Chapter 26: The First Gate
[: 3rd POV :]
The weeks that followed Daniel’s conquest of the Sky Archipelago were marked by a growing sense of detachnt.
His quest for power had grown insatiable, driven by an unyielding hunger for more, yet each step forward beca less easy.
Monsters fell beneath his gaze, entire species erased in the blink of an eye.
It was during one such hunt that Daniel stood at the edge of a darkened valley, the landscape twisted into a terrifying, jagged expanse of razor-sharp stone and molten fissures.
Here, the earth roared with fury, and the very air shimred with unnatural heat.
Below him, a group of formidable creatures had gathered, their forms outlined in the dim glow of lava.
[: Ashen Wyvern: Rank A – Level 850]
[: Trait: Lavaheart Scales (Reduces damage from fire-based attacks and regenerates health when in contact with lava)]
[: Innate: Ash Storm (Summons a devastating volcanic eruption upon taking damage)]
[: Bloodline: Cindergale Drake – once born from the heart of active volcanoes]
[: Infernal Titan: Rank A – Level 880]
[: Trait: Fla God’s Wrath (The wielder is empowered by a connection to ancient fire beings, amplifying fla-based attacks and making it resistant to fire damage)]
[: Innate: Titan’s Fist (Crushes enemies with its massive fla-imbued fists, causing volcanic tremors upon impact)]
[: Bloodline: Fla Giants – the original children of the Magma Giants]
Daniel’s eyes scanned the valley below, his silver-violet gaze never faltering as the monsters sensed his presence.
The Ashen Wyverns, like dark streaks of fire across the sky, descended with terrifying speed, their claws sharp enough to rend stone.
Without a word, Daniel raised his hand, the void around him shuddering as if in anticipation.
[: Void Step :]In an instant, he was gone, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
’’Where the hell did the Mortal go!?’’
The wyverns screeched, their fiery wings flapping to gain control of the skies, but they were too late.
Daniel had already reappeared behind them, his eyes glowing with an eerie calm.
’’Suprise bitches’’ He cursed.
[: Indomitable Destruction: Decay of Nothingness :]
A pulse of annihilation spread outward from him, and in an instant, the wyverns’ flas flickered and died.
Their bodies, once burning with molten fury, began to crumble, their scales disintegrating into dust, their very essence wiped from existence.
The Infernal Titan, witnessing the collapse of its kin, bellowed in rage.
It stomped forward, its gargantuan body shaking the ground beneath it.
Its eyes burned with fiery hatred as it swung its fla-encrusted fists, sending waves of molten magma in Daniel’s direction.
’’Is that all?’’
Daniel’s expression remained cold, his movents effortless as the molten tidal wave hurtled toward him.
He stepped to the side, unaffected by the heat, the air around him shimring as his aura absorbed the attack.
He raised his hand once again.
[: Indomitable Destruction: Decay of Nothingness :]
The Titan’s body began to decompose before his very eyes.
The flas that surrounded it extinguished, the once-imnse form slowly crumbling to ash as if the very concept of its existence was being erased.
The earth beneath it cracked and withered, the very land succumbing to the void.
Within monts, the once towering Titan was gone, reduced to nothingness.
The landscape itself trembled for a mont before succumbing to the sa fate—its rocky form eroding into dust, the molten lava subsiding into cold stone.
Daniel stood silently amidst the devastation, the last remnants of the creatures and land fading away into oblivion.
"Rank A monsters no longer even give
any real challenge," he muttered to himself.
"I barely gained 50 levels from this hunt"
His voice, though calm, carried a hint of frustration.
For nearly a week, he had been hunting Rank A monsters, slaying thousands of them with ease.
Yet, the gains had been minuscule compared to the vast expanse of power he had already attained.
His Endless Potential bonus was still offering boosts to his experience, but the ti it took to cross a re 100 levels—after defeating such powerful creatures—was beginning to feel like a waste of ti.
’’But I can’t complain. After all, without the effects of Endless Potential and all of my skills, I wouldn’t be able to level up this fast’’ He muttered.
He clenched his fist, the emptiness of his hand mirroring the growing void inside him.
Another day passed, and Daniel continued to seek the next challenge, pushing himself further, hunting relentlessly.
He faced a slew of Rank A monsters with ease, massive beasts like the Dreadroot Behemoth, whose bark-like skin was impervious to normal attacks.
The Black Smoke Serpent, a towering serpent of smoke and embers that could engulf entire cities in a blinding storm of fire, and the Stonefang Warlord, an ancient golem whose stone fists could crush mountains.
Each ti, the sa process played out.
He would raise his hand, and the Decay of Nothingness would consu them, erasing them from existence.
The lands they had once inhabited would turn to barren dust, and in the aftermath, only the echo of destruction remained.
As Daniel stood alone in the aftermath of yet another vanished battlefield, sothing had shifted.
A strange tug pulled at his senses—distant, deep, and ancient.
It wasn’t mana, nor a creature’s aura. It was sothing... different yet familiar to him.
Daniel’s eyes sharpened slightly.
The void around him stilled.
Even the ashes from the erased Titan paused mid-fall, as if sothing greater demanded silence.
With a slow breath, he murmured:
"...What’s this?"
His eyes began to glow.
[: Eyes of Calamity: Far Sight – Activated :]
[: Eyes of Calamity: Status View – Activated :]
His pupils expanded, shifting into silver-violet starbursts as space bent under his gaze.
The world unfolded before him—miles collapsed into inches, terrain unwrapped like parchnt across his mind’s eye.
And then he saw it.
Far across the Forbidden Continent, beyond the collapsed valleys and sunless wastelands, sothing pulsed.
There it was...a Gate.
Not just any gate—a dinsional anomaly, ancient and untouched.
Fracturing space like a wound in reality itself.
Its structure was massive, its edges lined with interlocking runes that shimred like shifting starlight.
Energy bled from it, raw and chaotic.
"...Finally," he said softly, a flicker of sothing rare touching his lips.
There was excitent in his eyes.
[: Void Step :]
Reality split around him with a quiet hum, and in the blink of an eye, Daniel vanished.
He reappeared mid-air, hovering above a wide crater of blackened glass.
The winds here howled unnaturally, pulling toward a singularity at the centre of a jagged ruin.
Lightning forked sideways.
Gravity bent upward. Mana howled like a chorus of lost souls.
And there it was.
The Gate stood like a monunt to forgotten chaos—towering, fractured, and half-awake.
A swirling portal burned at its heart, filled with twisting galaxies and abyssal voids.
It wasn’t just a door—it was a wound to another world.
Daniel’s eyes glead.
[: Interdinsional Gate :]
[: Status: Unstable, Temporarily Open :]
[: Unknown World Detected: Energy Signature incompatible with current dinsional laws :]
[: Monsters Within Possess Rank S Potential and Above :]
For nearly two months, Daniel had explored the Forbidden Continent.
He had walked through the ashes of fallen lands, stepped over the bones of ancients, and erased armies of monsters without breaking stride.
Yet still, no path forward revealed itself—until now.
A Gate.
Its very presence bent the world around it, humming with the chaos of unknown realms.
And Daniel?
He was smiling.
Truly smiling for the first ti in weeks.
"...At last," he whispered.
Without hesitation, without second thought, he stepped forward.
[: Interdinsional Gate – Entered :]
As his body crossed the threshold, the very laws of space scread.
For a heartbeat, Daniel floated in a tiless expanse, stars colliding around him in slow, silent chaos.
And then—
Reality slamd back together.
The mont his feet touched solid ground again, the pressure changed.
The sky above was tinted in hues he’d never seen—lavender and gold intertwining with black streaks like ink in water.
The grass underfoot shimred faintly with mana.
The trees were tall and sleek, almost crystalline, glowing from within with internal veins of power.
A heavy wind passed, and Daniel narrowed his eyes, taking in the bizarre horizon.
"...This isn’t just another region," he muttered. "This is... another reality entirely."
Then his gaze locked forward.
Far in the distance, across a series of hills, stood a city.
No—a colossal city.
It rose like a dream from the earth, its spires carved from obsidian and silver, glowing with floating sigils and shimring banners.
He could see towering gates guarded by creatures the size of buildings, glowing roads paved with runes, and structures that reached into the clouds like monunts to impossible craftsmanship.
But what truly caught Daniel’s attention was who walked those streets.
His brows furrowed.
"...Are those... monsters?"
From this distance, his [Eyes of Calamity: Far Sight] honed in—refining detail, magnifying what the naked eye could never catch.
Thousands.
No—hundreds of thousands of beings moved throughout the city.
So had wings. So walked on three legs. Others had six arms, scales, horns, tails. Eyes that glowed with divine energy.
And yet...
They weren’t fighting.
They weren’t rampaging or tearing at each other’s throats.
They were living.
He knew monsters could talk and express themselves, but this was entirely different.
He saw what looked like street rchants, soldiers patrolling in formation, winged children floating through the air, laughing.
Even temples—yes, temples—where monstrous priests seed to be praying to a crystalline tree in the city’s centre.
"... Civilised?" Daniel muttered.
He blinked slowly, trying to process the contradiction before him.
"Are... they monsters... or sothing else?"
They had the auras of monsters.
Raw power, enough to threaten Rank S if not more.
But they moved with purpose.
"I’ve erased countless creatures," Daniel whispered, "but these..."
He could feel it.
They weren’t mindless monsters.
This wasn’t just a city of monsters.
It was a kingdom.
A kingdom of higher beings.
And for the first ti in a long while, Daniel felt intrigued.
A flicker of excitent danced behind his silver-violet eyes.
Whatever this place was—whoever ruled it—was far beyond the simple monsters he had wiped from existence before.
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