He woke up to pain.
Not sharp, not shooting — more like a dull, hot throb running up the side of his ribs and left arm. His shirt stuck to his skin, crusted with blood. Something bandaged his forearm, and something else hovered near his face—warm, almost metallic in smell.
He blinked hard and found Chloe kneeling beside him, pressing a piece of jagged iron across his arm. Her hands glowed faintly where they touched the metal.
"It's not healing magic," she said before he could ask. "I just reshape the material around the wound to hold it tighter. You were lucky. That thing barely missed anything important."
"Still feels important," Yuren muttered, groggy.
She cracked a faint smile. "If you can complain, you're fine."
He sat up slowly, biting back a hiss.
The jungle beyond their small camp was alive again. Screeches and hoots echoed through the trees. The heat was already returning, rising like breath off the ground. The fires had been rebuilt — smaller this time, spaced in a triangle.
"How many did we lose?" he asked.
"Two," Chloe said, her voice tighter. "The runner… and a girl named Lina. The smaller one dragged her back. We couldn't get there in time."
Yuren closed his eyes.
He hadn't even known her name.
The camp had changed.
In ten days, things had gone from chaos to a kind of brutal rhythm.
Denzel and his group had taken over perimeter clearing and hunting.
Chloe and a few others organized supplies, food prep, and makeshift defense drills.
The rest… adapted. They filtered into one group or the other, or they kept their heads down and hoped not to be noticed.
Yuren had healed faster than expected. Nothing supernatural — just grit and rest. And every day, he stayed close to Denzel.
He fetched water when they found a stream. He helped haul lumber. He asked questions about the jungle. Kept pace.
Denzel started calling him "Scout."
Yuren didn't mind.
Not because he liked Denzel — he didn't. The guy was loud, hotheaded, and craved control like it was a drug.
But the Titan Grip power…
Watching it in action was like watching a physics experiment break all the rules.
He'd seen Denzel rip the limb off a smaller predator. Smash a rock the size of a truck tire. Carry an injured woman like she weighed nothing.
It wasn't just strength — it was presence.
Every time Denzel moved, people made room.
Yuren wanted that.
Not for dominance. Not for fear.
But because out here, power was the only safety.
That night, Yuren sat alone near the stream, flexing his hands into fists.
He stared at a boulder across from him — maybe 150 pounds.
He stood. Took a breath. Stepped toward it.
And placed both hands on the edge.
Ten days. One power.
He pushed.
The boulder lifted.
Not easily. Not like Denzel could.
But it moved. Off the ground. Inches. Then more.
Yuren exhaled sharply. Muscles burned across his shoulders. He dropped it before his arms gave out.
A laugh slipped out of him. Not loud. Not long.
But real.
Titan Grip. B-Rank. Copied.
He flexed his fingers again. They felt heavier. Denser.
It was real.
Later, back in camp, he ate quietly beside the fire. The others talked around him — planning hunting groups, rationing dried fruit, debating what the next Fall would bring.
Someone mentioned the sky had changed slightly. Stars shifting.
Someone else joked that maybe Earth was a memory test, and they'd all failed.
Yuren said nothing.
He just stared into the flames.
One power down. Dozens more to go.
This world doesn't want us to survive?
Fine.
He'll do more than survive.
He'll conquer it.
The air smelled like wet ash and crushed leaves.
Yuren crouched near the firepit, slowly turning a skewer of roasted lizard meat over the embers. It was stringy, a little sour, and filled with tiny bones, but no one complained anymore. You ate what didn't try to eat you.
Behind him, Chloe barked quiet instructions to a small group of new foragers. Reika was drawing crude maps into the dirt with a sharpened stick. Denzel's voice carried from deeper in the jungle, yelling at two B-ranks to clear out a downed tree near the west trail.
The camp was stabilizing.
Which didn't mean things were safe.
Just structured.
Ten days had passed since they fell.
Ten days since Gerrard died.
Ten days since Yuren had gained Trace Sense.
And maybe… just maybe… since he'd successfully replicated his first real weapon: Titan Grip.
He still didn't know for sure. There was no notification. No jingle. No fanfare.
Just… instinct.
And growing strength.
Yesterday, he lifted a log that took two others to drag.
This morning, he cracked a palm-sized rock in one hand when startled by a falling branch.
And when he looked at Denzel now — barking orders, flexing like he ruled this prehistoric hell — Yuren didn't feel fear anymore.
Just interest.
And timing.
Later that afternoon, he joined a patrol loop around the southern perimeter — Chloe, Reika, and a guy named Tyrell with an E-rank sonic pulse ability that was mostly good for scaring off birds.
They walked in silence until they found it: a carcass.
Half a predator — something that looked like a saber-toothed panther with scales. Its throat had been torn open.
Chloe examined the wound. "Not a clean kill."
"Not one of ours?" Reika asked.
"No," Yuren said, crouching. Trace Sense lit up like a motion-trail filter in his vision.
There were two movement patterns around the body. One fast and erratic, like a snake on speed. The other heavy, steady, too clean to be a beast.
"Something human killed it," Yuren said. "But not in a fight."
They exchanged glances.
Chloe stood slowly. "Someone's hunting. And not telling us."
That night, a scream rang through camp.
Not fear. Not injury.
Rage.
A man stumbled in from the woods, shirt torn, eyes wild.
"They left him!" he shouted. "They left Jak! They ran and let him die!"
The camp gathered fast. Denzel appeared minutes later, covered in mud and sweat from training.
"Who left who?" he snapped.
The man pointed to a duo from Denzel's crew — two B-ranks on night patrol.
"They ran when the raptor showed up. Didn't even warn us. Just bailed."
Denzel rolled his neck. "So? We lose people. Not my job to babysit cowards."
A few gasps. One person muttered, "You serious?"
"They survived, didn't they?" Denzel snapped. "You want to throw hands over a dead F-rank? We're not building a daycare out here."
The group went quiet.
Yuren didn't speak.
But something shifted in the air.
Lines were being drawn — not on maps. In trust. In fear. In who people looked to when it got dark.
Later, as the fire crackled and the jungle sounds settled into their usual eerie rhythm, Chloe sat beside Yuren near the edge of camp.
She didn't look at him when she spoke.
"Twenty more days until the next Fall."
Yuren nodded.
"We're already breaking."
He didn't answer.
She looked up at him. "If someone stronger than Denzel falls next month—what do you think he'll do?"
Yuren met her eyes.
"Try to kill them."
She nodded. "Yeah. Me too."
Silence again.
Then she stood. "Get some sleep, Scout."
Yuren remained where he was, staring into the flames.
Twenty days. A hundred new powers. A hundred unknowns.
He didn't fear what would come.
He feared what he'd have to become to face it.