As Evren and Amber stepped through the purple rift, the world spun around them. A loud rush of wind roared in their ears, and a moment later, their boots touched solid ground.

Evren adjusted his balance and looked around.

Instead of a normal cave or rocky dungeon valley, they had landed inside a strange, shattered dimension.

They were standing on the stone courtyard of an ancient ruined temple, but looking straight up, there was no sky... only an endless, bottomless purple void. Massive stone pillars, broken archways, and entire cathedral towers floated upside down and sideways all around them, drifting slowly through the dark air like giant debris.

"The gravity here is distorted," Amber noted, looking down at the edge of the stone platform.

A small pebble rolled off the ledge and didn’t fall down; instead, it drifted horizontally toward a floating stone tower thirty yards away before slamming onto its wall with a light click.

"If you fall off, the gravity will drag you sideways into the void," Evren said, scanning the floating ruins. "We have to move across these floating platforms to reach the central temple."

Amber gave a confident smile. She released a pulse of her Valkyrie mana, and two large golden-crimson wings spread out from her back, illuminating the dark stone beneath them.

"Leave the navigation to me," Amber said, wrapping her left arm firmly around Evren’s waist.

With a strong flap of her mana wings, she lifted the two of them into the air, gliding smoothly through the warped gravity currents.

She glided over the gaps easily, weaving through the floating ruins as she carried them toward the largest structure in the center.

As they reached the central structure, they found a massive vertical shaft plunging straight down into the depths of the rift.

"The core of this rift is located at Depth 55," Evren said, looking down the dark chasm. "That means fifty-five levels straight down."

Amber angled her wings and began their descent, gliding down through the wide circular shaft.

The first five floors were eerily silent. They passed broken corridors and empty rooms, but there wasn’t a monster in sight. The weaker beasts that usually guarded these floors had already swarmed to the surface during the initial breach.

Looking down into the endless dark abyss, Amber’s expression grew quiet.

"The last time I was inside an S-Rank rift was six months ago," Amber said softly. "I was leading the vanguard for Sterling Guild."

Evren turned his head to look at her.

"When the spatial barrier became unstable, a massive cave-in started," Amber continued, her grip on Evren’s waist tightening slightly. "I stayed behind at the bottleneck, holding back the collapsing ceiling so the rest of the guild could escape. But instead of sending help, my uncle Garrett panicked. He ordered the team to detonate the emergency exit charges to seal the tunnel behind them, abandoning me inside."

Amber let out a faint, bitter breath.

"The tunnel collapsed on top of me. Massive boulders crushed my legs and shattered my mana veins. I lay trapped in the pitch-black cold for hours, listening to monsters howling in the dark, knowing my own family had thrown me away to die. And once I was dragged out alive and paralyzed, they refused to pay for my treatment and signed papers to dispose of me like trash."

Amber looked up from the dark abyss, her warm amber eyes meeting Evren’s.

"When I was in that dark pit, I never thought I would ever fly again. And I certainly never thought I’d be descending into an S-Rank rift beside someone who actually trusts me."

Evren reached out and placed his hand gently over hers.

"You don’t have to look back at the dark anymore, Amber," Evren said in a calm, steady voice. "We clear this together, and we go home together."

Amber smiled, and the lingering shadows in her eyes completely vanished. "Together."

The peaceful descent didn’t last long.

As they glided past Depth 8, the quiet ruins suddenly erupted with sharp, screeching cries.

SCREEE!

From the underside of an inverted stone balcony, a flock of winged, stone-scaled beasts with glowing purple eyes... Level 46 Void Gargoyles swarmed out to intercept them mid-air.

"Incoming!" Amber warned.

She tucked her wings and executed a tight aerial roll, smoothly dodging two lunging gargoyles. As they banked around a sideways pillar, Evren raised his sword with one hand and swung horizontally.

CRACK!

A crescent wave of frost slammed into three gargoyles, instantly freezing their stone wings solid. The frozen beasts lost all lift and dropped silently into the endless purple void below.

As they descended further past Depth 30, the monsters grew denser and more aggressive.

Four-legged Shadow Prowlers lurked along the floating walls, shooting dark mana tendrils to try and catch Amber’s wings. But Amber dodged them with ease. She drew her right sword and sliced through the dark snares with clean frost arcs, while Evren smashed any beast that got too close with powerful strikes.

By the time they reached Depth 50, the stone shaft opened up into a massive underground plateau.

The temperature plummeted drastically, turning ice-cold, and their boots touched down at the entrance of Depth 55... a ruined stone causeway leading into the heart of the rift core.

As they stepped inside, the air turned ice-cold and the heavy silence swallowed the sound of their footsteps.

Thick, black fog rolled in from the walls, swallowing all the light. Within seconds, Evren could barely see five feet ahead.

"Amber? Stay close."

Evren had barely said that when a low hissing sound echoed from the dark ceiling.

Out from the shadows dropped three four-legged creatures with elongated limbs and razor-sharp scythe arms... Level 55 Shadow Reapers.

SWOOSH!

One of the reapers lunged at Evren, its scythe blade whistling through the dark.

Evren reacted instantly. He pulled his Frost-Bane Cleaver from his back and swung it hard at the creature’s neck.

But the blade passed straight through the monster’s body as if it were made of thin smoke.

The creature didn’t take a single scratch. Its shadowy body simply rippled before reforming, and its scythe claw slammed hard into Evren’s chest.

Thanks to Evren’s S-Rank physical density, the monster’s claw bounced harmlessly off his chest, leaving only a faint scuff mark on his dark trench coat.

’An illusion?’ Evren thought, immediately turning on his heels.

He swung the cleaver with both hands, slicing through the monster’s body again.

The blade sliced cleanly through its shadowy body and smashed deep into the stone floor, kicking up sparks and shattered rock.

Yet the shadow matter simply parted around the steel, completely unharmed.

Before Evren could pull the blade from the floor, a second reaper lunged from his left flank, snapping its jaws at his throat.

Evren reacted by throwing his left fist packed with pure S-Rank physical power straight into the beast’s skull.

Just like before, his fist sailed straight through the monster’s face, feeling nothing but cold, empty air. The black smoke swirled around his forearm as the reaper phased harmlessly through his arm.

Evren pulled his cleaver from the stone and stepped back, his eyes narrowing as he watched the smoke instantly knit back together.

"They’re intangible!" Evren realized, keeping his eyes on the three circling beasts. "Physical attacks pass right through them in this darkness."

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