Soren marched for another couple of hours, watching the central fortress-city walls slowly shrink behind him as he crossed the volcanic world.
He leaped across rivers of lava and wound his way around massive mountains before he finally encountered his first foe.
Crouching behind a large boulder, he pulled out the Dream Sword.
Its surface showed a dozen or so wolves with stone-like fur and jagged spikes protruding from their backs.
[Stone Wolf]
He focused, willing the sword to reveal more.
Name: [Stone Wolf]
Rank: [Normal]
Soren exhaled in relief.
These weren’t Awakened but mere normals.
They wouldn’t pose much of a threat and would serve as excellent practice for his new abilities.
He waited until the wolves drew closer before springing into action, transforming the Dream Sword into a heavy broadsword.
The wolves reacted instantly, leaping aside to avoid his initial strike.
But Soren had anticipated that.
He followed their movement, infused his muscles with syntropy, and swung downward.
The blade sheared through the wolf’s stone-like exterior, cleaving it cleanly in half.
The pack howled at the loss of their comrade before charging with renewed fury.
One wolf—larger than the rest, clearly the leader—lunged for his throat while the others fanned out, attempting to flank him.
Soren grinned and stepped forward to meet the charge.
As the lead wolf leaped, its fangs aimed for his jugular, he waited until the last possible moment, then pushed off the ground and arced over the creature.
The movement was far from polished, but his enhanced reflexes carried him through.
He twisted midair and drove his sword downward, impaling the beast against the stone floor.
The wolf whimpered once before going limp.
The remaining wolves growled and pounced with desperate fury.
Soren landed and reached deep within his soul.
A radiant white light flooded his body and burst outward, forming a brilliant circle around him.
Strength surged through his veins—syntropy enhancing his physique, the Simple Domain magnifying it further.
His power skyrocketed.
The wolves lunged from all four directions simultaneously.
Soren gripped the Dream Sword and spun, becoming a whirlwind of steel.
The beasts tried to pull back once they saw the spinning blade, but momentum carried them forward.
He cleaved through their maws and bodies like a scythe through wheat.
Blood sprayed across him—warm, metallic, and utterly disgusting.
How was he supposed to wash this off with no water in sight?
The remaining wolves, those smart enough to hold back, retreated cautiously.
Their frightened gazes told him everything he needed to know—they recognized they were outmatched, especially after watching their leader die so brutally.
Soren watched them flee, tails tucked, and allowed himself a moment of satisfaction.
The beasts would only grow stronger the further he ventured from civilization, but this was his first hunt as an Awakened, and it had gone exceptionally well.
He wiped off as much blood as he could, grimacing at the sharp stench, then continued north.
As he traveled, he kept the Dream Sword ready, scanning for any threats.
He didn’t engage every creature he encountered—some hordes were simply too large to fight head-on.
Instead, he used the sword to detect them and slipped through fissures or hid behind boulders, delaying his journey but keeping himself alive.
The experience reminded him of his time in the Abyss, except now he had the means to fight back.
He wasn’t completely outclassed by every beast and Abyssal anymore—he was something of a predator himself.
Not the strongest by any means, but capable of killing or outrunning most threats.
He deliberately sought out weaker beasts along the way, using them to sharpen his skills.
If war was coming, he might as well get as much training in as possible.
Soren panted as he faced his next opponent—a [Stone Serpent].
Like the wolves, it had stone-like scales, but instead of decorative spikes, it wielded them as deadly weapons.
Name: [Stone Serpent]
Rank: [Awakened] Find the original chapter at g.com.
Pathway: [Creator]
Soren sighed in disappointment.
It wasn’t an Abyssal, which meant no Nonexistence Essence—the resource he needed to climb the Orders of Ascension.
Regular Ascenders dropped Existence Cores instead, food for Abyssals and little more than a power source for his enchanted gear, especially since he’d discovered syntropy couldn’t replace entropy for recharging.
The serpent hurled spikes at him.
Soren dodged, rolling across the ground with a grunt, and looked up just in time to see the creature lunging with hunger blazing in its eyes.
‘I guess nobody can resist me.’
He scrambled to his feet and charged forward, keeping low.
The serpent’s jaws snapped shut on empty air where he’d just been standing.
In that split second, he angled the Dream Sword upward, sent a burst of syntropy to his legs, and launched himself skyward.
He shot up with terrifying force, the ground trembling beneath him.
The sword punched through the serpent’s soft underbelly and skewered it completely.
The creature thrashed wildly, hissing in agony as it tried to shake him off.
Soren held on grimly and twisted the blade.
The serpent let out one final cry before collapsing to the ground, dead.
He yanked his sword free, breathing heavily, a triumphant smile spreading across his face.
‘Not bad.’
He walked to the serpent’s midsection and scanned for the Existence Core.
When he couldn’t spot it easily, he shrugged and cut the creature open, spilling its innards into the open.
The smell hit him immediately—blood and intestines already cooking in the unbearable heat of the sun and volcanic rock.
He grimaced but pressed on, rummaging through the mess until he spotted a shining black orb nestled between organs.
He fished it out with his sword, careful not to splash himself with the boiling blood, and wiped it clean.
It wasn’t a Nonexistence Essence, but still useful.
He stashed it in his leather bag and fled the scene before other creatures could arrive for an easy meal.
Once he was far enough away, he allowed himself a breath of relief.
He looked up and saw the sun dipping toward the horizon.
Time to bunker down.
The last thing he wanted was to stumble through the darkness and end up as some creature’s midnight snack.
He used the fading daylight to search for shelter, eventually finding a mountain riddled with caves.
One stood out from the rest—high up, hidden between boulders, and defensible.
Most creatures wouldn’t bother climbing that high, and the location was nearly invisible from below.
There was just one problem.
Another cave, right next to it, housed a sleeping creature.
Soren gritted his teeth and cursed his luck.
Could he never catch a break?
He could try another cave, but they were either too shallow, too exposed, or dripping with lava.
According to the Dream Sword, there was no other suitable safe location nearby.
He weighed his options and decided he’d rather face the cave’s occupant than sleep in the open.
But when he focused the Dream Sword on the creature, the image was hazy—he couldn’t make out any features.
He told himself it was just the darkness playing tricks, but deep down, he knew the truth.
The creature was at least Transcendent.
Soren kicked a rock in frustration, shattering it to dust.
If it had been normal or even Awakened, he would have gladly ambushed it and claimed the cave.
But a Transcendent?
The risk of death had just skyrocketed.
That meant he’d have to pull out every stop to survive.
Fortunately, he’d recharged his Domain Energy—drained during the wolf fight—by taking down several other Awakened creatures along the way.
His reserves, originally replenished by Ignus, were mostly topped off.
He started planning.
A direct confrontation was suicide.
He was human, and he’d use human tactics to kill a beast leagues stronger than him.
There was no other choice.
He got to work, his sore muscles screaming in protest.
He slaughtered several normal creatures, tied their carcasses together with rope, and dragged them across the barren wasteland.
The sun was setting fast so he had to move quickly.
After tying off the last corpse, he reached the base of the towering mountain.
It was no small hill; its peak was lost somewhere in the ash-choked sky.
About halfway up, he could see a sliver of an opening—the entrance to the creature’s cave.
He hauled the trail of carcasses up the steep path, his core burning as syntropy fueled his exhausted muscles.
By the time he reached the ledge outside the cave, twilight was painting the ashy sky in shades of violet and gray.
He unknotted the ropes and piled the dead beasts near the cave mouth, then gashed them with his sword to let their blood seep out.
The ambient heat from the volcanic rock immediately went to work, sending a putrid stench of rotting flesh and blood wafting into the darkness within.
Without waiting to see if the bait worked, Soren scaled the jagged cliff face until he was positioned above the cave opening.
He paused to catch his breath, then a wild idea struck him.
He’d planned to simply yell and wake the monster, but he had the Dream Sword—and he wanted to test its limits.
He took a deep breath, cleared his mind, and channeled syntropy into the blade, willing its reflection to warp.
At first, the sword merely shimmered violently, resisting his command.
But with a final, desperate push, the reflection settled.
The sun appeared within the blade.
Not the actual sun up close—he wasn’t nearly powerful enough for that—but its image just above the clouds, unobstructed.
The reflected rays beamed into the cave with blinding intensity.
Soren looked over the edge and paled.
The creature was a spider, but instead of a regular body, it was covered in obsidian and stone.
Its eight eyes snapped open, glowing bright orange as they locked onto him, completely unfazed by the sunlight pouring into its lair.
It opened its maw and unleashed an eerie, otherworldly screech that chilled Soren to the bone.
He stood and gripped the Dream Sword tightly, dispelling the reflection.
He’d need every ounce of strength for what came next—and this was going to drain him dry.
He’d always known the Dreamy attribute allowed him to manipulate the sword’s properties however he wished, but he’d always stayed within reasonable limits, afraid to push too far.
But this was the real world—filled with horrors beyond imagination.
If he didn’t adapt, he’d be consumed.
Soren poured every bit of syntropy from his core into the Dream Sword’s Dreamy attribute.
The blade wobbled, almost like a mirage, before it enlarged and transformed into a massive hammer.
Then he willed it to become heavier—heavier than physically possible.
The weight swelled, cracking the ledge beneath him under the sudden mass.
He poured every drop of Domain Energy from his soul into the world.
A blinding light erupted around him in a tight circle, multiplying his strength tenfold—for this single moment, he wielded the power of several Transcendents.
With a roar, he brought the hammer down just as the spider creature emerged from the cave.
A deafening boom shook the mountain.
The massive stone overhang collapsed into a cascade of heavy boulders, tons of volcanic rock falling like an avalanche onto the beast’s lower spine and hind legs.
The creature shrieked in agony, its legs gouging trenches into the stone as it thrashed wildly.
Soren didn’t hesitate.
He leaped from the ledge, plunging straight down toward the pinned creature’s head.
The spider looked up, all eight eyes blazing with hatred.
Soren lifted the Dream Hammer with every last shred of strength in his body and struck.
Empowered by his weight, his enhanced strength, and gravity itself, the hammer smashed down with the force of a god.
The creature’s head flattened instantly.
The mountainside shuddered.
An avalanche of rock slid from the impact.
The Transcendent beast gave one final violent tremor before going still.
Soren stood atop the corpse, chest heaving, lungs burning.
With a groan, he dropped the hammer—too exhausted to carry it—and forced his legs to carry him into the cave.
He collapsed against the warm stone floor and passed out, his reserves utterly empty.