The silence in the room was so heavy it made my ears ring. My mind felt like a candle flame flickering in a big wind. One second I remembered the tunnel, and the next second I only felt the cold floor under my chin.
Huff… huff… Every breath I took was a wet, shaky rattle. It sounded like I was pulling broken glass into my lungs. The jump from moving so fast in the tunnel to being frozen here hit my body like a hammer. Inside my shell, my legs felt like they had been ground into mush between two big rocks. Even in the quiet, I could still hear a sick grinding sound in my head. It was the sound of my own bones splintering and my joints being scraped raw.
[ ! ] SYSTEM CRITICAL WARNING [ ! ]
[ Status: Death Stage ]
[ Massive Blood Loss — 82% ]
[ Shell Integrity: 7% ]
[ Core Status: Cracked / Unstable ]
The blue light from the system screen was the only thing I could see. But it was shaky and blurry. The letters were running together because I was so close to dying. I tried to pull my head out of my shell, but it took everything I had. A sharp, burning pain shot down my back. It started at my neck and spread out until it felt like my shell was being ripped off my body.
I was leaking blood from everywhere. When I rolled and hit the stone earlier, it must have opened every wound. Dark red blood was pooling under me, staining the floor.
[ Attempting to cauterize wounds... ]
[ Failed. ]
[ Attempting to stabilize Qi flow... ]
[ Failed. ]
[ Warning: Blood loss cannot be stopped. Life signs dropping. ]
The system wasn't helping. It was just watching me die. It told me I was at the "Death Stage," and even though it tried to stop the bleeding, the wounds were too deep. The cracks in my shell were too wide. I felt cold. So cold.
I tried to move my legs, but I couldn't feel them. My lower body was just a heavy weight that wouldn't move. Every time I tried to move even a tiny bit, a bolt of pain shot up my spine. It was so bad I could only make a small, choked hissing sound. My core—the center of my power—felt like a broken glass marble. It was spinning out of control.
And then something strange happened.
When my core fractured, the foreign energy I had absorbed from the pool no longer stayed quiet. It pressed against the cracks, restless, like something that didn't belong inside me.
[ ! ] EMERGENCY PROTOCOL [ ! ]
[ Consciousness cannot be maintained. ]
[ Forcing shut down. ]
"No... not yet..." I wheezed. My eyelids felt heavier than the mountain itself.
The system was forcing me to go under because the pain was too much for a one-year-old body to handle. But as the darkness started to close in, I felt something strange. The room didn't just feel empty. It felt like something was watching me.
I used the very last bit of strength in my neck to look toward the middle of the giant room. Everything was blurry from the red blood in my eyes. But then, I saw it.
Two small blue lights turned on in the dark. They weren't like fire. They were steady and very cold. They looked like two blue stars hanging in the air. My heart gave one last, scared thump against my ribs.
What... is that?
I wanted to stay awake. I wanted to run. But I couldn't move a single inch. My neck finally gave out, and my head hit the stone floor with a thud.
Everything went black. But even as I passed out, those two blue lights stayed in my mind. They were watching me.
The pain was gone.
One second I was hitting the stone floor of that cold chamber, and the next, I was falling.
But I wasn't falling through the air. It felt like I was sinking into a deep, endless pool of warm water. It was so quiet here. There was no sound of grinding bones, no screaming system alerts, and no smell of blood.
I felt... relaxed. It was a strange, heavy kind of peace. For the first time in my short, one-year life, nothing hurt. My shell didn't feel broken. My legs didn't feel like pulp. I was just drowning in a soft, grey mist.
Is this it? Is this what dying third time feels like?
I drifted through the dark water, watching small bubbles of light float past me. I knew I should be scared, but I was too tired to care. I just wanted to close my eyes and let the water take me.
It's finally over, I thought. I really didn't stand a chance, did I?
I started thinking about how much time I had left. The system was quiet now, but I could feel my life leaking away like water from a cracked cup. Maybe a minute? Maybe seconds? It didn't matter. I couldn't reach the surface even if I wanted to.
I am so unlucky, I muttered to myself in the dark. Seriously. What did I do to deserve this?
I looked back at my life since I woke up as a tortoise. It felt like the world had a personal grudge against me.
After everything that happened in the past months, I had survived a collapsing tunnel, a crushing wave of Qi, and a magic wall.Danger didn't just find me; it followed me. It chased me down like a predator that never got tired. Every time I thought I found a safe spot, the mountain decided to try and flatten me.
A one-year-old tortoise... killed by a mountain. Great story. Real hero stuff.
I sank deeper. The light from above was getting smaller and smaller. I was ready to just let go. I was ready for the dark to finally stay.
But then, the water didn't feel like water anymore. It began to vibrate.
"Is this the one?" a voice rumbled. The sound was so deep it made the water shake.
"The successor is just a pebble. You can't even crawl out of a pool, can you?"
At first, I thought it was a dream. But then the voice boomed again, coming from everywhere at once, shattering the peace.
"WAKE UP, YOU INSOLENT ONE!"
I woke up, and the first thing I felt was that I couldn't move.
It wasn't like being paralyzed; it was like being made of stone. Everything was dark, and I could feel a freezing liquid pressing against me from all sides. I tried to reach out my hand, but I couldn't find my fingers. All I felt were short,
I tried to gasp for air, but my chest wouldn't expand. My heart was beating so slowly it felt like a hammer hitting a wall.
What is happening to me? Why am I so heavy?
But then something changed. Above the surface, two spots of blue fire lit up. They weren't lights; they were eyes. As my vision adjusted, I saw a massive, white skull looking down. It was so big it made me feel like a speck of dust.
I was terrified. What was that thing? It was so big. Was I really going to end up as a snack for some ancient ghost in this underground place?
I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell whatever was watching me that I didn't belong here. I wasn't a "snack." I was a person. But no words came out, only a quiet, dry hiss that vanished into the water.
I looked around in the darkness. The stone where I was lying was thick and cold.
Through the gloom, I could see the shapes of broken swords and old, rusted armor half-buried in the silt. I was shocked to see them.
This was a grave. And I realized that if I didn't move right now, I would just be another piece of trash forgotten at the bottom of it.
I didn't have any strength left. I didn't know where I was. But I wasn't ready to die again. I wasn't going to let my story end in this cave.