Sun emerged from the oppressive gloom of Blackwood Gorge blinking into the weak sunlight like a mole forced from its burrow. He felt… different. Not reborn in a blaze of divine glory – perish the thought, that would be far too convenient. No, this was more like having gone through a cosmic meat grinder and come out the other side slightly less squishy. He was still a walking disaster area sartorially speaking; his clothes, already a testament to poor life choices, were now shredded, caked with a unique blend of mud, crystal dust, and what he suspected was fossilized bat guano. His hair, a tangled bird's nest that defied any attempt at grooming, seemed to have achieved a sentience of its own. But beneath the layers of filth and accumulated existential angst, a subtle shift had occurred.
The Echo Resonance with the massive black crystal – his "Big Goth Rock," as he'd privately dubbed it – hadn't just topped up his pitiful reserves of refined Ki. It had fundamentally altered its texture. The "note" of the Gorge's Shattered Will was one of primal endurance, of unyielding resilience forged in the crucible of geological time. His Ki now felt less like a flickering candle and more like a stubborn ember, harder to extinguish, imbued with a gritty toughness that settled deep in his bones. He carried himself with a new weight, a grounded stillness that hadn't been there before. He still looked like a vagrant who'd lost a fight with a badger and then rolled in its leavings, but there was a dangerous glint in his eye that suggested the badger might have come off worse.
"Right," he muttered, cracking his neck with a sound like dry twigs snapping. "Civilisation. Or, at least, something with marginally better food than tree bark and existential dread." He still had some of the Jade Serpent's stringy dried meat, but it tasted like salted boot leather, and his divine palate, even in its currently abused state, yearned for something… less offensive.
His first re-entry into the "living" world was less than auspicious. He hadn't walked for more than an hour, enjoying the relative (and he used that term loosely) freshness of the air outside the Gorge, when the rustling in the undergrowth turned out to be more than just squirrels with an attitude problem. A pack of wolves, larger than any terrestrial wolf he vaguely remembered from eons past, slunk out of the shadows. These weren't noble creatures of the wild; they were gaunt, mangy curs with ribs showing through their patchy fur, and their eyes glowed with a sickly, unsettling green light – a sure sign of Ki corruption or some other foul influence. They were driven by a desperate hunger, and Sun, reeking of week-old sweat and residual Gorge-Ki, probably smelled like a five-course meal.
"Oh, for crying out loud," Sun groaned, instinctively reaching for a weapon he didn't possess. "Can't a guy catch a break? Are 'welcome wagons' in this shithole world always furry and intent on eating your face?"
In his prime, a bored thought would have scattered their atoms across the forest. Now, his refined Ki, though qualitatively superior, was quantitatively pathetic for such flashy displays. This was going to be… manual.
The alpha, a scarred brute with one ear torn and dripping saliva, let out a guttural snarl, and the pack charged.
Sun didn't have time for fancy martial forms he didn't know or divine powers he no longer possessed. He had grit, newly acquired resilience from the Big Goth Rock, and a healthy dose of incandescent rage at the universe's persistent refusal to cut him any slack. He met the first wolf's lunge not with an elegant parry, but with a savage, Ki-infused straight right that connected with its snout with a sickening crunch. The wolf yelped, stumbling back, but another immediately took its place, jaws snapping.
It was a brutal, chaotic melee. Sun dodged snapping teeth, ducked under leaping bodies, and used his fists, elbows, and feet with a desperate, unrefined ferocity. The resilience from the Gorge's Echo was a tangible thing; claw-rakes that should have torn deep only left shallow, burning scratches. A bite that locked onto his arm met Ki-hardened flesh that, while painful, didn't immediately give way to bone. He slammed one wolf into a tree with enough force to stun it, kicked another in the ribs as it tried to flank him, and bit back – quite literally – when one managed to get its teeth uncomfortably close to his throat, surprising the beast enough for him to land a vicious headbutt.
It was ugly. It was exhausting. There was no divine grace, no martial artistry. Just raw survival, fueled by stubbornness and the refined edge of his Echo Resonance Ki lending an uncanny toughness to his blows and his body. He felt teeth graze his leg, tearing through his already ruined trousers, and a sharp pain as claws raked across his back. But he gave as good as he got, his fists connecting with bone-jarring impact, his voice a stream of curses that would have made a seasoned sailor blush.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of snarling, biting, and savage desperation, the last wolf lay whimpering, its leg broken. The alpha was dead, its neck snapped by a lucky, desperate twist. The others had either fallen or fled, yelping, into the undergrowth.
Sun slumped against a tree, panting heavily, blood trickling from a dozen minor wounds. His leg throbbed where the wolf had sunk its teeth, and his back felt like it was on fire. He spat out a clump of wolf fur and blood.
"Right," he gasped, inspecting a particularly nasty gash on his forearm. "Note to self: still not invincible. Wolves in this dimension are overly enthusiastic little bastards." His refined Ki was already working, stitching the wounds closed with that stubborn, Gorge-born resilience, but it was a slow, itching process. The pain was a stark reminder: he was no longer an untouchable deity. He was flesh and blood, fragile and vulnerable, clawing his way back one broken tooth, one torn muscle, at a time. This world wasn't going to hand him power; it was going to make him bleed for every single scrap. Humility, he was learning, often came with fangs and a bad attitude.