Chapter 2 The Truth Behind the Errors

One, two, three.

Retreating three steps in succession, the young man finally steadied his footing, while his sword-bearing arm still throbbed with numbness.

—You’ve got to be kidding me!

He stared at the fiend before him: it was not particularly tall, appearing rather scrawny instead. Faint, ethereal scales subtly grew across its purple-brown skin, and the tip of its forked tongue frequently darted out, ending in a very distinct split. A total of four pairs of eyes were neatly arranged above its wide-open, blood-dripping maw, looking rather hair-raising.

Yet that was all; the young Glorian was not unfamiliar with it.

—A Lurker.

In the texts of the era of the Ancient Kings, it bore such a designation—an ordinary fiend that a few well-trained warriors could jointly defeat in a frontal clash.

However... the one who had been beaten back was him.

It was somewhat incomprehensible, but now was not the time to be distracted. Having ascertained the disparity in power between himself and the enemy, there was no need to continue clashing head-on.

The young man stood sword in hand, awaiting the fiend's new round of offensive.

In his memory, Lurkers seemed to occupy the bottom tier of the fiend food chain, sitting only slightly higher than ghouls. Aside from posing a minor threat through ambushes, their frontal combat capability was practically negligible.

Even if they evolved into higher-tier fiends, unless they were lucky enough to awaken a few special talents, they remained at the very bottom.

Therefore, there was no reason to feel fear.

—Yet there was ample reason to feel astonished.

Because the hunchbacked Lurker before his eyes had already vanished from his field of vision.

Behind him!

A sharp combat instinct caused his body to react a step ahead. His muscles suddenly tightened, his waist unleashed a burst of explosive force, and the short sword, Darkblood, swept horizontally from front to back.

Black blood splattered, and the fiend retreated in pain.

Amy Ulysses did not let the fleeting opportunity slip away. Following the twisting momentum of his body, he stepped firmly with one foot to steady himself, and then, like a drawn and tautened bow, took another step forward!

"Thud!"

A muffled sound echoed from the earth. Clearly the disadvantaged party, the Glorian nevertheless possessed a commanding and unassailable sense of oppression, akin to a fierce tiger entrenched in the mountains.

—Swing the sword.

A simple, unadorned stroke devoid of any flashy tricks delivered the most fatal blow to the fiend.

Blood seeped from the center of the Lurker's brow.

Then, a fine line of blood split it directly in two, and all eight of its eyes simultaneously lost their luster.

It was dead.

Amy had pierced straight through its head, so he was certain it was dead beyond any doubt.

Yet he did not lower his guard because of this. A Lurker was no formidable entity, and naturally, there was no hunting ground for top predators—or rather, quite the contrary. Precisely because it was not considered a ferocious breed among fiends, the probability of them moving in packs was quite high. He had to relocate as soon as possible.

The young Glorian thought this, and so he acted.

He needed time, a relatively safe place to sort through the intelligence he had just gathered and correct some of his previous erroneous conjectures.

Thus, he returned to the small cottage where he had first awakened, pressing his back against the wall as his thoughts began to race.

—Gravity is not the problem.

Based on the battle just now, he had realized this truth. This place might not be the high-gravity zone he had imagined; the reason his suitcase had grown heavy was neither because items had been added to it, nor because the gravitational coefficient had changed, but rather... his own strength had diminished.

If it were merely a decrease in strength, it wouldn't have been a huge deal. But the terrifying part was that what had been weakened was not just his strength, but also his dynamic vision and various other aspects.

It was entirely possible that his overall physical conditioning had been dragged down to the level of an ordinary person.

Amy clenched his fist, naturally feeling no change in his internal vigor.

And yet... human physical conditioning did not have a fixed value; its specific strength often required a reference point to be determined—much like the two-handed sword strapped to his back. Under normal circumstances, it was not only uncumbersome to him, but felt completely weightless when swung, lacking any tactile feedback.

Yet now, it was heavy to just the right degree.

The young Glorian swung the two-handed sword in his hand, returning the short sword Darkblood back into its scabbard.

Then, he took a brief rest.

The body was the capital of combat. The extraordinary physical constitution far surpassing ordinary people that Glorians possessed gave them the capital to act willfully, yet the young man plagued by weakness had no capital to sit back and relax at this moment—every ounce of strength was precious and had to be meticulously calculated.

Equally precious was time.

The drinking water and food carried in the suitcase were extremely limited. Under normal circumstances, thriftily managed, they might last for five to seven days. But in a city shrouded in the Deepest Night, consumed by battle after battle, it would stretch to two or three days at most. If there was no corresponding progress after three days, one could entirely imagine the dreadful situation awaiting him.

As for whether there were safe drinking water sources or unspoiled food storage locations in this City of Lost, he maintained a wait-and-see attitude—neither blindly denying their existence nor placing his hopes on them.

Therefore, the time left for Amy was running short.

After catching his breath slightly, he re-entered a state of combat readiness, cautiously pushing open the solid wood door leading to the outside world, and once again stepped into the substantive, writhing darkness.

Next... which way should he go?

A brief hesitation. Lacking intelligence at the present moment, this was an unresolvable choice, and the youth quite decisively abandoned using rational logic to judge gains and losses, simply following the guidance of his intuition as he walked back onto the old path he had traveled before.

The City of Lost in the darkness was utterly silent, and for a time, only the sound of his own footsteps echoed in his ears.

His pace was light and slow, yet even so, in this dead city that had lost all vitality and vigor, he remained an unmaskable source of sound.

Fiends were on the move—

Beyond the darkness where the eye could not reach, some inhuman entity was stirring.

Was it a Lurker... or something else?

The young Glorian raised an eyebrow, halting his steps with extreme caution. Even if he could not pierce through the dense darkness to see the enemy lurking behind it, he still instinctively scanned his surroundings.

Draw the sword.

The wide-bladed, thick-spined two-handed sword was unsheathed from his back, and he was fully prepared to engage the enemy.

However, at the very nick of time, the unexpected occurred.

"Boom!"

A collision sound that shook the entire street reverberated from slightly further away, immediately followed by a series of collapsing buildings.

Thus, the crisis receded.

The monster hidden behind the darkness chose to retreat.

Yet the youth did not relax his tightened nerves because of this. He was well aware that so-called fiends were hardly on friendly terms even within their own tribes; cannibalism was hardly uncommon, let alone among different species—stronger ones feasting on the flesh and blood of weaker ones was a common sight, and the distinction between predator and prey was stark.

A big one had come.

Quite easily, Amy deduced this fact.

Yet he had no intention of retreating now.

Although with limited food and water, combat should be avoided whenever possible, since a battle was taking place, there must be two or more opposing sides. In other words... if he tracked the sounds to the battlefield, he had a high degree of confidence in encountering other reserve sword-bearers.

In this treacherous and unfathomable situation, an extra person meant an extra fraction of strength.

Like a torch, like a lighthouse—

He certainly wasn't the only one attracted by it, assuming there really were other people nearby.

The Glorian picked up his pace. Although he did not sprint due to stamina considerations, his brisk stride was nonetheless fast, and within a mere two to three minutes, he arrived near the battlefield.

The first thing to greet his eyes was a giant approximately three meters tall.

—A Frost Giant.

Likewise, this was a highly recognizable fiend species.

Renowned for its raw strength and astonishing physical constitution, its entire body was wrapped in a thick layer of fat that could greatly neutralize non-piercing damage. In terms of frontal assault capability, it easily ranked near the top among countless fiend species. For Amy, whose physical capabilities had been comprehensively and drastically diminished, it was an exceptionally unfavorable matchup.

Fortunately, its flaws were as prominent as its strengths.

First, its senses and movements were extremely sluggish; second... it was profoundly stupid, clumsy enough even among fiends who were inherently devoid of wisdom and intellect.

Against such a defective entity with glaring weaknesses, he had yet to feel fear.

Rather, a faint sense of elation welled up in his heart.

Because he had not discovered any enemy fighting the Frost Giant—this towering, pure white fiend was merely venting its rage, wantonly destroying everything within its destruction range.

And this precisely indicated that its initial enemy was likely human.

The young Glorian thought to himself, then braced for battle.

—He had already been discovered!

He had not concealed his tracks. When the light of the fire crystal illuminated the surroundings, the gigantic, dull-senses fiend perceived the approach of the power of order. After angrily kicking apart a low wall before it, it whirled around suddenly, spanning a distance of nearly three meters in a single stride, its rotting foot kicking up a gust of foul-smelling wind.

Had his strength not waned, Amy might have met it with a downward cleaving slash, but since he could no longer crush it with sheer brute force, he had no choice but to rely on finesse to counter the enemy.

Leveraging the momentum of the wind, his body tilted backward to the ground, then he hoisted the sword blade high and gripped it tight.

The cross sword used by reserve sword-bearers was not sharp, and the Frost Giant's thick soles far exceeded his expectations. Although this extremely unexpected sword strike caused it to stumble to the ground in pain, the actual damage inflicted was minimal—at least he saw no blood shed.

However, for the youth, this was already enough.

Fiends were not human; they lacked human wisdom and intellect, possessing only the most basic survival instinct and a chaotic nature tainted by chaos. A human undergoing a certain level of training might forcefully endure the discomfort of a sudden burst of pain in battle and continue fighting, but for most fiends, they fundamentally lacked foresight and could not anticipate what rolling on the ground clutching a wound in the middle of a fight implied.

Therefore, it died.

Amy slashed at it over a dozen times, until his breath grew ragged, before finally ending its life.

Then, he scanned his surroundings.

"Come out," the Glorian said in a low, steady tone, waiting for the arrival of the second person.