[We have arrived at the Outer Ring. Please depart.]
The chanical voice echoed throughout the train as it slowed to a stop.
Sam stepped off calmly, his expression unreadable as always.
He didn’t waste ti looking around or soaking in the view.
The mont his feet touched solid ground, Sam closed his eyes.
He reached inward, focusing on the energy of the forsaken realm, the unnatural force that connected him to the layers.
He thought clearly and firmly about his destination. The second layer.
Ding!
A panel appeared right away.
[Which layer do you wish to enter?]
[→ Second]
Sam raised his hand and reached out toward the glowing option, but just as his fingers got close, the bad feeling from earlier hit him even harder.
A chill climbed up his spine, not fear, but instinct.
Sothing was wrong with this layer. Sothing that didn’t want him there.
Still, he wasn’t going to hesitate.
[Proceed.]
The mont he clicked it, the panel changed again.
[Very well, Primordial.]
Fwish! BANG!
The space around him exploded with energy as a violent burst of aura wrapped around his body, swirling like a small cyclone before settling into a tight spiral that ford a portal in front of him.
Sam opened his eyes and stared at it.
Unlike the blue portals of the first layer, this one was gray, cold, and colorless.
’So the portals change color depending on the layer,’ he noted.
It didn’t seem too important at first glance, but he liked paying attention to small details. Sotis they mattered.
But just as he took a step forward toward the gray portal—
Fwish! Fwish! BOOM!
The portal pulsed violently, shaking as if it were being torn apart.
Darkness mixed into the gray, and the surface of the portal began glitching, twisting unnaturally like a corrupted signal, with streaks of black and violet running across it.
A new panel appeared.
[Hell-Mode Analysis: The second layer this portal leads to has beco corrupted. All monsters will be level 20 and appear in more powerful forms.]
Sam stared at it for a mont, blinking once.
"...Wow. Who could’ve possibly seen that coming," he muttered sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
He didn’t even flinch anymore.
Whether it was the world trying to crush him, or his own presence as a Primordial warping reality around him, he couldn’t tell.
But either way, chaos always followed.
And every ti he stepped forward, sothing tried to twist the ga.
This new twist, though, corrupted layer portals, was going to stir even more panic when the news spread.
Only recently did people discover that rifts were known to beco corrupted after all. This would change everything.
Sam glanced around and, sure enough, he wasn’t alone.
Others had arrived, and they were just as confused as he expected.
"Hey... why does my portal look weird?"
"I’m not going through that thing, are you crazy? Too many freak incidents lately..."
So it wasn’t just his portal. They were all corrupted.
[Hell-Mode Analysis: All portals currently lead to a shared corrupted instance. Proceed with caution.]
Sam gave a light nod. That ant every awakener stepping into the second layer was going to end up in the sa space as him.
That could be useful... or a problem.
But he wasn’t about to back away now. In fact, stronger monsters ant more experience, and that was sothing he wanted.
His crimson eyes glowed faintly.
"Here goes nothing."
Without waiting another second, Sam stepped into the glitching, unstable portal.
And just like that, it vanished behind him.
The mont he entered, he felt it, stronger than the first layer. The pull, the warping sensation, like being twisted through space at high speed. But he didn’t resist it.
[Proceed as always. Eliminate them all.]
Fwish! BAM!
He landed on solid ground again, his shoes hitting dust and cracked concrete as his vision stabilized.
A panel floated up in front of him.
[You have entered the "Second Layer" of the "Forsaken" Realm: The Ruined City (Corrupted).]
[You are currently in the "Outskirts."]
[Good luck, Primordial.]
Now he understood why this layer was known as the [Ruined Layer].
It wasn’t just a na, it was a setting.
Sam scanned his surroundings.
Ruined buildings, collapsed roads, overturned cars, this was once a city. A modern one. But now, all that remained were twisted tal, shattered stone, and the silence of abandonnt.
A light breeze carried the scent of dust, rust, and decay.
Sam narrowed his eyes. This layer was massive. Way larger than the first.
And if the second sub-layer was hidden sowhere in here, it wasn’t going to be easy to find.
’It could be anywhere...’ he thought to himself.
He frowned. The first layer was contained, small enough to search in ti. But this? It would weeks.
[We will find it. Do not worry.]
Sam nodded lightly and pulled out his [Primordial Sword] from his [Spatial Inventory].
The hilt humd softly in his hand, pulsing with both shadow and chaos energy.
"I hope you’re right," he muttered.
He stepped forward, moving through the shattered outskirts.
The silence was heavy, no animals, no ambient sound. Just his own footsteps and the occasional creaking of broken walls.
Until suddenly—
Fwish!
A sound behind him.
Sam reacted imdiately, sidestepping just as a sharp slash ca flying through the air.
SLASH!
He spun around to face his attackers.
A formation of humanoid monsters was moving toward him, weapons raised.
They moved together, perfectly in sync.
---
[Cracked Sentinels (Corrupted)]
[Level: 20]
[Description: Protectors of the outskirts of the ruined city, tasked to eliminate all intruders, aka humans. They operate in squads.]
[Hell-Mode Analysis: They won’t be protecting anything for much longer =)]
---
Each one wore gleaming silver armor, though it was cracked and stained, and emotionless masks over their faces.
Sam could feel it: they weren’t alive. They were vessels of sothing darker.
Another strike ca, but he leapt back, grinning.
"Alright then," he said softly, "Let’s try this out."
He raised his hand, ready to use one of his newly acquired skills for the first ti.
Sovereign Inferno!
A pulse of black fire erupted from him.
The air warped with the sheer heat. Then ca the fla, surging forward like a wall of molten death, expanding in a wave across the battlefield.
The [Cracked Sentinels] didn’t even have ti to regroup.
Their armor superheated instantly, cracking apart as the fire slipped through the gaps and lted what lay beneath.
One by one, they fell, weapons clattering to the ground, bodies burned to ash.
When the flas died out, only charred fragnts and scorched pavent remained.
Sam stood at the center of the destruction, the sword in his hand pulsing with power.
"Incredible," he whispered.
He had seen fire skills in gas before, but this... this was sothing else. This was a chaos-fueled fla.
With a skill like that, he could have probably joined the Inferno Guild as one of their top newbies.
[Your mastery of this skill is lacking.]
Sam raised an eyebrow, it was true.
Just because he had a Forsaken-rank skill didn’t an he could use it perfectly imdiately.
Power was one thing, control was another.
He’d need to train it, polish it, and understand the skill’s full range before it reached its peak.
Still, results didn’t lie. He’d taken out seven level 20 enemies, and he was still just level 1 in the apprentice rank.
He wasn’t even breaking a sweat.
He stepped forward, raised his sword, which absorbed the dark energy cores they left behind. The energy pulsed through the blade.
It wasn’t enough to level up, but it was progress. Slow and steady.
The second layer was vast, dozens of tis bigger than the first. And that ant there were still countless enemies ahead.
Sam glanced down the ruined road, past the burned-out buildings and collapsed streets.
He could feel the tension rising already.
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