The mist in the Forbidden Zone thickened the further they went, curling around their boots and choking the air with a damp, metallic tang. Even the birds had stopped singing—if there had ever been birds in this cursed place to begin with. Each step forward felt like peeling back a layer of reality that wasn't meant to be seen, and none of them could shake the sensation that they were being watched. Followed. Studied.
MC tried to lighten the mood with bad jokes, but even he couldn't ignore the shift. The monsters weren't just monsters anymore. They were… wrong. Misshapen. Like something had taken a wolf and replaced its bones with jagged steel and its flesh with bubbling tar. The fights grew harder, the strategies more desperate, and every victory felt less like triumph and more like survival.
Lina was the first to call it out.
"These things weren't like this before. Not even close."
"They're mutating," Iris murmured, running a hand over the steaming corpse of a fallen beast. "Or evolving. Rapidly."
Jax, for once, was sober enough to frown. "Corruption," he said, as if the word alone explained everything. "It's spreading."
Kira kicked a rock into the blackened grass, watching it sizzle on impact. "From where?"
No one answered. But Luna stayed quiet longer than the rest. She stared at the horizon, eyes wide, pupils dilated—like she was hearing a song the others couldn't. Her hand trembled around her staff, knuckles pale, and for the briefest moment, her lips moved silently, forming words she didn't realize she was speaking.
"…it's awakening."
MC turned to her. "Luna? You okay?"
She blinked, as if surfacing from water. "Y-Yeah. Just… a headache. Probably the air. It's heavy here."
But the truth ran deeper. Ever since they'd crossed into the inner edge of the Zone, she'd been seeing flashes—visions behind her eyes, triggered by nothing and everything. A dark cathedral under the ground. A voice without sound whispering to her through the threads of the System. Symbols she'd never learned yet somehow understood. A countdown with no clock.
She hadn't told the others. Couldn't. Not yet.
Because a terrible suspicion had begun to take shape in her mind—one that tied her, the Cult, and this spreading corruption together in a way she didn't want to believe. The Systems they all depended on, the powers they unlocked, the very mechanics of their world… they weren't stable. And worse, they might not even be human creations.
That night, while the others slept, Luna sat alone on a crumbling pillar, bathed in the sickly green glow of the Zone's ambient light. Her breath fogged slightly, despite the heat. She opened her System menu, which flickered faintly, like static beneath glass.
A new entry had appeared.
[Origin Directive: Hidden Tier Access – Condition Approaching Completion]
She stared at it, heart thudding in her chest.
What did it mean?
And why did it feel like something was watching her through the screen?
Down below, MC rolled over in his sleep, mumbling something about "stealth crocodiles" and hugging his blanket tighter.
Luna glanced at him—his messy hair, the faint scar he'd gotten from their last fight, the dumb smile even in sleep.
He had no idea what was coming. None of them did.
But soon, they would.
END OF CHAPTER 61