He had been so caught up in exploring the facility's alien architecture, its smooth walls, whispering corridors, and eerie silence, that he didn't notice the figure in front of him until it was too late.
Thud.
His forehead collided with something firm and unyielding. He staggered back, clutching the sore spot with a wince. But when he looked up, expecting a wall, he found a woman standing there.
Still. Poised. Her hands clasped behind her back, a glimmer of amusement ghosting across her lips. Her eyes, sharp and gleaming with quiet mischief, studied him like a puzzle half-solved.
"I'm sorry," Vikram muttered, slinging his bag over his shoulder, instinctively stepping back.
But the moment he looked around, he sensed something had changed.
The people in the corridor had stopped. Heads turned. Eyes locked onto him. No one laughed. No one whispered. Their gazes were... wrong. Like he had just stepped barefoot onto a shrine while dragging corpses behind him.
He didn't even notice Brunus arrive until the man was beside him, bowing with military crispness.
"My apologies, General," Brunus said quickly, voice low.
The woman's smile didn't shift. Her gaze flicked back to Vikram.
"This the one you mentioned?"
Brunus nodded. "Yes, General."
She gave a small, unreadable nod, then turned on her heel. "Follow."
What followed was a blur of bureaucratic haze: strange metallic forms flickering with glyphs, biometric scans, obscure terms tossed like dust—Synchronization Ratio, Neural Dissonance Threshold, Potential Reformation Index. None of it meant anything to Vikram.
What did mean something was how they spoke about him.
Not to him.
Like he was an experiment. A pending operation. A system thread that needed refinement.
He was finally shown to a room, sparse, with a cot and a pale console embedded in the wall.
Vikram didn't hesitate.
He dumped his bag, sat down, and dove straight into the Game World.
The rot-sky greeted him like an old friend. Bone-choked winds howled through the ruins as he found himself again standing before the three statues. Massive, cracked, and weathered by time, each one loomed with strange reverence.
The Barbarian statue stood tallest, etched with runes that pulsed in a deep, angry crimson.
Beside it, the Knight radiated an ocean-deep calm. Blue light pooled like still water around its armored feet.
And finally, the Mage, cracked but glowing with faint golden flecks, stood hunched over, its staff raised skyward as if trying to touch the sun.
Vikram hesitated.
There was something there in the Knight. The Mage. A different path. Something smarter. Calmer.
But he shook his head.
If he shifted focus now, all the insights he had clawed toward in the Barbarian path would fracture and scatter. He was close to a breakthrough. He could feel it in the marrow.
Still, something caught his eye.
Behind each statue, half-buried under rubble and ash, sat three altars.
The Barbarian's was broken, its surface streaked in dried red, like someone had bled out screaming.
The Knight's shimmered faintly, its structure intact, blue light humming beneath its stone.
The Mage's altar gleamed faintly despite the cracks, flecks of something like powdered starlight embedded in it.
He stepped closer.
As his hand hovered over the broken edge of the Barbarian's altar, a soft chime rang out in his ears.
[Please offer a High-Existence Soul in exchange for a Soul-Tailored Art.]
His eyes widened.
It was like the old games, the kind that let you forge weapons from fallen bosses. But this felt different. Heavier. Intentional. This wasn't just a feature. It was a design with purpose behind it. A thread, a path. Something planned.
His breath hitched as a voice echoed in memory—the Red Immortal, who was the kindest god-like existence he had ever encountered.
"You need a planet, one attuned to your Way."
"Several lives to experiment. No lab rats this time."
"The Way must be refined through your own flesh. Through Paths that do not contradict, but resonate."
Vikram clenched his fists. The Red Immortal. The entity. It was behind all this. And this game—it wasn't just a simulation.
It was the crucible.
And the statues...
He swore they were watching him now.
He shook his head.
Enough thinking.
He selected the Barbarian and dropped into the battlefield.
The first few moments were slaughter.
Vikram's axe rose and fell like a hammer of judgment. Blood sprayed as he cleaved through twisted midgets with pale skin and pitch-black eyes. The Neurotic Halfling shrieked as it lunged—he slammed it back with the haft of his weapon, then split it from shoulder to hip.
Rage buzzed in his ears.
A new hatred bloomed inside him for these creatures.
He kept moving, combo after combo. Downward slash. Upward. Cross. Pivot-spin. He didn't care if it was optimal. The carnage was feeding something inside him.
His Primal Blood boiled. He could feel it. Something ancient thrashing beneath his skin.
But he didn't know how to activate it. Rage mode? No effect. No stat boost. Nothing. The system offered no hint.
No guidance.
He pivoted, dodged a lunge, and bisected another midget who had tried to stab into his eye. Blood drenched his shoulders. He retreated into a half-collapsed house, bounded up the rotting stairs, and jumped onto the roof.
Midway across, the roof groaned.
Crack.
It collapsed beneath him.
A jagged stake of wood drove through his side.
[You have been slain.]
Vikram roared in frustration and slammed his axe into a rock beside him in the real world. He sat still for a moment, chest rising and falling, and then tried again.
And again.
Some roofs held. Some collapsed. He started remembering. Adjusting. Adapting.
But so did the enemies.
The halflings weren't just monsters. They learned. They began climbing rooftops, cornering him, swarming from all sides.
[You have been slain.]
Again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually, Vikram emerged into the canteen Brunus had told him about. No one spoke to him. Everyone else ate quietly, like soldiers after a failed mission.
Vikram ordered food. A lot of it. Meat, carbs, salt, broth, whatever he could pile.
He ate like a man who hadn't tasted real food in weeks.
The game never left him tired.
But it always left him hungry.