Chapter 164: The Southern Spatial Anchor Gate

Cain looked toward it again.

He raised an eyebrow in amusement as he murmured to himself.

"Seriously?"

Nathan approached with several Cores floating inside a Wind current around him before letting them fall into a pile.

"Something wrong?"

"The 3rd Echelon hasn’t moved at all even after all this."

Nathan looked through the broken wall toward the center of the settlement.

"Maybe it’s waiting for us."

"Maybe." Cain shrugged before crouching beside the Cores.

The others quickly finished gathering everything from the battlefield and added them to the pile.

Dark-gray True Ruin Energy spread from Cain’s hand soon afterward.

The contamination within the Zombie Race Cores gradually disappeared beneath the higher-ranked energy.

Cain purified one after another with a quite relaxed expression, though his sense remained focused on the deeper parts of the Southern Anchor Town the entire time.

Once the purification was finished, Cain stored most of the Cores inside his Inventory.

However, he deliberately kept enough outside for Evelyne and Professor Ian.

"You two, absorb these first."

Evelyne and Professor Ian immediately sat down and absorbed the purified cores as they knew that they didn’t have all the time in the world.

After using the purified resources gathered from the battlefield, Evelyne was the first to push her Mana Core from the Flawless Stage to the Perfected Stage.

Professor Ian followed shortly afterward.

Once both of them finished, Cain nodded in satisfaction.

"Accept your Advancement Missions."

Evelyne and Professor Ian focused on the System without hesitation.

Several seconds later, translucent panels appeared before them.

Professor Ian read through his mission first.

[2nd Echelon Advancement Mission]

[Kill 15 1st Echelon beings without receiving direct assistance from another individual.]

[Mission Progress: 0/15]

Professor Ian raised an eyebrow.

"I need to kill fifteen 1st Echelon beings on my own."

Cain glanced toward the deeper sections of the Southern Anchor Town.

"That’s easy enough."

Considering the number of Zombie Race soldiers they had already encountered before even reaching the Southern Spatial Anchor Gate, finding another fifteen 1st Echelon enemies should not be difficult.

More importantly, Professor Ian only needed to kill them without anyone directly interfering.

As long as the others left enough targets for him, completing the mission should only be a matter of time.

Cain then looked toward Evelyne.

"What about yours?"

Evelyne remained silent.

Her expression had changed completely after reading the mission in front of her.

Cain immediately noticed.

"What?"

Evelyne slowly raised her head.

"My mission is different."

She let Cain look at her mission instead of telling him directly.

[2nd Echelon Advancement Mission]

[Participate in the destruction of the Southern Spatial Anchor Gate.]

[No member of your allied group may die before the Southern Spatial Anchor Gate is completely destroyed.]

[The mission will fail immediately upon the death of any allied participant.]

Cain’s faint smile disappeared as his expression immediately became serious.

If the System had given Evelyne such a mission, then there was a real possibility that someone in their group could die during the destruction of the Southern Anchor Gate.

Cain doubted the condition had appeared for no reason.

His first thought naturally went toward the 3rd Echelon presence deeper inside the town.

That alone was already an unknown threat far beyond anything they had fought until now, and there was no telling how many additional Zombie Race soldiers were stationed around the Anchor Gate itself.

The outer defenses they had just destroyed might only be a small portion of what was waiting deeper inside.

Cain slowly looked across everyone in the group before turning his gaze back toward the settlement.

He had already intended to keep everyone alive anyway.

It was just that Evelyne’s Advancement Mission made that responsibility even more important.

Cain rested one hand on the handle of his sword.

"Finish gathering everything."

The others looked toward him.

Cain stared through the broken section of the wall, his lips curved slightly as he murmured to himself.

"Let’s go see what that bastard is so busy with."

Before entering the Southern Anchor Town, Cain stopped in front of the broken wall.

He then slowly circulated True Ruin Energy through his entire body again.

The Perfected Ruin Mana Core inside his chest began rotating faster as dense dark-gray energy spread through his veins.

He did not stop at the comfortable output as more energy flowed outward.

His muscles tightened beneath his clothes as the strength filling his body increased rapidly.

Cain continued pushing until the familiar strain finally appeared again.

Cain clenched his left hand once.

"Good."

He then activated Partial Dragon Manifestation.

A heavy pulse moved from his chest toward his right shoulder.

Black scales appeared across the back of his hand before spreading along his wrist and forearm, stopping slightly below the elbow.

His fingers lengthened, curved black claws extended from their ends.

The transformed arm looked completely different from the rest of his body.

True Ruin Energy flowed toward it immediately. Dark-gray energy gathered between the scales before covering the claws.

Cain kept adding more.

Instead of releasing the energy, he compressed it around his right hand and maintained it there.

His Perfected Mana Core allowed him to keep the gathered True Ruin stable without much difficulty.

If the 3rd Echelon commander attacked the moment they entered, Cain wanted to be able to respond without wasting even a second preparing an attack.

He slightly moved the transformed fingers.

Thin traces of True Ruin extended beyond the claws before returning to them.

Cain was ready to release a ranged claw attack whenever necessary.

Behind him, everyone else also began preparing themselves.

Ron lowered his spear from his shoulder as Lightning started crawling across his body.

Cold mist spread faintly around Elara’s feet.

Nathan already had an arrow resting against the bowstring.

Sonya stood beside him with a faint crimson-gold light shining beneath her skin.

The others checked their own weapons and quietly waited.

Evelyne remained closer to the center of the formation.

Cain looked toward the destroyed entrance.

"Stay close."

Nobody joked around this time.

Cain stepped through the broken wall.

The group followed.

The Southern Anchor Town looked different from the outposts they had destroyed earlier as those places had been built around simple military functions.

This settlement possessed an actual internal structure.

A broad road extended north from the broken entrance, its surface formed from large dark stone slabs fitted tightly together.

Several low buildings stood along both sides.

Some had open entrances large enough for groups of Zombie Race soldiers to move through at once.

Others contained stacked crates visible through damaged doors.

Several structures farther ahead were larger and more heavily reinforced.

Cain’s earlier attack had cut through part of the outer section.

One building had lost an entire corner.

Another had a long horizontal line carved through its lower wall where the True Ruin crescent had passed before deteriorating the surrounding stone.

Fragments continued falling occasionally, yet the streets were strangely quiet.

Cain expected another formation to attack them shortly after they crossed the wall, but nothing happened so far.

Several Zombie Race soldiers could be seen farther inside, but they did not immediately rush forward.

The moment they noticed Cain’s group, they retreated toward the inner section of the town.

Ron frowned.

"They’re running away?"

"No."

Cain’s golden eyes followed them.

"They’re regrouping."

Cain continued walking.

He did not rush, his sense spread as far as possible while his golden eyes inspected every building ahead.

The stronger presence remained farther north.

Still motionless as if it didn’t even want to move from its position at all.

’You’re really committed to staying there.’

Cain almost found it amusing.

The commander had certainly felt the battle outside.

There was no chance someone at the 3rd Echelon failed to notice Cain made such a huge fuss and broke part of the town’s wall.

Yet the bastard had not moved even a little.

Several minutes later, the buildings ahead began separating.

The road widened.

Cain could finally see the place where all of the major paths inside the Southern Anchor Town seemed to converge.

The group slowed naturally.

An enormous open plaza occupied the center of the inner settlement.

The black stone beneath it had been polished much more carefully than the roads they had crossed.

Even after countless cracks and signs of old damage, the open space remained broad enough for hundreds of soldiers to gather without becoming crowded.

Several roads connected to it.

The largest continued north from the opposite side of the plaza before disappearing between distant ridges and distorted sections of the Corridor.

Cain looked toward that road briefly.

’That should lead toward the center.’

His attention moved farther upward.

There it was.

The Southern Spatial Anchor Gate.

The structure stood upon an elevated platform at the far end of the plaza.

Broad stairs descended from the platform toward the open battlefield below.

At the center stood a dark gate several meters high.

Its frame appeared to have been formed from the same strange material found throughout the Zombie Race settlements, but countless lines had been carved across its surface.

Gray-black dimensional energy flowed through those patterns.

Two enormous crystal cores stood on either side of the gate.

Both were taller than Cain.

Their surfaces were dark and translucent, with dense energy continuously circulating inside.

Streams of dimensional power traveled from the crystals into the platform before converging beneath the central gate.

From there, the enormous gray-black column Cain had seen from outside the town rose into the fractured sky.

Cain’s eyes narrowed.

There was no need for anyone to explain what needed to be destroyed.

The central gate and the two crystal cores, since all of them were connected.

But the Spatial Anchor was not what drew everyone’s attention first as someone was waiting between them and the stairs.