'That portal really messed me up.'

  The potion was still healing Chris’s body. The pain was bearable but sharp in his lower half; every inhale seemed to make it worse, so he kept his breaths short. He looked around. Everything felt…wrong. The air filled him with strange energy and a stronger ache at the same time.

  “Hurry! There isn’t much time.”

  The voice echoed in his head, pulling him toward its source. As the tug grew stronger, Chris didn’t notice that the hill he’d been climbing ended beneath him. He tumbled down the slope and fell into a shallow river, cutting and bruising himself, but was lucky enough to avoid anything serious. He still had some luck without the system.

  'Fuck. I should pay more attention to my surroundings.'

  He stood up and splashed some water on his face. The water was clear as a mirror, but his motions made ripples. As he looked into it, he realized that his face seemed different. He wanted to pay a closer look, but as he waited for the water to settle, he heard the voice calling to him. This time, it sounded worried:

  “Hide! They are coming! Hide now!”

  Chris dove behind an old log and flattened himself to the ground. He found a crack in the wood that let him peer at the newcomers: men clad in black, straw hats rimmed with black velvet.

  “We greet the elder, Phantom Blade!” They knelt and offered the familiar salute, with their right fist in their left palm, and bowed.

  “Enough with the pleasantries.” He liked their attention. “Give me your mission reports,” He replied coldly.

  Two men stepped forward.

  “Squad one intercepted and eliminated the heir of the Baek family. No witnesses.”

  The second man stammered:

  “Squad two….found the target, but it escaped. We poisoned….”

  He never finished; his head flew from his shoulders in a spray of blood. The elder wiped his blade on the dead man’s clothes and sheathed it.

  Chris froze. His fidgeting dislodged a few pebbles that made a tiny sound. The elder glanced toward the log, but before he could investigate, another man began speaking.

  “We are sorry, sir. We aren’t worth living as we failed our mission, but we managed to leave a tracking mark on her.”

  He looked into the dead man's pockets and pulled out a piece of paper with strange glowing letters.

  “I’ll let you live for now as you manage to get the mission back on track.” He snatched the paper from the scared man's hand. “Our target is close to us. Don’t screw up this time, if you all want to keep your lives. Go, I’ll catch up.”

  The others left, but before the elder left, he swung his sword in the log’s direction, slicing the timber in half, inches from Chris’s head

  'That geezer almost gave me a haircut.'

  A line of sweat went down his nose. He stayed motionless for half an hour before the voice whispered again.

  “Quickly find me before them. There is not much time.”

  'You want me to go toward them? I’ll be dead before I reach you.'

  He waited for an answer, but it never came.

  'Now you are staying silent.'

  Before he continued his perilous journey, he took another glimpse at his system. There were still two hours before it rebooted.

  'Ok, Chris. You can do it. Just go through the forest, it's a small detour.'

  He managed to regain his courage and went on his way through the forest. The forest seemed different from Earth’s forests. The trees were so tall that their crowns disappeared into the sky, but they looked normal before he entered it. As he went deeper into the forest, the tree trunks were getting wider and their roots began twisting above ground, taking monstrous forms. It might be because he was exhausted, but he felt like these monstrous statues began following his every move. Then he heard a rustle.

  “Whose there?” He was getting restless.

  'I’m so stupid. There is no one here. I’m just imagining things.'

  Then his fears became true. From above, he heard a low growl, and leaves began falling on him. He scarily lifted his head to look; he could distinguish some animal forms with flaming eyes. Chris began to slowly move from his spot, trying not to bother the creatures, but he stumbled on a tree root and fell on his ass. The creatures began howling and fixated their fiery gazes on Chris.

  'Can this day get any worse?'

  He quickly stood up and began running; he didn’t want to see if he was on their diet. Some of them commenced chasing him on the ground, others leapt from the branches. Chris tried to look back to better see his pursuers, but could only distinguish some shadowy forms before he had to turn his head in front to see where he was going.

  He ran, and ran and ran using his last reserves of strength, but he still couldn’t outrun them. He could feel their stinky breath on the back of his neck. By going through thorny bushes, he tried to get some ground, but the only thing he managed to do was to cut himself on them. The forest became a maze, and he became the mouse that tried to find the exit to get the cheese; the difference was that he wanted to keep his life.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  As he ran, the ground shook and split open into a widening gorge that looked like a hungry mouth. Chris leapt and caught the edge with both hands, hauling himself out. He lay on his back and tried to catch his breath.

  'I hate this place.'

  Still on his back, he waited to regain his strength, but his alone time was interrupted by that annoying voice.

  “That’s it. You are almost at the finish line.”

  'Couldn’t you have warned me that the forest was cursed?'

  Again silence.

  'You're going to keep this silent treatment. Do as you want, but I’ll give you a piece of my mind when I find you.'

  He cleaned himself, then when he looked back, the chasm and the creatures were gone.

  'What is going on? Am I on some drugs?'

  Chris pressed on in the direction the voice pulled him. The system still had one hour left in its update.

  'Fuck, it felt like I ran for hours, but it was one damn hour. Fuck this world and screw you, Marvin, for involving me. I hope you get chewed on by a stray dog.'

  He kicked a stone, then started moving. As he moved, he realized that the forest was now normal, no tall trees and no more blood thirsty monsters to chase him.

  For a time, he walked like he was taking a stroll before a fog appeared and swallowed him. He slowed his pace to make sure that he wouldn’t fall into another chasm. Chris tried to grope every tree he encountered to find a safe way, but from nowhere, he touched something rocky; it was a stone wall. He followed the wall through the fog until he came to a huge cave entrance. A force pulled him inward.

  'Alright, alright, I’m coming in.'

  The cave system was something that he had never seen. The main tunnel was covered by small formations of purple crystals, which began emitting light as he went along the wall. The tunnel ended in a huge dark room, but when he took the first step, the room was lit up by the huge crystals.

  Chris came closer to one of the crystals; his image was beginning to show on it, but then he heard a sound from the middle of the room, something slithering. He moved his gaze from the crystal to the direction the sound came from.

  “Is somebody there?” His gaze rushed to the ceiling.

  In the middle of the room, a huge crystal was growing from the ceiling, casting its light onto a gigantic, night-black scaled egg.”

  “It must have been hard for the mother to push that out.”

  “It wasn’t that hard.” A woman's voice echoed in the cave.

  Chris spun, sword drawn, and scanned the darkness. The voice replied from the shadows, calm and amused.

  “Don’t worry, Yong-Su. I’m an old friend of your family.”

  “You’ve got the wrong person,” Chris said, steadying his grip.

  He heard something slithering again, and he pointed his sword in the direction of the sound, but couldn’t see anything.

  “You are so jumpy. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it from the moment you took your first step in the cave.”

  “You too would’ve been the same if you had almost gotten your head cut off or if you had been chased by murderous monsters in this damned forest.”

  “I can’t find any fault with your logic, just that I, too, was hunted down by those killers, and those monsters that chase you were an illusion made by this natural formation. They might have been illusions, but you could’ve lost your mind.”

  “They were talking about you.” He put everything together. “I don’t see why you involved me in this?”

  “You were involved in this far longer than you had known, but for someone who should be dead, you look pretty good.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I just got here. How can I be dead?”

  “Oh, little prince, you were dead, I saw it with my own eyes. You fooled them and me. I thought you were dead, but I felt you again after I escaped their pursuit.”

  “I’m telling you, you're confusing me with someone else.”

  “Look behind you, you are Baek Yong-Su, the heir of the Baek family.”

  Chris turned back to the crystal and saw a different reflection: sharp cheekbones, narrow, steady eyes, black hair tied in a topknot, a faint scar across the left cheek. It wasn’t his face.

  “This is not me.”

  The voice took a deep breath.

  “I can see now, Baek Yong-Su is dead.”

  A giant scaly tail quickly pinned Chris down. Then a huge snake’s head emerged from the dark and inspected him from head to toe.

  “Then who might you be?”

  “I’ll tell you if you stop crushing me.” Chris snapped.

  The snake loosened her grip but coiled her tail around him.

  “My name is Chris. The Celestial Carver employed me to eliminate Jang Wol. I don’t know how I ended up in this man’s body.”

  The serpent tasted the air with her forked tongue.

  “You are one of those reapers of legend.” She said slowly. “This is the first time I’ve seen one possess a corpse.”

  “This was my first mission.” He said. “I didn’t know I could do it.”

  “This is going to make me change my plans, but you will do.”

  “Wait! I don’t know what you are planning, but you should find another person.”

  “I would if I had more time, but as my time is ticking and you are the only one carrying the Baek bloodline, you have to help me.”

  “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I’m sorry for my bad manners. My name is Eun-Hwa. I’m the guardian of the Baek family.”

  She let go of Chris and coiled around the egg. Now that the crystal light was on her, Chris could see her beautiful white scales and her crystal blue eyes, but some of her scales were smeared by the blood that was flowing from her wounds.

  “You are gravely injured; we have to do something.”

  “It’s too late for me. Their poison is already coursing through me, unraveling both body and soul. Would you mind listening to an old woman’s request?”

  Chris slid closer to hear her dying words.

  In another place, in the farthest corner of creation, an unknown figure emerges from its slumber.

  –Unknown place outside time and space–

  “Master, our hound has found the vessel you sought, but we have a problem.”

  The shadows writhed and merged, shaping themselves into a humanoid figure that sank onto a throne.

  “Finally, after millennia, we can end this game of cat and mouse. Where is it?”

  “It found him in a transport portal made by those pesky people from that dammed firm.”

  “So Saddar got his hands first on him.”

  “The problem is that the tunnel collapsed, and it lost its scent in the void.”

  “Argh!” The figure tore open the surrounding space with a flick of his hand.

  “Please control your anger, master. We lost him for now, but we know where he was going.”

  “Send the hound to catch him and pray that it’ll find him.”

  Before the figure merged again with the shadows, he flicked his hand again and mended the distorted space.

  “As you command, master. It shall be done.”