The night in the white room felt endless. Quiet. Too quiet.Leo didn’t sleep. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, breathing slowly. Each breath pulled the thin, filtered air deep into his Zephyr Lungs. He could feel the Qi-dampening field the System warned him about a faint pressure, like a heavy blanket pressed over the room.But trying to block a Level 13 Zephyr Lung was like trying to stop the ocean with a fishing net.He could sense tiny gaps in the field, little cracks where energy leaked through. His lungs drew it in anyway. Slowly. Weakly. But it was still enough to keep him steady.Leo closed his eyes, thinking. Planning.The System’s idea was risky, but it was the only thing that made sense. He couldn’t break his way out of here. Not yet.“Play along,” he whispered to himself. “Be patient. Be smart.”At dawn, the door slid open with a soft hiss.Leo looked up.It wasn’t Cora.Instead, a young man in Aetherius grey stepped inside, holding a tray. And not the u

A deep, gut-punch explosion rumbled through the wall. The ceiling lights flickered like dying fireflies. Warning alarms started screaming overhead not the usual alarm, but a sharp, frantic one.The air turned red as emergency lights snapped on. The steady hum of the building’s systems stuttered… then died completely. The backup generators squealed as they tried to kick in.[Containment Protocol Activated. Primary surveillance grid: OFFLINE. Internal security fields: POWERING DOWN.Estimated window: 4 minutes, 30 seconds.]Leo didn’t waste a second.He sprinted.“HEY—STOP!” one of the guards yelled behind him, still disoriented.But Leo was already at the shattered panel, wrenching it open with both hands.His escape window had begun.“NOW!” Leo shouted to himself but his voice vanished under the chaos of alarms and crackling lights.The two guards were still stumbling, half-blind from the sonic blast and the sudden blackout. Leo didn’t try to fight them.He ran.He bolted past the smo

He had escaped the hunter. But he had jumped into the mouth of a different beast. The perfect energy of his 13th Level foundations was now a poison in this place, a shining beacon that the chaos wanted to extinguish.He was alone, in hell, and his own body was beginning to turn against him.In the swirling purple mist ahead, something huge and multi-limbed shifted, drawn by the scent of his pure, struggling energy. A low, gurgling growl echoed through the warped trees.The fight was over. The survival had just begun. And he had nothing left to fight with but the System, and a body that was becoming his enemy.Leo's heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. The whispers weren't just in his head now they were in the air, slithering through the glowing leaves, echoing from the pulsating ground. The multi-limbed shadow in the mist took a heavy step forward. He saw a flash of chitinous plates, too many joints, and eyes that shone with a hungry, insane light.He couldn't fight. His Qi was

The crystalline chiming grew louder, shaking droplets from the ceiling into the dark pool. Elias shifted his grip on the spear, his knuckles white. He didn't look back at Leo."Stay in the water," the old man growled. "The Heart-Stone is your only chance. If you get out now, the corruption will rush back in, worse than before. And you'll be too weak to fight."[Corruption Extraction: 41%. Pure Energy Drain: 5.8%. Vital signs stabilizing.][Host is combat ineffective. Estimated recovery time: 9 minutes.]Nine minutes. An eternity.The beast emerged from the tunnel. It was transformed. The broken crystal antlers had regrown, but now they were smaller, darker, and sharper, like obsidian daggers. Its six legs ended in points that scratched deep grooves in the stone floor. Its eyes, once swirling purple, now burned with a focused, hateful crimson light. It had evolved. It had consumed the chasm's energy to heal, and it had come for the thing that had hurt it.It saw Leo in the pool and le

The hum of the chaotic lake was a physical force, vibrating in Leo’s teeth and bones. The energy he’d swallowed the Chaotic Core thrummed in response, a hungry prisoner rattling its cage.The black temple in the center of the madness was the only still point. It didn't glow. It was a hole in the world, a silence at the heart of the scream.It is the source, the System had said. And the energy inside him was a piece of it.He had to reach it. It was the only possible answer. A place that absorbed chaos might be able to contain the bomb in his chest. Or, it might be the catalyst that set it off.There was no path down the sheer cliff face. Only the swirling, bubbling lake of liquid madness below.He looked at his hands. The silvery-purple scars from the stag’s corruption were now dark, throbbing lines. He felt the chaotic energy inside him, pressing against the walls of his marrow. He had an idea. A terrible, stupid idea.He focused on the energy in his bones. He didn't try to control i