Entangled within the serpentine branches of a smaller tree, Ren found himself dozens of feet away from where he had been struck. This particular tree was unlike any he had encountered on Earth, a truly foreign entity unique to the Harosheth forest. It consisted of twisting green vines, intricately woven in complex patterns, starting from the visible roots and extending to the farthest reaches of its branches. Oddly, there were no leaves adorning the tree, yet peculiar white fruits of unknown origins sparsely hung from the intertwining vines.

‘That was embarrassing,’ he thought to himself, wiping off the slimy tree sap rolling off his face.

The muscles in his cheek had been shredded from the force of the punch, and his nanites were busy working to fix the injury. Despite this, he had the widest grin plastered on his face. That was the most exhilarating fight he had been a part of in decades!

When he first noticed the tensed muscles of the young man –Ragnod he called himself, his first thought was to neutralize the target. But he needed answers. Prior to waking up in the thicket, the last thing he remembered was being pulled into the black hole. Next thing he knew, he was waking up with strange insects trying to disembowel him.

Surprisingly, the insectoids were having some success at doing so, despite the flexible armor of carbon polymer mixture he called his skin.

Sensing a sudden spike of danger, his instincts had kicked in, causing him to send his daggers flying to destroy all three sources of his unease. It had been very surprising when he stood up to realize that one of his assailants had been a …human? And the man was still alive!

Ren was completely confused. How had he gotten back on Earth? And more importantly, how was the man groaning pitifully still alive? He had thrown those daggers with considerable force, more than enough to shatter bones and eviscerate squishy organs. But the man was not only alive, the dagger had only pierced hilt deep into his armpit.

That was when he noticed Ragnod and he tried getting some intel from the man. As they conversed, he could feel the murderous intent pouring out of the man and it made Ren’s cold heart giddy. Considering the kinds of jobs Ren was accustomed to, this pup’s hostility felt cute. Childish even. Ren held back the snicker that tried to escape his lips and decided to wait for the other man to make the first move.

After exchanging words for a bit without any action, Ren lost his patience and feigned distraction, hoping it would force the human to commit to his plan. Surprisingly the young man moved faster than any human Ren had ever seen, without visible augmentation. He easily saw through the man’s attack trajectory. Although straightforward and without any subterfuge, Ren had to admit it was faster than expected.

With his curiosity piqued, he decided to let the man land his punch. Ren even decided to let Ragnod live as long as the man told him how he was able to move like that. Luckily, Ragnod was conveniently rushing towards him so he would get to pluck some hair to add to his golden Knife’s handle. It was a win-win situation.

The results however, were entirely outside of his expectations. The young man’s punch had enough energy behind it to roughly match 57 percent of Ren’s full power. That was not just crazy, it was inhuman. But there lay the reason for his joy. He was 100 percent sure that Ragnod was made mostly of biological matter.

Better still, his scanners picked up a strange energy radiating from his body. Whatever it was, it was not harming the boy. Instead it looked like it enhanced his every action. Was it perhaps an undocumented type of radiation? Ren was fairly certain he had never read anything like that in the Botnet. Neither had any of his academic inclined siblings mentioned any—

[ Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ]

The sound of a deep inhale reverberated through the recesses of Ren’s mind, interrupting his thoughts. It sounded like the desperate breath of a dying man, finding air after eons of drowning.

[ Finally, a blessed world!!! ] The creepy voice boomed with crazed laughter in his mind.

[ No longer am I restrained by the absence of the universe’s power. My rebirth is foreordained!!! ]

“What are you on about?”

[ Can’t you see, child? ] The voice sneered at him. [ We have escaped the Energy-dead World of your origin. No longer shall I be forced to slumber while my enemies grow stronger ]

Eh? New World? Ren was giddy with excitement at the new discovery. While he had to take everything the crazy patch of code said with a grain of salt, it might be onto something. Ren scanned his surroundings again, from the unfamiliar forest critters, to the strange blue leafed trees, everything felt alien.

He checked the familiar communication frequencies, trying to find familiar network channels but all he got was static. The blue canopy of the forest obstructed his view of the sky, but Ren was starting to suspect all he’d find would be unfamiliar constellations.

Trying to curtail his excitement, Ren reevaluated his situation. ‘Need to be careful going forward because I am pretty sure I am not on Earth or any of its colonies,’ he thought to himself.

[ Hmph! Do not disappoint me now. Our ships are still hitched together. And until I am free of your juvenile hands, you are not allowed to cower ]

“What? You heard that?” he frowned. “I was not talking to you!”

[ Heheheheh ] A sinister laugh echoed through Ren’s mind. [ Better get used to it runt! Your feeble m— ]

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

The voice ended abruptly as Ren concentrated, isolating the errant code and locking it away in his mind. He might not be able to scrub himself clean of the chatty bug, but he had ample experiences dealing with it over the years. The isolation wouldn’t last long, but Ren appreciated the silence.

With that dealt with, he returned to his original thought. Ren doubted Ragnod was the strongest person in this new world. In fact he seemed to be in his early twenties. If the man could put out such power, Ren was not willing to die at the hands of someone older and stronger. Not when he had finally found a new world to explore to his nuclear core’s content.

Sighing at the reminder of his nuclear core, Ren wiggled his arm free of a looping vine and released one of his daggers. Shifting to get enough leverage, he immediately began cutting the vines surrounding his tangled legs. The one thing he had realized over the last few minutes was that time was of the essence.

While he had been speaking with the crazed voice, a different thread of his mind had also been looking through his body’s diagnosis report and the outlook was not good. Alerts flooded the report, pointing to the litany of issues he had amassed during his transition through the blackhole. The most severe of these issues was the radiation poisoning that his repair nanites were currently struggling to contain.

Looking within, Ren saw that his core had sustained damage during the transition and its structural integrity had been compromised. The core was physically located several inches below his mechanized heart. It was the culmination of generations of scientific breakthroughs and research, built with lab generated materials that were so classified, that simple knowledge of their names had gotten quite a few people killed over the years.

Within his core, a complex system of compartments existed, each serving a specific purpose and capable of isolation. One such compartment housed a formidable nuclear reactor, responsible for generating the immense power required to fuel his AI software and overall body function. Another heavily sealed compartment housed the hardware and software controlling everything that was Ren. Other compartments contained redundant storage, code or hardware, usually to act as a failsafe in case of disaster.

Alas, the current issue that Ren faced with his nuclear reactor, was a more delicate issue. After conducting exhaustive diagnostics and assessments, he reluctantly arrived at a grim conclusion. Without immediate access to a suitable workshop and a team of specialized technicians, his lifespan dwindled to a mere four weeks, after which a catastrophic nuclear meltdown would be inevitable. Time was against him, and the search for a solution had become a race against the ticking clock of his impending fate.

Ren shook his head at the injustice of it all. He had finally found a new world to reignite his spark for life, staving off the century-old boredom that had plagued him, and now he would only get a few weeks to enjoy it. After cutting through the last of the vines, he made his way down the tree and then tried to use his built-in compass to find his bearings. It took a few seconds for Ren to determine that the compass was completely useless.

The compass’s North and South pole readings kept changing places. He would need to recalibrate the device to function on this world’s magnetic poles. He then checked the status of his commonly used subroutines. Not good. Apparently a lot of his subroutines were either functioning incorrectly or had crashed. He had already previously run a quick diagnosis when he first woke up, so he knew that the majority of his damage was present before he became a human punching bag.

‘I guess jumping into a black hole was not exactly the smartest thing to do’, Ren thought wryly. Either way, this was quickly shaping up to be one of the best days of his life.

Without any better idea, he decided to make his way back to the clearing where he met the two human locals. On his way back, his sensors picked up ten heat signatures up ahead, when he was expecting two. Carefully making his way forward, he was curious as to how the local man had gotten backup to the site of their scuffle so quickly.

Shrugging, he continued his silent approach towards the clearing. Since he was hopelessly lost, Ren planned to remain hidden, shadowing the group as they eventually made their way back to civilization. He had no intention of introducing himself. From the reception he had received from Ragnod, he was sure the only response he would get would be a sword skewering his heart – the useless thing.

Too much hassle.

Shortly afterwards, Ren heard the sounds of tearing flesh accompanied with low growls. Instincts honed over centuries of assassinations kicked in, and he immediately activated his camouflage subroutine. He expected to immediately blend in with the surrounding roots, trees and underbrush. Instead, portions of his body turned invisible while the rest flickered in and out of view, in a dizzying display that drew attention instead of pushing it away.

Shit. Ren thwacked himself hard, on the head.

Surprisingly, that did the trick. He finally turned invisible, the light bending around him as he snuck ahead. Crouching and walking on the balls of his feet, he made his way to the closest tree at the edge of the clearing, making sure to avoid the loose twigs and uneven stones littering the uneven forest floor.

Peering cautiously from behind the towering tree trunk, Ren's nose was assaulted with the strong smell of blood and ruptured stomach juices. The scene was just as gruesome as the smell. Ren's mind raced with curiosity as he bore witness to the savagery unfolding before him.

Two monstrous wolf-like creatures, each standing a menacing seven feet tall, stood guard just a few feet away from the eviscerated remains of the unfortunate human he had struck with his dagger. Their magnificent reddish fur gleamed in the dim light, and their enormous heads bore a chilling resemblance to the wolves he remembered from Earth, only much larger and equipped with menacing 9-inch fangs. Ren's mind instinctively made a connection, likening them to the ferocious creatures from ancient lore known as direwolves.

Despite the blood staining their powerful muzzles, the gigantic direwolves seemed strangely placid as they stood watch over the scene. Behind them, eight smaller direwolves engaged in a savage frenzy, battling amongst themselves for the choicest pieces of their unfortunate prey. Ren couldn't help but notice how amidst the savage frenzy, occasional glimpses of affectionate gazes were exchanged between the behemoth guardians, pride radiating off of them as they stood sentinel over their overly ravenous offspring feeding on the corpse.

The air was filled with growls, yelps and the squelching of bloodied entrails being torn out of the body. Ren stood transfixed, mesmerized with the unexpected display. These magnificent creatures seemed to communicate amongst themselves as they fed, but most importantly, Ren could see the same strange energy he had observed in Ragnod, flowing through their fur-covered bodies.

Suddenly, an overwhelming wave of dizziness washed over Ren, threatening to send him tumbling to the ground. With sheer determination, he managed to steady himself, stifling a gasp.

Time Left till Meltdown = 29 days >

Ren swore silently at the unfortunate timing. The alert was disturbing but he couldn’t focus on that at the moment. It really couldn't have come at a worse time as his slight movement did not go unnoticed by the alert direwolves. As if connected by an unseen thread, all ten creatures tensed simultaneously, their growls directed toward the very tree behind which Ren hid from view. The air crackled with tension, and the forest seemed to hold its breath, in response to the bloodlust rolling off of the pack of direwolves.

“Damn, you got me.” Ren chuckled ruefully at the snarling beasts, dropping his failing camouflage and stepping out from behind the tree. He had been content observing their feeding habits but now that they had found him, they wouldn’t let go.

Well, if they insisted on a fight, Ren was more than happy to oblige. Afterall, it had been a while since his Knife had been treated to a proper bloodbath. What better opportunity could he find than a family of mythical direwolves begging to be carved up?