Veyan had his reasons for thinking death was inevitable. First off, no mere mortal could withstand the raw, unrelenting surge of fire mana pouring from the hell pne. That was a given. Secondly, the drakkari standing before him… felt oddly familiar. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the ink on the red-scaled warrior’s arm confirmed his suspicions.

  He was a Vor’akh.

  Which led to the real question—what in the name of all things unholy was he doing in hell? Veyan didn’t have the answer, but what he did have was a bone-deep, gut-churning realization: this guy was powerful. Powerful enough to keep potential Gold-ranked demons at bay, not through force, but through sheer presence alone.

  And that, in itself, was a problem.

  Because just how powerful was he? Nobody on the continent had ever broken past the Gold rank. Sure, some ancient texts whispered of a realm beyond—Ptinum Core—but those were just myths, stories schors told each other when reality felt too dull. In practice, Gold was the limit. There was nothing beyond it.

  Had hell rewritten the rules? Had it found a way to shatter the ceiling, to let someone ascend past the chains of power they all thought unbreakable? And if so… was that why this man was here? Some twisted form of enlightenment?

  Veyan himself was a low-Gold, yes, but his power was enough to make even high-Golds think twice before picking a fight. And yet, the man before him?

  Not impressed. Not even remotely interested. In fact, he was pying with him.

  Not attacking. Not countering. Just watching.

  It was an insult, a silent sp across the face. A decration that the gap between them was so vast, so absolute, that he didn’t even consider Veyan worth the effort.

  Veyan’s metal mana shredded the battlefield in invisible scythes. Magma frothed and split, searing eruptions cwing at the air as Veyan’s attacks carved the hellscape into something barely recognizable. His sword warped under the force of his Weapon Augment skill, shifting from bde to cannon to bow, each form unleashing destruction with every move. If the weapon was mundane, the skill turned it into a killing machine. If it was enchanted? It became a dirge given edge.

  The drakkari ughed.

  Not a scratch. Not a flinch. Just ughter, rich and throaty, as if Veyan were a jester dancing on a pyre’s edge.

  Then—the veil behind Veyan trembled, reality’s stitches fraying further.

  Click.

  This wasn’t a summoning ritual.

  They weren’t dragging a demon through the breach.

  They were resurrecting a Vor’akh exile from Hell’s forgotten oubliette.

  How he’d come to rule this infernal patch? What pacts he’d sealed in hellfire? Irrelevant.

  Whatever infernal alchemy had warped him—or he’d wrought upon Hell—had forged something beyond monster.

  If that scaled abomination cwed his way back to the mortal world—if—not even the Matriarch’s fury would shackle him.

  Veyan’s teeth gnashed, jawbone creaking. His sword screamed as it twisted—tendons of molten metal snapping into a bow taller than death. Mana coiled, compressed, birthing a crackling arrow that hummed with the promise of oblivion. The air around it bled distortion. Then—

  Release.

  The arrow screamed through the air at supersonic speeds, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.

  A heartbeat ter, the battlefield detonated.

  Magma erupted in a blinding inferno, the shockwave splitting stone and sky. The force alone should have been enough to leave nothing behind but molten ruin. Veyan stood firm, his aura alone parting the storm of liquid fire.

  And yet—

  The drakkari stepped out of the inferno. Unscathed.

  Cpping.

  "Wow," he mused, grinning wide. "Almost had me worried there, little snake. Almost."

  Then he stretched, jogging in pce like this was all some casual morning exercise. The scorched earth hissed under his cwed feet, red-hot magma evaporating on contact.

  "You’ve got, oh…" He gnced over his shoulder at the rift in space, tilting his head. "Three minutes to show me what you’ve got!" His smirk deepened. “Three minutes to make me sweat.” He winked. “Amp up the spectacle, and I might leash you as my pet. A living trophy. Exclusive offer, mind you—you’ve earned it! You’ve been such a delightful distraction!"

  He was insane.

  Veyan’s breath sawed through his ribs. The bow trembled in his grip, hungry.

  “Shadeling got your fangs?” The drakkari cocked his head. Then his grin sharpened. "Unless…" His eyes gleamed. "You crave a taste of my cws as well."

  The words had barely left his lips before Veyan’s world shattered.

  Huh.

  That’s all his mangled mind could chew on before agony—red, raw, ravenous—ripped through him.

  Blood geysered from his mouth. His body—where was his body?

  Gone. From navel down—gone.

  His entrails dangled grotesquely as he crashed into the burning trees, fire licking at his ruined form.

  When did he—

  Impossible.

  He hadn’t even seen him move.

  When? How?

  Veyan’s mana surged on instinct, forcing his body to keep functioning. It staunched the gaping wound, slowed the blood loss. His heart—once erratic—snapped into manual control, his willpower the only thing keeping it beating.

  Being torn in half wasn’t a death sentence for a Gold Rank. He wasn’t dying that easily.

  He refused to.

  Mana surged.

  [Weapon Augmentation]

  A metallic storm engulfed him, metal mana raging like a hurricane, bending to his command. Liquid steel poured from his shattered form, hardening, reshaping—

  A helmet locked over his face, blinding him to all but instinct. Armor spiraled over his flesh, jagged protrusions cwing out from his back. Mercury-like metal stretched downward, forming new legs—stronger, deadlier.

  From a disemboweled corpse to a towering steel warrior, Veyan rose, now standing twelve feet tall.

  The man clicked his tongue. "And here I thought I was holding back. Have they all grown this weak back home?" He scoffed, shaking his head. "I suppose it was inevitable the moment you all chose unity over hunger. Over strength."

  His gaze darkened, ced with barely contained disgust. "Not a single punch? And you’re already at death’s door?" He spat onto the scorched ground, the molten rock sizzling at the impact. "Weaklings. And I have to watch more of this mediocrity through this veil?" His lip curled. "Ancestors must have truly abandoned us."

  He exhaled, long and slow, as if forcing himself to tolerate the sight before him. "I’d be done with you already, but I gave you three minutes. And I am a man of my word, no matter how much it disgusts me to entertain this." His fingers flexed, cws twitching. "Waste my time no longer. Come at me."

  Maybe it was something about Veyan’s state— still standing, yet half-dead—that had soured his amusement into sheer contempt.

  Fine.

  Let him choke on it.

  Veyan's fingers clenched, steel grinding against steel. His metal heels tapped against va, then—boom.

  He moved.

  Supersonic speed.

  The distance between them vanished in an instant. Gauntleted hands twisted, morphing into cws the size of short swords, hidden toxins cing their edges, their venom ready to sink deep—

  He struck.

  And still—

  The man did not move.

  He merely sighed, catching the blow effortlessly in one hand. His expression twisted into sheer disdain.

  "Pathetic."

  Then—

  Veyan’s world spun.

  A sickening lurch, a crushing force—his body shattered against something unseen.

  And yet—he never saw it.

  Never sensed anything.

  Nothing had moved.

  Armor shredded like brittle paper.

  A single blow—one he never even saw—and every limb bent at impossible angles.

  The force of it sent Veyan flying, agony fring anew as something deep within him cracked—not just bones, but something fundamental.

  He almost ughed.

  Because this was absurd.

  After everything—after cwing his way to the top, after being named the youngest to ever ascend to Gold Core—this was how it ended?

  They had called him a prodigy. A once-in-a-century talent. The only one who might surpass him was Master’s own daughter, Vernia.

  And yet, in this moment, his thoughts drifted to someone else entirely.

  That silver-haired Drakkari...

  Something about her. The shape of her face. The cut of her features.

  Eerily simir to the princess.

  Why am I thinking about this now?

  Perhaps it was a coping mechanism. A way to cling to something other than the overwhelming certainty of death breathing down his neck.

  His mana reserves—gone.

  His body—broken.

  And still, he fought. Not to win. He had long abandoned that delusion.

  He fought to stall.

  If nothing else, he could buy time. Time for Master to save someone. Anyone.

  But had she even gotten his message?

  The psychic tether had been severed long ago.

  The veil between realms cracked further, and through it—he saw the ballroom hall.

  Guests y colpsed across the floor. The traitors rummaged through the wreckage, gazes fixed eagerly on the torn fabric of reality reflected in the ceiling mirror.

  But Master—

  She wasn’t there.

  A bitter exhale.

  Was this it?

  A bitter ugh bubbled in his throat—then died as his left arm exploded. Bones powdered, flesh unraveling like rotten silk. The right followed, then his legs—each limb colpsing inward, pulped meat and splintered marrow.

  And then—

  Fire. Not fme, but an invisible thing coiled around his throat, scalding and serpentine. It squeezed, molten iron branding his windpipe. The drakkari’s face filled his vision, scaled features twisted with disgust.

  Pure, unfiltered disgust.

  "Well—" the man mused, almost zily, "pytime’s over."

  Then his gaze flicked past Veyan, through the veil, and a wicked grin spread across his face.

  "Ahh… what a beautiful menagerie of guests you’ve gathered." A low, delighted chuckle. "I’ll make sure to savor their screams."

  Veyan's pulse smmed against his ribs.

  The Drakkari exhaled a satisfied sigh. "Part of me wants you to witness it all." His fingers flexed, the unseen grip on Veyan’s throat tightening—then suddenly releasing.

  "But the hellbeasts and demons would devour this little space the moment I step through. And they’d eat you alive before you got to see a single thing."

  A mockingly sympathetic tilt of the head.

  "A pity."

  Veyan’s gre sharpened—a final, venomous spark.

  CRACK.

  The blow came like a meteor strike. His jaw vanished, teeth and bone reduced to crimson mist. Blood cascaded down his chest, a grotesque waterfall, as the drakkari’s snarl vibrated through the molten air:

  “EYES. DOWN. WOR—”

  The drakkari’s snarl stuttered.

  Time buckled.

  It happened the moment the veil ripped apart, the gateway home yawning wide.

  Time did not freeze—it fractured, suspended in a moment stretched thin. A cobalt light vomited from the rift, drenching Hell in a getinous, spectral sheen. The molten pins, the cwed mountains, even the drakkari’s snarl—all turned translucent, drowned in a haze of blue. Through the veil, Veyan saw… numbers.

  Endless. Relentless.

  A blizzard of 0 and 1, churning in fractal tides, devouring the hellscape in a flood of binary code. They slithered like serpents, faster than thought, faster than breath—a million calcutions per heartbeat, etching equations into the air itself.

  At the rift’s maw, a die materialized—a geometric abomination, edges sharp, surfaces etched with glyphs that writhed. Lightning crackled around it, not true electricity but something older, jagged and alive, snapping at the air.

  The drakkari’s eyes bulged, veins straining against scales. His cws twitched, muscles corded—but his body refused him. Even this monster was shackled.

  The die spun. Faster. Faster.

  A sound like grinding teeth crawled into Veyan’s skull. His ribs thrashed—not fear, but primal recognition. The same instinct that howls when the moon vanishes. When the forest falls silent.

  Something was here.

  The die shrieked, its edges birthing fractures in the air—not cracks, but equations, geometric wounds bleeding streams of flickering numerals. From its core, a figure coalesced: a woman wrought from starlight and static, her form shifting as if a thousand overpping tapestries fought to define her. Symbols cascaded down her skin—not tattoos, but living glyphs that squirmed, rearranging themselves with each breath. When she spoke, her voice was the grind of tectonic ptes, the whisper of leaves in a dead forest:

  [ENTITY_IDENTIFIED: DRAZHAN_PEPELAR][RANK_DETECTED: LOW_PLATINUM_CORE][JURISDICTION: CONTINENT_7A3F9B][RULE_VIOLATION: CONTINENT_SUPPRESSION_PROTOCOL (MAX_RANK=GOLD)][ADDITIONAL_CHARGES: UNAUTHORIZED_VEIL_BREACH (SEVERITY: APOCALYPTIC)][SENTENCING: IMMEDIATE_CONTAINMENT]

  The drakkari’s snarl twisted into something raw—fear. His scales rippled, hellfire mana boiling around him, but the woman raised a hand. Symbols fred in the air:

  [FUNCTION: NULLIFY_ESCAPE_ATTEMPTS][EXECUTE]

  Tendrils of light erupted from the void—not flesh, but code, braided from those same endless 0s and 1s. They coiled around Drazhan’s limbs, his throat, his jaws, silencing his roar. He thrashed, but the numerals seared into his scales, branding him with glowing chains.

  [ERROR: RESISTANCE_FUTILE][REDIRECTING_TO_HOLDING_CELL: REALM_DELTA-9]

  The tendrils yanked.

  Drazhan vanished, his final gre etched into the air like smoke.

  The woman’s hexagonal gaze slid to the veil. Beyond it, the traitors froze, their faces drenched in sudden, sweating terror.

  [SUBSIDIARY_TARGETS: RITUAL_ORCHESTRATORS (n=17)][CHARGE: COMPLICITY_IN_APOCALYPTIC_BREACH][SENTENCING: TERMINATE]

  One by one, their bodies unmade—not disintegrated, but erased, flesh peeling back into strings of ghostly numerals that dissolved like salt in rain.

  Then her gaze fell on Veyan.

  [ENTITY_SCAN: VEYAN_SABLETHORN][RANK_DETECTED: LOW_GOLD_CORE][AFFILIATION: VICTIM][ROLE: PASSERBY (CONFIRMED)][STATUS: CRITICAL_DAMAGE (REVERSIBLE)]

  Her fingers flicked.

  [FUNCTION: ROLLBACK_LOCAL_TIME (DURATION: 247_SECONDS)][EXECUTE]

  The world lurched.

  Veyan’s shattered jaw rewound, bone shards flying backward into pce. Blood siphoned from the ground into his veins. Muscles knitted; armor melted, reforged itself. It wasn’t healing—it was undoing, as if time itself spat out the injustice of his ruin.

  The woman tilted her head, hexagons whirring.

  [WARNING: REALM_INTEGRITY_AT_7%][DIRECTIVE: SEAL_VEIL (PRIORITY: OMEGA)]

  She raised both hands. The rift shuddered, edges stitching closed like a wound under a healer’s hand.

  [ADVICE: FLEE_THIS_PIT, MORTAL_STRING][YOUR_CODE_IS_NOT_WORTHY_OF_SCRUTINY]

  A tendril snapped around Veyan’s waist—not cruel, but inexorable—and hurled him backward through the closing veil.

  He glimpsed her one final time, already dissolving into that storm of 0 and 1, her voice echoing as the rift sealed with a snap:

  [REALM_SEAL: 7C-ALPHA][VEIL_INTEGRITY: RESTORED][DIRECTIVE_STATUS: COMPLETE][DISENGAGING][ERROR_LOG: PRUNE_AFTER_READING]

  Then—silence.