was over seventy-five percent of the way to rank two. Endurance had already passed rank one and I was about ten percent along on the next rank. My mind remained at an overall rank of nine, which was expected, and my spirit had no rank—also expected.

Part of me was tempted to dive into the spirit paths already. I was already practicing most of the fundamentals, and it would be a matter of lifting restrictions I'd put in place to stop the development. Lack of confidence deterred me from moving forward. The spirit could be dominant if the path was pursued correctly; if not, it would remain insignificant, adding small benefits to the cultivator. The same could be said for all pathways, but the mind and body were much more malleable to change than the spirit.

Stolen novel; please report.

The upgrades to my body came as no surprise. I felt stronger, faster, and more durable during my recent loops of fighting. My energy lasted longer, food and water were less of a nuisance, and my recovery time had improved. Conquering the dungeon lair should also significantly boost my progress.

I wrapped up my training session and started on my quest.

Shortcuts proved to be a key strategy in the first phase of jungle cleansing. The most significant shortcut was at the entrance. I created a path off the landing to the bone-infested grounds below. Then, I made a walkway using burning bloodwood logs to keep the critters at bay. After that, I worked the rest of the day, cutting down trees and pulling them into the jungle. If I cut the bloodwoods in quarters, I could easily carry the log down my ramp, through the burning passageway, and to the jungle's edge in forty minutes. At the end of the day, I had a pile of twenty-six logs neatly stacked on the jungle's edge.

The next phase of the plan was clearing the jungle. Sometimes, when a thing was rotten, it was best to remove the rot entirely. The jungle needed to be removed. It hid too many monsters and made logging lumber a nightmare.

I sharpened my ax, delivered a speech fit for a villain, and got to chopping. It took roughly a day of slaying and chopping to make it to the gullet. The cave of logs and limbs was as throaty as ever. The opening stood ten feet high and seven feet wide. Its opening was dark, except in the deep distance, a soft light glowed, promising riches and the rewards of the heart's desire. I spent enough time in the belly of the beast to know its promises were a sack of lies. There were no riches in the depth. The light had no meaning. It was as empty as darkness.

Clearing the jungle up to the monster’sG throat was the work of madness. Nothing remained alive from the tunnel opening back to the jungle's entrance. I'd cleared roughly a quarter of the jungle. By my estimates, it took nearly two days. That left me a day or two to complete the task. The added benefit of clearing the jungle space was that I earned some respect from the locals. All the creatures actively avoided me, and birds feared to sing.

I dragged the twenty-six logs and over a hundred of the mahogany-like trees to the beast. Since the birds refused to sing, I had to whistle my own tune. The tune carried on while I picked a side of the tunnel and buried my ax into the patchwork. It only took one loop to learn not to walk into the gullet. If one wanted safe passage, one needed to go to the side door.

On cue, guests arrived when I'd cut half of the door out. I battled a handful of snakes, dodging body slams and cutting through thick bodies with barbaric grace. The skelly rats arrived after I kicked in the rest of the door. I didn't have flash bangs on me; there wasn't enough prep time. More so than that, I learned to create freeze bombs on my own.

The skill discovery came two deaths ago when rats chased me all across the jungle. I ran out, of course, and their packs were in the dozens. I hid in the cavern of an old tree that I sealed off with ice.

As the rats scoured the jungle for my scent, I worked tirelessly on developing an area-freezing spell. I took all my knowledge of runes and freeze bombs and applied the knowledge to the balls of ice forming in my hand. The rune scripting required on the hand bombs required honed focus. At first, I needed to use my hands to etch the runes into my ice bombs. I was satisfied with the result and made a large stockpile. It didn't take long in the fight with the rats to learn I didn't have enough ice bombs, nor was my hand etching fast enough to keep up with demand. I had to run away again and practice my craft.

It took a day of hiding before I learned how to summon ice bombs etched with exploding runes enhanced by mana. I gladly welcomed my new skill in my growing arsenal of tricks.

The rat horde and I engaged in another bloody and cold battle. I came out the victor, and then the effing rat king showed up; a bipedal bastard fiend waved a small stick, and all the slaying I did turned against me. Dead rats were everywhere, and they no longer cared about the cold. I swung two hammers to try to keep afloat in the endless wave. The dead prevailed. I did not.

That failure was at least two loops ago. I was a different person now. For one, I started with ice bombs in my arsenal. Second, I knew not to kill the frozen skeletons. It was best to feed them to Esophagi, which I did, throwing the frozen rats through the side door armfuls at a time. After the rats were stuffed inside, I added the fallen jungle trees, snake bodies, and anything significant and chokey.

I stuffed Gulley to the brim. Phaze four was underway.

The burn phase, the final phase in the boss fight, was a simple matter of stuffing the twelve bloodwood logs inside the throat. Twelve were piled on the outside of the tunnel.

I created kindling using scraps of flammable wood, started a fire, and watched Esophagi burn in the cool safety of my dome. The throat ignited in a brilliant flame. Crawlers poured out of the crevices of the burning throat, looking for the source of their agony. They scurried, hissed, and fought among themselves. They couldn't sense me in my dome. Last time, I made the mistake of starting with a slow burn. Never again. We went straight to Soggy-flaming heat levels, skipping hot and basking in hell.

I laughed at the plight of the crawlers, and as the fire burned brighter, tears crested my eyes.

What had I done? I questioned my sanity.

The yellow flame burned outside the tunnel, baking the wood inside. Fire spread down the logs, devouring all in its path. The top of the tunnel caught fire. Gulley seemed to cry in pain, but that could've been the crawlers. The fire eventually found the opening of the tunnel. It trickled inside, discovered a new fuel source, and ignited in a bright flame.

Tears continued to stream as I watched the pyre. I was the villain. I wasn't supposed to feel bad. Where in the Soggy infernals were my callouses? I didn't feel bad. Why the tears?

My victory was an embarrassment. I turned away from the fire and witnessed a new destruction. My mouth hung open. The victory came at great cost. I looked at my hands as if they were to blame for all this. My left looked extra guilty as it clenched the tool of destruction's handle. It trembled under my gaze. I'd been here before. Not here, not in this place, but in this moment. No, this was different, yet it was so familiar.

What was I missing?

In a moment of weakness, I almost betrayed my plans. I stayed my hands and let the fire take its course; this was how this path had to go. I devoted too much to this cause to not finish. I caused too much destruction to stop. It would be better if I let this all end.

Do better. Be better.

The words mocked me as if this wasn't the path of improvement. I was better. Damn it. I did better. I was doing better. What was I losing here… what have I lost?

My victory turned solemn in my empty shell, and I watched the fire devour my foe through hazy eyes. Eventually, Gulley collapsed; the structure was no longer stable enough to support itself. The black rubble rolled off the packed insides of more burnt things. The tunnel collapsed, leaving a pile of burning scraps and an open belly. As the smoke cleared, I saw into the cavern. It wasn't as empty as I'd presumed.

A green glowing being stood inside the exposed cavern.