The park was bathed in golden light. It wasn’t a euphemism for sunshine, the light itself had a heavy feeling, imperishable, untarnishable, endless. Truth could see, from where he had collapsed on the ground, the golden light filling everything in the playground. The swings, the plastic slides, the wood chips and asphalt on the ground. Everything. Nothing had dramatically changed yet, but it would only be a matter of time until every scrap of matter in this place was filled with significance and power. Until it was transformed. Of course, not everything could endure so much power.

In fact, things tended to explode.

Truth tried to get up and run. No chance of that. His own limbs seemed to weigh far more than they should. He couldn’t even bring himself to his hands and knees. Instead, he had to worm his way along the ground. Every shift of a limb a victory, with success measured in centimeters, not meters. He desperately hoped he had left the gate to the park open. If not, he might as well get comfortable because he would never leave here alive.

Even leaving in death was starting to feel optimistic. Truth ran the Meditations as best he could, but this was plainly beyond its current capabilities. Whatever was hammering into him, it was considerably more real than he was. It certainly came from a higher plane of existence. This was not the energy of someone who crawled on their belly in the dirt.

One stretch. One contraction. Try to push with the legs as he pulls with the arms. He could feel the wood chips under him hardening, starting to feel like stone. Would they explode? Or would they petrify, becoming like jade? Would he petrify? Because he couldn’t help but notice his apertures weren’t filling up. The energy was steadily drilling into his flesh and bone, but it wasn’t going through the invisible little channels and strengthening him. It was just building up.

Fingertips gripping. Pull. Stretch. Pull. Was he hearing sirens? He must be. Spell platforms, spell birds, old monsters by the bucket full, all coming his way. No time to be slow. No time to try and figure things out. Stretch. Pull. Stretch. Pull. He wasn’t getting tired. He was getting more and more scared. The weight was increasing. Slowly, but inexorably. It would crush him if it could.

Was… was the dead zone around the playground blocking people from coming in? It might be. It might well be. He was pretty deep in the devastation when he found the playground, and most couldn’t stand the energy void. Would they send Level Zero’s to investigate? Then what, run back to report? How fast could a Level Zero move, really? It had been so long, he had lost his sense of normal.

Didn’t matter. Didn’t matter. They would drop dead if they tried to force their way in here, and he was sure the Level Zero that could hurt him hadn’t been born yet. So no need to fear them outside the light. Just had to keep moving. Centimeter by centimeter. It might be agonizingly slow, but he would get there.

The gate was in sight. He had pushed it open and left it open. Small miracle. He’d take it. Centimeter by centimeter. Just dig in his fingertips and toes, and strain. Push and pull and keep moving under the hammer blows of the light. Like he was a drum, or a piano. Vibrating to the cosmic beatings, performing the music of the stars in his flesh. That monstrous senior in the hot spring said he should learn to make art. Well. Now he was art.

The gate was getting closer. Centimeter by centimeter. He knew that he could move fast. Blindingly fast. Not now. He would never take it for granted again. Struggling to move, knowing something was building up in his body, something he didn’t choose… or he chose without understanding. Some part of his awareness knew the worms were working joyfully, crying out in hateful pleasure as they burrowed through him. Remade him. Refashioned him in ways he couldn’t put words to.

His right hand stretched out, fingertips brushing the gate post. Couldn’t quite get a grip. Wriggle again. Just get the fingertips around it. Pull. He was able to get a long pull on the metal, hauling his body up to the gate. Change up the grip. Pushing now with the legs and the arm, and out into the icy cold of the world outside the playground.

Truth gasped, unable to scream. All that energy that had been trapped in his flesh tried to escape all at once. Boiling out of him, wanting to disperse into the empty atmosphere. He struggled to hold it all in, reinforcing himself with the Meditations and, when that wasn’t working fast enough, drawing the excess energy into his apertures with the Nine Worm Path.

The worms were delighted to “help,” naturally. They drew the power through his body and up into his apertures. It felt like he had returned to the moment of his breakthrough. As the worms made their way through his flesh, they left a trail of agony behind them. The worms seemed to mock him as they wriggled through his meat and marrow. “We can wriggle even better than you!’ Beyond the agony was the strange feeling that they were reconstructing his cultivation system. Not improving it or reinventing it, simply restoring it after whatever was done to it in the beating sunlight.

Truth desperately turned his attention to his apertures- still there, still intact. If anything, they were stronger than before. Richer in color and brightness. The spells themselves seemed… stronger, somehow. As though they had been tested and accepted. Even Cup and Knife seemed much less jank.

His apertures and spells were fine. His body, however, was not. He could feel the furious energy tearing up his muscles and tendons, even as the Meditations rebuilt him. Those pinpricks of strong power had been driven deep inside him and had been held in place by the power of the sun. Now they were running riot. Not just exploding or tearing- to his horror, he realized that the energy was trying to mutate him. Mutation in seemingly random directions. He had to desperately focus on correcting them, pouring his energy into stabilizing himself.

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In a fit of cosmic irony, Truth had managed to escape the Playground only to be paralyzed by the soft summer night.

From out of the gloaming citylight came a howl. First one, but it was quickly joined by dozens of others. Something in the noise reached through the ears and pulled on the nerves. The hunt had begun, and it was to the death.

Dogs. Must be specially bred, mutated, trained, maybe enchanted in a way that would stick even if the magic went down.

Not that it changed anything. He still had one job- to keep from exploding. To put himself together enough to move. The energy that was floating randomly through his flesh was slowly dragged through the path of the Nine Worms, refined, and poured into his apertures. From the first to the fifth, the refined energy poured like glowing honey. Poured like the sun made into water. Accumulating, deepening and widening the apertures as it passed.

How much time was passing? He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t spare the attention to mind such things. Must have been a while, because he heard the baying of the hounds again. Closer this time. Very close. He opened his eyes, and met two dozen looking back.

The dogs had found him.

Good looking dogs, though. For some reason, I thought they would be monsters.

The hounds should have looked silly. Their skin was loose on their bones, like an athlete wearing clothes five sizes too big for them. Truth didn’t buy it. They had the long muzzles and sharp eyes of dogs with jobs. “You can run,” their eyes promised. “You can run all you like. Won’t matter either way. We have your scent. In the end, we will run you down. You aren’t even prey. You are the job, and when you are dead, we will be on to the next job and won’t remember you at all.”

“It occurs to me that I used to have the same exact eyes.” Truth murmured.

The dogs raised their heads and started howling again. The sound was a little different this time- they had found something. The hunters should come and see.

Smart dogs. Smart enough to realize I’m immobilized, so there is no reason for them to come closer and risk injury. They would move if I moved, but for now, they are happy to hang back. Very smart dogs. I’d love to meet their trainer.

OH SHIT PERKS! You know what? I’ve got to find a home for this guy. I am one-hundred-percent not qualified to own a pet. I hope he is still alive. The snake was currently resting above his belt, but he couldn’t tell how it was doing at the moment.

Get mobile. Everything else can be sorted out later, just got to get mobile. Like I haven’t been trying that already.

The problem was… well there were a lot of problems with trying to get mobile. But a key problem was that he couldn’t just clear the energy out of his legs and be on his way. Not when thrashing, boiling, attempting-to-explode pockets of energy were lodged in his spine and brain. And the energy didn’t obediently stay in one place. Just because an area had been cleared before didn’t mean it would stay cleared.

Nothing to do but do it. He couldn’t go faster, so he just kept going. He could see the progress. Things were improving in terms of the immediate, dead-right-now scale problems. But he was racking up damage. Microscopic, but cumulative. He didn’t know how long it would take to return to full health. Too long. Still. Progress. Focus on the immediate problem, leave the rest for Future Truth.

A figure appeared at the edge of his awareness. Sealed head-to-toe in silver spell armor, with a tinted facemask, they looked rather like a golem. It wasn’t, of course. They moved with the clumsy caution he associated with a Level Zero. He felt oddly vindicated that the person was armed with a spear, rather than a needler or sword.

Could he move? Once, maybe. Not walking or anything. But he could probably punch someone. On the other hand, if the dogs were smart enough to hang back and wait, how dumb would this guy have to be to-

“Silver Four to Base. Reached anomaly. All Code Shelby Units confirmed alive at target. Anomaly appears to be a playground at grid reference TT-46. Secondary Anomaly discovered. There is an intact corpse outside the playground. It appears to be highly energetic. My suit is registering between 400 and 500 TEM. Cannot approach. Will observe until further orders received.”

The scout gave his report to one of the dogs, who nodded and ran back to base. Truth felt a little odd, but, well, he wasn’t breathing, was he? He was just focused on clearing out the explosive energy rushing around in him, and these days, he could go quite a long time without air. He also wasn’t moving, lying face down on the ground, eyes only open a smidge, in a pose that clearly showed he had been crawling out of the playground.

Fair play to the scout, if he had found a body in a similar state that was radiating lethal amounts of high energy cosmic rays, he would have stayed the hell back too. Especially at Level Zero. He’d never worked with scouts, but he had heard they were a smart, cautious bunch. Seems the rumors were true.

Still. Not good. Last thing he wanted was more company. What was that suit? He had never seen anything quite like it. It was a bit like orbital drop armor, but clearly built to be used by a Level Zero. Was it some kind of haz-mat suit for energy voids? It would be smart to build things like that, but he hadn’t the faintest idea how it was done.

The scout looked around, falling back until he was tucked into the corner of a nearby building. Maintaining line of sight, but keeping out of sight himself. Sneaky. Smart. Truth had zero confidence on being able to rely on the Blessing of the Silent Forest to vanish and escape. But he would have to do something, fast.

He had been found. They were coming for him.