CLANG… CLANG… CLANG…
The rhythmic, deafening sound of heavy metal striking stone echoed through the valley, carrying for miles through the dense, frigid mountain air.
Alden crouched low on the thick, moss-covered branch of a towering pine tree, completely hidden by the dense canopy of needles. He pulled his dark green ranger's cloak tighter against the biting wind, his single red eye fixed intensely on the horizon.
About a mile out, the sprawling, chaotic wilderness of the human domain abruptly stopped, giving way to a marvel of engineering that defied logic.
The Border of the Dwarf Empire.
It wasn't just a wall; it was a monolithic fortress carved directly into the face of a jagged mountain range. Massive, heavily reinforced iron gates stood fifty feet tall, glowing with intricate, interwoven runic arrays that hummed with a suppressed, terrifying amount of mana.
Even from this distance, Alden could feel the oppressive auras of the border patrol. The guards pacing the towering battlements weren't just standard grunts. They were clad in masterwork, full-plate armor that practically radiated magical resistance. Alden's sharp perception easily picked up the signatures.
'At least a hundred B-Rank awakeners,' Alden analyzed, his brow furrowing slightly beneath his black eyepatch.
'And those captains standing near the checkpoint pillars… those are A-Ranks.'
The human and Dwarven empires were not enemies, but calling them allies was a massive overstatement. They existed in a state of tense, strictly regulated mutual benefit. The Dwarf Empire was an entirely independent continent, functioning as the ultimate, undisputed trading hub of the world. They dealt with everyone. The Elven sanctuaries to the east, the Dragon Valleys to the far north, and the sprawling human kingdoms—everyone needed dwarven steel, and everyone coveted dwarven artifacts.
They were renowned for their unmatched forging. While their physical bodies might not be innately built for the agile, high-speed combat of human swordsmen or elven archers, they compensated with raw, unadulterated firepower. The Dwarves had their own SS-Rank awakeners, but more terrifyingly, they possessed SS-Rank artifacts. Weapons capable of leveling entire cities or vaporizing mountains with a single trigger pull.
Because of that, they stayed entirely out of petty political squabbles and territorial wars. No country, not even the arrogant High Council of humanity, dared to break the peaceful pact with them. Invading the Dwarven borders was essentially asking to be erased from the map.
Rumble… screech…
Down below, on the wide, heavily paved road leading to the gates, a long line of merchant caravans was slowly inching forward.
The border was open for trade, but the security was absolute. Every single carriage, every barrel of ale, and every chest of raw materials was strictly inspected by dwarven mages. And more importantly, every single person attempting to cross needed identification. A heavily verified, magically stamped license.
'A visa,' Alden thought, a bitter, nostalgic sigh escaping his lips.
'Just like back in my old world. No papers, no entry.'
Alden obviously didn't have a license to enter the Dwarf Empire. And even if he had managed to somehow forge one, or steal one from a passing merchant, using it would be a literal death sentence.
He was Alden von Astra. The Empire's S-Rank Existential Threat.
His face was plastered on every bounty board from the capital to the outer slums, carrying a price tag of one hundred billion gold coins. The Dwarves might be neutral, but they were also pragmatists. If an internationally wanted, highly dangerous fugitive walked up to their gates, those heavily armored guards wouldn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. They would capture him, toss him in a magic-suppressing vault, and hand him over to the High Council to collect the easiest hundred billion they had ever made.
Alden leaned the back of his head against the rough bark of the pine tree, closing his eye in sheer frustration.
If this were a month ago—if the Sifting had never happened, and Liam von Ravel had never touched him—this border wouldn't have been an obstacle at all.
Before his core was shattered and rebuilt, Alden possessed the [Void-Walker] authority. When his mana had broken through to the A+ rank, his [Void-Step] had exponentially evolved. He wouldn't have needed to wait in line. He wouldn't have needed a visa. He could have just visualized the coordinates, stepped into the absolute fabric of space, and teleported several kilometers past the walls, bypassing the entire A-Rank security force without alerting a single alarm.
'But thanks to that parasitic leech, I'm stuck out here,' Alden thought, his jaw clenching as a dark, violent surge of hatred flared in his chest.
He had lost his spatial abilities. And worse, he was currently trapped in a body that actively hated him.
He looked down at his legs, his expression souring as he remembered the utterly humiliating incident that had occurred just a few hours ago.
He had been carefully navigating a dense patch of the forest, completely silent, when he accidentally stumbled into the hunting territory of a Shadow-Stalker—a highly aggressive, incredibly fast A-Rank beast. Knowing his pathetic D+ Rank core couldn't output enough sustained mana to fight an A-Rank beast head-on without risking an internal collapse, Alden had opted for stealth.
He had hidden behind a massive, rotting redwood tree, holding his breath, masking his presence perfectly. The beast had walked right past him, completely unaware.
And then, his newly forged Nephalem body had betrayed him.
Out of absolutely nowhere, the Chaos mana inside his core had decided to throw a violent tantrum. Without any warning or prompt, a terrifying surge of dark-gold energy had erupted from his back.
CRACK!
The volatile energy had instantly snapped three of his own ribs from the inside out, and the resulting blowback had created a ten-meter-wide, small-scale explosion of pure destructive force.
Naturally, the massive explosion had instantly alerted the A-Rank monster.
The beast had roared, spinning around with its razor-sharp claws extended, ready to tear Alden to shreds. Alden, coughing up blood and clutching his rapidly mending ribs, had braced for a brutal, desperate fistfight.
But then, his residual luck had kicked in.
The shockwave from his accidental Chaos explosion had severely destabilized the roots of the massive, rotting redwood tree he was hiding behind. Just as the Shadow-Stalker lunged, the colossal tree gave way with a deafening groan and crashed directly on top of the beast.
Now, a falling tree—even a massive one—couldn't kill an A-Rank monster. The beast's hide was far too tough. But it did pin the creature to the ground for a crucial ten seconds.
Alden had used those ten seconds to run away as fast as humanly possible, awkwardly hopping through the forest on one good leg while the Chaos mana agonizingly reconstructed his broken ribs and fractured shin on the fly.
It was simultaneously the most terrifying and embarrassing moment of his entire second life.
'And now I'm supposed to sneak past a fortress of dwarves with this body?' Alden mentally groaned, rubbing his temples.
'If my core decides to randomly explode while I'm trying to scale the wall, they'll turn me into a pincushion before I even hit the ground.'
He was stuck. He couldn't go forward, and turning back meant returning to a continent actively hunting him.
"Ahhhhhh!"
Alden's singular eye snapped open.
He froze, his breath hitching. The sound was incredibly faint, carried over by the erratic mountain winds. If his senses hadn't been dialed to their absolute peak, he would have missed it entirely.
It sounded almost like the sharp, high-pitched chirping of a large bird. But Alden had spent the last three weeks surviving in the harshest wilderness imaginable. He knew the sounds of the forest.
That wasn't a bird. That was a human voice. Someone was shouting.
Alden shifted his weight on the branch, turning his head toward the east, peering into the dense, darkening woods that bordered the official merchant road.
'It's coming from the human empire's side of the forest route,' Alden analyzed, his eyes narrowing to pierce the gloom.
It was late evening. The sun was rapidly sinking behind the jagged peaks of the Dwarven mountains, casting long, eerie shadows across the trees. It was the exact time of day when nocturnal predators began waking up.
There was absolutely no reason for a legitimate merchant caravan to be traveling through the off-road forest routes at night. It was an unofficial death sentence. If you were heading to the Dwarf Empire, you stayed on the heavily patrolled paved roads, surrounded by hired mercenaries. You didn't take a shortcut through the woods in the dark.
'Smugglers?' Alden wondered. 'Bandits? Or maybe some poor idiot who got lost?'
Logic screamed at him to stay put. He was a wanted man with a body that functioned like a malfunctioning bomb. Throwing himself into an unknown situation, especially in the dark, was the pinnacle of stupidity. He needed to focus on finding a way across the border, not playing hero for some random voice in the woods.
He gripped the rough bark of the pine branch, forcing himself to stay seated.
"Help! Please!"
The voice carried again, slightly louder this time, tinged with raw, unmistakable terror.
Alden let out a heavy, incredibly aggravated sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose right next to his eyepatch.
"Curiosity is absolutely going to be the death of me," he muttered to himself.
He couldn't just sit here. The dangerous, reckless curiosity that had dragged him into the underground trials, the same curiosity that had led him to claim a Chaos core, was itching under his skin.
He convinced his deeply protesting logical side that he was just going to look. He wouldn't engage. He would just scout the situation from the trees, figure out what was happening, and leave. Information was a weapon, after all.
"Just a quick peek," Alden whispered, pulling his dark hood over his head to fully obscure his face.
He stood up on the thick pine branch, balancing perfectly despite the heavy winds. He fell into a low, athletic crouch, his muscles coiling tight. He pictured the next branch, calculating the distance and trajectory perfectly. He was going to move like a ghost. A perfect, silent ninja slipping through the nighttime canopy.
He didn't pull any mana. He relied solely on his pure, A-Rank physical strength. He pushed off the bark, intending to execute a flawless, silent leap.
CRACKLE.
Deep inside his dantian, the dark-gold abyssal vortex of Chaos mana violently flared to life.
It didn't ask for permission. It didn't wait for a command. The volatile energy surged down his right leg like a lightning bolt, flooding his calf and foot with an astronomical amount of raw, unfiltered destructive force just as he pushed off.
"Oh, you have got to be—!"
BOOM!
The thick, sturdy pine branch didn't just break; it completely vaporized into a cloud of splinters and sawdust under the sheer, unadulterated force of the accidental mana emission.
With his launching platform entirely annihilated mid-jump, Alden's perfect, graceful ninja leap was instantly aborted. His foot found nothing but empty air, his momentum totally shattered.
Gravity, cruel and unforgiving, took immediate control.
"GAAAH!"
Alden plummeted backward, crashing through the lower canopy. Branches whipped against his cloak and slapped him in the face as he fell thirty feet straight down.
THUD!
He hit the damp forest floor face-first, his chin planting firmly into a patch of muddy, wet moss.
Silence descended over the forest once again, save for the wind rustling the remaining pine needles above.
Alden lay completely motionless in the dirt for a long, agonizing moment. He didn't move. He didn't even groan. He just closed his single eye, his face buried in the mud, silently cursing the day he ever decided to accept an SSS+ Rank bloodline.