Rayon's chest heaved, blood dripping down his chin. His strings crawled across his body like living shadows, stitching torn flesh closed, binding his ruined leg, pulling his shoulder back into place with a wet pop. Every stitch burned, but he didn't care.
He had discovered something new.
The Hollow Strings didn't just kill. They could mend. They dug into his own body, weaving skin and muscle like cloth, wrapping bone until he could stand again. The pain was sharp, constant, but it didn't break him—it made him laugh.
He turned back to the snake. Three heads still hissed weakly, blind and bleeding, its body twitching under his strings. With one last yank, Rayon pulled, his threads sawing deep into its spine. The forest echoed with a scream as the beast collapsed, its massive body splitting in half. Black blood poured like a river, soaking the earth until the ground itself seemed poisoned.
Rayon stood over it, shaking, barely holding himself upright, but smiling wide. "Ugly thing. Thanks for the warm-up."
He thought it was done.
But the forest shook again. Harder this time.
The trees split apart as something larger pushed through. A new serpent slithered into the clearing, its body dwarfing the corpse of the first. This one's scales glimmered with faint patterns like runes, each head crowned with jagged horns. Eleven heads. Eleven pairs of eyes, glowing brighter than fire.
Its hiss was deafening, a chorus of hunger and rage. The ground split where it moved.
Rayon froze, then let out a sharp laugh. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
The beast didn't wait. It lunged. Rayon threw his strings forward, but this serpent was faster, stronger. Its heads struck like whips, crushing trees, tearing earth. One slammed into him before he could dodge. His body flew across the clearing, smashing through stone, blood bursting from his mouth.
He staggered back up, but another head came from above, slamming him into the ground. His ribs snapped, pain exploding through his chest. He coughed, blood filling his throat.
For the first time, Rayon couldn't keep up.
The eleven-headed serpent was not the same class as the first.
These beasts were called Eidolon Serpents, born from the void between creation. They were fragments of forgotten gods, rejected by the world and cursed to hunger forever. Each head symbolized an aspect of chaos—rage, famine, plague, madness. The first serpent had been a young one, a mere Nightmare-class beast. Dangerous, but not unstoppable.
This one was different. This was an Abyss-class Eidolon, far above normal monsters. A calamity that could devour kingdoms if left unchecked.
And their connection to Rayon was clear: the strings. Their bodies pulsed with faint, string-like veins of darkness, the same Hollow essence that Rayon carried. They were creatures born from the same root—the same darkness. His hypnosis would never work on them. No string could control its equal.
The serpent battered him again, smashing him into the dirt. Rayon's suit was shredded, his body bent and broken. Blood pooled beneath him. His vision flickered, his breaths ragged.
But then… something stirred inside him.
Deep. Hidden. Locked away.
The scar on his wrist pulsed with the artifact's glow, but deeper still, another seal answered. His chest burned. The air grew cold. The forest went silent.
A voice, low and hollow, whispered in his skull.
Let me out.
Rayon's eyes widened. He remembered, faintly—his earliest memory wasn't of his mother, or a home. It was a man in full black, faceless, standing over him as a baby. His voice like a knife: This child must be sealed. He carries what should never exist.
Inside Rayon was something else. Something older than the serpents, older than the artifacts, older than the gods. The definition of all things dreadful—madness, chaos, pestilence, dread.
That was why madness didn't break him. Why dread never touched his mind. Why chaos only made him laugh. He was compatible, because the origin of those things slept inside him.
The seal cracked slightly. Just a fraction. And it was enough.
Power seeped out. Dark threads bled from his skin, thicker, heavier, each one dripping with a rot that warped the air around them. His grin stretched wide, teeth red with blood. His eyes glowed faint, hollow.
Rayon pushed himself up, his body half-dead, his mind aflame. He spat blood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Big snake," he rasped, laughing through the blood, "you should've killed me when you had the chance."
He raised his fists—no strings, no tricks, just bare hands slick with gore. His chest rose and fell, broken but unyielding. His grin was the grin of a man who had lost everything but his will to fight.
"Come on," he whispered, eyes locked on the serpent. "Let's see how long I can beat you to death before I drop."
The forest trembled as the eleven-headed monster hissed back.
And the battle of madness began.