The last and first sensations Timaias Adama felt were pain.

There was the pain of all the clubs crashing down on his body, bruising what they should have never been able to even scratch. The final crack to the back of the head that caused everything to go dark. That was followed up with a merciful floating sensation, where the pain finally stopped, and he felt himself moving through an endless expanse of black void. All that came to a screeching halt when he felt a strange stretching feeling, quite like the one that he felt in the Uncrowned King tournament all those years ago, before finally more pain.

He gasped and flailed around, disoriented, on an unfamiliar forest floor. His limbs still felt like wet dishrags, but his confusion and his panic sent new life into them as he seized in reaction to the bizarre sensations. A lightning bolt of pain lanced through his head as he smacked his head against the tree, but the abrupt feeling dispelled much of his confusion. He immediately shot to his feet, shaky as a newborn fawn, and fumbled at his waist for his sword. He found only an empty scabbard, which only confused him further, but that didn’t stop him from scanning the world around him for threats.

He tried to cycle his madra and reach out with his Jade senses, but he found nothing. His breathing technique was practiced and instinctual, having long become second nature, but nothing happened. His arms merely trembled with the strength of a mortal, and his Jade senses were nowhere to be found. He even tried his Copper Sight. Nothing. The Sword Icon? Nonexistent.

Fighting back panic, he tried to sense his core while still on his feet. What he found was even worse than nothing. He couldn’t even use his internal senses to look for a core, much less find a gap where one was supposed to be. Breathing deeply, he continued to glance around for danger. Even the weakest woodland creature might be a threat if he had no madra, no sword, and a weakened body. He fought back that paranoia, sat down with crossed legs, and went into a meditative trance. Still no internal sense and certainly no core to see. Definitely no soulspace either, none he could sense anyways.

Suddenly overcome with disgust with himself, he chided himself for a moment. So, what if he had none of his abilities? That was bizarre to be sure, given that last he remembered he was dealing with Jades and none of them should have even been able to even hurt him, much less take away his sacred arts. Then again, they had apparently hurt him and left him alive, before dragging him to some random forest. But that didn’t make any sense either. Opening his eyes, he did another once over of his surroundings. There was no one in sight. No Jades, no Yerin, nobody at all.

He quickly felt a pang of worry for Yerin. Would she have escaped the Jades after he sent her away? What had happened to her? Then again, did he really have the luxury to worry about his apprentice when he was somehow totally crippled? He decided to focus on his breathing technique for a moment or two. Even if the technique wasn’t useful for cycling madra, it was familiar and helped to keep him calm. He mastered himself, opened his eyes, stood up, and began to walk around.

His joints creaked like a construct that needed maintenance and his legs trembled as they plodded over the grassy carpet. His throat throbbed with pain, and he knew his immediate priority was water. Fortunately, his natural senses were still sharp, and he picked up on the burbling of a nearby stream after a short bit of wandering around. He followed the sound to a blessedly clear and pleasant little river of water flowing over the forest floor.

Abandoning the natural dignity of a sacred artist, he threw himself down and drank deeply, reveling in the pain slowly receding from his throat. His thoughts slowly smoothing out as he quenched his thirst. After coming up for air and going back for more several times, he finally paused for long enough to peer at his reflection in the water. And that’s when a second lance of pain went right through his head and travelled down his spine, viscerally shaking him as he gazed down at a face that was not his.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

The pain was caused not by surprise, though, but by the sudden influx of memories. He was Timothy Forrester, a small-town boy, the son of a farmer’s daughter and retired veteran soldier. Both his parents were killed in a plague that ran through his town last year, prompting him to take up his father’s sword and head to a city where all skilled adventurers and warriors gathered. Orario, the Dungeon city, was a place of worldwide renown. It was situated atop a labyrinthine network of tunnels known as the “Dungeon”, a place of extraordinary danger and extraordinary rewards. Many an aspiring sellsword and adventurer made their way to that city to make a name for themselves. With nothing to lose, Timothy decided to give it a shot.

He nearly made it too.

After getting within a day’s journey to the great city, he was set upon by robbers. He fought back with some rough skills that he had learned from his father, but he was outnumbered. They killed him and took everything he had, besides his clothes, and left his body to rot. Somehow, Adama had managed to inhabit a restored version of that body, with no sign of the boy’s soul besides his latent memories.

After he finished processing the memories, Adama felt at his left breast. Sure enough, there was a hole in his tunic where the sword of the bandit had pierced right through his heart, though the flesh was unharmed. He looked back down at his reflection and saw the gaunt, unshaven face of a boy who hadn’t even eclipsed 15 summers in age. Heavy bags under serious viridian eyes and set above bony cheeks made him look older than he was. Dark brown hair was mussed with dried blood and his face bore a few faint scars.

Not like he was afraid of scars, though. He had had plenty of those before advancing to Underlord. He felt bad for the boy and was still shocked that he had somehow commandeered this body, but it beat being dead.

He was starting to come to terms with that idea. Being dead. He couldn’t believe that a bunch of field mice had somehow nibbled him to death, but he supposed that that was just the price of his arrogance. He hoped Yerin, at least, hadn’t paid that price as well. He felt the weight of not being able to do more for her like a pit in his stomach. Her training was far from complete. But every bird needed to leave the nest at some point. Now, with him gone, that time had come a bit early for her.

He didn’t know where in the world Orario was, but he was starting to doubt that it was in Cradle at all. He was vaguely familiar with the concept of other Iterations, so maybe he was somehow in one of those. Or some twisted form of afterlife. Or somewhere else entirely. It was hard to tell, but sitting here and thinking about it wasn’t going to help, sure as solid steel. He had always been a man of action.

So, he acted.

He started making his way towards Orario, using the boy’s memories as a guide. As he dragged himself through the undergrowth, he thought wryly about how not too long ago, a weak body had been something of a novelty. About how he had waxed nostalgic about running from wolves during his early training years, before he reached Archlord and little existed that could exhaust him afterwards.

In Cradle, that novelty had been made possible by the suppression script of that remote valley. That had done all the heavy lifting to eventually do him in, and now the novelty of weakness had totally worn off. He missed his stronger-than-steel body and joints that didn’t feel like they had been kicked by a Dreadgod.

But he was made of sterner stuff than most, and he made his way through the forest at a steady pace, stopping to eat from a berry bush and avoiding any creatures that looked too dangerous. As night began to fall, he found the hollow of a tree and some leaves, dug a trench near the hollow so he could squeeze in, and lay down while covering himself with the leaves and some branches. He was so exhausted that the moment his camouflage was in place, he passed out.

The next morning, he continued his little trek. He didn’t know what going to the famous city would really do for him, but he knew that he needed to make a living somehow, and his only marketable skill in this world would be his skill with the blade. Clear as good glass he wouldn’t make a living as a farmer. He’d probably die of boredom.

As the sun reached its zenith, he stumbled out of the copse of trees to see it. Orario, the city of Adventures.

The city sprawled in a massive circle surrounding an enormous ivory tower that marked the world-famous dungeon. The urban sprawl was defended by perfectly circular walls that circled the perimeter of the city, with taller buildings at the perimeter and shorter buildings towards the center. No building, though, even began to match the towering height of the dungeon’s shining central marker, known commonly as the tower of Babel. The city wasn’t terribly large by Cradle standards. Those would reach the tens of millions on a regular basis. In comparison, this seemed like more of a loose collection of huts. It seemed like their technology was rather behind Cradle’s as well, given the primitive nature of their walls and buildings. But he would be grateful for what he had.

When he was done looking, he walked across the plain, heading for the gated entrance.