He didn’t think (not that he could). He didn’t even look. He just threw himself backward, rolling awkwardly over the wet, mossy stones just as a blur of motion struck the spot where his neck had been a microsecond before.
He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his crude spear, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his bruised ribs.
Facing him, coiled on a flat rock, was a nightmare in Technicolor.
It was a snake, another snake, easily as thick as his thigh and long enough to wrap around a man twice. But it was the color that made Sol’s stomach drop. It was patterned in hypnotic, swirling bands of electric blue and toxic orange. Its head was triangular and flat, the universal sign of ’I have poison glands and a bad attitude.’ swaying rhythmically, tasting the air with a forked black tongue.
It swayed back and forth, its tongue flicking, looking at Sol not with fear, but with the cold calculation of a creature that had found a snack.
Sol let out a jagged, incredulous laugh, tightening his grip on the spear.
"You have got to be kidding me," he wheezed.
What was it with him and snakes? First the Neon Viper, now this? Did he emit some kind of serpentine pheromone or maybe have some one in a billion ’snake attracting physique’?
"Did I steal your wives in a past life? Or do I look like a giant tasty mouse?" Sol muttered, circling slowly to the left, keeping his eyes locked on the reptile. "Why does every snake in this forest have a personal grudge against me?"
Aunt Lyra had sworn that animal attacks near the foraging paths were rare. Yet here he was, about to fight for his life for the second time in a week.
The snake didn’t care for his internal monologue. It coiled tighter, its muscles bunching like steel cables, and lunged.
It was faster than an arrow. Sol sidestepped, the wind of the strike fanning his face, smelling of musk and rot. And from his previous encounter, he realized with a jolt of terror that he couldn’t outrun this. And the terrain here was too uneven, and the beast was too fast.
"Okay," Sol panted, backing up until his heel hit a large rock.
"Stop!" Sol shouted, trying to project the Free Use energy in a panic. "Bad snake! Go away!"
But nothing happened, He focused on the ash-grey energy dormant in his chest. He tried to pull it out, to command the snake like he had commanded Nia.
Stop! he thought, pushing the "Free Use" energy out in a raw, unrefined blast.
Nothing happened. The energy dissipated like smoke in a gale. The snake hissed, utterly unfazed, and coiled for a third strike, aiming for his groin.
"Hey! Not the goods!" Sol shrieked, jumping back.
The snake struck again. Sol dodged, but he slipped on the wet moss. He fell hard, landing beside a heavy, jagged rock. The snake saw the opening. It coiled instantly, compressing its muscles like a lethal spring, its mouth opening to reveal fangs that dripped with yellow death.
Sol panicked, his spear was gone, knocked away in the initial scuffle. Panic, raw and blinding, seized his chest. His hand scrabbled in the dirt until his fingers curled around the cold, jagged edge of a river stone the size of a melon.
He didn’t aim. He didn’t think. "Get... back!" He simply roared... a guttural, primitive sound... and swung the rock with both hands in a desperate, blind arc.
THWACK.
And it was...a lucky shot. A one-in-a-million miracle, a miracle born out of desperation.
Even though he had missed the head, but the heavy stone smashed squarely into the creature’s midsection, pinning it to the mud for a split second. The impact was devastating; Sol heard the distinct, dry snap of vertebrae. The snake’s body kinked at an unnatural angle, its spine clearly damaged, though not severed.
"Ha!" Sol gasped, the sound wet and ragged. "Got you!"
But in this world, pain did not equal surrender.
The snake hissed... a sound like water dropped on hot iron... and thrashed with terrifying vitality. Its tail whipped up in a blur, slapping Sol’s forearm with the force of a bullwhip, sending a jolt of numbing pain up to his shoulder.
"Gah! Fuck!" Sol stumbled back, clutching his arm.
If anything, the injury had only stripped away its caution. It was furious now.
The creature coiled its broken body, leveraging its remaining muscle to snap its head around. Its jaws, lined with needle-thin recurved fangs, snapped at the air with chaotic, renewed violence, inches from Sol’s face. Venom sprayed in a fine mist, sizzling where it hit the mossy rocks.
Sol scrambled back on his hands and knees, breathing heavily, his lungs burning. He was alive.
Sol picked up the rock again, his knuckles white. Adrenaline screamed in his ears. "Fine! You want to die? I’ll turn you into paste!"
He raised the stone, poised to bring it down and end this nightmare.
"Just... die!"
But his hand froze in mid-air.
He looked at the creature... wounded, thrashing, driven by pure, biological rage. It was a deadly risk to let it live even a second longer. One bite, and his new life was over. But Sol’s analytical mind, suddenly waking up amidst the adrenaline, pump-braked his primitive instinct.
"Wait..." Sol whispered, his chest heaving. He lowered the rock an inch. "Wait. Isn’t this the perfect test subject to experiment the free use energy?"
He had tried to use the Ash Gray energy on Vurok, and it had failed. He had tried to use it on this snake moments ago, and it had failed.
Why?
Why did it fail before?
"Why aren’t you listening?" Sol hissed at the snake, and at himself. "I told you to stop. I used the energy. Why didn’t it work?"
He wiped sweat and mud from his eyes with a trembling hand. "I pushed it out. Like a wave. It did nothing, not moving like a stubborn kid. Why?"
He thought back to the Neon Viper, his mind was racing, connecting the dots that had been scattered until now. He hadn’t just "pushed" energy then. He had felt something. He tried hard to think about that feeling again, he replayed the failures and the successes, dissecting them.
When he faced the neon viper in the tall grass, he hadn’t tried to "control" it. He had been terrified. He was at the end of his rope, convinced he was about to die.
"I hated it," Sol muttered aloud, the realization hitting him. "I felt... deeply afraid. I rejected its existence. I wanted it to just stop."
And with Nia... that night in the alley. He hadn’t just been horny. He had been angry. Furious at the world, at the unfairness of his new life, at seeing the same power privileges he had hated in his last life played out here in mud and blood. He had wanted to take. He had wanted to prove he existed. The Prismatic energy had reacted to that raw, unbridled desire to dominate.
But Vurok?
Sol frowned, his brow furrowing. Why had it failed in the alley?
"I was arrogant," he whispered. "I thought I could handle Vurok myself. I thought the Ash Gray energy was just a weapon I could unholster."
He had this inkling, this lazy hope that the energy would just activate to save him, like a passive shield. His anger at Vurok had been surface-level...annoyance, pride, a desire to protect his reputation. It hadn’t been this deep, cold, volcanic hatred he had just summoned. It hadn’t been a matter of life or death in his soul; it was just a brawl.
His mental state hadn’t been right. His feelings weren’t deep enough. He had treated the power like a light switch, flicking it on and expecting illumination.
"It’s not a tool," he realized, staring at his palm. "It’s not a mana bar. It’s not a battery I can just switch on."
He looked at the snake, which was now fully coiled, its neck flattened into a hood, ready to launch.
"It’s a feeling. It’s a mental state. It’s an amplifier."
The energy didn’t create the command; it enforced it. If his will was weak, the energy did nothing. If his will was absolute... fueled by terror, rage, or overwhelming lust... the energy bent reality to match it.
"Emotion is the fuel," Sol said, a dark smile touching his lips. "And intent is the trigger."
He looked at the snake again.
The snake coiled again, ignoring the agony of its broken ribs. Its eyes, vertical slits of void-like black surrounded by toxic orange, burned with a cold, alien malice. It was preparing to die just to take Sol with it.
"You want a piece of me?" Sol said softly, a dark smile touching his lips. He didn’t close his eyes... that would be suicide... but he narrowed them, turning his gaze inward, on the dormant power within him. He tried to force the Ash-Grey Energy out, pushing it like a physical wave, commanding the beast to retreat.
Nothing happened. The energy remained inert, dissipating like smoke in a gale. The snake lunged, forcing Sol to scramble back into the mud to avoid the venomous spray.
But Sol didn’t feel disappointed.
He tried again, this time, the snake flinched. It wasn’t a stop he hoped for, but its head jerked to the side, missing its strike by an inch.
He realized that he needed more than annoyance. He needed hate, more intense emotion.
He narrowed his eyes, ignoring the hissing death in front of him, and turned his gaze inward, reaching into the darkest corner of his memory to find the fuel he needed.