The entity broke through the veil with a silent roar - a sound you couldn't hear with your ears, but with your bones. The creature's claws pierced through reality like thin glass, distorting the space around it. The tower itself screamed. Not in sound - but in matter.
Seth didn't back down. He slowly opened and closed his fists, as if testing the solidity of his new existence. The joints crackled with a low, almost threatening echo.
"No weapons..." he muttered, looking down at his hands. "All right. I'm the weapon now."
The Flame of Emptiness awoke in his body with a will of its own, snaking under his skin. A light purple smoke began to emanate from his fingers, and the air around them seemed to bend, as if it couldn't stand its presence.
With a step forward, he activated the Sovereign's Gaze.
Time slowed down. Not because of magic, but because his mind now saw the world differently. Every beat of the entity, every tremor of intent, every bend in its claws. He didn't see a creature. He saw a weak point, a crack between two moments of attack. He saw the flaw - because everything has one.
The creature roared again. This time, the impact was physical. A blast of dark energy exploded towards Seth like a tsunami.
He raised his hand instinctively.
Touch of Dominion.
The ground beneath him rose up like a living wall, responding to his gesture. A fragment of stone - no, from the tower itself - spun around his arm, shaping itself into a makeshift shield. The impact came with a clap of thunder, throwing Seth meters backwards, but he landed with control, gliding on his feet.
"That's new," he said with a crooked smile, even as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "But you can play with it."
The flame in his fists was now really burning - but not with heat. It was a hunger. An absence. He jumped, his eyes locked on the crack in reality where the entity emerged in its entirety: an amalgam of claws, eyes and crystallized bones.
Seth launched himself like a missile. No plan, no hesitation. He spun in the air, enveloped by the Flame of the Void, and punched.
The impact was absolute.
His fist hit one of the entity's claws. What would normally result in a shock or superficial injury was now something different. Where his fist touched, the creature's tissue disappeared. As if it had never existed. A cut in reality. A devouring void.
The entity screamed. Not in pain, but in recognition. It saw him - and for the first time, hesitated.
Seth fell to his feet, panting, his arm trembling from the effort and the power he was still trying to master. The flames around him wouldn't go out. They grew. He took a step forward. "I'm the mistake you didn't see coming."
Another claw came down - fast, sharp.
Seth snapped his fingers.
The wall behind him bent in response to his Touch of Dominion, forming a makeshift ebony spear that flew like a projectile - piercing the entity's central eye with millimeter precision revealed by his Sovereign's Gaze.
[Time until the entity's full manifestation: 00:47]
He needed to escape.
But now he knew: he could win.
Seth ran towards the obelisk, his eyes analyzing patterns in space that would previously have been invisible. Every step made the world tremble more - not because he stepped on it hard, but because he was now a point of anomaly. A living error in the system.
The tower began to crumble, time trying to correct itself.
"Faster... I just need a way out," he muttered, eyes scanning every inch in search of a crack, a portal, a flaw...
And then he saw it.
A crack - not in the floor, not in the wall, but in time. A point where the time of the real world and the time of the tower intersected. Unstable, yes. Deadly, perhaps.
But viable.
Seth smiled again, blood dripping from his nose, the flames now enveloping his body like a spectral cloak.
"Let hell come. I'm already in it." And he jumped - straight into the crack
[You left the Umbral Tower before full manifestation]
[Entity interrupted. Threat level: Temporarily contained]
[Primordial Sin Bearer: Preserved]
[Connection with the Veil: Stable, but Traceable]
[Synchronization with real time: Restored]
Seth fell to his knees in the middle of a silent forest. It was night.
The air seemed denser, as if the real world was taking a while to accept him back. His body was still vibrating with residual energy. His muscles trembled, the flames gradually dissipated, and sweat mixed with blood trickled down his face.
[You've entered a dungeon]
'That's it again... he always does that. As soon as I leave a System scenario, I'm sent to a dungeon that leads to the real world.
He barely had time to breathe.
A sound - the brutal displacement of air - was the only warning before something hit him with the force of an earthquake.
CRACK.
The world spun. His body flew through the trees and through the trunk of one of them, breaking it in half like paper. The pain followed. Shattering. Broken bones. Fractured ribs. Something inside him was bleeding badly.
Before he could even cough, a brutal blade - a grotesque, heavy axe - slammed into his throat.
"Who are you, stranger?" roared a guttural voice.
In front of him, an orc-shaped wall of muscle stood almost three meters tall. His skin was a dark green, almost brown, covered in old scars and tribal paint in shades of dried blood. He wore little armor, as if he didn't need it, and in his hands, a double-bladed axe vibrated with raw energy - enchanted, with red-hot runes burning into the steel.
"Who dares invade the domain of Clan Kahragorn?"
He looked up, eyes squinted, but alive. Not with anger. Not of fear.
Of calculation.
"Domain... of what?" he muttered in a hoarse voice, spitting blood. "I just fell here, big guy. I have no intention of fighting."
The orc growled and applied more pressure with his axe, causing a trickle of blood to run down Seth's throat.
"You carry the scent of the void. From beyond the Veil. It has brought us to ruin before. I should kill you now."
Seth's eyes narrowed. He felt the flames of the Umbral Shard stirring inside, ready to react.
But he didn't move a muscle. Not yet.
"Then why don't you do it, huh?" he whispered. "If you're going to kill me... just do it. Unlike Kharizan, you seem pretty dishonorable."
Kharizan, the Orc King he faced a few weeks ago. That guy was honorable!
"hm?! You know Kharizan?! Why didn't you say so, you bastard!!!" The orc reacted quickly, smiling as he put his axes away. "Where is he?!" He seemed... quite happy...
"We fought to the death. It was an honorable battle." Seth said.
The Orc looked at him for a second, Seth ended up speaking on automatic, he was never supposed to say something like that to an enemy. However, Orcs are different from other races like Elves or Dwarves who would be angry to hear that their friend had died. In fact...
"HAHAHAHA! In an honorable fight! HAHAHA" He laughed as he put his hand on his stomach, "YES! AN HONORABLE FIGHT!" He shouted and the forest shook, "Come on, tell me! How was it?! How did my friend die?!" He began to...
"Wait! Before you speak to me, tell me his last words! I know exactly what he would say. If it's a lie, I'll kill you! HAHAHA!" He laughed...
Seth stopped for a second... 'And here I thought I was crazy for jumping into unfamiliar places, this one's crazy...' He muttered before sighing... "Let me get something" Seth said and from his inventory he remembered...
He wasn't unarmed... He had something...
[Kharizan Axes (Rank-S)]
He slowly took it out of his inventory and showed it to the Orc... who grinned even wider. "HAHAHAHA!" He laughed happily.
Seth smiled when he saw that there really was no problem with the Orc, no hostility, just genuine happiness for his deceased friend... This was strange but Seth accepted it with a smile. He continued.
"His last words were 'Show the world that an orc never dies in vain'. He died in battle with me"
"HAHAHAHA! Yes, my friend would say that."