The massive gates of Fortress Genesis towered above them like an iron mountain.
Silver-armored knights stood guard at the entrance, their sharp gazes sweeping over everyone approaching the gate.
Long lines of merchants, mercenaries, and travelers stretched across the road leading into the fortress.
Some carried monster corpses.
Others dragged carts filled with crystals, herbs, and blackened ores from the Deep Abyss.
Kael quietly observed everything.
"…So this is one of the Seven Great Kingdoms," he muttered.
Runa glanced at him.
"This is only the outer fortress," she explained. "The real kingdom is far deeper inside."
As they approached the gate, one of the knights suddenly stepped forward, his silver spear blocking their path.
"Stop."
The knight's eyes narrowed the moment he saw the bloodstains on their clothes and the injured state of Runa.
"…State your identities and reason for entering Fortress Genesis."
Runa quickly stepped forward toward the knight guard, ahe leaned in close, lowering her voice.
"Hm, James… don't make this difficult."
Then she pulled out a horn and showed it clearly to him.
"The Dose Wolf Horn!"
The knight's expression shifted instantly, his grip on the spear loosening as he stared at it in recognition.
The knight's eyes narrowed for a moment… then he stepped aside.
"…Ehem. You can enter now. Just don't cause any trouble inside."
He quietly pocketed the horn, as if nothing unusual had happened, and withdrew his spear to clear the way.
Runa straightened up and gave Kael a quick glance.
"…Let's go," she said, walking forward into Fortress Genesis.
"Wait," the knight called again, his gaze locking onto Kael. "That young man—state your identity."
Runa immediately stepped forward without hesitation.
"He's a survivor," she said flatly.
The knight studied Kael for a moment longer, then slowly shifted his spear aside, still wary but no longer stopping him.
The knight gave Kael a final, warning glance.
"…You're lucky you even reached here. Others don't make it this far alive."
He stepped fully aside, allowing them passage into the open gates of Fortress Genesis.
Runa glanced at Kael as they passed through the gates, lowering her voice.
"…Lucky? This man is a total monster," she whispered under her breath.
Kael didn't react. He simply kept walking forward into Fortress Genesis, as if he hadn't heard her at all.
Beyond the gates, the fortress city stretched endlessly before them.
Stone streets packed with people, simple rock-wood house, market stalls, and armored warriors filled Kael's vision for the first time.
But suddenly, Kael's eyes began to faintly glow.
His vision flickered.
The bustling city around him distorted for a brief moment, as if something hidden was overlapping reality itself.
"…What's happening?" Kael muttered, placing a hand over his eyes.
Runa looked at him in confusion.
"Kael? What happened…? Ah, is this your first time seeing a fortress city? Hehe…" she said lightly, misunderstanding his reaction.
Kael slowly lowered his hand.
The flickering around him intensified—like reality itself was glitching, layers of the world overlapping and tearing apart.
For a brief moment—Everything stopped.
Then it changed, the bright, orderly Fortress Genesis vanished.
The sky turned a deep, suffocating crimson.
The streets were no longer alive with merchants and knights—only twisted figures moving like broken shells, dragging themselves through the city like walking corpses.
The air felt heavy… wrong… suffocating.
Kael's breath caught, for the first time—he knelt.
"What… is this…" he whispered, shock and fear breaking through his calm for the first time.
Runa's voice suddenly sounded right beside him. "…Kael!"
Kael turned slowly.
But what stood there was no longer the cat woman he had seen before.
It was a corpse.
Its jaw was missing, rotten flesh hanging loosely as if barely holding its shape together.
Empty eyes stared at him, yet the voice still came from it—distorted, wrong, like something imitating speech.
Kael's breath hitched.
The world around him pulsed again, the crimson sky flickering like a broken image trying to stabilize.
"Illusion…?" he muttered under his breath, forcing himself to analyze it.
But the feeling was real, too real. Like I'm living into the hellish place.
"Calm… calm… calm," Kael muttered to himself.
He slowly closed his eyes.
For a few seconds, everything went quiet—no vision, no distortion, just darkness and his breathing.
Then—
He opened his eyes again, the faint glow was gone, the world returned to normal.
Fortress Genesis stood before him exactly as before—bustling streets, merchants, knights, and the normal sky overhead.
Kael exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
"…So it's not real," he muttered, gaze sharpening again as he scanned his surroundings.
"But… it felt real," Kael whispered to himself. "So that wasn't just an illusion…"
"Hey! Kael! Don't ignore me—what happened?!" Runa snapped, stepping in front of him.
Kael paused, then looked at her calmly again.
"…Nothing," he said flatly.
Then something clicked in Kael's mind—like a fragment of realization locking into place.
"…Runa. Can I ask you something?" he said calmly.
Runa crossed her arms, still watching him carefully. "…What is it?"
"…How did you end up here?" Kael asked calmly.
Runa froze for a moment.
The relaxed expression on her face disappeared instantly, replaced by something tense and uneasy.
"…Don't say things like that here," she said quietly, her tone far more serious than before.
"Everyone knows how they ended up here," Runa said quietly, her voice dropping. "But they don't want to hear it… or remember it."
She glanced at Kael, her expression tightening.
"…Do you know why I called you a survivor?"
Kael remained silent.
Runa exhaled slowly, her tone turning heavier.
"…Because once you die in the Great Land, you end up here in the Deep Abyss," she said. "And if you die in the Deep Abyss… your existence is erased. You never resurrect. You never return."
A brief pause followed.
Only the distant noise of Fortress Genesis filled the silence between them.
"In other words," Runa said quietly, "the Deep Abyss is The World of the Dead."
Kael stood still for a moment, processing the words.
The surrounding noise of Fortress Genesis felt distant again, as if the world itself had shifted slightly around that truth.
Kael narrowed his eyes slightly. A faint glow returned to them—but this time, he didn't suppress it.
"…World of the dead," he repeated softly.
The vision flickered again.
For a moment, he saw it—an endless hellscape of corpses beneath a bleeding red sky, and in the center of it all…
A single presence.
Himself—glowing faintly, like a yellow spirit standing untouched in a world that shouldn't allow life to exist.
"…I see," Kael whispered. "That's why this world is like this."
Even as unease lingered in his expression, his voice remained steady.
Later on, while they walked through the crowded streets of Fortress Genesis, Kael quietly observed everything around him.
Merchants shouted from both sides of the road, trying to attract customers to their stalls.
Weapons, monster materials, glowing crystals, potions, and strange artifacts filled the marketplace.
Mercenaries covered in scars walked past armored knights, while exhausted survivors rested near the walls with hollow expressions.
Kael's eyes moved slowly across the city.
Even now, after learning the truth of the Deep Abyss, he could still faintly see traces of the other world hidden beneath reality—brief flickers of crimson skies and corpse-like shadows overlapping the living city.
But this time, he remained calm, beside him, runa glanced over.
"…Stop staring around like a lost child," she muttered. "People are already looking at you strangely."
Then suddenly, two men stepped into their path, blocking the narrow street ahead.
Both wore rough armor stained from countless fights, their eyes filled with obvious bad intentions.
"You two," one of them said with a crooked grin, "just follow us if you don't want to die. Keke—"
"Huh? Do you even know who I am?" Runa said coldly, her ears twitching in irritation. "Are you really digging your own graves?"
But Kael said nothing, he didn't resist, he simply followed them calmly.
As they walked, Kael briefly glanced toward the rooftops above the street—his eyes lingering for only a second before he continued forward again.
Runa immediately moved closer to him, lowering her voice.
"Hey… what are you doing? They're obviously thieves or something," she whispered sharply.
"I know," Kael replied calmly.
Runa stared at him in disbelief.
"You know?! Then why aren't you doing anything?" she whispered angrily.
Kael's eyes faintly glowed as he kept walking, still being led through the streets.
His gaze drifted upward again—toward the rooftops.
Hidden above, a shadowy figure lay motionless, observing the city below.
"…Leader, the guards inside are weak and few. The elite guards are focused on the walls and gates," the unseen man thought.
Kael's expression remained unchanged.
"…An invasion… assassination?" he whispered to himself, almost like he was connecting pieces of a larger pattern.
Runa noticed his tone and frowned slightly.
"...Hey?" she called quietly, sensing something off in his focus.
When they reached a narrow alleyway, the two men leading them stopped.
In front of Kael and Runa, a large man sat casually on a broken crate, legs spread, blocking the path completely. Behind him stood several rough-looking men—clearly bandits—watching with smug expressions.
The big man chuckled.
"…So they really followed, huh?" he said, cracking his neck as he stood up slowly.
"Do you know who I am? You really want to die, huh?" Runa said sharply.
Her ears tilted back slightly, irritation and warning in her voice as she stepped half a pace forward.
The bandits exchanged glances, some smirking, but the big man in front only grinned wider, clearly unfazed.
"Who doesn't know you, Runa?" the big man said with a low chuckle. "Or should I say… the Red Assassin?"
The moment those words landed, the atmosphere in the alley shifted.
Runa's expression hardened instantly.
"…So that's it," she muttered under her breath, eyes narrowing.