Sarah searched every inch of the border in the dryer parts of the spatial error. She even ventured a bit deeper into the swamp area.

But she couldn’t find the exit. It was maddening. During this time, she also had to somehow get used to her new digestion system.

A weird side effect of this recent mutation was that she didn’t have to poop anymore. Which was surprisingly unnerving. It just felt so wrong. But as it definitely wasn’t very comfortable to do this in this region, she tried to see it in a positive light.

Sadly, she still couldn’t figure out how to feed on the Magic Power of other beings. Even having her new ability to sense the amount of Magic Power in the wildlife around her didn’t do her any good.

The only good thing was that her Magic Power regenerated incredibly fast. Which was pretty important. Her body now constantly consumed Magic Power to keep her going.

By now, she stood in front of the deeper parts of the swamp area. It stank pretty bad here, the ground was mostly knee deep mud or murky water. And she had no way of knowing what lived inside the water. The only indicators were small ripples that could be seen from time to time, which was strangely horrifying.

The treetops in this region were so dense that nearly no light found its way down here. And not to mention all the spiders, snakes, and other gross stuff that lived in the trees.

All in all, it was a horrible place. And she had to go through it. At least she had her dense skin and poison resistance. But she wasn’t quite sure if she should try to swim through the murky water or climb through the treetops full of spiderwebs.

At least she was able to see what she would encounter in the treetops, making this a less awful choice.

She checked one last time to see if her clothes were safely attached to her body.

"Here goes nothing." She said in a forced, happy voice and jumped up into the closest tree. The ground was so mushy, that she didn’t jump as high as she thought she would. And she landed directly in the murky water.

This surprised her so much, that she breathed in a mouthful of water. The pain was horrible, and she seemed to feel the bits and pieces sloshing around in her lungs.

She fought her way out of the swamp, coughing and gagging all the while. Interestingly though, she didn’t have the feeling of suffocating, even though the muddy water was still in her lungs.

While still coughing, she concentrated on what was going on inside her. Her new mutation seemed to be able to convert the water and mud in her lungs into Magic Power. So even though it hurt like hell, it seemed like she wouldn’t be able to drown. At least she hoped as much.

"Ugh, this is so gross." She said while coughing out a little leech that was already somewhat decomposed from her acidic insides. She shuddered, tried not to think about what else she might have breathed in, and made herself ready to go again.

This time she climbed the tree instead of jumping up. There were so many spider webs that they were constantly getting in her way. They were just everywhere.

She started to climb from tree to tree. It was surprisingly hard for her to navigate herself because her sight was permanently disturbed by the webs. She felt countless little things crawl on top of her, which gave her the constant urge to brush her body.

But she knew that this wouldn’t change anything. Just by climbing onto another tree, she would have a colony of spiders and other things on her again. At least they wouldn’t be able to bite through her dense skin.

She progressed horribly slowly, and it was exhausting to deal with the constant irritation. She was very tempted to use her invasion skill to kill everything around her. But she knew that with the immense amount of wildlife around her, this could empty out her Magic Power in a second. This was much more dangerous than any kind of little insect.

While climbing, she tried to motivate herself a little bit. "Alright, Sarah, you just have to go through with this, and oh shit it’s in my mouth!" She cried out in a disgusted voice. She gagged and spit out a spider and its web. So no more talking.

Now silent again, she climbed further and further until the night came. It was dark here. Really dark. Even with her mutated eyes, she was barely able to see her hands if she held them in front of her face. Luckily, she stopped early enough and cleared out the crown of a tree of webs and snakes. It wouldn’t be comfortable here, but the dense canopy would prevent her from falling down while she was asleep.

She tried to sleep, but it was hard with all the buzzing and the cries of unknown animals.

Restless in the unnerving environment, she tried to find a comfortable position. Sadly, without much success.

Frustrated by this situation, Sarah looked down from her tree. She was trying to somehow see the nocturnal wildlife around her.

She was staring for a while when she suddenly thought that her eyes must have played tricks on her. There seemed to be a small, turquoise light hovering above the surface of the water. She rubbed her eyes, but the light was still there.

A short moment later, hundreds of these lights started to emerge from the swamp. No, they had to be thousands.

The colors ranged from turquoise to blue and gave the whole area a surreal and mysterious glow.

Sarah looked at the scene in awe. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen during her time in the swamp.

The lights flew around, seemingly in disorder. But after looking at them for a longer time, it became apparent that they flew around in a pattern. It looked like wind that became visible, flowing around in gentle streams. It was mesmerizing.

Sarah was so immersed in the spectacle, that she didn’t notice the sound of something big swimming through the swamp. And it was coming closer to her.

Only when she saw something huge being illuminated by the lights did she notice it.

It was a gigantic lizard, barely able to fit through the gaps between the trees. The lights reflected from his scales, making them shine like crystals.

When it came close to her tree, the lizard stopped his movement. Sarah tried to breathe as little as possible and didn’t move at all.

The lizard erected itself out of the swamp, nearly reaching the treetops with its huge frame. And it looked her directly in the eyes.

Turquoise flames started to erupt from the back of his body, flowing along its frame. Sarah froze in shock at the sight of it. But another thing was even worse. This huge lizard was also on the path of conflict. She could feel it.

With its huge eyes that were as big as her head, it looked at her curiously. There was some intelligence in them.

It narrowed its eyes at Sarah, who didn’t know if she should attack or run away.

For some reason, though, the lizard seemed to have lost interest in her. It slowly let itself sink into the water again, its flames being extinguished by the water. And it carried on.

Sarah’s heart seemed to explode while she waited for the lizard to go out of sight.

A long time after the lizard disappeared, Sarah could finally relax a little again. That was seriously horrifying.

She wondered why the lizard had not attacked her. The only explanation she could give herself was that she was probably like an insect to it. Not even worth the effort to kill it.

She shuddered at the thought of a creature so strong. And she hoped that she would never have to encounter it again.

Sleepy from the intense fear she felt before, she got lulled in by the gently flowing lights.

When the sun rose again, Sarah woke up from her dreamless sleep. She stretched a little, ate a snake for breakfast, and went on her way again. She tried really hard to ignore the thought of the lizard coming back to kill her. So she concentrated on climbing to forget her fear.

Feeling a little more accustomed to this environment, the struggle was a little less horrible. But still, who wanted to climb through myriads of spiderwebs?

Her only motivation was to find the exit. And at least her surroundings had changed somewhat by now.

The trees got sparser, and the swamp beneath her looked less muddy by now. She could even see… weird things moving around under the surface of the water. She really shouldn’t look too much.

And finally, she could see the border again. With excitement, she climbed faster and soon reached the edge of the trees. Some distance away, the nothingness began. It was hard to tell, but it was quite a distance away. And seeing how there were barely any patches of grass or mud around, she probably would have to swim. Only if she had to go close to the border, though.

Invigorated by reaching the border, she climbed along the edges of the trees, looking for the exit again. It was much easier here because there weren’t as many spiderwebs as before.

She climbed for some time until the sun went down. Luckily, it wasn’t as dark here thanks to the stars, and she was able to continue.

She was so full of energy thinking of getting out of here, that it chased away any semblance of tiredness.

While reaching out for a long, hanging branch, she felt something so weird and alien that she nearly fell down again.

She looked toward the border in excitement, but she couldn’t see anything. But she felt it.

Somewhere around here, there was something fundamentally different. She had never encountered something like this before.

"It has to be the exit!" she said in a breathless voice, and she started climbing down.

She gingerly stepped onto a more or less solid patch of mud on the edge of the water and looked toward the border.

It was hard to tell at which point the exit could be. Her gut-feeling indicated a general direction but she couldn’t pinpoint it. She noticed that the border wasn’t a straight line here as usual but was more erratic. There were some kind of spikes of nothingness that swallowed part of the swamp. She would have to be careful. One false movement, and she would end up disintegrating like the wolf she had fought.

While trying to guess the exact direction of the exit, a part of the border started to light up.

A small sun seemed to shine through it, bathing the whole region in intense light. All kinds of colors drew arcs in the air, making the whole scene seem like a dream.

Through this radiating light, it became clear where the border was. And also where the exit was.

For a moment, she just stood there, amazed by the spectacle in front of her. It reminded her of the lights she saw in the swamp last night. But the little lights couldn’t even compare to the glory that unfolded in front of her. Everything around her was bathed in radiant light, which permanently changed colors.

Even though it was so mesmerizing, she didn’t forget why she was here. This was her chance to get out or die trying.

Without further hesitation, she jumped into the water and started to swim. She felt various things brush against her, some even biting her.

Shockingly, some beings even got through her skin. But they let go of her immediately when her blood started to poison them. Nonetheless, it was a horrible feeling, not knowing what was underneath and attacking her.

The contrast between the insane beauty around her and the horror underneath was just bizarre.

She came closer and closer to the exit. And by now, nothing attacked her anymore. The beings probably didn’t want to go too close to the border.

She was only a short distance away from the exit when something grabbed her leg. And she got pulled underwater.

Horrified, she looked underneath her. The sun also lit up the water underneath her, so she was able to somehow see what had grabbed her.

It was an enormous thing, seemingly only made out of tentacles. The different colors that shone upon it made it look like something straight out of a fever dream.

With a guttural roar, Sarah ripped apart the tentacle that was pulling her closer to the monstrosity. She immediately started to swim in the direction of the exit again.

Uncountable tentacles snatched at her, trying to pull her closer to the thing. She ripped apart as many as she could, but there was seemingly no end to them. She also tried to poison it, but that didn’t seem to bother it at all.

With no other option, she activated her Invasion skill. She had no idea what kind of Magic Power consumption would await her by trying to attack something this huge. But it was her only way out.

She barely overcame its resistance and sent it into a world of pain.

The water rippled because of the contractions of the thing, which seemed to lose all control over its limbs.

It almost drained all of her Magic Power, making her nearly lose consciousness. But she wouldn’t let that happen.

With newfound hope, she started swimming towards the exit again. But the monstrosity didn’t want her to leave.

Even though it was in immense pain and couldn’t fully control its tentacles anymore, it followed her.

Sarah regretted it immediately when she looked over her shoulder. The thing had somehow opened up its main body, and a huge mouth could be seen, eager to swallow her whole.

Sarah tried to swim even faster, already painfully breathing in the water. She was in desperate need of the Magic Power it would give her.

The exit was just in front of her, when she felt a pull on her waist again. She turned around, only to see that the thing was right behind her, its mouth wide open.

With her last strength and Magic Power, she attacked its mind and body at the same time. She pushed herself off of it with her legs, propelling herself towards the exit.

After exhausting all of her Magic Power, unconsciousness overwhelmed her. And the last thing she saw was the iridescent light all around her.