Sowhere far from Rael’s ranting and bullshit, a white-haired boy walked toward a sword buried deep in the cave floor.
Behind him lay a twitching corpse, a grotesque, shifting mass of flesh that had finally stopped moving.
Noah had reached the strange tree at the center of the second layer of the Cursed Forest about half an hour ago.
The mont his fingers brushed its bark, the world around him twisted and he was thrown into this strange space.
He hadn’t even understood what had happened before the monster attacked.
A creature that morphed endlessly, changing shape, form and even the way it moved.
A creature that fought with eerie and almost human precision.
It adapted itself constantly.
Only after a brutal fight did Noah finally bring it down and even then, it was only because he had one clear advantage.
His eyes.
He could see the monster’s attack patterns, the path its blows would take and the split-second gaps between shifts.
That foresight made victory possible... but not painless.
By the ti it was over, Noah was standing bloodied, gasping and barely holding on
Noah limped forward, each step echoing faintly in the silence of the cave.
His expression was eerily neutral, too calm for soone half-covered in blood.
From the sword ahead, a golden thread shimred faintly, stretching toward him like a living thing.
He could feel the power and resilience, that damned sword promised,
He hated it.
He hated how it would make him even harder to kill.
But the pull...
...the pull was sothing he couldn’t resist.
The sword felt like a missing fragnt of his very soul, waiting to return ho.
As his gaze lingered on it, sothing deep within stirred... a quiet recognition and almost painful in its familiarity.
This wasn’t just a weapon.
It was the part of him that would make him whole.
Step by step, he closed in on the sword. Behind him, a faint trail of grey blood marked his path...
The closer he got, the stronger the pull beca, almost like the sword was breathing in sync with him.
Finally, he stood before it.
The golden thread trembled between them.
Noah exhaled once and then reached out.
His fingers brushed the hilt... and he grasped the sword.
A burst of light erupted from the sword, swallowing the cave whole.
The ground cracked beneath his feet and the air warped with pressure.
His body stiffened as every nerve scread. The light started rging with his body.
And then... he felt it. Sothing ancient and vast stirring within him.
[Congratulations. You have awakened a new affinity.]
[Affinity: Abyss has Awakened.]
[The Myth: Monarch of the Abyss Is Awakened.]
Countless system windows appeared around him, but Noah couldn’t focus on a single one.
His mind was drowned in pain.
Even soone as numb to agony as he was couldn’t suppress the primal scream that tore from his throat.
It wasn’t just pain. His whole soul was being ripped apart and reforged into sothing far beyond human.
[FIRST ABYSSAL SWORD HAS CHOSEN ITS SUCCESSOR]
The ssage burned across his vision and then, silence because he lost consciousness.
—
[Rael’s POV]
Interruptions are always annoying, sotis even downright troubleso.
You’re in the middle of doing sothing you actually enjoy and then out of nowhere, soone cuts in and sses up with your flow.
I used to find that unbearable.
So, naturally, I ca up with a system.
I started grading interruptions.
If the interruption was more important than what I was doing, I would react.
If not, I ignored it, kind of like ignoring that one annoying friend who keeps asking you to set him up with one of your female friends.
But this particular interruption, the one that had sprinting through this cursed forest, was sothing I couldn’t ignore.
Just a few monts ago, I had been peacefully testing my skills, minding my own business... but of course, the universe just had to ruin it.
That tug at my soul ca out of nowhere and I recognized it imdiately.
It was from the Cloak of Trickster.
That damned sentient artifact was soul-bound to ,
so naturally, it could send signals like this.
But it never did.
Not under normal circumstances.
Which ant sothing had gone very wrong.
Bearlo was probably in danger.
Honestly, I had invested way too much in him for him to die this soon.
So yeah, I needed to reach that idiot of an assistant and save his sorry life, if only to protect my investnt.
After all, loyalty and compassion are temporary,
but the return of investnt is forever.
My mind raced.
I had sent Bearlo to that cave because it was sothing he could handle, especially with my cloak on him.
So... how?
Why was he in danger?
There was only one answer—an unknown variable.
And this world had plenty of those.
The kind that didn’t follow logic.
The kind that acted purely on whims,
just like the universe that seed hell-bent on ruining my peace.
The way to exit the second layer of the forest was simple.
To get there, I had to let myself get swallowed again by the sa goat-like monster I had entered through before.
It was still chained near the massive, half-dead tree that dominated this cursed place,
Not exactly my preferred mode of travel... but apparently, we were doing this again.
I ran straight toward the massive tree because wasting ti right now wasn’t exactly productive.
"Don’t you dare die before repaying my investnt, Bearlo..." I muttered under my breath. "Or I swear, I’ll make a second trip to Hell just to drag your sorry ass back out before killing you myself."
—
anwhile, sowhere else, far from Noah’s awakening or Rael’s rush, a girl trembled.
Her platinum-blonde hair was sared with blood, sticking to her pale skin.
The only light in the pitch-black cave ca from her eyes, twin golden orbs glowing weakly against the dark.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die.
The words looped in her head, over and over, like a broken chant she couldn’t silence.
Seraphina had always believed she was a burden, sothing fragile that others had to carry.
A mistake that sohow kept breathing.
She had convinced herself she shouldn’t exist... yet deep down, every fiber of her being scread to live.
To know.
To find the reason behind the chains that bound her life.
To find why she was a burden.
So she endured.
She smiled when she was told to smile.
Walked when she was commanded to move.
Healed when she was ordered to heal.
And now, alone in the dark, bleeding and broken, Seraphina realised she had followed every command but her own.
She had co here with the group her cousin Viola had assigned to protect her. But to them, she was nothing more than baggage.
A fragile, useless burden they had to drag along.
And they made sure she knew it, in every sigh, every glance, every whisper behind her back.
Still, she smiled.
Still, she had played her role, the quiet and obedient doll who knew her place.
Until the mont danger appeared. Then, like all the fragile things, she was left behind.
Cedric—the one in charge of her protection—tried to reach her... to save her but even he was pushed back by his friends because his life was at risk.
Now, in the suffocating dark, she hugged her knees to her chest, her entire body trembling as tears streaked down her face.
"I don’t want to die..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "Please... let live."
Her words echoed weakly against the stone walls.
She prayed to the darkness itself, hoping sothing was listening.
Hoping the world, for once, would show her rcy.
Hoping... maybe, just maybe... so prince from the fairy tales she used to believe in would co for her.
But only silence answered.
This world was no fairy tale.
There were no princes or miracles.
Only monsters... and people who ran when they saw one.
Just then, the cave trembled.
A low, guttural growl echoed through the air.
Seraphina froze.
Sothing primal stirred within the shadows, making every instinct in her body scream.
Her trembling hand reached for her wand, knuckles turning white as she gripped it tightly.
Her breathing turned rough.
A massive green orc appeared from the shadows. Each step it took made the ground quake, the crude wooden club in its hand dragging across the stone.
Seraphina could barely think.
She knew her magic couldn’t save her, healing spells wouldn’t stop a monster like this.
She had never learned to fight.
No one had ever bothered to teach her.
And now... it was too late.
The orc lood over her as it lifted its club high.
Tears blurred Seraphina’s vision as she shut her eyes, not out of courage but surrender.
If this was fate... then so be it.
But the expected impact never ca as an amused voice echoed within the cave.
"Now, where the hell am I?"
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