Cold.The first thing Damang felt was a chill that pierced to his very marrow. He tried to move his fingertips, but the sensation triggered excruciating pain in his abdomen. It felt as if a hot iron rod were still lodged there, twisting his intestines."Don't move if you don't want your guts to spill out, boy."Damang jolted. The voice was raspy and heavy. He forced his eyes open. His vision was blurred, catching only the dim shadows cast by a torch flickering against the stone wall. He was inside a cave."Where... am I?" Damang groaned. Every word felt like dragging shards of glass across his throat."The edge of the Baram River. The current carried you downstream, and I pulled you out before the crocodiles could get a taste of your blood," the voice replied.An old woman with arms covered in tattoos appeared before Damang. Her name was Indung Inan. She did not look like a typical village healer. Her eyes were sharp, staring at Damang as if she were assessing the quality of a piece o

Damang stopped behind the thick foliage of a giant fern. Before him, the village of Long Baram, once lush and serene, had been transformed into an industrial concentration camp. A guard tower with halogen spotlights swept across the ground, hunting for any prey foolish enough to cross the barbed-wire fence."Bastards," Damang hissed. His voice was low, nearly drowned out by the roar of the generator."Who’s there?" A trembling voice emerged from behind a pile of burlap sacks near the ruins of a barn.Damang drew the dagger he had obtained from Indung Inan with lightning speed. "Come out, or you die."A young man with a gaunt, scarred face crawled out. His eyes widened when he saw Damang. "Brother... Brother Damang? Is it really you?""Dehen?" Damang lowered his weapon slightly. He recognized the young man as the village elder’s nephew. "Why aren't you in the barracks?""They threw me away, Brother," Dehen pointed to his leg, which was mangled and wrapped in filthy rags. A piece of met

Black slime and sulfur-smelling moss greeted Damang’s face as he slammed into the bottom of the ravine. His body no longer felt like flesh and bone, but rather a collection of explosive pain. His ribs, broken from Richter’s impact, felt like sharp knives piercing his lungs every time he tried to breathe."Ugh... damn you, Thorne," Damang hissed. He spat out a thick, dark red fluid mixed with mud.High above, the searchlights of Thorne’s camp looked like demonic eyes mocking his failure. The tattoo on Damang’s back began to pulse abnormally. The black lines on his skin stood out, turning red and emitting a searing heat. The negative energy of this Black Forest was poisoning his spiritual channels.Woof! Awooooo!The sound shattered the silence of the night. A horrific fusion of a dog’s bark and the screech of unlubricated machinery."Hounds," Damang muttered. He closed his eyes, counting the rhythm of metallic footsteps in the distance. "One... two... four of them. They really want to

The Black Forest shows no mercy to the hesitant. Beneath giant canopies mutated into sharp, silvery veins, Damang crawled with bated breath. The air temperature here was unnatural—at times ice-cold, then instantly shifting into suffocating, scalding steam.The markings across Damang’s body were no longer just ink. The tattoos pulsed in rhythm with the forest’s heartbeat. "Where are you..." Damang whispered. His voice was raspy, drowned out by the hiss of the wind.He was searching for the ancestral Mandau that had been knocked away when Colonel Richter beat him. Through the throbbing of the markings on his palms, Damang felt a magnetic pull toward the east. There, amidst a pool of water contaminated with black oil, the blade lay.The Mandau looked dull, covered in an unnatural black rust. Damang reached out. As his fingertips touched the cold metal, an electric jolt stung his nerves."Ugh!" Damang pulled his hand back. His body jerked violently."You are still holding it with the hand

Gray mist hung low over the Baram Ravine, shrouding the colossal steel structure that stretched out like the spine of an ancient monster. The Baram Suspension Bridge had been transformed into a vital artery for Thorne’s military logistics. Steel cables as thick as a human torso creaked under the wind’s pressure, emitting metallic groans that seemed to mourn the destruction of the jungle below.Damang crouched on the main suspension cable, fifty meters above the bridge deck. His body was wrapped in a dull black cloak that whipped wildly in the wind. On his back, his ancestral Mandau vibrated subtly—a frequency only detectable by Damang’s synchronized nerves. The sigil on his neck glowed a faint purple. Through his sensory vision, he watched the Thorne convoy approach: three heavy armored trucks escorted by two Light Paladin units."Sector four logistics convoy," Damang whispered. His voice was shattered by the wind. "That’s not just food. Those are catalyst crystals for the Earth Heart