The horn kept echoing long after the sound should’ve died.Low. tallic. Too human for a monster’s call.
We froze on the ridge, smoke curling around us. The air slled like burnt iron and old at.
"Friendly neighborhood welco committee," I said. "Five stars already."
Nobody laughed.
The plains stretched ahead in warped lines of black glass and ash dunes, glowing faintly under a blood-red sun. Heat shimred off everything, turning distance into liquid. Far to the north, the orc city flickered like a mirage—spires of obsidian breathing orange through the haze.
We started moving.
Every step left a footprint that glowed before cooling. The ground wasn’t solid; it pulsed under the boots, slow and sluggish, like the crust of sothing still alive. The Guild’s probes hadn’t lied: this world wasn’t terrain—it was tissue.
[Environntal Scan: Mana Saturation → 185 %]
[Hazard: Heat / Toxic Fu Accumulation ↑]
[Recomnded Action: Do not breathe too often.]
"Thanks," I muttered. "Was planning to stop breathing anyway."
Lucien glanced over. "Sothing funny?"
"System’s just giving life advice."
He nodded, dead serious. "Take it."
The first hour was walking through a furnace. Wind carried grit that hissed against armor. The sky flickered between daylight and crimson twilight every few minutes, light stuttering like a dying bulb.
Elise tossed a spark into the air. It vanished before it hit the ground.
"See that?" she said. "Mana eats mana here. Fire gets swallowed."
She threw another; the fla imploded with a sound like a sigh.
Varga’s voice ca through comms, steady. "ans ranged output will drop. Conserve energy."
"Conserve?" Elise said. "In this heat?"
"Save the drama," he replied.
I kicked a pebble. It skidded two ters, lted, and re-ford behind .
"Okay," I said. "Physics has left the chat."
[Observation Logged — Spatial Recoil Phenonon.]
[Possible Cause: Environntal Mana Feedback Loop.]
"Translation," I muttered. "World eats its own spit."
"Focus," Selene’s voice crackled faint from the stabilizer channel. "Teletry shows movent east of you. Possibly scouts."
"Copy," Varga said. "We’ll keep low."
The link cut. The air swallowed her voice.
We found the first corpse an hour later.
Ashspawn—or what used to be. It lay half-buried in slag, armor fused to bone. Not torn apart—dissected. Precision cuts, joints separated clean. Whoever—or whatever—had done it had patience.
Lucien crouched. "This was recent."
Elise frowned. "Think they fight each other?"
"Or sothing studies them," I said.
Varga scanned the horizon. "Stay alert."
We moved again, quieter now. Even Elise kept her flas tucked close.
At so point I realized there were no birds, no insects, no background noise. Only wind and the slow creak of cooling rock. Every ti I blinked, the skyline seed closer—like the city crawled a little while I wasn’t watching.
By midday, the heat broke into wind. A storm was building—ash spinning in lazy spirals.
[Warning: Mana Storm Forming. Wind Velocity ↑ → Safe Shelter Advised.]
Shelter ant death if we picked the wrong hole. We pushed on until the ground began to slope downward into a basin of cracked basalt.
The air shimred. Shapes moved below—four-legged, low to the ground.
"Wargs," Varga said. "Pack of six."
He raised a hand for halt.
The creatures prowled among the fissures—skin molten, eyes white-hot. One lifted its head and sniffed the air.
"They sll us," Elise whispered.
"No sudden movent," Lucien said.
I blinked sweat out of my eyes. The wind shifted, carrying our scent straight down.
"Too late."
The first warg scread—a sound like glass scraping tal—and leapt.
Varga’s barrier flared mid-air; the beast hit it and exploded into shards of molten rock. The rest charged.
[Combat Engaged: Hostiles × 5][Lightning Step — Ready.]
I moved before thinking.
[Lightning Step 1/3 → Active][Cooldown: 2 s]
The world snapped sideways; I reappeared behind the nearest warg and drove Fangpiercer up through its jaw. Heat flared against my palm.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration 30 %]
It fell in two pieces. I spun, let Gloamthorn ride the montum into the next one’s flank. Sparks, blood, hiss.
Behind , Elise’s fire erupted—more controlled this ti, blue-white arcs that cut the storm’s edge. Lucien’s sigils glowed on Varga’s armor, sealing micro-cracks as claws scraped against him.
The last warg hit square in the ribs. Weight of a truck. We tumbled.
Pain stabbed deep—too deep.
[Absolute Regeneration — Suppressed]
[Major Trauma Detected: Rib Fractures, Internal Bleeding.]
[Recovery Efficiency → 27 %. Cooldown Extended (12 s).]
"Fantastic," I wheezed.
Every breath felt like sandpaper. No flood of heat, no instant reset—just pain digging in and staying put. I jamd Fangpiercer under the warg’s throat and pushed until the handle burned my hand. The beast convulsed, hissed, died.
[Partial Recovery Achieved.][Warning: Residual Injury — Unresolved (Estimated Healing Ti 10 min).]
The air went still. The storm backed off like it had watched enough.
Lucien scanned with a faint glow from his palms. "You all right?"
I forced a nod. "Define all right."My chest popped with every breath. Regen had done the math and decided I wasn’t worth full price.
"Still moving," he said. "Good enough."
Lucien’s glow dimd. He studied for a beat longer than necessary."You take hits like that and keep standing," he said. "Most F-ranks would be paste. What are you really packing, Cross?"
I forced a shrug. "Good genes and worse luck."
Elise glanced over, curious now. "No, seriously. Two S-ranks, an A , and you’re not slowing us down. Don’t tell it’s just cardio."
"Fine," I said, rubbing my ribs. "You want the headline? I reawakened after Fog-Mire. Got a blacksmith-type skill. A-rank—Forge-sothing. Lets read and reshape tal, strengthen equipnt, that kind of thing. Not flashy. Just useful."
Varga grunted. "Forge-mastery. Explains the knives."
"See? Nothing dramatic," I said quickly. "I build. You all break. Symbiotic relationship."
Elise smirked. "And here I thought you were hiding sothing exciting."
"Please," I said. "If I ever get exciting, I’m probably dying."
That earned a small chuckle. Conversation dropped, heat swallowed the silence again—and I let it. The lie tasted tallic in my mouth, but it was better than explaining how my real upgrades ca from won the system classified as objectives.
Elise knelt by one carcass, curiosity overriding disgust. "They bleed magma. See this pattern? Sa runes the orcs had on their blades."
"ans?" I asked.
"ans soone’s branding them," she said. "Or building them."
I stared at the sigils—circular, forged into bone. They pulsed faintly, not random.
"Those are letters," I said before thinking.
Lucien glanced up. "You can read them?"
"No," I said. "But they’re too neat to be magic gibberish. Soone wanted them seen."
Varga grunted. "We move."
We moved. The storm trailed us, whispering.
Hours blurred. We crossed a valley of glass ribs—massive arches jutting from the ground like the skeleton of a god. Each one humd when we passed. The tone changed pitch depending on who walked closest.
When I stepped under the largest, the hum spiked.
[Resonance Detected.]
[Hidden Path Response — Low Level Forge Frequency Match.]
I froze.
"Cross?" Elise asked.
"World’s singing at ," I said. "Don’t take it personal."
"Keep moving," Varga ordered.
But the hum stayed in my bones even after we left the valley. Every step felt like it struck sparks inside my chest.
By the ti we made camp—a shallow overhang half-lted into the hillside—the twilight cycle had started again. The light turned crimson, shadows thick as tar.
Lucien set up a barrier do—thin, white, humming low. "It’ll keep heat and fus out for a few hours."
Elise sat cross-legged, wiping soot off her gauntlets. "First day and we’re already half-baked."
"Could be worse," I said. "Could be paperwork."
Varga didn’t smile. "We lost a quarter of supplies to the heat. Keep rations tight."
Lucien’s gaze lingered on the horizon. "They’re watching."
We followed his eyes. Far across the plain, pinpricks of light flickered—torchlines moving in formation. Columns. Soldiers.
"They’re building camps," Elise said softly.
Varga exhaled through his nose. "They know we’re here."
"Maybe they always did," I said. "We’re not invading their world. We walked into their ho."
Lucien’s voice was quiet. "Then the question is—who sent the first gate? Us or them?"
No one answered.
The crimson sky pulsed once, bright enough to throw our shadows against the rock. For a heartbeat, I saw my reflection in Gloamthorn’s blade—eyes glowing faintly gold from residual mana.
[Quest Update — Objective 1: Reach Inner Ring (Progress 22 %)][Optional: Recover Cultural Artifacts → Reward Unknown.]
"Optional quest," I muttered. Yeah, those always end well.
The wind shifted again, carrying distant drums—slow, rhythmic, almost human.
The sound echoed through the basin like a heartbeat.
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