A distorted portal tore open in an unfamiliar sky and spat Adam out before sealing shut. He hit the ground hard, rolled with the force, and came up on one knee.

  Sand.

  An endless expanse of it.

  Heat crashed down from a merciless sun suspended in a cloudless sky. Within seconds, sweat gathered at his temples. The horizon shimmered in violent heatwaves, the wind dragging dry grains across the dunes in whispering sheets.

  A desert…

  Is this the pocket dimension he mentioned?

  Adam rose slowly, brushing sand from his sleeves.

  “Can you still sense it?” he asked inwardly.

  Only wind answered.

  His brows drew together. “Now isn’t the time to sulk. Do you hear me?”

  Silence.

  The voice never misses a chance to mock me.

  He scanned the horizon again—rising dunes, falling dunes, nothing more. No vegetation. No moisture. No landmarks.

  Where am I supposed to—

  The thought shattered beneath a thunderous explosion. Adam’s head snapped west. A pillar of dust erupted skyward.

  Someone’s fighting.

  He broke into a sprint. With each step, his form thinned—light bending around him until he vanished entirely. Moments later, he crouched atop a dune overlooking the disturbance.

  Four Undertakers stood amid the corpses of massive yellow creatures half-buried in sand.

  Are those worms…?

  He narrowed his eyes.

  The carcasses were serpentine, horned, and exuded a faint floral scent that clashed grotesquely with their size.

  The system gave no notification when I arrived. These aren’t dungeon dwellers.

  His gaze shifted to a small blue box in one Undertaker’s hand. The man raised it in different directions.

  Then it suddenly jerked when faced northwards. The box flickered, and a faint chime rang.

  Adam’s lips curved faintly. That’s how they move confidently in an endless desert. I’ll be needing that.

  “Come out,” he ordered inwardly.

  Nothing.

  He blinked. Nokum. Salma. Come out.

  Still nothing.

  A dry gust swept across the dune as the Undertakers began moving.

  Are there restrictions for Omen Awakened? Adam shook his head. No. I can still access the Omen. I turned invisible. The Undertakers are Omen Awakened as well.

  His gaze sharpened. If I want to leave, that box is my only lead.

  [Activating Domain – World of Phantasm.]

  [Domain Successfully Activated.]

  The Undertakers walked in a tight formation. Their leader wore a black mask exposing only piercing green eyes. On his twentieth step, the box’s glow shifted from blue to black.

  He stopped instantly, raising a clenched fist.

  The others froze.

  Hands moved in perfect synchronization—one gripping a golden urn at their waist, the other tightening around a blackened cross.

  “Come out,” the leader called, voice cold. “You will not catch us off guard.”

  He uncorked his urn.

  A viscous black liquid sloshed inside, streaked with bluish-silver clumps. The stench of rot and sulfur spilled into the air. The others followed suit.

  They drank.

  Then pressed their crosses. A hidden mechanism clicked—needles sliding free from the base. Without hesitation, they drove the syringes into their necks.

  Purple fluid surged into their veins. Their eyes darkened. Bones cracked.

  Fingers elongated into claws. Legs bent at unnatural angles as muscle twisted and thickened beneath tearing fabric.

  “Show yourself,” the leader growled, voice layered with something feral.

  He raised the box. A chime rang sharply.

  “There!”

  Three transformed figures launched toward the indicated location.

  The ringing weakened.

  The leader swung the box again—

  Chime.

  Opposite direction.

  “He’s there!”

  They pivoted. Again the ringing faded.

  The leader’s eyes narrowed.

  “Is the Receiver malfunctioning?”

  The box rang a third time.

  “Sife—advance. Gavin—hold position. Sucre—standby.”

  They moved precisely.

  The ringing intensified.

  “What an interesting device.”

  Adam materialized behind the leader.

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  Cataclysm flashed. The hand holding the box separated cleanly from its owner.

  A scream tore across the dunes.

  The leader staggered back, clutching the stump as blood steamed against the sand.

  Adam crouched, retrieving the severed hand and prying the box free.

  So it can detect my Domain… and it suppressed Cataclysm’s implosion. Interesting.

  He stored the device.

  “Who are you?” one of the others snarled.

  “Do you know who you’re—”

  “Spare me the sermon,” Adam said, rising calmly. “You should consider yourselves fortunate. I only took an arm. Leave.”

  “Leave?”

  The wounded leader laughed—a guttural, broken sound.

  The others regrouped, claws flexing. The leader uncorked his urn again and drained it fully.

  Steam hissed from the severed limb as flesh writhed and swelled grotesquely. Veins bulged like coiled ropes beneath his skin. His mask split and fell, revealing a lengthening snout lined with serrated teeth.

  His body tripled in size.

  “Tear him apart!”

  The others emptied their urns as well. Bones cracked and elongated. Fur burst through splitting skin. Within seconds, massive werewolves stood where men had been.

  They fanned out, cutting off every path of retreat.

  Adam sighed, shaking his head. “You’re truly hell-bent on dying. Fine. I’ll grant your wish.”

  A second axe materialized in his hand.

  The werewolves howled and charged. Sand sprayed beneath pounding claws. Their crimson eyes burned with feral rage as they lunged.

  Adam stepped aside.

  His axe moved in a lazy arc.

  A feral scream tore through the air as a severed arm spun away, thudding into the sand.

  Two more werewolves attacked from opposite sides.

  Adam met their claws with ringing steel, parried both strikes, then pivoted with the force of their momentum. His axes flashed.

  More limbs fell.

  The creatures staggered back, wailing, black blood soaking into gold dunes.

  Adam regarded them with open disdain and leveled an axe at the largest among them.

  The leader took an involuntary step back.

  “I’ll give you another chance,” Adam said lightly. “Do you still wish to continue?”

  “Damn you!” one roared before the leader could answer. “We’ll tear you apa—”

  “Stop it, Gavin.”

  The leader caught his subordinate by the shoulder and shoved him back. Then he locked eyes with Adam.

  “Why are you letting us go?”

  Adam smirked, tossing one axe into the air before catching it without looking. “To send a message to the Widow.”

  A growl rippled through the pack.

  “You filthy—”

  The leader’s glare silenced the speaker.

  “What message?” the Undertaker asked, barely restraining his rage.

  Adam’s smile sharpened.

  “Tell her this: I, Dominic Rowe Armstrong, declare—on behalf of the Armstrong family—that I will have her head.”

  His gaze swept across them.

  “And the heads of every Undertaker.”

  “Sir, why tolerate this disrespect?” another werewolf spat, swaying as blood streamed from his severed shoulders. “Let’s kill him—”

  “Shut up!” the leader snapped, his voice cracking back into something more human.

  His hulking frame compressed. Fur receded. Bones shifted with sickening pops until a man stood in place of the beast.

  “I have received your message, Dominic Rowe Armstrong,” he said coldly. “It will be delivered.”

  “Good.” Adam dismissed Cataclysm into his inventory and retrieved the wooden box. He raised it, and it tugged north. “Now get out of my sight.”

  Spyrio watched their assailant disappear toward the northern dunes, the receiver guiding him onward.

  Around him, his men shifted back into human form. Their bloodlust lingered, heavy and suffocating.

  “Sir, we should have sacrificed ourselves to—”

  “That’s enough,” Spyrio cut in calmly. “I understand your anger. But do not forget what he took from us.”

  He bent and retrieved his severed arm, slinging it over his shoulder as if it were nothing more than misplaced cargo.

  “Since he’s foolish enough to use the Receiver, he will soon encounter the mistress and the others. If he survives…” A thin smile touched his lips. “We know his name.”

  “Sir, what if it’s false?” another man asked, supporting the worst-injured member of their party. “He may have given us a fake one.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Spyrio replied. “We will find out.”

  He straightened. “Sife. Gather Gavin’s and Sucre’s arms. We must reattach them before decay sets in.”

  From inside his shirt, Spyrio withdrew a narrow golden slip etched with intricate runes. Sunlight touched its surface.

  The gold darkened to black.

  Then it jerked north.

  “Move,” he ordered. “The mistress is waiting.”

  Far from the wounded Undertakers, Adam’s quiet laughter drifted across the dunes as he followed the wooden box.

  Even if they suspect the name is fake… the Widow and the Undertakers will keep the Armstrongs occupied for a while.

  He pressed deeper into the desert. Violent winds birthed rolling sandstorms, but his steps never faltered. He summoned his half mask and shielded his eyes against the biting grit.

  Minutes stretched into hours.

  Three passed before he noticed the change.

  The box began emitting low, rhythmic pulses—like the distant song of a metallic bird.

  If I’m right, it’s leading me to the other Undertakers.

  The desert remained endless—rising and falling waves of gold in every direction.

  Hopefully the Widow isn’t with the group I’m approaching.

  He couldn’t ignore the intel regarding the famed Omen Awakened.

  Adam tilted his head toward the cloudless sky.

  Who created this place? It isn’t Earth. It isn’t a dungeon… It feels like a world unto itself.

  Heat clung to him. Sweat traced lines through the dust on his face.

  What I wouldn’t give for an ice-cold soda right now…

  The box suddenly jerked violently and released a sharp cry.

  They’re close.

  His expression hardened.

  An instant later, a thunderous explosion rocked the desert. Shockwaves rippled through the dunes, flattening crests and sending sand cascading.

  Adam stowed the box and vanished.

  Invisible.

  He sprinted toward the blast in a terrifying burst of speed. The clang of steel rang faintly in the distance, mingling with screams and guttural grunts.

  Over there…

  He slowed near a towering dune and climbed carefully. Upon reaching the crest, he dropped flat against the sand and peered over the edge.

  What the hell is going on here?

  Adam’s brows rose as he stared down at the battlefield below.

  Dozens of transformed Undertakers clashed with Awakened clad in armor. Horned worms the size of carriages writhed through the melee, impaling and crushing indiscriminately.

  Corpses littered the dunes. Fresh blood soaked into gold sand, turning it a deep, glistening crimson. The air reeked—iron, bile, burnt ozone from clashing abilities.

  Why are they—

  He blinked. Recognition struck.

  A towering man with a chiseled, golden body swung a massive mace against three Undertakers at once. Behind him loomed a colossal, blindfolded, bipedal lion. Golden chains extended from its torso, snaking outward like living restraints.

  Adam’s frown deepened.

  What’s he doing here?

  He could still remember the crushing weight of those chains—the way they had suppressed his very existence.

  Wait… does that mean there are other entrances to this pocket dimension?

  The thought coiled in his mind.

  He scanned the battlefield more carefully. The armors didn’t match. Different insignias. Different forging styles. Different magical signatures clashing in the air.

  They’re from different nations. Different guilds. There’s no way they entered together.

  His pulse quickened.

  Which means…

  His gaze sharpened.

  This pocket dimension might be where the flower is.

  The rumored elixir.

  His heartbeat thudded harder now, competing with the distant roar of battle. His eyes swept the battlefield—not at the combatants, but beyond them.

  Searching.

  Where is it? It has to be here.

  Then he saw it.

  A stretch of sand untouched by blood.

  Empty. Too empty.

  No corpses. No stray attacks. No stray domains bleeding into it.

  Adam narrowed his eyes.

  Whenever the fighting drifted too close to that patch of sand, combatants instinctively pulled back. As though some unspoken boundary existed.

  What’s over there?

  Adam rose slightly but remained still, focusing only on the skirmishes nearest the anomaly.

  An Undertaker and a heavily armored woman fought their way toward it.

  She commanded wisps of multicolored flames that twisted and shrieked like living things. The Undertaker—transformed—moved with feral precision, twin daggers flashing in lethal arcs.

  Attack after attack.

  Flame met steel.

  Neither yielded.

  The woman thrust both palms forward. Six condensed flames screamed toward the Undertaker.

  He twisted aside and hurled both daggers.

  She dodged, but her heel slid backward. Into the untouched sand.

  A crack split the air.

  Not sound. Space.

  The “forbidden zone” blurred, as though reality itself had lost focus. The golden desert dissolved into a gaping expanse of endless darkness.

  The woman’s flames snuffed out instantly. Her breathing turned ragged.

  Then—an explosion detonated outward. A shockwave ripped through the battlefield, flattening dunes and hurling combatants off their feet.

  Silence fell.

  The Undertakers reverted to human form mid-motion. Domains shattered like broken glass. The blindfolded lion vanished. The golden chains evaporated.

  Adam’s invisibility collapsed.

  For a single, suspended moment, everyone stood as ordinary humans.

  No power. No manifestations. No abilities. Only flesh and breath and fear.

  They all stared at the fractured space ahead. The cracks spread outward in delicate, jagged lines. Like the outline of a flower. A grotesque caricature etched into reality itself.

  Then, the darkness blinked away. The cracks sealed.

  Abilities returned in a sudden rush, like air flooding starving lungs.

  Domains reignited. The battlefield resumed. But now, every eye kept drifting toward that untouched stretch of sand.