Soti later...
Levi was seen smiling on the bench, satisfied with the final avatar’s picture... With one final look, he exited his profile and went to the Nocturnal Ring’s Death Gas hopage.
It was designed to show many live Death Gas screens happening simultaneously in a circular layout, each view getting smaller as it neared the center.
At the center, two shadowy words stood out:
Play a Ga.
With hundreds of screens flickering around it in a circular motion, the button took on a hypnotic pull, drawing a player to press it.
"All tactics used to entice the players to keep joining those death traps... but they sure do work," Levi murmured, his finger pressing the button.
He wasn’t scared to start his first ga this early for three reasons:
The gas’ difficulty and complexity rose based on the combined average power level of all participants. This ant that the weaker Levi was, the weaker his competitors would be, making his first ga much easier for him. If he were to unlock an additional ability, it would raise his average power, even if that ability might not be that useful.
Levi didn’t want to risk it, not in his first ga at least... he wanted it to be like a tutorial for what awaited him.
Second, the mont the Rifters were assembled in each ga, they were given a minimum of a week to prepare. This would give Levi ti to lock in and train to the best of his ability, improving his fighting skills and learning the ga’s chanics.
Yet the most important reason was the Nocturn’s Pardon... the virgin players in their first ga were pardoned by Nocturn himself if they t a certain death.
This gave them one last chance to reconsider whether the Ring was for them or not.
However, if the players survived the first ga on their own—whether they won or not—the Nocturn’s Pardon expired... it didn’t affect the first death, only the first ga.
With these reasons combined, Levi realized the best ti to get a taste of the program was now... even Ash’Kral had advised him to do the sa, believing Levi could steamroll those weaklings.
After pressing the button, a new screen popped up before Levi. It was filled with thousands of shadowy cards, each bearing the Nocturnal Ring’s insignia on its back.
A similar button sat at its center, but this one had a single word:
Randomize.
Levi pressed it and watched the cards shuffle among each other for a few seconds... once they stopped, all the cards began pulsing with a gentle light, as if pulling Levi to choose one.
He took a deep breath and glanced one last ti around him. As his spiritual eyes swept over the myriad races and the busy streets of the Ring’s main hub, he knew his future was here.
No hesitation...he reached out and picked one of the cards near the center. Imdiately, the sea of cards crashed apart, leaving the chosen one behind. It flipped over and expanded to cover the entire screen:
// Ga Structure: Survival
Ga Na: Wailing Bone Pit.
Nocturnal Rifters Number: 30
The Combined Average Power Level: 11,3N...Range(5N_12N)
Ranks allowed: Holess.
Map Fragnts Pot: 30 (One map fragnt for each Rifter)
Battle Map: The Echoing Ossuary.
Prize Pool:Orril’s Coilstone, The Stillwater Fla, Wailing Essence Vial, Duskroot Fang Artifact, Glassseed of Vey’lan...
Hidden Ga Achievent: The Pitculler.
Rules of the ga:
Abilities Allowed.
Flight banned...External Items besides tokens are banned.
Nocrix Credit can be earned by eliminating players. (1000 NC each)
Placent within the starting pit is random.
The pit’s walls have ridges, single stairsteps, and hovering rotating platforms positioned randomly.
The ga has a one-hour ti limit.
Escape the Pit or be devoured by it.
The first to reach the surface wins the ga.
The mont a player reaches the surface, the pit will start closing in slowly. Anyone who remains behind shall perish.
Good luck to all Nocturnal Rifters//
"Wailing Bone Pit..." Levi murmured. "A climbing-based death ga with thirty-plus Rifters, and a brutal chanic that kills anyone who has not reached the surface... sounds ominous."
"What do you think?" Ash’Kral asked.
"I don’t know yet; I have to do so research on the ga."
Levi planned to spend the upcoming week preparing. Although he knew his life was guaranteed in the ga, he wasn’t joining for the giggles.
He wanted to win it; he needed to win it... especially when he was putting a map fragnt up as a participation ticket.
All Rifters were required to put one in the pot... the winner took the pot ho while the losers counted themselves lucky if they survived another day.
Of course, the required map fragnts increased based on rank to ensure an appropriate pot for the winner.
At the mont, Levi owned only five map fragnts, given to him by the program as an initial kickstart... if he lost them all, he would need to purchase them or obtain them in other ways.
Since Ash’Kral refused to hand over his little island, Levi couldn’t sell it as map fragnts even if he wanted to.
Also, he wanted to win it for the prize pool. They might be low-grade, but for Levi, who was just beginning his journey, they were a must-have.
"Wailing Bone Pit..."
Levi narrowed his eyes as he searched for the ga’s na in the dinsional network. What ca up sent a shiver down his spine.
It was brutal scenes of dozens of Rifters climbing a dimly lit abyss, harrowing ghostly wails echoing from the bottom.
Explosions, screams, dusty clouds, barriers flaring or cracking apart... Rifters falling into the embrace of the wailing pit, their terrified cries forcing the rest to climb faster while shielding themselves.
Yet what scared Levi most were the hidden, unexpected traps.
In each iteration of the ga, a different trap appeared: shifting platforms, vicious worms erging from the walls, the wailing pit spitting out burning acidic black tar, and many more.
Those additions kept the sa ga fresh for the watchers, especially when neither they nor the Rifters had any clue about them!
"Death Gas... they left nothing to the imagination." Levi sucked in a cold, deep breath. "Everything wants you dead: the ga design, the opponents, the watchers, the Gamaster... It’s up to the Rifter to ascend above it all and erge victorious."
If it weren’t for the Nocturn’s Pardon, Levi doubted he would have dared to participate this early.
Fortunately, the Wailing Bone Pit focused on endurance, preparation, and intelligence...Levi was going to give it his all for the next week.
"Ash’Kral, I’m going to need that dinsional key," Levi said, his tone solemn.
...
Soti later...
Levi could be seen far, far away from the capital city in an empty forest. He had already scanned the area and found no one nearby.
He summoned Ash’Kral, who muttered the incantation to open his Boundless Domain.
The dinsional key wasn’t a physical object... it was a specific incantation acting as an activation key.
Once he finished, a shadowy nocturnal contract manifested before them. It expanded into the shape of a door... without Levi needing to do anything, the spatial portal opened into a rippling mirror, reflecting a tiny floating piece of land in the middle of nothingness.
The portal shifted and vibrated so intensely that Levi’s echolocation couldn’t help but reveal it.
Levi took a deep breath and stepped through the portal, his feet touching firm ground on the other side. The rest of him followed inside.
A mont later, the door-like contract shrank to its original size and burned by black flas into nothingness.
Imdiately after, the atmosphere and gravity shifted drastically from Earth’s laws to the pre-decided rules set by Ash’Kral.
They weren’t human-friendly in the slightest.
Thud!
Levi’s body smashed against the ground; his mouth foad, and not an ounce of air reached his lungs.
Seeing this, Ash’Kral swiftly adjusted the domain’s paraters to match Earth’s gravity and atmosphere.
The mont the order went through, Levi began coughing up his lungs in a kneeling position, his face drained of color.
"Ash’Kral!!!"
"Cough... don’t bla ; I keep forgetting you humans are too fragile at the start, and it’s been a while since I ca here," Ash’Kral coughed sheepishly.
Levi’s expression remained dark, uncaring about excuses... he had almost f*cking died in the middle of nowhere.
But he realized he shared so responsibility... he knew Ash’Kral was unreliable in such situations, and it was up to him to check.
So he kept his curses to himself and used his echolocation to analyze the island. Then he rembered Ash’Kral possessed omnipotent authority here...aning he could help Levi see.
Just as Levi was about to ask, Ash’Kral shook his head. "Forget about it; my level of omnipotence is at the bare minimum. I can reform the island, change its atmosphere and gravity, but that’s it."
"I can’t add new staff, give myself new powers, recreate items or treasures...nothing beyond that."
"Ah... I rember now."
Levi smiled bitterly, recalling he’d read sothing about this in the five-hundred-page contract... his eagerness to see had clouded his mory. Maybe he didn’t want to rember it, hoping for a different answer.
Alas...
Nocturn wasn’t foolish enough to give perfect omnipotence to every territory owner. There were levels...from O1 to O10... each unlocking more access and freedom in one’s territory (O for Omnipotence).
The levels could rise or fall depending on many variables: Nocturnal Ring rank, outside reputation, staff status under Nocturn’s authority, size of territory, and more.
At the sa ti, breaking the rules could lower or strip one’s Omnipotence entirely.
Ash’Kral’s Omnipotence level was O1...the lowest form of access.
"This island has been crafted by the cheapest hundred map fragnts," Ash’Kral chuckled. "Attica won it in a bet and wrote it under my na as a joke since she already had a bigger territory at the ti."
"You’re telling this isn’t even yours?"
"Of course not. Why would I buy this crap? I had a territory spanning a hundred thousand kiloters... this little rock ans nothing to ."
"Then give it to ."
"No. I’m not a monster... it’s a gift."
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