The last thing Kaito saw was a screen.
A flat, white screen. It was mounted on a pale green hospital wall. A single, steady green line cut across it. A flatline. His flatline.
He felt no pain. No fear. Just a dull, tired acceptance. The long battle was over. The cancer had won. His body, worn and thin from years of fighting, finally stopped. He was gone.
So this is it, he thought. Nothingness. The end.
But then, there was something.
A sound. Not the steady beep of a heart monitor. This was a roar. A deep, guttural, hungry roar. It vibrated in the air. It shook the world.
Kaito gasped.
Air flooded his lungs. It was cold. It was sharp. It was clean. It burned in a way the sterile hospital air never did. He opened his eyes.
The white ceiling tiles were gone. Gone were the fluorescent lights. Gone was the smell of antiseptic.
Above him stretched a canopy of leaves. They were thick and a vibrant, impossible green. They filtered light from a strange sky. Two pale moons hung in a lavender twilight. Strange, slow-moving clouds drifted between them.
"What…?"
His voice was rough. It was his own voice, but stronger. He pushed himself up. His hands sank into soft, damp moss. He was not in a bed. He was on the ground. In a forest.
Towering trees rose around him. They were wider than any redwood he had ever seen. Their bark was dark and textured. Bioluminescent fungi glowed on their trunks in patches of blue and soft green. The air smelled of rain and rich earth. It smelled of something sweet, like unknown flowers.
He looked at his hands. They were his hands, but different. No IV lines were taped to the back. No bruises from needles dotted his skin. They were whole. They were young. They were strong. The knuckles were pronounced. The fingers were straight and unmarked by sickness.
A memory flashed. The hospital bed. The weightless feeling. His sister's tear-streaked face by his side. Her hand clutching his. His final, quiet exhale. The sound of her crying fading away.
Did I… get isekai'd?
The thought was absurd. It was a trope. A cliché from the countless light novels he'd read to pass the time during chemo. A fantasy for lonely, dying people. A story. Not real.
Another roar cut through the air. It was closer this time. Much closer. The sound made the moss beneath him tremble. The ground itself seemed to shake.
Fantasy or not, the danger felt utterly, completely real.
Kaito scrambled to his feet. His body moved. It moved with a fluid, coordinated strength he hadn't known in years. He wore simple, sturdy clothes—a greyish tunic and trousers made of some unknown, tough material. He had no shoes. The cool moss felt alien under his bare feet.
A shadow fell over him. It was large. It blotted out the soft light from the twin moons.
He looked up.
A creature stood between the trees. It was a wolf, but built like a bear. It had matted, grey fur streaked with white. Eyes like hot coals glowed in the gloom of the forest. Thick drool dripped from jaws lined with teeth as long as daggers. It was the size of a car. It stared right at him. It was hungry.
Instinct took over. Run.
Kaito turned and fled. His heart hammered against his ribs. It wasn't the weak, fluttering heartbeat of his sick body. It was a powerful, terrified, pounding rhythm. It roared in his ears.
Roots snaked across the forest floor, trying to trip him. Low branches whipped at his face and arms. He ran without direction. The beast's thunderous footsteps pounded the earth behind him. They were closing fast. He could hear its heavy, panting breath.
I just died! I can't die again! Not like this! Not eaten by a monster!
His mind raced. It was the mind of a programmer. A problem-solver. He needed data. He needed information. He needed to understand the rules of this new world.
As if hearing his desperate thought, a blue, semi-transparent screen flickered into existence before his eyes. It hovered in the air. It moved with his gaze.
[System Initializing…]
[Welcome, User: Kaito.]
[World Designation: Elysia. Threat Level: High.]
[Basic Functions Enabled.]
He stumbled, nearly falling face-first over a root. The screen stayed perfectly centered in his vision.
It's real. A System. Just like the stories.
The wolf snapped at his heels. He could feel the rush of air from its jaws. He could smell its rancid, meaty breath.
[Alert: Hostile Entity Detected.]
[Frost-Fang Alpha. Lvl 12.]
[Recommendation: Evasion. Combat Not Advised.]
"No kidding!" he yelled, his voice choked with panic. He veered sharply around a giant, glowing tree.
The path ended. Suddenly. The trees parted to reveal open air. A cliff dropped away into a deep, misty ravine. A dead end. A sheer drop to rocks far below.
Kaito skidded to a halt. Moss and dirt scattered under his bare feet. He turned, his back to the terrifying drop.
The Frost-Fang Alpha stalked forward. It was no longer running. It knew he was trapped. A low, continuous growl rumbled from its chest. The sound vibrated in Kaito's own bones. It was savoring this moment.
Think. The System. It said functions were enabled. What functions?
He focused on the blue screen. Another window appeared instantly beside the alert.
[Status]
Name: Kaito
Level: 1
HP: 50/50
MP: 30/30
Title: Otherworlder
Skills: [Analyze Lvl 1], [Mana Bolt Lvl 1], [Enhanced Cognition Lvl 1]
[Inventory]
Empty.
[Glitch Meter: 0%]
Skills. He had skills. He wasn't completely helpless.
The wolf crouched. Its powerful muscles coiled like springs. It was going to pounce. This was it.
"Mana Bolt!" Kaito screamed, thrusting a hand out toward the beast.
A pathetic spark, no bigger than a firefly, sputtered from his fingertip. It fizzed weakly in the air for a moment and died. It didn't even travel a foot.
The Frost-Fang's glowing eyes seemed to gleam with cruel amusement. It lunged.
Kaito threw himself to the side. Claws as long as knives ripped through the air where his head had been. He hit the ground hard. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs. He rolled.
The beast was faster. It was a blur of grey. A massive paw slammed down. It pinned him to the mossy ground. Claws like iron spikes dug into the flesh of his shoulders.
Agony erupted. It was white and hot and total. He screamed. His vision swam.
On the edge of his vision, his HP bar flickered and dropped drastically: 22/50.
The creature's hot, stinking breath washed over him. Its maw opened wide. The dagger-teeth glistened. It descended toward his face. Death, for the second time in minutes, stared him down.
His mind went quiet. The panic, the fear, the pain—all of it crystallized into a single, cold, sharp point of focus. A single skill name glowed in his mind.
Enhanced Cognition.
He activated it.
The world slowed. Or his perception of it did. He saw everything with impossible clarity. He saw the individual coarse hairs on the wolf's muzzle. He saw the gleam of saliva on each yellowed tooth. He saw the subtle contraction of the muscles in its neck and jaw as it prepared to bite down and crush his skull.
He saw more. He saw the pattern of pressure from the massive paw pinning him. He saw a tiny, almost invisible tremor in the pad of that paw. A point of instability. A weakness.
He couldn't move his arms. They were trapped under the weight. But he could move his hand. Just a little. He twisted his wrist. He focused all his will. All his fear. All his desperate, screaming desire to live into his fingertips.
"Mana Bolt!"
This time, it wasn't a shout of panic. It was a cold, hard command.
A sphere of compressed blue energy, the size of a marble, shot from his index finger. It wasn't aimed at the beast's tough head or body. It was aimed at the sensitive, fleshy pad of the paw pinning him down.
It hit its mark.
A small, sharp crack of energy sounded. The Frost-Fang yelped. It was a sound of pure surprise and sudden pain. The pressure on Kaito's shoulders eased. Just for a split second. A fraction of a moment.
It was enough.
He jerked his upper body free with a cry of effort and pain. He kept firing. "Mana Bolt! Mana Bolt! Mana Bolt!"
He fired wildly, not aiming now, just trying to drive it back. Each bolt was a little stronger than the last. They stung the beast's sensitive nose. They sparked against its eyelids. The blue energy crackled against its fur.
The Alpha recoiled. It shook its massive head, snarling in irritation and pain.
Kaito crawled backward. His shoulders were on fire. Blood soaked through his tunic, warm and sticky. The cliff edge was right behind him. He felt empty air at his heels. Nowhere left to go.
The wolf recovered. Its momentary irritation burned away into pure, predatory anger. Its glowing eyes locked on him. This time, there would be no play. No savoring. It would end him.
Kaito's MP was critically low. 5/30. He was bleeding out. His HP ticked down: 15/50. The world started to get fuzzy at the edges. This was it. A few more seconds. That's all he had.
Then he saw it. A new option pulsed on his System screen. A skill he hadn't noticed before. It glowed at the bottom of his status with a dangerous, ominous red light.
[Limit Break: Seed - AVAILABLE]
[Description: Temporarily shatter natural limits. Forces a 300% increase in all parameters for 10 seconds. Warning: Extreme strain on soul and physical vessel. Triggers a Glitch Pulse upon termination.]
[Note: Glitch Meter will reach 100%. Consequences: Unknown.]
A final, desperate gamble. A button that said "break glass in case of emergency" with no instructions on what happened after the glass broke. Unknown consequences.
The Frost-Fang Alpha charged. It was a full-speed, killing charge. Its head was low. Its target was his chest. This was the end.
"Fine," Kaito whispered, tasting his own blood on his lips. "Limit Break. Activate."
Power erupted from his core.
It was not a gentle flow of energy. It was a violent, breaking wave. It felt like every cell in his body was screaming. His veins lit up with fierce blue light under his skin, visible through his flesh. The agony in his shoulders vanished, replaced by a terrifying, humming, overwhelming fullness. He felt like a glass bottle filled to the brim with lightning.
[Limit Break: Seed - ACTIVE]
[Duration: 10… 9…]
Time seemed to stretch. To bend. The charging wolf, moving at blinding speed a moment ago, now seemed to be pushing through thick syrup. Kaito could see every muscle fiber move. He could see the droplets of saliva flying from its jaws in slow motion.
Kaito stood up. He didn't push himself up painfully. He just… rose. Energy crackled around him in visible arcs of blue static. He saw the beast's trajectory. His enhanced mind, now supercharged, calculated its speed, its angle, its point of impact in an instant.
He did not run. He stepped into the charge.
His hand came up. It moved faster than thought. He didn't make a fist. He didn't punch. He simply placed his open palm against the wolf's descending muzzle.
"Stop."
A shockwave of pure, concussive force blasted out from the point of contact. It was silent. It was invisible. But its effect was devastating.
The Frost-Fang Alpha's neck snapped backward with a sickening, audible CRACK. Its entire massive body, all its forward momentum, was reversed in an instant. It lifted off the ground. It flew backward through the air. It slammed into a thick tree trunk twenty feet away with a crushing impact. It crumpled to the base of the tree. It did not move.
[Frost-Fang Alpha defeated. EXP gained.]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
You are now Level 3.
HP/MP restored.
New Skill Unlocked: [Minor Regeneration Lvl 1].
Kaito stared at his hand. The blue light under his skin was fading. The incredible, god-like power was receding. It left a deep, hollow, aching void in its wake. He felt thin. He felt brittle.
[Duration: 2… 1… 0.]
[Limit Break Terminated.]
The crash was instantaneous.
The humming power vanished completely. It was replaced by a fatigue so profound, so total, that his knees buckled immediately. But that was not the worst of it.
A new, terrifying line appeared on his screen, flashing red.
[Glitch Meter: 100%]
[WARNING: Glitch Pulse Imminent.]
A pressure built in his skull. It was not pain. It was wrongness. A vibration started deep in his bones. It wasn't a sound he could hear. It was a distortion he could feel. Like the world was a radio signal starting to lose frequency.
It had to go somewhere. It burst out of him.
A visible wave of shimmering, pixelated air exploded from his body in a perfect circle. It passed through the trees, the moss, the dead wolf. It didn't harm the physical world. But where it went, reality stuttered.
The leaves on the trees flickered between green and a digital, electric blue. The soft light from the twin moons fragmented into broken squares for a second. The very air buzzed with a high-pitched, unnatural static. Then, it was gone. The forest was silent again. The Glitch Meter on his screen reset to 0%.
Kaito collapsed to his hands and knees. He vomited, but there was nothing in his stomach, only bile. His whole body trembled violently. He felt raw. He felt scraped out. He felt like a used battery, cracked and leaking.
What… what was that?
Before he could even begin to process it, a new sound cut through the ringing silence. Not a roar. Not a growl. It was a metallic, clean, harmonious shing. Like a sword being drawn from a divine scabbard.
Light erupted from above. Not the soft moonlight. This was a pure, focused, golden light. It was cleansing. It was severe.
Kaito looked up, squinting against the brilliance.
A figure descended from the canopy. She landed lightly, silently, on the moss between him and the dead wolf. The light coalesced around her, forming armor of brilliant, polished silver and white. It was ornate, beautiful, and looked impossibly strong. A flowing tabard of celestial blue hung from her waist. In her hands was a long spear, its point gleaming with the same holy, piercing light.
She was tall. Her posture was perfectly, unnaturally straight. Hair the color of moonlight spilled from under her helm, framing a face of severe, elegant lines—high cheekbones, a sharp jaw, eyes the piercing blue of glacial ice. She was breathtaking. And she looked utterly, completely terrifying.
Her gaze swept the clearing. It took in the dead Alpha with its broken neck. Then it fell on him. On the trembling, blood-soaked, barefoot young man on the ground. Her expression was one of cold, analytical assessment. There was no warmth there. No mercy.
[Analyze Activated.]
Name: Seraphina
Level: 48
Title: Valkyrie Captain, Celestial Legion
Disposition: Hostile/Confused
Her glacier-eyes locked onto his. The confusion noted in her status warred with the absolute frost in her gaze.
"Identify yourself, anomaly," she commanded. Her voice was like chilled steel. It was clear. It was absolute. It brooked no argument. "What manner of corrupt power was that? And what," she glanced at the dead beast with a slight, disdainful frown, "are you supposed to be?"
To be continued...