System Breaker: Surviving Apocalypse with Nine-Tailed Kitsune-Chapter 10: Rift

A shard of black ice whistled through the air before crashing into a horde of monsters.

[You have slain a Level 1 Undead human]

[You have slain a Level 6 Evolved Undead human]

[You have slain a Level 2 Undead human]

[You have slain a Level 7 Evolved Undead human]

Limbs hurtled through the air, and bodies exploded upon impact, but Damon didn’t see any of it as he continued to sprint away from the horde of monsters behind him.

’Dammit!’ He cursed inwardly.

Only two turns after him and Ivy went their separate ways, he got surrounded by a wave of Undead Humans. He tried to fight through them at first, but the sheer number of them was far too great, and his stamina was draining faster than he could kill them.

This was his second time using the black ice. After Kitsune’s teachings, using the ability felt instinctive. He could vividly remember every detail, the way she manipulated mana in his arm, the way she manipulated its shape to create a needle like edge, the way her arms wrapped around his neck... wait, why was he thinking about that now?

He shook the thought away. His mind raced as he looked around his surroundings.

’There!’

He dashed into a nearby alleyway.

After creating a distance of a couple of paces, he raised his left arm toward the oncoming horde. The monsters shoved themselves between the two brick walls of the alleyway. Their movements came to a halt for a moment as they got blocked by one another, pushing one another against the alleyway’s entire width.

Without a moment wasted, Damon coalesced mana into his palm and sent his third shard of black ice into the horde.

[You have slain a Level 2 Undead human]

[You have slain a Level 7 Evolved Undead human]

[You have slain a Level 4 Undead human]

[You have slain a Level 8 Evolved Undead human]

[You have reached Level 11. You have received 1 Stat Point.]

He ignored the flooding notifications as he winced at the sharp tug in his abdomen.

"You’re moments away from a backlash!" Kitsune’s voice sounded muffled in his head. His body swayed slightly at the lightheaded sensation of depleting most of his mana.

"Damon!" Kitsune’s voice finally cut through his daze.

He tightened the grip on his tachi and dashed deeper into the alleyway. His body felt heavy, but he pushed through, gritting his teeth at every step, until he took a final corner and his breath caught in his throat.

Pale blue light twisted in an oval shape, pulsing with an otherworldly energy. He barely had time to note its existence before his body got pulled into it, and his vision went dark for a moment.

Damon felt his body drift in a weightless nothingness before his senses suddenly slammed back into him, and he felt a biting cold followed by a bright light that assaulted his vision.

’Wh-What is this place?’

"You stepped into a Rift," Kitsune replied.

’A rift?’ Damon asked, even more confused.

"Rifts are pocket dimensions that work as a bridge between your world and other worlds."

’Pocket Dimensions? Wait, other worlds?’

Damon paused for a moment, his mind scrambling the information together before he slowly nodded his head. He already suspected there were other worlds. After all, he did summon a nine-tailed kitsune, and he was fairly certain there were no such beings on Earth.

At the same moment, his sense of vision finally began to make sense of the bright light around him. Snow hurtled through the air, big patches of it striking against his face. He had never experienced a blizzard, but being here now, he was certain this had to be one.

Lifting his arm to block against the snowy winds, he took a look around.

White mountain peaks were all around them. As he looked over the edge of the path they stood on, his blood ran cold... if that was even possible in this already icy environment.

He saw no end, only a thick fog that seemed to cover a great depth below. Then, his eyes moved up, following the highest of mountain peaks, and then further toward the sky, which made his body freeze in place.

Jagged, black lines cut through the sky above. It looked like the sky, or rather, reality itself, was shattered, spiderweb-like patterns stretching across the sky above. He followed the jagged patterns, which coalesced into a single, thick line that led to a mountain peak near them.

"That’s where the Rift Core is," Kitsune explained, reading his thoughts before he could even ask.

’Rift Core? What’s that?’

"The only way out of here is to destroy it."

’Destroy it... How are we supposed to do that?’

"It’s quite simple, a single spark of mana is enough. Getting there, however, is not so simple."

Damon raised a brow, his gaze escaping the captivating image of the shattered sky and turning toward the kitsune in her fox form sitting on his shoulder, trembling slightly from the cold.

"Monsters are drawn to it, at least the non-intelligent ones." Kitsune replied, slight annoyance woven in her tone, "Can we continue the questions after we get out of here? Ughh, I hate the cold."

Looking at the distance between them and the jagged lines leading to the rift core, Damon couldn’t help but frown slightly. The second peak, where the rift core was located, wasn’t far. But between them was a gaping chasm that cut off any direct path, making it clear the journey ahead would not be easy.

Looking at the journey ahead and shivering from the biting cold, Damon couldn’t help but mumble to himself.

"I think we might miss our reunion with Ivy."