Dawn filtered gray through the canopy, dancing spots of light falling through the leaves and painting shifting patterns on the forest floor. Jess's hair rustled in the breeze—dry, tangled, smelling of old wood, of fresh saplings, and the strange alien flower cups that had sprung up overnight. She moved a curtain of ferns aside with her hand, the dew cold against her palm.

  She'd slept in the crook of a giant oak, her back against the bark, Terry Rex a warm, fluffy lump in her lap. Four hours—enough. Orc regeneration handled the rest.

  She stretched, cracked her neck, and looked down at the hatchling.

  "Time to go, Terry."

  He blinked up at her with large, dark eyes. "Coo?"

  She deposited him on a broad branch, stepped back, and concentrated. Thirty seconds later, he vanished with a soft pop into Beast Space. The branch looked emptier without him.

  She dropped from the tree, landing in a crouch, and began walking. The village of Reiro was a half-hour southeast. She wasn't going that way. Not yet.

  But someone else had other ideas.

  Twenty minutes into her trek, she caught it—a rustle in the undergrowth behind her. Too steady for an animal. Too small for a predator.

  She stopped. The rustling stopped.

  She walked again. The rustling resumed.

  She sighed.

  Without turning around, she said, "Litos. I can hear you."

  A pause. Then the bushes parted and the boy emerged, looking equal parts guilty and defiant. His hunting knife was at his belt. His cheeks were flushed from running.

  "I wasn't following you," he said.

  Jess turned. Raised an eyebrow.

  "I was... walking. In this direction. For reasons."

  "You were following me."

  Litos's shoulders sagged. "Okay. Yes. I was following you."

  Jess studied him for a long moment. The kid had guts. Stupid guts, but guts.

  "Come here," she said.

  He approached warily. She concentrated, and thirty seconds later, Terry Rex materialized on the moss between them. The hatchling blinked, disoriented, then spotted Litos and let out an excited "Coo!"

  Litos's eyes went wide. "What—what is that?"

  "Terry. My..." She paused. "Companion. You can pet him. Gently."

  Litos knelt, reaching out with trembling fingers. Terry leaned into the touch, making soft warbling sounds. The boy's face broke into a grin.

  "He's so soft. Where did you find him?"

  "His mother tried to eat me. It didn't work out for her."

  Litos's hand froze. He looked up at Jess, then back at Terry, then back at Jess. "You killed his mom and then... kept him?"

  "I didn't plan it. He decided I was family." She shrugged. "It happens."

  Litos continued petting Terry, who had now flopped onto his side, legs in the air, demanding belly rubs. The boy laughed—a real laugh, young and unguarded.

  Jess watched for a moment, then said, "You can't come with me."

  The laugh died. Litos's face shuttered. "Why not?"

  "Because where I'm going, you'd die."

  "I'm level five! I have a class! I handled those hounds!"

  "You handled them for about thirty seconds before I showed up. And that was in the White Zone." Jess gestured vaguely north. "I'm heading over there."

  Litos's eyes widened. "The Blue Zone? Past the river?"

  "You know the place?"

  "I've heard stories. The plants are bigger. The beasts are stronger. People who go in don't always come out." He said it like a recitation, something told by elders.

  "Then you understand why you're staying here."

  Litos looked at Terry, still sprawled on the moss. Then back at Jess. His jaw set.

  "Do you really come from the sky?"

  The question was so direct it caught her off guard. She recovered quickly.

  "Yes."

  "Do you want to go back?"

  The image of the bounty file flashed through her mind. Kirael's tired eyes. Eight billion credits. Two hundred and fifty years lost.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Yes. Stop asking so many questions."

  Litos wasn't deterred. "I want to see the Blue Zone. What's beyond the river."

  "Why?"

  "Because I've never been there."

  Jess stared at him. The answer was so simple, so purely childish, that she almost laughed. Almost.

  "That's a stupid reason," she said.

  Litos's face fell.

  "No," Jess amended. "That's a pretty decent reason. But no. You're still not coming."

  She crouched down, bringing herself to his eye level. For a moment, she looked less like an orc and more like... something else. Something almost soft.

  "Listen to me. I'm going to be out there for a while. A week. Maybe more. When I come back, I'll find you. We'll talk more. But you need to stay here, stay alive, and keep practicing with that knife."

  Litos nodded, but his eyes were bright with unshed tears. Stupid kid. Stupid brave kid.

  "Can I..." He swallowed. "Can I pet Terry one more time?"

  Jess stepped back. "He's the one who decides."

  Terry, still on his back, legs in the air, let out an encouraging "Coo!"

  Litos knelt and scratched the hatchling's belly. Terry's back leg kicked rhythmically. The boy smiled, and for a moment, he was just a kid with a fluffy pet, not a survivor from a burned village.

  Then Jess concentrated, and Terry vanished back into Beast Space.

  Litos stood. Wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Pretended he hadn't.

  "Be careful," he said.

  "I'm always careful." She paused. "No I'm not. But I'm hard to kill."

  She turned and walked north, into the deeper forest. Behind her, after a long moment, she heard the rustle of a small body moving back toward Reiro.

  Good kid. Stupid kid. She hoped he'd stay that way.

  The forest changed over the next few hours. The familiar oaks and pines grew sparse, replaced by towering, alien shapes—trees with bark like scaled skin, ferns that reached chest height, fungi that glowed faintly even in daylight. The air grew thicker, heavier with moisture and the scent of strange blooms.

  She crossed paths with a rhino-like creature at a watering hole—easily B-rank, maybe higher. Its horn was a twisted spiral of bone, slick with something dark. She gave it a wide berth. Not today.

  F-rank creatures scattered as she passed—six-legged lizards, armored beetles the size of her fist, things that chittered and fled. She ignored them. Too small. Too slow. The returns weren't worth the effort anymore.

  By midday, she reached the river.

  It was broad and slow-moving, the water dark and deep. On the far bank, the vegetation was visibly different—taller, stranger, shot through with filaments of pale blue. A threshold. The boundary between White and Blue.

  "Miri," she said, studying the water. "Any hostiles?"

  "I register underground vibration, megafauna arboreal and avian."

  Jess looked up. The trees on both sides of the river were massive, their upper branches lost in haze. Something moved up there—shadows against shadows.

  "So you found something in the trees and skies. Big nasty things. Are those bats?"

  "The green chlorophyll indicates flora. Phantom, 70% probability this is plant-based life."

  She squinted. The "things" in the trees were hanging vines, thick as pythons, swaying in a breeze she couldn't feel. Not animals. Just... more alien flora.

  "Explains the white filaments. Vitals?"

  "Nothing special. The advancement in what the Nexus describes as levels seems benevolent and holistic but metaphysical to the extent that the natural laws of our old universe do not cover it."

  Jess processed that. Then she looked at her own green forearm, turning it over.

  "Puuhhh. I don't want to turn all sickly green and turn into a freak. Look, my green was off-color from the river's reflection, I swear." She traced her skin with a finger.

  "No hue changes or other alterations detected."

  "Good." She eyed the river. "Armor's too slow for swimming. I'll have to carry it."

  She unstrapped the bundled Alabaster Carapace and looked around. A thick vine caught her eye, hanging from a nearby tree. She pulled it down, tested its strength, and began lashing the bundle to her back. The plates clinked softly as she tightened the knots.

  Not comfortable. But it'll hold.

  She stripped off her biosuit—it would regenerate—and waded into the cold, dark water.

  The current was stronger than it looked. She swam hard, muscles burning, the weight of the armor pulling at her shoulders. For a moment, she thought she might lose it. Then her feet found the far bank.

  She hauled herself out onto mud and stone, dripping and gasping. The vine had held. Good.

  She untied the bundle, unrolled the carapace, and began donning it piece by piece—greaves, boots, gauntlets, chest plate. Each one sealed against her skin with that familiar cool solidity. When the last piece was in place, she knocked a fist against her chest.

  THUD.

  Solid.

  She nodded. Still works.

  Then she checked her body by habit. Cold water meant no leeches. Good.

  She stood, armored now, water still streaming down the white plates, and looked back at the river. The White Zone. Reiro. Litos.

  Then she turned and faced the Blue.

  The vegetation loomed. The air hummed with strange sounds. Somewhere ahead, she would find something to beat up. Some creature would be waiting for a beating by her.

  Jess took a breath and walked forward.

  Time was hard to tell with the denser vegetation but it felt like an hour to her when her steps came to a halt.

  The cliff rose out of the jungle like a wall of old bone—sheer gray stone, easily a hundred meters tall, its face striated with dark veins of minerals. At its base, the vegetation had been cleared, trampled flat. Something lived here. Something that didn't like surprises.

  Jess crept forward, keeping low, using the giant ferns as cover. The air smelled different here—ozone and old blood and something musky, animal.

  Then she saw the skeleton.

  It was massive, longer than a bus, curled at the cliff base where it had fallen. The bones were bleached white, picked clean by scavengers, but the shape was unmistakable—powerful hind legs, a long tail, a ribcage like a cathedral. And wings. Delicate, bat-like wings, collapsed and broken against the stone.

  Jess stared.

  "That's a dinosaur," she whispered. Then her eyes tracked to the wings again. "No. That's a dragon."

  Her mouth went dry.

  "Pinch me, Miri."

  "Negative, Phantom. I do not have limbs. However, I can administer a somatic shock to affirm lucidity."

  "Forget it."

  She forced her eyes away from the corpse and scanned the clearing. The dragon had fallen from the cliff. Something had thrown it. Something strong enough to kill an A-rank, maybe S-rank, and drag the body here to... what? Eat? Display?

  Then she heard it.

  Bone on bone.

  The sound echoed off the cliff face, rhythmic and deliberate. THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.

  She followed it with her eyes.

  At the far end of the clearing, near a pile of shattered trees, sat the monkey.

  It was big—three meters tall if it stood upright, which it wasn't. It was lounging against a boulder, one long arm draped over its knee, the other holding a club made of what looked like a femur. A dragon's femur, if she had to guess.

  It was hitting the club against the stone. THWACK. Then examining it. THWACK. Then examining it again.

  Like a kid with a new toy.

  Jess studied it. Lanky limbs. Patchy fur. A face that looked almost thoughtful as it turned the bone over in its hands. It hadn't noticed her yet.

  "I think I can take it," she murmured.

  "Not enough data, Phantom. Threat assessment incomplete."

  "Look at it. It's all lanky and distracted. It's playing with a bone. How dangerous can it—"

  The monkey's head snapped toward her.

  For one frozen second, their eyes met. Jess saw recognition there—not surprise, not fear. Interest. The same look a cat gave a mouse that had wandered into its territory.

  Then the monkey moved.

  It wasn't fast. It was faster. A blur of fur and muscle that crossed fifty meters in less than a heartbeat. Jess's passive screamed warnings—ranged attack incoming—but this wasn't ranged. This was melee. This was in her face.

  The bone club came around in a horizontal arc.

  Jess threw her arms up. Too slow. She saw only white as the club closed in on her skull.