Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No… It's just Zayn. And he’s a bit insane.

  — SysAdmin 007, insisting they’re not spreading hateful rhetoric.

  ***

  Zayn woke up dizzy, muscles sore as if he’d pulled them all. Hells... was he fighting the voices in his dreams? He stared at the sky, squinted, and immediately thought he was going crazy, rubbing his eyes.

  That didn’t change anything, so he escalated to the next move—questioning reality itself.

  An oppressive crimson moon loomed in the skies above, so immense that it dominated his vision. Sure, it didn’t look like it would come crashing down, but he’d not be surprised if it did. Stranger things had been happening around him.

  What was this? Dream within a dream? Inception?

  “Ouch.”

  To check whether he was still dreaming, he did the standard dream test, pinching himself, and it hurt more than a stab wound.

  Devoid of its usual warmth, his skin looked as pale as a corpse’s. He could see the veins underneath, and even the lines of blood coursing through them. Aghast, he sat up on his knees, and a strong sense of disorientation struck him nearly unconscious again.

  Graveborn Vitality (Bronze): What happens when you devour too many of something called ‘Gravefruit’?! This! Exactly this!

  Effect: +3 Vitality. Additionally, the closer you are to death, the more effective your vitality is, up to an additional 30%.

  “Graveborn?” He exhaled an icy breath and stretched his arms, finding each of his joints in relatively stable condition—other than the pallid skin. His injuries had healed, and the soreness was just its side effect. “Not even a bad thing.”

  His vitality had been bumped up to nine, which was a good thing; his benefactor would agree. Stats were stats!

  Avoid graves and places with remnant negative mana unless you want to be dragged down by death sprites or undead.

  You’re the one who wants to drag me to my grave the most! He cursed the system.

  Though that made him wonder, did the system itself have a consciousness? Was it a godlike being capable of thought and decision? Or was it more like an algorithm created by some godlike beings? How much control did these System Administrators have over it?

  System admins weren’t writing these warnings and feats; he was sure of it. Unless a system admin was so needlessly free that they were writing these weird descriptions for his real-time situation, customized just to him.

  Funny, somehow that did sound like something Sysadmin007 would do, that bastard.

  Raaaaaaghhhh.

  A thunderous roar sliced at his eardrums, jolting him out of his rampant, disorganized thoughts. He scurried up to his feet and scanned his surroundings.

  He was still high up in a tree, at a height concerning enough to make all his hair stand. His face twitched uncontrollably as he scanned down below. Sure, he’d slept on a high branch, but it wasn’t so goddamn high that he’d be closer to the moon than the ground!

  His feet sank onto the fleshly branches as he carefully made his way back to the trunk. Twisted into a swirl, its dark red skin smelled of burnt chicken skin and had a similar texture. Most importantly, the tree had grown into titanic proportions. Even a hundred of them couldn’t hug around this thing.

  “Fine. Everything is bigger now.” He laughed nervously, taking in the scene in front of him.

  The world had changed yet again. This time way more alien. The landscape resembled the Raddan mountains—sandy terrain with peaks in between. But this was no Raddan Mountains.

  The mountains he danced on had little to no trees. And certainly none with branches twisted like the gnarled hands of an old witch.

  Raaaaaagh

  Loud roaring rang in the distance every so often, and with it, the trees would shake visibly.

  His eyes zeroed in on the distance.

  What the hell was happening over here? Was a goddamn titan having a dance? All he could see were endless sandy dunes. And among those dunes. the blackened, reddish trees at their peaks. The system chimed in, revealing a line of words.

  You are currently witnessing the forgotten history of Eldera.

  A history of what?

  He stretched his neck to see the history the system spoke of, but it seemed just as hidden as it was forgotten. If this were a theatre, he had been given a seat backstage. He could only hear the noises.

  Probably because he didn’t pay for that ticket; movies were expensive.

  Looking around, he contemplated his options. And then, his eyes flashed with a dangerous idea.

  If a rational person found themselves up high in a tree, they would either climb down or at least stay in place and figure out what to do. Zayn wasn’t rational.

  He decided to climb higher.

  Maybe from up there, he would get to see whatever the hell was going on.

  The trunk of the tree was like an arm trying to tear a piece out of the heavens. Favourable for climbing, its slightly sticky skin even held to his hands. However, he felt his bowel contents revolting in disgust as he inhaled the smell of rot and burn.

  “History!” He muttered obsessively, trying to tear the discomfort out of his skin. A weird sense of anticipation kept pounding in his chest.

  What was out there? It had to be enormous.

  Something even larger than the turtle.

  Maybe the Stone Ape? Or perhaps…the dungeon boss?

  He sped up the climb. The occasional swirls and galls on the tree acted as his foothold when he needed to stabilise. As for why the tree was cold despite all the heat, his guess was as good as any. Was it absorbing heat? Or was it releasing cold?

  He must have missed classes where they explained this phenomenon.

  Soon after, Zayn climbed high enough to trigger a sense of disorientation. Each time the land trembled, the tree would follow, swaying faintly. He ignored the height, told himself this was alright, and peered into the distance, hoping to see the cause of...whatever this was.

  And when he finally saw it...no, them, his jaw fell.

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  Stone Ape, Lv ??

  On the horizon, an ape-like figure drummed its chest atop a sandy dune, its titanic limbs streaked red with magma and spike-like extensions. Under the scarlet moon, its faint silhouette resembled King Kong—if King Kong had scarlet streaks across its entire body.

  Its nostril flared, eyes smouldering as it slapped its hands down on the ground. Zayn watched in stupor as it hauled out a molten pillar longer than its body from the land. Holding it like a staff, the gigantic thing leapt in the air, soaring towards the other figure.

  Undead Treant Knight, Lv ??

  It stood on its two thick feet, bulbous back hanging like a grotesque hunch. The muscles on its repulsive body squirmed and extended like a nest of snakes. Stretching and swelling in size, they lashed out a savage slash towards the flying ape.

  Zayn closed his jaw that had almost dislocated from shock.

  What in the Godzilla vs. King Kong was going on?! At least the figure of the Stone Ape struck a sense of familiarity, but the squirming mess, Undead Treant Knight, was way too slithery. Enough to get on his nerves.

  With thunderous blows, they battered at each other, their attacks flattening dunes and trees one after another. Brilliant lights bloomed in the night sky as the molten pillar was split from the impact, lighting everything up with red.

  Sand flew in waves in all directions. He winced as he watched the impact of these things fighting.

  He was supposed to kill THAT THING?!

  "Curse your grandma, SysAdmin007!" Even if he were to turn into a ghost, he swore to hunt them down, no matter whether they were a man, ghost, monster, or machine. There was no way he should have been sent to beat this thing.

  He'd be ash before he got close.

  Before he could lament and whine anymore about his luck, he realized he was screwed. The molten rock and festering roots arched and tore through the sky like burning trails of meteors. Many headed right in his direction.

  He slid down the tree as fast as his body allowed, but the price of climbing to such a height finally caught up to him. With an ear-splitting crack, a boulder tore through the tree right in the middle.

  He leapt down, one branch after another, but then, another bigger boulder tore right beneath him, and flung him into the air like a sling.

  With a scream, he tore through the skies. The wind slapped his face in many directions, turning his face messier than a map.

  He struggled to keep his eyes open.

  Death stared at him right then. Smouldering shards of rock, all slashing through the air, some towards him. Any of them would be enough to vaporize him.

  Now, a rational person would have given up and accepted their death. Either the smouldering meteors would toast his body. Or he’d die from the velocity of the fall itself.

  Not Zayn.

  He felt clearer than ever before.

  Twisting his torso, he barely slipped past a boulder by a hair’s breadth. That was only the first of them. As his body tore through the air, a sea of red shards shot right his way. He bit his tongue to take control of his own body, repositioning arms and legs into a gliding position, feeling the flow of the wind.

  Being a daredevil at night came with its own hazards and its benefits. He'd done this kind of stunt for years.

  Even as a child, Zayn was…special.

  In the sense that he could do things that others would only dream of. Perfect motor control, fine muscle control, and balance? He had it by nature. Name any sport, and he’d probably be good at it.

  That was his blessing and his curse.

  Being naturally good meant he never put effort into anything that wouldn’t excite him.

  And gambling and death diving were the only things that excited him.

  Right this moment, as he flew in the air without any safety net, he was more excited than ever before.

  Two pieces of burning rock tore through the air like the eyes of an angry ghost. Mentally calculating, he could see his body pass between them. There was...just a small gap. Large enough for him.

  He wrenched his body, the desperation in his chest bundling into a primal desire to survive.

  As his body turned, he felt the world shift too, alongside him. All the wind in the world reacted to him. Sound retracted into nothingness, leaving him with nothing but whispers of vibration.

  A strange feeling of clarity struck him.

  Between the gaps of the boulder, he saw a feather rotating, flying out of its own control. A small thing. With his eyesight, he shouldn't even be capable of seeing it as he did. But he did, and it felt closer to him than anything in the world.

  He saw it twist and twirl.

  It turned, turned, and turned. No matter how much the wind twisted it, there was no damage to the feather.

  There was a strange sense of connection to it, like meeting a kin.

  He raised his hands towards it to get closer. And as soon as he did, it rushed into him, like a gust of wind.

  Then he saw himself.

  Within the feather that moved without control, he saw himself.

  His own image.

  His entire life, he had done that, twisting to the current without his own control. He changed cities. Jobs. Even his name. Just to run away from that horrid sense of helplessness. Yet, no matter what he did, when he woke up the next morning, every day felt stuck in a downward spiral of losing control.

  That feeling disappeared only when he was speeding past a hundred and flying in the night sky like a madman.

  He was infinitely free in those small, finite moments, unfettered by the weight of his failures.

  Unbeknownst to him, the feather dispersed into his body, and a veil of wind covered him, gesturing to him the way forward. He stepped forward. Wind of the desert rushed to his body, dispersed to his every limb, like waves crushing against the shore.

  They gale waited for something. The same thing he had waited for his entire life—a change.

  Time stretched thin.

  In that moment, when he stared at the hurling meteors again, he felt no fear.

  Like a bird, he looked at everything from high up. The two boulders; how the air winced and twisted. The tiny gap between them.

  For just a second, he felt like he could command everything.

  So he commanded his own body.

  Move. Faster.

  And his body concurred. Every muscle fibre within him churned and shifted. He coiled his torso unnaturally, slipping through the gaps between the boulders. His eyes swept at their red, weblike cracks as they whizzed past him.

  Dexterity has increased by 1!

  Changing the trajectory of his body, he stepped on another flying boulder as if it were a footstep, using it to leap forward. His body felt light as a feather. Drunk on the epiphany.

  He turned more and more slender with every leap, his body becoming attuned to the wind.

  Dexterity has increased by 1!

  In him, something awakened.

  Akin to a sixth sense. He felt the wind bobbling and weaving. Their vibrations he saw. He stared again at the red sky.

  Strange, he really… saw the air. He saw it. The lines of them drew the trajectory of things just a fraction of a second earlier. Those he could see…and exactly where they would fall.

  He followed its guidance.

  Feat unlocked! [WindStrider(Silver)]!

  From one boulder to another, he jumped, weaving a complex dance, using them as a foothold to boat himself down towards the ground. When he was just a few tens of meters away from the sand, he dived down, using the slope of a dune to carry him downwards.

  Even after all that, the velocity still buried him under the hot sand.

  Huff huff

  Pulling himself out of the sand with great difficulty, he spat them out in disgust. It tasted like ash.

  So bitter and wrong!

  Recognizing he was still not out of danger, he tried to rise. But his entire body felt like a kite out of his control. His centre of gravity a mess.

  To make it worse, it was as if the wind of the desert had gathered on him. Rotating around his body like the eye of a storm. They raised him and ruffled his hair wildly like a relentless cheer.

  What the hell?

  WindStrider (Silver): Not many have the wind as their ally. But you can take strides without fear, for the gale has your back.

  Primary effect: +6 dexterity. Additionally, you have gained affinity with Air spirits.

  He gazed around again. So he was not out of it. The wind really was cheering him?

  Air spirits?

  "Ow!" Distracted, he was struck by a falling tree branch. Luckily, it was just a small one. But then, air weaved in a warning, screaming at him.

  Whistle

  There was…something heading exactly in his direction. Something huge. Something that would crush him like a cockroach.

  He scrambled on his knees.

  THUDDDDDDDD!

  The aftershock flung him into the air once again. He fell face-first and ate the sand.

  Where he’d been just a moment ago, a massive boulder lay buried—most of it under the sand. The part above was still a sizeable chunk of rock.

  A silly, loud laugh rushed out of his throat.

  Just a second more and he’d have been dead.

  He checked his stats, finding them in disarray once more.

  His dexterity had jumped up to sixteen, a total of eight points at once. No wonder he felt so light and out of it. But Windstrider only gave him six points.

  Right, so he’d allotted stats back there.

  Two of them, in fact!

  Unfortunately, the epiphany was gone. Now that he was normal, the ball of mana inside of him went silent once more. Cursing it, he scutted away on all fours, thankful that no one here was there to see it.

  Eventually, when the vertigo lessened, he rose to his feet with incredible difficulty. He opened his arms wide and stared at the still falling meteors with a grin of euphoria.

  “Come at me, bitches!”

  Immediately after he screamed that aloud, he felt multiple pairs of eyes focus on him. He looked around in surprise. There was nobody in the immediate vicinity.

  Yet, what was this feeling of being locked down?

  Rustle

  Something shifted within the sand. The branches and rocks. They were…moving. The crimson hue made it hard to gauge what happened on a micro level, but he saw humanoid figures slowly rise out of them.

  Words erupted in his vision.

  Stone golem - Lv 12

  Undead treant - Lv 11

  The monsters paused for a second, staring at each other in confusion. Then, both of them turned towards Zayn.

  His heart dropped, “Shit!”