[Ding! You have stabilized a connection with the Abyss.]

[Congratulations. You have discovered the Lost City of the Dead. You may now open a portal to access it.]

[Ding! Your affinity with life energy has increased.]

[Ding! Your affinity with life energy has increased.]

[Ding! Your affinity with life energy has increased.]

[Your bloodline has begun to react.]

[Analysis in progress...]

[Ding! Your assimilation level with your bloodline has increased.]

A cascade of notifications struck Evan’s mind all at once, jolting him out of the temporary trance he had fallen into.

He snapped upright immediately, eyes scanning the space around him. The cave. He was still in the cave. He let out a slow breath and let his shoulders drop.

’The Lost City of the Dead.’ He turned the name over in his head, trying to make sense of what the system had just told him. ’What kind of place did I just stumble into discovering?’

"I can open a portal to that place? But isn’t it inside the Abyss?" he wondered, unable to help but question whether Bruce had finally decided to get rid of him.

The Abyss was the Abyss. And while his affinity with void energy had grown enough to grant him a degree of resistance to its corruption, up to a point, he was still a D-Rank. Still nowhere near strong enough to face the stronger Hollows head-on without getting killed in the process.

He had experienced the terror of the Hollows firsthand on two separate occasions. One was when he opened the portal in Lirath to attract the attention of the B-Rank who had nearly killed him and Luna, and the other was just a couple of days ago, when BranLeaf was erased from the map entirely.

Needless to say, his encounters with the Hollows had been anything but pleasant, so the idea of being able to go to that place didn’t excite him in the slightest.

He set the thought aside for the moment and shifted his focus to something else.

The life energy.

He had perceived it during his meditation, and in a certain sense, it was precisely what had led him to discover that place.

Although there appeared to be no direct connection between two opposite types of energy such as void energy and life energy, he was certain he had sensed a large amount of life energy coming from that castle.

Not to mention that strange particle of energy that had emerged from it and reached him near the end of his connection to that place.

He was fairly sure all of this tied back to his new divine fragment somehow. But what exactly did it mean for him?

Was it telling him he needed to go there? If so, why? What was waiting for him in that place? Was it even remotely safe?

As usual, the more he came into contact with anything related to divinity, the more questions he accumulated and the fewer answers he received. And based on his experience so far, he knew those answers weren’t coming anytime soon, especially if he was actively trying to avoid the things in question. Which, in this case, meant that city.

"Yeah, no. I’ve already had my fair share of near-death experiences lately. No way in hell I’m going anywhere near that place."

He closed the matter there.

Turning his attention to the last set of system notifications, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit excited as he opened his status screen.

---

[Name: Evan]

[Age: 15]

[Rank: D]

[ESS: 15%]

[Bloodline: God of Life (2%)]

[Divine Clone]

> [God Of Death]: 26%

> [God Of War]: 19%

[Skills]: 4 (new!)

[Storage]

---

"It really increased," he said, unable to contain his joy.

Only he knew how much he had struggled in the recent period to increase the assimilation percentage of his bloodline, yet no matter how hard he tried, it never increased, which left him somewhat depressed.

After all, what was the point of having a bloodline of this level if he couldn’t even access it?

Even that single sealed percent had already given him a regeneration rate well above his rank, noticeably so. What would happen if the percentage increased further?

At first, it had filled him with excitement, but after failing to find any way to increase the assimilation rate, he eventually gave up.

But now it was different. The percentage had increased. Only by 1%, but even that was more than he could have hoped to achieve on his own through random attempts.

He tried to sense the life energy within his body and immediately noticed that his condition had improved.

He could feel his body brimming with energy, flowing everywhere thanks to his blood now infused with that power.

His strength had increased, as had his stamina, along with several other subtle improvements.

And his recovery speed, already faster than it had any right to be at his rank, had almost certainly improved further.

’Most likely,’ he thought, and found he was fairly confident about it.

Then he noticed something else on his status screen.

His skills. There weren’t three anymore.

There were four.

Hm?

He pressed on the skill section immediately, and a new system screen expanded in front of him.

---

[Skills]:

- [Death Mark]

- [SoulBond]

- [Ember Seed]

- [Abyss Gate] (New!)

---

A new skill. He stared at the name for a moment, and despite knowing he should feel pleased about it, something about those two words gave him an odd sensation he couldn’t quite shake.

---

[Abyss Gate]:

Description: An ability belonging to the Hollows, allowing the opening of a portal connected to the Abyss. For each successfully established connection with a location within the Abyss, the ability will create a portal leading to that place.

Connected locations:

> Lost City of the Dead.

---

Reading through the skill description, everything clicked into place.

’Hm... so this is what allows me to open a portal to that place,’ he thought, staring at the connected location entry with an expression that landed somewhere between wary and resigned.

He still hadn’t decided how he felt about the skill itself.

After all, every place he could access with it was located in the Abyss, and just moments ago he had decided he wouldn’t go there.

Then he remembered his bloodline.

The assimilation percentage had gone up. One percent, just one, but that was already more than anything he had managed on his own through sheer effort. And the timing wasn’t a coincidence. He had made contact with the life energy from that castle, and immediately after, the percentage climbed.

The implication settled over him slowly, like cold water.

"Fuck, does this mean I’ll have to go to that strange place to increase the percentage further?" he muttered, slightly stressed, wondering if all of this wasn’t just a trap he had been led into by that woman.

He sat with it for a moment, turning it over, hoping it would look different from a different angle.

It didn’t.

First, he discovers he received her heart, which earned him a bloodline of his own. A divine one, no less. Then he discovers it’s sealed, and the only apparent way to unseal it further seems to lead directly to that city.

He didn’t want to accept reality as it was, so he decided to try once more to connect to that place and see if he could extract that life energy particle again.

He settled back into his lotus position and reached for the invisible connection he had found before. Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t need to go there in person.

Maybe he could extract more of that life energy remotely, the same way the particle had drifted toward him before. If he could draw from whatever was in that castle without setting foot anywhere near it, the whole problem solved itself.

It was worth trying.

’Found it.’

The reconnection came faster this time, likely because the coordinates were already mapped through the Abyss Gate skill, the path carved out and waiting. His mind slipped back into the trance almost before he had finished the thought, and the city returned to him from above, still and silent as before.

Deserted. Not a single living presence anywhere in the streets below.

’Literally a city of the dead,’ he thought, with a dry humor he didn’t entirely feel.

He didn’t linger on the view. He went straight for the castle at the center of the city, found it immediately, and felt the life energy radiating from it just as he had before.

’Good. Let’s see if I can pull more of it out.’

He circulated his bloodline. what little of it he could access, and focused, trying to establish a resonance with the life energy inside the castle.

It responded. Small greenish particles of light began rising from the castle’s roof, drifting upward toward him in lazy, luminous spirals.

Seeing them, he felt satisfied.

They drifted slowly toward him, reaching him almost instantly, and as soon as they did, the system rang in his mind.

[Ding! Your affinity with life energy has increased.]

[Ding! Your affinity with life energy has increased.]

[Ding! Your affinity with life energy has increased.]

’Jackpot,’ he thought, and without hesitation reached through the bloodline again, pulling harder this time, trying to draw out more—

And then he noticed something had changed.

The castle , which had given every impression of being completely empty, began to tremble.

He didn’t understand what was happening. Then, before he could form a coherent question, a crushing pressure erupted from within it and slammed outward across the entire city in an instant, filling every street and rooftop and shadow at once.

Before Evan could process what it was, the pressure turned.

It concentrated directly on him.

And he felt, with complete and immediate clarity, that he was about to die.