"You know," Yuki’s voice mused from beside him. "If you hadn’t stranded us between worlds, that would’ve actually been impressive."

Damon took a couple of ragged breaths before turning to the rift core.

"No treasure chest?"

He raised a brow as he looked around the core and found nothing near it.

"No two S-Rank rifts are the same. There are always differences, sometimes unnoticeable, but there still are."

Damon nodded and didn’t dwell on it, he didn’t have the luxury of time to do so.

He turned his sword back into the glove before moving swiftly toward the core, raising his arm quickly toward it.

[Mana Absorption Activated.]

[...]

[...]

Yuki stood beside Damon with a slight unease as she watched the process, which seemed to be taking longer this time.

The sharp tug he felt last time started as a faint sensation which slowly escalated to the same burning tug, and just as it reached a very uncomfortable threshold—

[You have absorbed 921 Mana]

The core dissolved in Damon’s grip the second the notification rang.

Just like last time, their surroundings changed, but this time, not so differently. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

After a slow moment of disorientation, Damon looked around to see that they were still inside a jungle, very familiar to the one inside the rift, just a lot larger in scale and without the jagged lines across the sky.

"So," Damon suddenly spoke. "Ready to explore another world?"

Yuki looked sideways, giving him a look that said she would rather not, but had no choice.

Damon took a single step forward, trying to look for any more changes to their surroundings, and in that moment, the world tilted.

The sudden surge of mana inside his body twisted violently all at once, far worse than before. It no longer felt like energy flooding through him.

It felt invasive.

His vision blurred instantly as purple lightning and black ice materialised uncontrollably across his arms.

"...Damon?"

Yuki’s voice sounded strangely distant.

He tried to answer, but his attempt at speaking failed before it even began.

A violent pulse slammed through his chest, and for a brief moment, it felt as though every vein in his body had been filled with liquid lightning.

His knees gave out.

Yuki reacted immediately, catching him before he could collapse face-first into the ground.

"Damon!"

The world spun violently around him.

The blue jungle stretched and distorted while the distant sounds of unfamiliar wildlife blurred into meaningless noise.

Then everything went black.

***

When consciousness finally returned, the first thing Damon noticed was warmth.

The second was softness.

He frowned slightly before slowly opening his eyes.

Blue leaves swayed gently high above him as sunlight filtered through the massive canopy overhead in scattered streaks.

For several long seconds, his mind remained completely blank.

Then he realised his head wasn’t resting on the ground.

It was resting on something significantly softer.

Damon blinked a couple of times before slowly tilting his gaze upward.

Yuki looked down at him with an unreadable expression.

"...You alive?" she asked flatly.

Damon stared at her for a moment.

"...Yeah."

Only then did he fully realise his head was resting on her thigh.

A faint breeze shifted through the jungle around them, stirring strands of Yuki’s jet black hair slightly as she sat against the base of one of the massive trees.

He propped himself up, wincing at the sharp sensation still lingering inside his abdomen.

"That did not feel good," he murmured, more to himself than to her.

Then he spoke up louder, clearly toward Yuki this time. "How long was I out for?"

"Hmm, around thirty minutes."

Damon nodded. ’Not too long then. That’s good.’

He took a moment to get used to the sensation of overflowing mana before rising to his feet.

"Any nearby rifts?" he asked.

The tension in Yuki’s shoulders eased slightly upon the question.

She didn’t answer right away. She extended her arm gently toward Damon, who took it and helped her rise to her feet.

Only once she patted down her dress did she answer. "No. I haven’t seen or sensed anything nearby."

Damon frowned slightly at Yuki’s answer.

No nearby rifts meant they were stranded here for now, which, considering it was an alien world, was not ideal.

He rolled his shoulder slowly, trying to ignore the lingering pressure beneath his skin. The overflowing mana still hadn’t settled properly. Every movement carried a faint crackling sensation through his body, as though lightning was crawling beneath his veins.

"...You alright?" Yuki asked quietly.

"Never been better," he replied.

A faint snort escaped her before her ears suddenly twitched sharply.

Both of them froze.

The jungle had gone silent.

She listened to that silence with a keen focus before her ears twitched once more.

This time, Damon had also noticed it.

The distant sounds that had quietly filled the forest moments ago had vanished completely. No rustling leaves. No distant cries. Nothing.

Only the slow sway of the massive blue canopy overhead remained.

Yuki’s gaze shifted deeper into the jungle.

"...Something’s there."

Damon narrowed his eyes.

At first, he saw nothing except layers of dark blue vegetation stretching endlessly between the colossal trees.

Then the shadows moved.

Not in a quick or particularly aggressive way.

Something enormous shifted far between the trunks and the sheer size of it made Damon’s eyes narrow slightly.

The trees here were massive.

And yet, whatever had just moved behind them was even bigger.

A low sound echoed through the jungle.

Not a growl or rustle of trees, but something heavy.

The ground trembled faintly beneath their feet.

Yuki instinctively shifted closer toward him while Damon turned his glove into a sword.

But before he could go and check what it was, Yuki’s voice came from beside him.

"...Wait."

Something felt wrong.

The creature hadn’t approached them.

Another tremor rolled through the jungle.

Then a second sound echoed in the distance, this time a lot more recognisable. Sharp and metallic like chains being dragged across stone.

Damon’s expression changed instantly as he realised the sound wasn’t coming from one direction, but from all around them.

The enormous creature hidden between the trees suddenly moved again.

This time, it burst through the jungle.

A gigantic blue-furred beast crashed between the trees in full panic, tearing through vegetation as it ran directly toward them.

No.

Not toward them.

It pivoted to the side, bouncing off nearby trees as it ran away from something right behind it.

And then Damon saw it.

A tall figure slowly stepping out from the darkness between the trees, dragging countless chains behind it.