The border between territories was not marked by any fence or sign, but Leo felt it the moment he crossed it.
The air thickened with an oppressive weight, and the landscape shifted from the familiar to something utterly alien.
He had stepped into what was once the Chinese territory, now infamously known as the Land of Dragons—a name that carried no honor, only whispered fear and eerie reverence.
Before him stretched a wasteland twisted by time and catastrophe. The neutral zone behind him had been grim, but this was something else—like walking into a scar left by a dying god.
The land was barren, scorched black, and dry to the point of lifelessness. Once lush forests had been contorted into grotesque silhouettes of their former selves.
Trees stood like skeletal sentinels, their trunks charred, their branches gnarled and broken. Crimson vines slithered across the dead wood, pulsing faintly, almost as if they were breathing.
There was no sound. No birdsong, no rustling leaves. Just silence—and silence here screamed louder than anything.
The sky overhead was a sickly mix of grey and green, as if some putrid mist had swallowed the heavens. Radioactive dust floated gently in the air, dancing in lazy spirals like snowflakes of death.
Leo's mutation and his status as an Ascended allowed him to withstand most environmental threats, but even he could feel the creeping edge of nausea. He coughed softly, tasting metal in his mouth.
"This place…" he muttered to himself. "It's dead. And yet something moves beneath all this decay."
Each step was deliberate as he moved deeper into the forest of ruin. Footprints littered the ashen soil—some wide and hoofed, others reptilian or insectile. They crisscrossed like scars, faded in some areas and fresh in others. Leo could tell—these weren't random strays. Mutated beasts had made this their domain.
He opened his system interface. A dull chime echoed in his ears.
> You have entered a Level 4 Hazard Zone: The Blistered Expanse.
"Level 4, huh?" he whispered. "Figures. Nothing here feels natural."
He kept moving, clocking in nearly thirty kilometers on foot. As he progressed, the atmosphere thickened further, the corrupted air pressing on his chest like an invisible weight. His vision blurred slightly, his head pulsed with a subtle ache.
He stopped, drank from his canteen, and popped a nutrient capsule into his mouth. It helped. Barely.
The red forest grew more twisted with each mile. Eventually, Leo began to notice forms moving between the trees. Not just beasts—spawned horrors.
He kept his distance, using the trees and terrain for cover. These things were different from the mutants in his own zone. They didn't just mutate physically—they were mentally unhinged, acting with swarm-like coordination. Some walked on multiple limbs, others slithered or floated, their forms corrupted beyond recognition.
Leo crouched behind a dead log as a large pack passed. Their eyes glowed faintly in the shadows, their movements almost mechanical. They twitched in unison, sniffing the air, jaws clacking like bones against stone. He held his breath.
They moved on.
He didn't engage. As much as he enjoyed combat, there was no glory in reckless slaughter. Here, the land itself was trying to kill him. Energy preservation was key.
But fate, as always, had other plans.
Hours later, he came upon a cracked basin filled with pools of steaming acid. The ground here sizzled and belched toxic fumes. A misstep, a wrong breath, and even he might not walk out alive. As he stepped forward, a sudden ripple in the ground caught his attention. His instincts flared.
Leo jumped back—
A massive creature burst from beneath the crust, rock and acidic mud spraying in every direction.
It was a Hydra—not the mythical dragon-like kind, but a six-headed worm-beast.
Its body was thick, armored in obsidian-black scales. Its heads writhed independently, mouths lined with jagged teeth dripping corrosive saliva.
"Crater Hydra," Liu muttered grimly. "Guess I'm not the apex here."
One of the heads lunged, catching him off guard. He rolled, but not before acidic sludge splashed across his arm. It seared through cloth and skin alike.
He grunted through clenched teeth, pulling his sword free.
Each head attacked with independent thought—biting, spitting, twisting with vicious speed. Leo dodged the first strike, parried the second, and rolled under the third. A fourth caught him on the shoulder, slicing open flesh and spraying blood.
He grinned. The pain was real. The danger, exhilarating.
But he couldn't keep this play for long. He had to end it early or else he would be the one meeting the end.
'Ah. This feeling is good. I had nearly forgotten what fear was.'
Using the unstable ground, he began to fight smarter. The basin was riddled with sulfur vents and gas fissures. He darted through them, letting the explosions and hissing gas disorient the Hydra. It screeched as one of its heads stumbled into a toxic geyser.
But the Hydra was far from done. It adjusted quickly, its senses sharper than expected. One head inhaled, then blasted a jet of acidic mist at him. It hit a rock near his feet—the stone melted in seconds.
"I don't want to know what that would do to my face."
He baited the creature closer to the edge of the largest acidic pool. Dodging left, then right, he rolled beneath a lunging head and plunged his sword into the pool's edge. The stone cracked.
The Hydra surged forward, all six heads striking at once. Leo jumped back—and the ground beneath the Hydra gave way.
The beast collapsed into the pool with a violent hiss. Its shrieks echoed as it thrashed in the sludge, dissolving slowly. Leo stood over it, panting.
But then, he did something insane.
He leapt in after it.
The acidic water burned his skin, but he didn't care. He reached the beast's core—an emerald-green organ pulsing with residual energy.
He gripped it, tearing it free. His hands blistered.
Back on dry land, he collapsed near a tree, the core in hand. A system prompt lit up:
> Adaptive Core Acquired: Crater Hydra. New Traits Unlocked: Acid Resistance (Minor), Poison Immunity (Basic).
He grinned, breathing hard. "Worth it."
After recovering, he opened a tin of cold meat and downed the rest of his water. Only a lunatic would feast in a place like this—but then again, when had he ever claimed to be sane?
As dusk approached, Leo spotted a broken watchtower in the distance. He climbed it, the metal creaking beneath him. From the top, he saw the land beyond.
To the south lay a bioluminescent jungle—its fungal canopy glowing blue and violet. Spores drifted lazily through the air like ghost-lanterns.
To the north, jagged mountains clawed the sky. The Dragon Teeth Peaks. Behind them, he could just make out the ruined outlines of ancient cities.
He chose the north. Urban ruins meant shelter—and perhaps, survivors.
Night fell.
He found shelter in a bunker beneath a toppled building. The concrete ceiling was cracked, but the place was dry and defensible. As he rested, he heard the first howl.
Low. Guttural. Followed by another. Then fifty more.
Leo's eyes snapped open.
Wien Howlers.
They poured in from the darkness—wolf-like beasts with crimson crystal spikes on their backs. Their eyes glowed, their mouths dripped saliva. But worse than their appearance was their coordination.
They moved like soldiers.
"Telepathic link," Liu muttered. "That's bad."
The beasts surrounded the bunker, then charged. Leo surged forward, slicing the first clean in half with a blood-forged blade. He summoned a spike of blood and silenced another mid-leap.
But more came. Dozens.
'There has to be someone controlling them.'
He searched for the link. His eyes landed on a single Howler—its fur tinted green, its eyes unfocused. The controller.
He summoned all his blood, forming a sharpened whip. With a flick, he decapitated the green beast.
The effect was immediate.
The pack broke formation, their unity gone. They barked and attacked at random.
Coordination had saved them till now, but now with that gone they were just some puppy's barking at a lion.
Leo moved like a storm, weaving between them, cutting them down with precision.
Ten minutes later, he stood alone, panting. The ground was soaked in blood.
He tried harvesting the cores—but most were destroyed in the fight. The blood swipes were powerful, destroying the beast along with the cores.
Still, the experience earned was substantial.
The next morning, he continued on, pondering.
The beasts here weren't evolving randomly. Their mutations felt... orchestrated. Deliberate. His territory had zombies. This one had intelligent beasts.
"Someone's playing god," he murmured.
After ten days, he reached the base of the Dragon Teeth Peaks. The climb was brutal, the paths narrow and eroded. But on the other side—civilization.
Or what remained of it.
A city rose in the distance, crumbling but massive. Ancient skyscrapers leaned like old bones. The smell of rust and ash carried on the wind.
Leo narrowed his eyes.
At last, he was nearing the heart of this cursed land.
Where the Zone Lords waited.