"Are you alright?"
A voice suddenly startled Max. He turned to see Captain Reeves standing nearby.
"You look troubled," the NPC captain said. "Is the expedition getting to you?"
"Just... processing some things I learned," Max managed.
Reeves nodded. "The frontier does that to people. Makes you question things. Makes you see the world differently." He looked out at the camp, at the people going about their evening routines. "But that's not a bad thing, you know. Growth comes from questioning. From seeing beyond what we thought we knew."
The captain's words hit harder than he could have known.
"Captain," Max asked slowly, "do you ever wonder if... if your life is real? If you're real?"
Reeves looked at him with those eyes that seemed far too perceptive for a simple NPC. "What an odd question. Of course I'm real. I feel the wind on my face. I taste my food. I worry about my crew. I remember my past and plan for my future. What else would 'real' mean?"
"But if someone told you that you were..." Max struggled for words. "That you were created by something outside your understanding. That your whole world was... constructed. Would that make you less real?"
The captain was quiet for a long moment, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I suppose it would depend on your definition of real. If I think and feel and exist from my own perspective, does it matter how I came to be? A person born naturally and a person created artificially—if both are conscious and both experience life, are they not both equally real?"
Max felt something settle in his chest. Not answers exactly, but a kind of peace.
"You're wiser than you look, Captain."
Reeves laughed. "I'm an old man who's sailed the Sky Ocean for forty years. You learn a few things about existence when you spend that much time staring at impossible waters." He clapped Max on the shoulder. "Whatever you're working through, take your time. The ship doesn't leave until tomorrow. You've got tonight to think."
As the captain walked away, Max stood alone in the fading light, looking northeast toward the canyon where Thomas had died.
He didn't know why, but something pulled him there. Maybe closure. Maybe confrontation or Maybe just the need to face the thing that had killed a good man while Max had been too weak to stop it.
"Let's test the new skill out. See what type of world I'm about to step on."
The walk took twenty minutes through the metallic forest. The trees chimed softly in the wind, their copper and bronze trunk reflecting moonlight.
As Max approached the canyon, his heart rate increased. He could see the impact crater where the Titan had struck Thomas. Could see the scattered rocks from the battle. The bloodstains had faded but Max's memory provided the missing details.
He stood in the center of the killing ground and closed his eyes.
The ground trembled.
Max's eyes snapped open.
From the same cliff face where it had appeared before, the creature emerged.
[IRONCLAD TITAN – LEVEL 40 ELITE]
HP: 45,000/45,000
The Titan's red eyes fixed on Max, and it seemed to recognize him. This was the small creature it had crushed before. The prey that had dared challenge it.
"Round two," Max said quietly, drawing Voidreaver. The legendary blade hummed with dark energy, sensing what was about to happen.
The Titan roared and charged, its footsteps shaking the canyon floor.
Max didn't move. He simply raised his free hand toward the sky and activated the ability.
[ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION – ACTIVATED]
[-300 MP]
[Duration: 5 minutes]
[WARNING: Corruption generation increased by 300%]
Reality broke.
Darkness erupted from Max's body like a shockwave. It spread outward in a dome fifty meters in radius, swallowing the canyon in absolute shadow.
The Titan's charge faltered as the darkness consumed it.
Inside the dome, Max could see perfectly. No, more than that—he could feel every entity within his domain. The Titan's position, its health, its very essence was laid bare to his awareness.
And power—oh god, the power—flooded through him like fire.
[CORRUPTION: 22 → 28/100]
+6 corruption gained from activation
[ALL ABILITIES ENHANCED: 500%]
But with the power came pain.
Max gasped as his nerves lit up with sensation—not physical pain exactly, but something worse. It felt like his soul was being stretched, pulled, twisted into shapes it wasn't meant to hold. Like parts of himself were being peeled away and replaced with something else.
Something other.
[WARNING: Corruption effects active]
Max summoned Shadow Slaves, pouring his MP into the skill.
[Shadow Slave – Activated]
[-400 MP total]
[CORRUPTION: 28 → 33/100]
The instant his corruption hit 33, the world shifted.
His vision doubled. No—tripled. He was seeing the canyon as it was, but also overlaid with other versions. In one, the stones were made of flesh, pulsing like organs. In another, the sky was filled with eyes, all watching him. In the third, everything was drowning in blood.
Max blinked hard, forcing the visions away. They retreated to the edges of his perception but didn't disappear entirely.
The two demonic entities tore themselves from the darkness, but they were different now. Larger. More solid. Where before they'd been skeletal, now they were massive—nearly as tall as Max himself, their armor thicker, their claws longer, their red eyes blazing with unholy intensity.
[SHADOW SLAVE #1 – ENHANCED]
HP: 2,500/2,500 (5x normal)
Attack Power: 900 (5x normal)
[SHADOW SLAVE #2 – ENHANCED]
HP: 2,500/2,500
Attack Power: 900
Night's form also shifted beside him. It grew larger, its black armor becoming more ornate, more menacing. Its Shadowforged Blade lengthened into a proper greatsword, wreathed in purple-black flames.
[NIGHT – ENHANCED]
HP: 4,900/4,900 (5x normal)
Attack Power: 1,735 (5x normal)
Max felt his own stats surge. His attack power multiplied. His MP regeneration became a torrent. His very presence within the dome became oppressive.