Chapter 191: Escaping

Cassian wasn’t particularly surprised by Nyxara’s victory over the headless knight.

?The Dullahan’s mana affinity was Darkness, which belonged to the Death mana branch.

It was undoubtedly a powerful element, but against an Authority user of the same domain, that advantage quickly turned into a fatal weakness.

?Authorities were refined manifestations of mana control, representing a far deeper understanding and absolute command over a specific branch of reality.

?When a creature with a standard mana affinity encountered an Authority user wielding the same core branch, the outcome was predetermined.

Unless the beast possessed overwhelming raw stats or a vastly superior realm, the Authority user would always dominate the field.

?And Nyxara was no ordinary Authority user.

?She was a First Order Champion.

?Furthermore, the experience she had absorbed from slaying the Three-Star Rare wyvern had already pushed her cultivation higher.

Adding the Dullahan’s death to that total only accelerated her growth.

?Nyxara glided back toward him, casually resting her massive scythe against her shoulder.

?"My opponent was somewhat troublesome, but nothing I couldn’t handle," she reported calmly.

?Cassian offered an approving nod. "Good work. You handled it cleanly."

?A faint, pleased smile touched Nyxara’s lips. Although she attempted to maintain her composed demeanor, the praise clearly delighted her.

?Cassian then opened his vault and retrieved the tracking unit.

?However, the second it materialized in his palm, something bizarre occurred.

?The device glitched.

?Cassian froze.

?This wasn’t like the previous minor bugs where the screen interface flickered. This time, the entire physical hardware seemed to distort, its liquid-metal casing briefly vanishing into thin air before rematerializing in his grip.

?His blue eyes narrowed to sharp points.

?’What the hell was that?’

?"My Lord?" Nyxara caught the sudden tension in his posture and stepped closer. "Is something wrong?"

?Cassian turned his head toward her. "Didn’t you see that?"

?"See what, my Lord?"

?He stared at her for a second.

?She was genuinely confused.

?Before he could probe further, reality itself shuddered.

?The surrounding subterranean cavern flickered wildly.

?For a microsecond, the stone walls vanished entirely, exposing a pitch-black void before snapping back into place.

The carcasses littered across the cavern floor began to glitch, their physical bodies repeatedly vanishing and reappearing as if the local physics engine were failing to render them.

?Cassian’s deadpan expression shattered into a grim frown. "What is happening?"

?He scanned the cavern, trying to analyze the spatial phenomenon.

?Then, he noticed something far worse.

?Translucent silhouettes were rendering throughout the corridor.

?One.

?Two.

?Ten.

?Dozens.

?Their shapes rapidly materialized, resolving into monstrous entities of varying sizes and grotesque geometries.

Some crawled along the ceiling, while others crouched on powerful quadrupedal limbs.

A few possessed massive wings, while others wielded bio-organic weaponry.

?"What the hell...?"

?The reality distortion spiked violently.

?An instant later, the entities fully materialized.

?Over fifty creatures stood before them in a dense wall.

?Every single one was a Three-Star Rare monster.

?Among them were colossal black-furred wolves with burning crimson horns, skeletal wyrms clad in crystalline armor, giant mantises with razor scythes, and multi-headed abominations.

There were even several winged serpents whose scales pulsed with glowing runes.

?Cassian stared at the horde.

?’Where did all these things come from?’

?"My Lord... where did these beasts spawn from?!" Nyxara’s voice carried a rare trace of genuine shock.

?She dropped into a low battle stance instantly, placing her body directly between Cassian and the advancing tide of Rare-grade monsters.

?Yet Cassian barely registered her defensive movement.

?’She didn’t see the render lag?’

?He glanced at her profile.

?She had witnessed the monsters appearing, but she had been completely blind to the visual artifacting and reality distortion that preceded their deployment.

?Before he could process the discrepancy, the horde surged.

?Fifty pairs of glowing eyes locked onto the two intruders as an overwhelming wave of killing intent filled the cavern.

?The monsters charged.

?"My Lord, how do we break through this?!" Nyxara tightened her white-knuckled grip on her scythe.

?Cassian didn’t answer.

?His gaze remained locked on the tracking device in his palm.

?It glitched again.

?This time, however, a terrifying realization struck him.

?The device wasn’t broken.

?It was actively receiving a corrupted server signal.

?Every bizarre anomaly, every structural inconsistency, and every illogical detail of their exploration suddenly snapped together into a horrifying complete picture.

?The monsters spawning out of thin air.

?Nyxara’s inability to perceive the environment’s visual artifacts.

?The physical tracking device phasing out of reality.

?Even the complete failure of his [Undead Summoning] skill due to a lack of compatible souls.

?Cassian’s face turned icy cold.

?"Those bastards..."

?Nyxara shot him a bewildered glance. "My Lord?"

?Before she could ask for clarification, Cassian raised his right hand.

?A brilliant cerulean blade of condensed mana materialized around his palm.

?Nyxara went rigid.

?She recognized [Aura Slash] instantly.

’?Why is he aiming it at me?’

?Her violet eyes widened in shock as Cassian turned the lethal blade directly toward her chest.

?"Trust me," he said, his voice absolute.

?For a fraction of a second, Nyxara searched his eyes.

?Then, every shred of hesitation evaporated from her expression.

?She gave a single, resolute nod. "I trust you, my Lord."

?The cerulean blade flashed in a blinding arc.

?A millisecond later, Nyxara’s body was cleanly bisected.

?Her expression remained entirely serene, offering zero resistance. Before her form could hit the stone floor, it dissolved into thousands of shimmering blue particles.

?Cassian didn’t pause for a single heartbeat.

?The horde of Rare monsters was already upon him, jaws open to tear him apart.

?He reversed the [Aura Slash] and drove it straight into his own chest.

’?I hope my deduction is right.’

?Cerulean radiance exploded outward.

?Cassian’s body was sliced open.

?The tide of monsters descended upon his falling corpse, their massive jaws tearing through the space he had occupied.

?In that final second of fading consciousness, the familiar system interface flashed before his vision:

?[You have died.]

[Initiating Regression...]

?Then, the prompt abruptly froze.

?For several horrifying seconds, time seemed to lock up entirely.

?The text scrambled and rewritten itself in jagged red lettering:

?[NOTICE!]

[An abnormality has been detected in the current spatial environment.]

[The administrative authority governing this location has temporarily superseded the Regression protocol.]

[Regression Cancelled.]

?SPLASH!

?Cassian violently burst out of a sealed pod filled with warm, viscous gel.

?He slammed onto a cold metal floor, coughing violently as he purged the thick substance from his lungs and throat.

?"What the..."

?He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, wiping the gel from his eyes.

?His surroundings were completely unrecognizable.

?Instead of the dark, stone cavern filled with fifty Rare monsters, he was standing inside a massive, industrial facility.

Endless rows of glowing, transparent incubation pods stretched out into the distance, each housing a human suspended in dense amniotic fluid.

?Cassian looked down at his hands.

?His physical body was completely intact. No wounds, no blood, no armor damage.

?Beside him, another pod hissed open.

?Nyxara tumbled out onto the grating, landing on her knees before snapping her head up.

?"My Lord!"

?She scrambled over to his side immediately, checking his condition.

?Cassian gently raised a hand to calm her, his eyes scanning the vast chamber.

?There were hundreds of pods.

?Perhaps thousands.

?And suspended inside them were the physical bodies of the various Lords who had entered the Orion Rift.

?For several seconds, Cassian simply stared at the systemic nightmare before him.

?Then, his blue eyes hardened into pure, glacial ice.

?"So that’s what this place actually is."

....

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