Chapter 129: Exploring the Invasion Corridor
Fortunately, nothing attacked and only after confirming the surroundings were momentarily safe that he raised his head.
He became still when he noticed that the world before him was nothing like Earth.
Black-gray land stretched far into the distance beneath a crimson sky.
The soil was dry and cracked, with long fractures spreading between scattered formations of dark stone. Sparse patches of stiff gray grass grew close to the ground, while unfamiliar plants stood farther away with twisted stems and leaves so dark they were almost black.
Cain slowly looked upward and noticed that there was no Sun.
A deep crimson color covered the entire sky, obscured by thick dark clouds moving slowly overhead. From time to time, dull flashes illuminated the clouds from somewhere within, but no thunder followed.
Then Cain noticed something far stranger.
The sky itself was fractured as massive black cracks stretched through the crimson atmosphere.
His eyes narrowed.
Dragon’s Eyes allowed him to see distorted spatial energy gathering around the fractures.
One of them suddenly widened.
For a brief moment, blue sky appeared beyond it.
Cain could even see the upper portion of a modern building.
Then the fracture closed as another crack opened farther away.
This time, something completely different appeared beyond it.
A ruined landscape filled with enormous unfamiliar structures stood beneath a dark sky.
The image lasted less than a second before disappearing again.
Footsteps sounded behind Cain as Elara emerged from the portal.
Ron followed shortly afterward.
One by one, the others came through until all twelve stood together on the black-gray ground.
Nobody spoke at first.
Even Ron had stopped talking and become serious.
Nathan slowly turned around.
The entrance remained behind them, but from this side, it looked like a vertical distortion standing alone in the barren landscape. Dark energy shifted continuously across its surface.
Jack looked toward the horizon.
"Where the hell are we?"
Cain did not immediately answer.
He noticed that something near his feet had caught his attention.
Asphalt.
A broken section of road several meters wide had somehow become embedded within the black soil.
A faded yellow road marking ended abruptly where the asphalt fused into unfamiliar stone.
Farther away, half of a street lamp protruded from the ground at an unnatural angle. Its lower section was simply gone.
Cain’s expression became more serious.
The Invasion Corridor was clearly more than an empty dimensional passage.
It contained pieces from other places.
Possibly even from his world
And judging from what he had seen through the fractures above, perhaps not only his world.
Evelyne suddenly looked toward something farther away.
"Is that..."
Part of a building stood between two dark rock formations.
However, only the front section remained.
A damaged convenience store sign hung above shattered windows, while the rest of the structure ended abruptly before merging into the surrounding black terrain.
Elara looked toward the fractured sky.
"This place isn’t stable."
"No."
Cain could feel it too.
The environment seemed incomplete, as if different pieces of space had been forced together without fully settling.
Gravity felt normal and the air was breathable, but the mana was different as it was denser than on Earth.
Cain could also perceive faint dark currents mixed throughout the atmosphere through Dragon’s Eyes. He did not recognize the energy, but it was present everywhere around them.
A notification appeared before all twelve people.
[You have entered the Invasion Corridor.]
[Region: Southern Region.]
[World-Class Mission Zone Bonus is active.]
[Experience gained: 200%.]
[Direct System rewards gained: 200%.]
Another screen immediately followed.
[Current Objective: South Spatial Anchor Gate.]
[Approximate Distance: 14.2 kilometers.]
Ron finally broke the silence.
"Fourteen kilometers?"
Cain looked toward the direction indicated by the System.
The terrain gradually rose several kilometers ahead, forming a series of dark ridges beneath the crimson sky.
Beyond them, something faint could be seen in the distance.
A narrow column of gray-black energy rose into the air before bending toward the north.
Its source was too far away to see clearly.
Cain did not need much explanation to understand what it was.
The South Spatial Anchor Gate should be somewhere beyond those ridges.
And the energy it continuously released was flowing toward the center of the Invasion Corridor.
Cain’s lips slowly curved upward.
Fourteen kilometers separated them from the first objective.
Unknown enemies were somewhere ahead.
Everything they killed here rewarded twice the experience and direct System rewards.
His newly strengthened Ruin Mana Core rotated steadily within him, while the Solar Origin remained quietly beside it.
For the first time since entering, genuine excitement appeared in Cain’s eyes.
He rested one hand on the sword at his waist.
"Alright."
The others looked toward him.
Cain stared across the unfamiliar land ahead.
"Let’s see what this place has for us."
Cain did not move immediately as the others were still taking in the unfamiliar scenery around them, but there was no telling how long the area would remain quiet.
They were fourteen kilometers away from the Southern Spatial Anchor Gate, and even the System had warned that enemies far beyond Earth’s current average strength could exist inside the Invasion Corridor.
Moving through an unknown territory without any formation would be asking for trouble.
"Gather around."
Everyone turned toward him.
Cain pointed toward Nathan first.
"You’ll stay near the front with me and move as you normally do."
Nathan nodded in understanding.
"Just don’t go too far. We still don’t know how unstable this place is."
Nathan glanced toward one of the fractures stretching across the crimson sky.
"I know."
Cain then looked toward the people behind him.
"Elara, Ron, Alex, and Jack will stay behind us. If something gets past the front, you deal with it."
Ron rested the butt of his new spear against the ground.
"Easy work."
Cain ignored him before continuing.
"Professor Ian and Maya, you two will protect the rear."
Both nodded.
That left the final four.
"Evelyne stays in the back unless someone needs healing. Sonya, Cole, and Professor Irina will attack from range."
Sonya crossed her arms and pouted.
"So I’m being protected now?"
"You’re still Unranked."
Her eyebrow twitched.
"Only because I haven’t had the chance to finish the mission."
"I know."
Cain looked ahead.
"Which is exactly why I’m hoping we find a 1st Echelon soon."
Sonya stared at him for a moment before smiling.
"Then let’s find one."
Cain nodded before turning away.
"Let’s move now."
The twelve of them departed.
For the first several hundred meters, almost nothing disturbed them.
The strange dimensional landscape continued stretching ahead without any obvious signs of life.
Black-gray soil crunched beneath their boots. Pieces of broken terrain occasionally interrupted the barren land, many of them clearly belonging somewhere else.
They passed what looked like half of a concrete sidewalk embedded vertically inside a dark stone formation.
Several minutes later, Cain found the remains of a tree growing sideways from the ground. Its trunk looked normal enough, but its roots disappeared into a perfectly flat section of distorted space less than a meter above the soil.
Nobody approached it. They still possessed enough common sense not to touch something strange in an unfamiliar place like this.
After seeing the fractured sky and the pieces of other worlds scattered around them, testing unknown spatial distortions with their own bodies seemed like an exceptionally stupid idea.