"Ahh, shit!"
Boom!
Vikram fumbled around, disoriented, until he managed to pull his head out of the sand. He coughed violently, spitting out grains that had forced their way down his throat. The bitter dryness made him retch, and he clawed at his neck as though trying to scrape the sand from inside his body.
"The hell do I have with this shitty relationship with sand…" Vikram muttered, shaking his head.
When he finally looked up, his expression froze.
Nothing.
To his left, right, back, and front, only an endless wasteland of shifting dunes. Above him, two suns burned in the sky. One shone golden, warm and familiar, but the other was a blood-red sphere that seemed to pulse with every beat of his heart.
The longer he stared at it, the more his pulse twisted out of rhythm, a strange heat flooding through his chest.
Then he saw it.
A tower loomed in the distance, jagged against the horizon. But it was nothing like the towers Kayala had spoken of. She had said the Walkers would find structures similar to the one they had trained in, stable, functional, alive with the Mother's authority. This tower was something else entirely.
Its stone was ancient, worn and cracked, wrapped with lifeless black vines. It looked long abandoned, yet it stood as though daring time itself to topple it.
Kayala's words came back to him, sharp and grim.
"Vikram…" Her hesitant eyes flashed in his memory. His knees had nearly given way under her gaze. "It's a small chance… but it's still a chance."
She had forced him to listen.
"If the Axis ever sends you to a planet that feels… wrong, then you must escape. No matter what happens, the longer you stay there, the more certain your death becomes. And no matter the world, there will always be a tower. Even if it is abandoned, even if it is broken, make for the tower. Forget food, forget sleep, forget rest. Run for it."
Now here he was, under a blood-soaked sky, on a barren planet that screamed of abandonment.
Alone.
Truly alone.
Vikram exhaled sharply and summoned the panel, not the game's system, but the cold slate of the Mother herself.
[Name: Unnamed][Titles: Nil][Existence Rank: Pre-Existence][Cultivation: Barbarian (Early Blood Refining Realm)][Soul Memoirs: {The Wolf Tamed}{The Wolf Fangs}] (Revoked)[Soul Manifestations: ] (Revoked)[Trait Cord: {Broken Fate}{Tyrant's Fate}{Slumbering Sloth}{Supreme Foundation}{Primordial Tattoo}]
Vikram raised his brows. Two things caught his attention at once.
First, he was listed as Unnamed.
Second, his Soul Memoirs and Soul Manifestations weren't exactly "revoked." Because what he wore right now was these Soul Memiors that he had gotten from his Game.
It seemed as if the Mother System was not registering the exact source of where he had gotten his armor and weapons from, thus unable to actually revoke him from using it.
He shifted his focus to the Traits.
{Primordial Tattoo}: Your ancestors tremble with excitement, the rivers of blood flow, and the long-lost Barbaric Legacy re-enters with an ominous crimson sign. It is prophesied that whoever masters the Primordial will be similar to the shining crimson star.
{Supreme Foundation}: Your body is able to mold itself into any form to adjust itself.
Vikram's gaze lingered on the glowing script. His lips curved into something between relief and pride. {Supreme Foundation} was strong, yes, but it was {Primordial Tattoo} that drew his attention.
Even from the cryptic phrasing, he knew it was something rare, something beyond ordinary legacies. And unlike most blessings, this one hadn't fallen into his lap by accident. He had clawed and bled and used every scrap of wit to earn it. That thought alone swelled his chest with a quiet, stubborn pride.
He raised his eyes toward the red sun, then to the abandoned tower in the distance. His legs began to move.
As he trudged through the sands, he reached inward, stretching his sense toward the other bodies the anomaly had split him into. He felt faint echoes, Barbarian, Knight, Mage, rough directions tugging faintly at his awareness.
His steps slowed.
They weren't near him. They weren't even on the same planet.
The realization left him bitter. He had thought the Second Walk would be simple, almost effortless. He had planned it all: enter with confidence, summon the three cultivated bodies, and secure protection so overwhelming that the trial would practically clear itself. A breeze.
But reality was crueler. His main body had been forced into the Game itself, shackled where it could not manifest beyond its walls. He remembered the beginner town, the suffocating sanctuary he dared not leave. Out there, the monsters were too absurd, too far beyond him. Only the Barbarian and the Knight could step beyond that fragile safety.
So he tested things. Pushed at the edges of the tether. Waited.
But the [Barbarian] had no time for waiting.
The desert itself shifted. Sand rippled like waves, and the dunes shivered with motion. His heartbeat sharpened as his instincts screamed.
A blur struck from the side.
His tattooed hand moved before thought, black streaks flowing across his skin. The axe in his grip blurred downward with primal force.
Crack!
The strike split the air and buried deep.
Yellow blood sprayed, hissing against the heat. The monster's body hit the sand in two twitching halves.
A notification flickered across his vision.
[You have felled a Lesser Enemy, Tu Lang.][Please obtain the Cubes from the body of the Dimensional Being.]
Vikram grimaced at the corpse. The creature resembled a worm armored in chitin, its husk splitting open as it writhed weakly, refusing to die cleanly.
Then he saw it, a glimmer inside the ruptured flesh.
Kneeling, he shoved aside slick coils of intestine, pushing deeper until his fingers closed on something cold and solid. He pulled free a black metallic cube, its edges humming faintly in his palm.
Vikram's eyes narrowed.
He remembered Brunus' class for this thing...