Chapter 6: New Start.
Pain.
That was the first thing Kael felt. It was hot, sharp and everywhere. It was like waking up after being crushed by a mountain, then dragged across ten more for good measure.
His eyes slowly blinked open, squinting at the soft morning light pouring in through a cracked wooden window.
His body refused to move. Both arms were wrapped tightly in something that looked like cloth but shimmered slightly like tree sap mixed with glass, hard yet flexible, clearly not made by any regular person.
His ankle throbbed like a drumbeat of doom, and when he tried to shift it even a little, lightning bolts of agony ran up his spine.
Great. Just fantastic.
He took a slow breath and tilted his head, scanning the room. It was barebones; just a rickety bed with itchy-looking straw, a wooden table, and the faint smell of crushed herbs and alcohol in the air.
Despite the pain, Kael’s mind was already racing. He knew at once that he was most likely still inside one of the remaining available rooms in the hideout.
That meant he was safe. That also meant he still had a bandit group to revive.
He went over everything that had happened; from waking up in this cursed world, finding the ruins of the Crimson Maw, Helga trying to kill him, recruiting her again, and then that ridiculously powerful fallen trying to drag him into a life-draining death formation like some kind of clingy ex.
The whole ordeal had nearly killed him. Again!