Lifeless dropped from the branch, his boots sinking into the soft mud below. The impact sent a sharp jolt of pain straight up his spine, but his expression remained completely blank. He looked at the camera on his chest. The lens was clear, the moisture from the night having evaporated under the morning heat. The broadcast was still live. The world was still watching.
They began to move again, deeper into the untouched heart of the divinity's territory.
The slaughter resumed. They encountered massive serpents with scales like iron plates, their bodies winding through the high branches. Lifeless would wait until the heavy jaws opened to strike, then he would step into the blind spot, using his elbow to shatter the jaw joint before Jarvis finished the creature with a clean thrust through the roof of its mouth. They killed without emotion, without hesitation, moving like ghosts through a graveyard of prehistory.
The air grew progressively heavier, the internal current of the forest becoming so dense that Lifeless's hair stood on end. The mud beneath their feet gave way to smooth, black volcanic stone, worn down by the passing of something immense.
The trees ahead did not just part; they looked as if they had been violently torn from the earth by their roots and thrown aside. A massive clearing opened up, dominated by a towering wall of black rock covered in ancient, red moss.
Sitting at the base of the rock wall was a gorilla.
It was not an animal. It was a monument of flesh and divinity. Its silver-black fur was so thick it looked like armor plate, and its chest was a massive, barrel-shaped vault that could have crushed a house. It sat quietly, its massive hands resting on its knees, its eyes closed. It stood easily twice the height of Lifeless, its sheer presence warping the ambient bio-current of the clearing into a heavy, static hum that made Lifeless's ears bleed.
This was a true child of divinity, an apex entity that rules the deep interior.
The gorilla opened its eyes. They were not animal eyes; they were two pools of liquid gold, clear, intelligent, and completely indifferent to the intruders.
Lifeless felt his heart rate spike, the adrenaline hitting his system with the force of a physical blow. He did not wait for an order. He did not ask Jarvis for a weak spot. He launched himself forward, his boots cracking against the black stone as he accelerated to his absolute maximum speed.
He approached the beast from the left, his body low to the ground, his bio-current screaming through his right arm as he prepared a maximum-density strike aimed directly at the beast's temple.
He threw the punch with everything he had, the air around his fist compressing into a visible wave of force.
The gorilla did not blink. It did not shift its stance. With a movement so fast it defied the laws of physics for a creature of that scale, its massive hand swept through the air.
Lifeless's fist never landed. Before his knuckles could even graze the silver fur, the back of the gorilla's hand caught him squarely in the ribs. The impact sounded like a cannon firing. The sheer kinetic energy bypassed his internal defenses completely, shattering three of his ribs instantly and launching him across the clearing like a stone from a catapult.
His body skipped twice across the hard black rock before slamming into a mound of boulders at the edge of the forest.
He lay there for a second, the breath completely driven from his lungs, his vision a swirling vortex of white and gold light. The camera on his chest took a heavy hit, the plastic casing cracking, but the crimson light continued to flash, recording his desperate struggle for the invisible audience.
He forced himself up, his left arm trailing uselessly behind him, his broken ribs shifting painfully beneath his skin with every gasp of air. He could feel the blood filling his mouth, thick and salty.
The gorilla had not followed him. It had returned to its sitting position, its golden eyes watching him with a look that was worse than anger; it was pure boredom.
Lifeless roared, the sound thick with blood and frustration. He forced his legs to move, charging back into the center of the clearing. He knew he could not match its strength. He had to use speed. He had to use the shadow technique to limit its vision.
He entered the beast's shadow, his fingers twitching as he prepared to manifest the suffocating dark energy around its face.
The gorilla simply stood up. The movement was a casual rise, but the shift in height was immense. Before Lifeless could activate the technique, the beast's massive foot came down in a short, stamping motion. The shockwave through the black stone was enough to lift Lifeless off his feet, breaking his balance completely.
While he was still mid-air, the gorilla lunged forward, its massive forehead colliding with Lifeless's face in a brutal, uncompromising headbutt.
The sound of cartilage crushing was clear. Lifeless's nose flattened instantly, a torrent of crimson erupting over his mouth and chin. The world went completely black for a full second, his consciousness flickering like a dying candle before his body hit the stone floor again.
He tried to roll over, to find his feet, to establish his five-meter safety zone, but his limbs were no longer responding correctly. His nervous system was short-circuiting under the sheer trauma of the blows. He could see the gorilla walking toward him, its massive knuckles leaving deep indentations in the black rock with every step.
He tried to throw a desperate, left-handed strike as the shadow of the beast fell over him, but the gorilla simply reached down, caught his working arm by the wrist, and lifted him off the ground like a ragdoll.
With a casual flick of its wrist, the beast threw him upward. As Lifeless fell back down, the gorilla delivered a short, heavy punch straight into his abdomen.
The blow drove the last remnants of air from his body, along with a massive spray of dark blood. Lifeless felt his internal organs compress under the force, his spine groaning as the kinetic energy traveled through his torso and exploded out his back. He hit the stone floor and did not slide; he simply crumpled into a broken, bleeding heap, his face pressed against the cold rock.
He could not move. He could not track the ions. He could not use the shadow technique. He was simply too weak. The gap between a human body and the raw divinity of the apex beast was an unbridgeable canyon. He lay there, his breath rattling in his throat, waiting for the massive foot to come down and end his existence.
From the edge of the clearing, Jarvis watched the entire exchange without a single change in his expression. He looked at Lifeless's broken form, then looked at the gorilla, which was now raising its massive arms to deliver the final, crushing strike.
Jarvis reached into his heavy leather pouch. He did not pull out a weapon. He pulled out a massive, vegetable. With a powerful, sweeping motion, he hurled the massive chunk of food across the clearing, letting it skid across the black stone until it stopped ten meters away from the gorilla, right at the edge of the tree line.
The gorilla stopped its descent, its golden eyes turning toward the scent of the vegetable. It looked at the bleeding boy at its feet, then looked at the massive meal waiting for it in the shade. To a child of divinity, a broken human was not worth the energy of a chase when easier sustenance was available.
The beast turned its back on Lifeless, its massive frame shifting as it walked away, completely ignoring the defeated protagonist as it reached for the food.
Lifeless watched it go through a haze of blood and swelling flesh. He felt the cold, hard reality of his own weakness settling over him like a shroud. He had lost. He had not landed a single punch. He had been played with, broken, and discarded, saved only by a piece of thrown meat. The camera on his chest continued to blink its steady crimson light, broadcasting his utter humiliation to the world.