Consciousness returned like a slap to the face—sudden, painful, and accompanied by the immediate awareness that everything hurt.
Aeon found himself sprawled on rough stone, his body aching from what felt like a fall onto unforgiving rock. The sewage had been cleaned from his skin by whatever force had transported him through the portal, but his tattered slave rags remained filthy and torn.
Flickering torchlight danced across ancient stone walls, casting writhing shadows that seemed to move with malevolent purpose. The air was different here—cleaner than the slave camp but carrying an underlying scent of danger, like the moment before a predator strikes.
He forced himself to sit up, wincing as every movement sent fresh waves of pain through his malnourished frame. The dungeon stretched ahead of him in a corridor carved from living rock, its walls adorned with torches that burned with flames that never seemed to consume their fuel.
The pathway twisted and turned, disappearing around a bend to the left. There was no choice but to follow it—behind him lay only the portal entrance, and he knew instinctively that it would not activate again without the crystal he had come to find.
Move. Explore. Survive. Find the crystal.
His bare feet made no sound on the stone floor as he began walking, staying close to the wall where the shadows were deepest. Every instinct screamed that this place was dangerous, that something was watching him from the darkness beyond the torchlight.
He had taken perhaps thirty steps when movement ahead caught his eye.
Aeon immediately pressed himself against the wall, his heart hammering as he peered around a jutting piece of stone. What he saw made his blood freeze.
A creature stood in the corridor ahead—roughly humanoid but wrong in every detail. Green-gray skin stretched over a wiry frame, pointed ears that twitched at every sound, and yellow eyes that gleamed with predatory intelligence. It carried a crude stone axe in gnarled hands, the weapon clearly designed for splitting skulls rather than chopping wood.
A goblin. His memories from his previous life supplied the term, drawn from countless fantasy stories and games. But this wasn't a cartoon caricature or a game enemy that would politely wait its turn to attack.
This was a living predator that would tear him apart without hesitation.
I need a weapon.
Aeon's eyes searched the ground around him desperately. No discarded swords, no conveniently placed daggers. Just rough stone, scattered debris, and—there. A chunk of rock about the size of his fist, heavy enough to serve as a crude club.
His scarred fingers closed around the stone, and he tried to formulate a plan. The goblin was larger than him, stronger, and armed with a real weapon. But it hadn't noticed him yet, and surprise might be his only advantage.
Hit it hard. Hit it fast. Don't give it time to react.
Aeon crept forward, staying in the shadows until he was within striking distance. The goblin's back was turned as it examined something on the ground—possibly the remains of a previous dungeon challenger.
He raised the rock above his head and brought it down with all the force his weakened body could muster.
The stone struck the goblin's skull with a wet crack, sending it stumbling forward. But instead of collapsing, the creature spun around with a snarl of rage, yellow eyes blazing with fury and pain.
Oh, shit.
The goblin's stone axe whistled through the air where Aeon's head had been a moment before. Only his reflexes, honed by years of avoiding overseers' whips, saved him from immediate decapitation.
But the creature was far from finished.
The next swing caught Aeon across the ribs, the flat of the axe blade sending him sprawling across the stone floor. Pain exploded through his torso as already-damaged ribs screamed in protest. Blood filled his mouth as he rolled desperately to avoid the goblin's follow-up attack.
The axe blade sparked against stone where his head had been.
Aeon scrambled backward on hands and knees, the rock he had used as a weapon lost somewhere in the melee. The goblin advanced methodically, its initial rage settling into the calculated patience of a predator that knew its prey was trapped.
Think. What does it want? What are its weaknesses?
The goblin raised its axe for another killing blow, and Aeon did the only thing desperation allowed—he threw himself forward, inside the weapon's arc, and drove his shoulder into the creature's legs.
They went down together in a tangle of limbs and fury.
The goblin was stronger, but Aeon had the advantage of desperation and the knowledge that losing this fight meant death. He clawed at the creature's face, targeting its eyes with his broken fingernails while trying to pin its weapon arm.
The goblin's response was to sink its teeth into his shoulder.
Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced shot through Aeon's body as pointed teeth tore through muscle and scraped against bone. He screamed—a sound of pure agony that echoed off the dungeon walls—but didn't let go.
Instead, he drove his knee upward into the goblin's abdomen, forcing it to release its bite. Blood ran down his arm in rivulets, but he was still alive, still fighting.
The goblin tried to bring its axe around in the confined space, but the weapon was too unwieldy for close combat. Aeon managed to grab the creature's wrist, using both hands to control the weapon while they rolled across the stone floor.
Pin it. Get on top. Don't let it use its strength advantage.
Through a combination of luck and determination, Aeon managed to get his knees on either side of the goblin's chest, trapping its arms beneath his legs. The stone axe clattered away across the floor, finally out of reach.
But the fight was far from over.
The goblin bucked and twisted beneath him, trying to throw him off while snapping at him with those razor-sharp teeth. Its claws raked across his arms and chest, opening new wounds to join the collection of scars that already covered his body.
Aeon raised his fist and brought it down into the creature's face.
The first blow barely seemed to register. The second split the goblin's lip and sent black blood spraying across the stone. The third crushed its nose with an audible crack.
But still it fought.
Keep hitting. Don't stop. Can't stop.
Aeon's world narrowed to the rhythm of violence—raise fist, strike down, feel the impact, raise fist again. His knuckles split against the goblin's skull, sending his own blood mingling with the creature's. His hand screamed in agony as bones cracked and shifted, but he couldn't stop.
The goblin's struggles grew weaker with each blow. Its yellow eyes, once bright with predatory intelligence, began to dim. Black blood pooled beneath its head, mixing with the red of Aeon's own wounds.
Still he kept hitting.
Even when the goblin stopped moving, even when its eyes rolled back to show only whites, even when it was clearly dead, Aeon continued to punch the ruined remains of its skull.
Never again. Never helpless again. Never victim again.
It was only when his right fist finally refused to close anymore that he stopped. His hand was a mangled ruin of broken bones and torn flesh, barely recognizable as human. Blood covered everything—his arms, his chest, the stone floor, the goblin's corpse.
But he was alive.
He had killed a monster with nothing but determination and his bare hands.
Aeon rolled off the goblin's body and lay on the cold stone, gasping for breath and trying to process what had just happened. The pain in his hand was excruciating, but underneath the agony was something else—a fierce satisfaction that came from proving he was not helpless prey.
In his previous life, he had been ground down by systems designed to exploit and discard him. In his new existence, he had been literally treated as disposable garbage.
But here, in this moment, he had fought back and won.
The goblin was dead, and he was alive.
It was a start.