I walked into the forest, and got myself into a good position on top of a tree branch. Then, I waited. And soon those filthy creatures started popping out of the ground with their attention directed at me.

I imagined the form of a dagger, and soon my pockets became lighter and a dagger materialized into my hand.

"You guys happy to see me?" I taunted the undead, even though I knew they could not understand me.

Then, I jumped down from the tree branch and into the midst of the monsters. Who am I kidding? Everybody here knew that I was the real monster here.

After I landed onto one of the undead, I was attacked from all sides, but I calmly took a hold of one of the undead with one hand and swung him around, using him as a shield and a weapon at the same time.

The undead wasn't thrilled to be used as a weapon, and as soon as I stopped the swinging motion, it attacked me, or at least it tried, but me shoving my dagger into its skull seemed to be an effective demotivator.

The ones that hadn't been hit by my zombie swing rushed at me mindlessly and thumped onto the ground even more mindlessly.

Grandma had asked me for hundreds of years now why I did this every night, and I always gave her the same answer, "I don't know."

I truly did not know why. There was no benefit to doing so, but nevertheless I did it every single night. It wasn't fun. It was simply a part of me. Violence was a part of me. Where ever I went, it followed me. Even when I lived freely, I always found myself in fights, and I always won. I was addicted to it. If you asked me what I meant by it, the options being fighting and winning, I would answer that the options were the same thing for me.

I never lost. Well, I lost things and people, but I never lost against an opponent. In a simple battle of violence, I was safe. Outside of one, not so much.

The world was ruthless. I did everything I could to protect people, but people all around me still died, and I could do nothing but watch. I remembered how the armor burned, it was worse than any hell, but I did it to save everyone. Even then, I still failed. No amount of effort was enough. The feeling of godhood and vulnerability in that same moment stayed with me to this day. It was as if scorching magma was flowing through my veins, and my muscles were all torn beyond repair, but I also felt like my speed couldn't be measured and the amount of force I was able to exert was limitless. Still, after it was over, I was back to being normal, and as the pain in my body faded, the pain in my mind grew. In the end, I wasn't able to save those who I loved, and now I was just fighting for no reason.

***

POV: Akir

'At this rate, I'm going to die before morning.' I thought while being constantly attacked from all sides by undead.

I had abandoned my last night's tactic, so that I could fight more efficiently and gain more strength. You see, I figured out that even though these creatures were undead and could technically not be killed, I could gain strength by damaging them lethally. I wasn't sure of this last night, but after pondering a little, I came to the conclusion that The Ruins dropping me into a place like this to fight opponents like this wouldn't make sense if I couldn't gain strength by fighting these things. Besides, the theory about killing making you stronger was something we made up after observing what happened in the first ruin. Simply put, it was likely that we were wrong and the real way to gain strength was just by causing damage to your opponents or something like that.

However, even though I could gain strength faster by simply fighting the undead head on, that strength would be no good if I was dead, so it was time to go back to the tactic I invented last night.

After a long time of repeating the same steps over and over, I was starting to accumulate a lethal amount of damage and my stamina was running out.

Still, I could not stop. I could not allow myself to be torn up. If there was a possibility for me to survive, I was not going to give up. I needed this. I needed the strength, and I could feel myself becoming stronger.

My dagger cut through my obstacles like butter, my kicks sent everything they targeted flying, and my hand crushed everything I grabbed.

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I was unstoppable. At least I felt like I was, but in reality, I was, slowly but surely, being torn apart. The clothes I had one were ripped to shreds just like the skin they had protected, and my body was being strained to its absolute max.

Nevertheless, I kept fighting because it was all I could do. There was no running away, so I simply fought.

Seconds felt longer than they had ever before, every moment was so crucial that I couldn't stop focusing, and by focusing the whole time, time seemed to move sluggishly.

The constant action was making my hearing get dull. All the sounds mixed together into an indecipherable mess that replayed over and over as my vision darted all over the place watching out for attacks.

It felt like I was in a continuous loop of violence. It was overwhelming. There were so many opponents everywhere. I couldn't keep up. My body continuously moved slower and slower.

I knew it. At some point I was going to be too slow, I was going to get mauled. Undead would pile on top of me and rip me apart. It would be like drowning in a deep, dark ocean with piranhas eating you alive.

The crystal was right. I was going to die a horrible death. My body moved too slowly, my attacks carried no power. I was going to die.

'I have to get away!' I thought in utter panic.

I jumped up with all my might, but I couldn't get myself up into the trees with that jump alone. I had to jump another time from where I landed. And there were nothing but undead all around me. I was going to have to land on an undead's shoulders and jump before I was grabbed.

With this plan in mind, I landed on an undead, and immediately jumped with enough force to reach a tree branch.

I succeeded with the jump. At least I thought I did, but when I was just about to get outside the reach of the undead, my foot was grabbed, and I was pulled back into the middle of those monsters.

'No! Get away from me!' I thought as I rampaged among the undead, doing everything I could to get the undead away from me. I swung my dagger around, cutting everything I could, but my arms were largely numb, and before I knew it, the dagger had fallen out of my hands and was nowhere to be found.

I cancelled the summoning of my dagger in the hopes I could survive for the next 30 seconds and get it back. However, that was unlikely. I wasn't strong enough. It seemed like this place would be my grave.

My body was completely numb. I couldn't even feel myself getting trampled and eaten. I struggled all I could, but it was all in vain. I wasn't strong enough.

Just as my eyes started to close, and I was about to fall unconscious, I saw a figure in the distance.

"F-fa-father?" I asked, and suddenly my head cleared.

I felt some faint pain from my left hand and looked to see what had happened and discovered my pinky finger was no more. What was left now was only a bloody stump.

My eyes widened and my expression distorted.

I gathered myself as the first image the predictor crystal had showed me haunted my mind.

Shortly after, my eyes exuded determination. I had made up my mind. I would sacrifice anything to survive. Absolutely anything.

I swallowed the blood in my mouth and opened my mouth, "Help! Angus, I know you can hear me! Please, help me! I'm begging you!"

With that done, all I could do now was struggle to stay alive until I was saved.

I summoned my dagger again, and swung it around like a madman, holding onto it as tightly as humanly possible.

I was out of stamina, a sizeable portion of my flesh had been violated by dirty claws, I was covered in my own blood, and the pain I felt from every part of my body as I moved was worse than burning alive. Still, I was going to survive. I knew I would.

I breathed heavily, but I felt like there was no oxygen in my lungs. Just standing up felt like hell. I was constantly accumulating more damage, but at this point I could barely notice it.

"Aaarg!" I groaned as I pushed the undead off of me, swung my dagger at them, and almost lost balance in the process. Then, I heard a noise. Instantly, my heart was at rest, and I collapsed. Undead piled on top of me after I fell onto the ground, but I didn't care.

I was saved.