CHAPTER 318: MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

Beside him lay the twisted remains of Commander Aiz. The Drakenar’s once-commanding frame was now a grotesque heap of mangled flesh.

The remnants of his armor fused into his body like melted wax. One arm was gone entirely. The other was stretched out in front of him, as if he had been crawling toward salvation that never came.

For some reason, the body hadn’t started decaying. Victor had tried moving the body away, but the goo beneath them clung to anything it touched, dragging it back like it had a mind of its own.

It had been nearly two weeks since they were spat out here.

When they’d first fallen out of the space-time continuum, Victor had barely managed to land on solid ground. Aiz hadn’t been so lucky since the distortions had shredded him like paper.

Yet, somehow, the Drakenar had clung to life for three whole days. Every breath he took was a gurgle of agony. He had begged for death since he couldn’t move a muscle in his body and every second was filled with suffering.

Victor had simply ignored his pleading. "You deserve to feel every second of it," he had said quietly. "Every. Single. One."

Aiz’s begging eventually turned into silence. Then came the stench of death and then strange looking flies began to circle over them...

But these weren’t ordinary flies... they were the size of Victor’s fist.

Now, Aiz corpse was all he had for company.

Victor’s stomach growled loudly, echoing through the still air.

He grimaced and pressed a hand against it. He hadn’t eaten a single piece of meal in almost two weeks. If he wasn’t a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator, he would have lost all his strength by now and most likely starved to death.

But for some strange reason, he wasn’t lacking energy at all even when he exhausted his qi. He was only hungry.

He stood while stretching his limbs. It was like the space time continuum had energized him so his muscles didn’t felt heavy like on the day of the incident.

He didn’t even know when it was night or day because this place always looked the same all the time.

The haze in the sky blocked out any way of telling if it was night or day.

His cultivation kept him alive for now, but even a Nascent Soul cultivator needed sustenance eventually.

He turned to Commander Aiz mangled corpse and a line of drool subconsciously roll down his cheeks.

’Will roasted reptile meat taste good?’ A thought flicked through his mind.

’What am I thinking?! Eww!’ He swiftly snapped out of his reverie and got to his feet.

Apparently, the hunger was really getting to him.

The goo beneath his boots rippled as he moved, and for a brief moment, he could’ve sworn something looked back from within it.

A faint reflection, maybe? A flicker of movement?

He immediately summoned a wisp of qi to his palm, igniting a small flame. The blue-white fire illuminated the immediate area, reflecting off the goo’s surface like oil. Nothing moved.

"Great. Now I’m seeing things. What’s next? Talking plants?"

A vine twitched behind him.

He froze and slowly turned around but there was no movement.

After a couple of seconds passed he lowered his other arm and sighed. "I’m definitely seeing things."

Even though the terrain was eerie, one thing Victor was glad about was the fact that he had recovered some qi. He didn’t know why or how... but he it was the one thing that made him confident enough to scour the surroundings without fear.

Although, he made sure not to use it unnecessarily because he couldn’t cultivate in the real world after all, he could only cultivate inside of the game.

Qi didn’t exist on Earth, only mana did so he was trying his best not to run out of qi again especially since he didn’t have the game here with him.

After moving around for a bit, Victor sat back down, glaring at the distant alien towers. "This place isn’t just poisonous—it’s dead. No life force. No food... No healthy vegetation... Just... rot."

His stomach growled again but was louder this time. He rubbed his forehead while exhaling slowly.

"Okay, priorities," he muttered. "Find food. Find water. Find shelter. Try not to die. Easy enough."

He looked at Aiz’s corpse once more.

"I’ll never resort to eating that..." he muttered with a look of conviction.

...

...

(( Two Days Later ))

Victor trudged through the eerily silent landscape with boots squelching against the slime coating the ground.

Although, Victor couldn’t tell if it was night or day, he was well aware that he had already been here for fifteen days.

Fifteen long, mind-numbing since he found himself stranded in this godforsaken wilderness.

Everywhere looked the same: bone-like trees stretching crookedly toward a cloudless sky, rough stones with strange spiky tips rising like broken teeth from the ground, and statues half-sunken into the terrain.

"Day fifteen of being lost in the wild," Victor muttered while pulling out his battered phone.

This was the reason he was aware of how long he had spent here. Victor sneaked his phone with him when they were headed to Sector k-22 weeks back. He even contemplated taking his camera with him so he could capture real time videos of the sector but decided against it because he couldn’t have his camera hidden all the time even though he could turn anything invisible.

His phone on the other hand, was much easier to hide. It was with him even during the battle with the Drakenars which was why the phone was quite battered now even though there was never any direct hit on the place where he hid it.

The cracked screen emitted a bright glow as he powered it on. As expected, there was a big ’×’ at the corner where network was supposed to be displayed.

The selfie camera went on to display his face, unkempt hair, soot smudges across his cheek, and eyes that held both exhaustion and stubborn determination. "Still alive, somehow. Still handsome, too. That’s gotta count for something."

He turned the camera outward, sweeping it across the endless, monochrome expanse. "Terrain check—nothing new. Still goo. Still statues. Still no signs of life unless you count those oversized mosquitoes that tried to steal my blood yesterday." He sighed while rubbing his temple. "I swear, this place is just one long bad joke."

Victor tilted the camera back to himself and forced a grin. "On the bright side, I’m seventeen now. Yay me. Exploring the wild unknown, surviving off bad air... totally not how I planned to celebrate." He paused, looking off into the distance. "Just glad the others made it through the circle. Hope they’re safe."

He pocketed the phone and exhaled deeply, causing a cloud of steam to escape his lips. "Alright... east side today. Let’s see what the universe has in store for me."

For the past fifteen days, Victor had been exploring the environment. Every day, he would go walk east to a particular distance, mark the spot he stopped then head back and go west for a particular distance, mark the spot he stopped and do the same for North and South.

On the next day, he’d continue on and go further from where he stopped in all four directions.

He felt that, so long as he kept this up, there was no way he wouldn’t eventually find a suitable location to not only relax properly but finally find something to eat.

Victor continously spoke to the selfie camera as he walked for what felt like forever. He always switched his phone off after all of this to save power but eventually, it would if he didn’t find his way back to the academy, to his friends, to everyone.

He kicked a small stone that immediately got swallowed by the sticky terrain with a wet plop.

"This place is disgusting. Wouldn’t be the best location to die."

For nearly three hours, he walked through the barren expanse.

When he finally located the tree he last marked, Victor exhaled in relief.

"This was where I stopped the last time," he murmured while looking around. "Nothing much around here... time to go further ahead."

He crouched for a moment, scooping a bit of the purple goo between his fingers. it stretched like tar and smelled faintly of sulfur. Disgusted, he flicked it off.

"Gross."

With a faint smirk, he straightened up and exhaled while gathering qi around his legs.

Victor had avoided using his qi this whole time to save it but now that he reached his initial marked point, he decided to activate one of techniques.

"Alright. Wind Dash."

Fwwhoomm~

A burst of wind swept out as his figure blurred forward while he zipped through the wasteland.

The sticky ground barely caught up with his movement as wind rushed past his ears.

In minutes, he covered more ground than he had in an hour.

After nearly twenty minutes of travel, he slowed to a stop.

He deactivated Wind Dash to save up qi again.

But he did notice that there was something a little different about the temperature.

The air had gotten hotter.

It wasn’t in anyway fiery like the Drakenar terrain in any way. It was just warmer... like standing a little close to a small flickering flame.

"Okay... this is new," he muttered.