He was going to tear this entire planet apart to get the fuel he needed. And he wasn’t going to lose a single minute of sleep over it.

After thirty minutes of relentless, unbothered marching, the rolling dunes of bone abruptly ended.

Sebastian stopped at the edge of a massive, yawning chasm.

The canyon was easily five miles wide and dropped straight down into absolute darkness. The jagged cliffs looked like they had been violently torn apart by a massive tectonic shift.

But it wasn’t dark at the bottom.

A sickly, pulsating red glow emanated from the depths of the gorge, casting eerie, shifting shadows against the canyon walls. The smell of raw, unadulterated rotting meat wafted up from the abyss, completely overpowering the smell of the burning ash.

Sebastian peered over the edge. His [True Sight] instantly pierced the gloom, revealing the source of the light.

"Well, that’s not ominous at all," Sebastian deadpanned.

He didn’t bother looking for a safe path down.

He didn’t care about climbing gear.

He just casually stepped off the ledge.

Gravity aggressively grabbed him, pulling his hyper-dense body down toward the glowing red depths at a terrifying speed. The wind roared in his ears as he plummeted past the jagged rock faces.

He didn’t panic. Right before he hit the bottom, he forcefully edited his mass to zero, instantly arresting his momentum. He floated gently for the last ten feet, his boots touching down on the solid, obsidian floor of the canyon with a soft, perfectly silent tap.

He restored his mass and looked up.

He had found the source. And he had found the locals.

The bottom of the canyon was a localized nightmare that perfectly encapsulated the absolute cruelty of the Ethereal Plane.

Sebastian stood in the shadows of a towering, jagged rock formation. His silver-tinged eyes scanned the massive, cavernous space.

In the dead center of the gorge was a lake.

But it wasn’t filled with water, or magma, or even the glowing blue mana of a standard leyline.

It was filled with blood.

A massive, violently bubbling reservoir of thick, dark crimson fluid stretched for hundreds of yards. It pulsed with a heavy, rhythmic heartbeat that vibrated through the soles of Sebastian’s boots.

THROOM... THROOM...

Through his [True Sight], he could see the horrifying truth of the liquid. It wasn’t just biological gore. It was raw, liquefied Source Code. It was the foundational data of the dying server, aggressively condensed and bleeding out into a single, exposed pool.

"There’s the fuel," Sebastian whispered, his eyes locking onto the glowing red lake.

But the lake wasn’t unguarded.

Surrounding the edge of the blood pool was a sprawling, horrific encampment. Dozens of crude, rusted iron cages were lined up along the shoreline. Inside the cages were hundreds of emaciated, terrified players and NPCs. They wore rags, their health bars hovering dangerously close to zero from the sheer ambient toxicity of the zone.

Standing on a raised platform of polished black stone overlooking the lake was the man in charge.

Sebastian’s lip curled in genuine disgust.

The Warlord looked like he had raided a high-tier cosmetic shop while completely blind. He was a tall, incredibly smug-looking player wearing an obnoxiously shiny suit of crimson samurai armor. The plates were etched with glowing gold dragons. He had a perfectly styled topknot and wore a pristine, white silk cape that somehow remained perfectly clean in the ash-choked canyon.

In his hand, he held a long, glowing katana that radiated an intense, fiery aura.

[Player Identified: Kenji] [Class: Blademaster / Warlord] [Level: 75]

"Bring the next batch of fuel!" Kenji’s voice boomed, magically amplified to echo across the cavern. He sounded exactly like a bad anime dub, dripping with unearned arrogance.

Two heavily armored, brutish guards dragged a screaming, sobbing refugee out of a nearby cage. It was a low-level NPC, a terrified merchant who had likely spawned into this hellhole completely by accident.

"Please! No! I have silver! I have items!" the merchant begged, his heels dragging against the obsidian floor.

"Your silver is useless to a god, peasant," Kenji laughed, a sharp, grating sound. He casually walked to the edge of the platform.

"Your only purpose is to feed the lake. Your suffering condenses the Source Code.

Rejoice! You are contributing to my inevitable ascension!"

The guards violently shoved the screaming merchant off the platform.

SPLASH!

The man hit the bubbling red liquid. The reaction was instantaneous. The raw, corrupted Source Code violently assimilated his data. The merchant shrieked in absolute agony as his digital flesh melted from his bones. His health bar instantly deleted, his entire avatar turning into a burst of glowing red pixels that were immediately absorbed by the lake.

BING!

A small, glowing vial of condensed experience popped out of the lake and landed perfectly in Kenji’s outstretched hand.

"Ah, magnificent," Kenji sighed, popping the cork and downing the liquid. A brief aura of level-up light flashed around his armor. "The grind is tedious, but the results are undeniable."

Sebastian watched from the shadows. He didn’t feel a surge of heroic justice. He just felt annoyed.

He had spent the last week dealing with Vanguard corporate elites, arrogant Saints, and digital Liches. He was really, really tired of guys with god complexes monologuing while people died.

Sebastian stepped out from behind the rock formation. He didn’t bother using stealth. He didn’t draw a weapon. He just casually walked toward the platform, his boots crunching loudly on the ash-covered ground.

CRUNCH. CRUNCH.

The sound immediately drew the attention of the guards. They raised their heavy kinetic rifles, aiming them directly at the ragged man in the torn black leather coat.

"Halt! State your business, trash!" one of the guards barked.

Kenji slowly turned around. He looked down from his platform, his eyes sweeping over Sebastian’s unremarkable, completely un-armored appearance. He noted the lack of glowing weapons and the utter absence of a magical aura.

A cruel, condescending smile spread across Kenji’s face.