Looking at Damien and Isabelle who were silent, The Scaled Brute's pincer hand closed in, aiming to crush the shoulder of the "frail" human standing before him.

To the mutant, Damien looked like nothing more than a mana battery, a soft-skin surface dweller who would snap like a dry twig.

"Give me the arm," the guard sneered, anticipating the scream.

But the scream never came.

THUD.

Just as the pincer was about to make contact, Damien's right hand moved.

He simply reached out and gripped the guard's massive, scaled shoulder.

"You want flesh?" Damien whispered.

The air around Damien didn't flare with mana. Instead, it distorted, twisting like a heat haze above asphalt.

[Will Art: King's Pressure.]

A standard application of will he had learnt ever since he intitally awakened it, the ability to supress others with his thoughts alone.

Only this time he gave it a fancy name

The guard's sneer vanished instantly.

The moment Damien's hand made contact, the mutant didn't feel the grip of a human. He felt the weight of a mountain.

He felt the crushing, suffocating presence of a predator that viewed him not as a threat, but as an ant.

"Gah—!"

The guard's knees buckled. His pincer arm fell uselessly to his side, paralyzed by the sheer density of the Intent flooding his nervous system.

In the guard's mind, the image of the frail human was replaced by a towering, golden-eyed dragon staring down from a throne of shadows, the manifestation of the Greedy King Intent.

It was a will that refused to yield, a will that demanded absolute submission.

"Lesson Three," Damien said calmly, his voice amplified not by magic, but by the terrifying silence that had fallen over the gate.

"Always be sure to leave a mark"

CRACK.

Damien squeezed.

He used his Will to impose reality on the flesh. The guard's shoulder plate, chitin hard enough to stop a blade fractured under the mental pressure.

The Scaled Brute's eyes rolled back in his head. Foam spilled from his shark-like teeth.

He didn't even have the breath to scream. He simply collapsed, hitting the dirt with a heavy, wet thud, his mind shattered by the overwhelming dominance of a 6th-Order soul.

Damien released his grip, wiping his hand on his coat as if he had touched something filthy.

"Unconscious," Damien noted, his chest heaving slightly from the mental exertion.

"But alive. I need to work on my control."

The other three guards froze. They looked at their strongest warrior, who was now twitching in the dust, foaming at the mouth.

Then they looked at the "frail" human who hadn't even drawn a weapon.

They looked at Isabelle, whose eyes were glowing with a mixture of pride and suppressed bloodlust, her hand resting on her daggers.

"Does anyone else want a toll?" Damien asked, adjusting his cuffs.

The guards scrambled back, dragging the heavy gate made of worm skulls open with frantic haste.

They didn't speak. They didn't demand gold. They just made way for the monsters.

"Let's go, Isabelle," Damien said, stepping over the fallen guard without looking down.

Isabelle smirked, casting a final, hungry glance at the terrified guards before falling into step behind him.

"As you wish, Young Master."

They walked through the skull-gate and into the neon-lit, sulfur-choked belly of Abysshaven.

...….

[Location: Abysshaven – The Hive]

They passed through the gate and into the belly of the beast.

Abysshaven.

It was a vertical nightmare.

Shanties made of rusted metal sheets and the ribcages of Leviathans clung to the canyon walls, connected by swaying rope bridges and rusted chains.

The air was thick with sulfur and the neon glow of bioluminescent fungi harvested from the wastes.

It was a hive of scum and mutation.

Damien walked through the crowded "street", a mud path lined with stalls.

The Drifters watched them.

There were Tieflings with broken horns, Elves with grey skin and insectoid limbs, and Dwarves whose bodies were fused with rock.

They stared at Isabelle with a mix of curiosity and disdain, Her half demon blood marked her as just above regular humans in this hellhole.

Perhaps that was why they blatantly looked at Damien with hunger.

To them, he smelled like a walking battery.

The Celestial Life Physique, even suppressed, leaked a scent of pure, sweet mana that drove the starving Drifters mad.

"Fresh meat..." a voice whispered from the shadows.

"Look at the skin... soft..."

Isabelle growled low in her throat, her gravity aura flaring to keep them back.

Damien ignored them. He walked with his back straight, his chin up.

He knew that in a place like this, if he showed even a second of weakness, the swarm would eat him alive.

He observed the stalls.

"No gold," Damien noted.

He saw a merchant hand over a pouch of glowing blue crystals, Monster Cores.

He saw another trading a vial of thick, green liquid.

"Sanity," Damien realized.

"Drugs to stop the mutation process. That's the real currency here."

He checked the Abyss Compass in his pocket.

The needle was spinning, reacting to a strong magnetic source nearby.

"There," Damien pointed to a structure built into the skull of a massive, dead giant.

"The magnetic field is strongest there."

[The Giant's Skull – "The Rust Bucket"]

They pushed through the swinging doors made of hide.

The interior was smoky and dim. Tables made of spinal discs were scattered around.

At the far end was a bar, manned by a figure who looked like he had been carved from stone and left to rot.

It was a Dwarf. But half his face was covered in rocky scales, and one of his arms was a crude, rusted mechanical prosthetic.

Damien walked to the bar.

The bartender didn't look up, instead he was polishing a glass with a rag that looked suspiciously like dried skin.

"We don't serve soft-skins," the Dwarf grunted.

"Unless you're on the menu."

Damien didn't speak. He reached into his pocket and placed an object on the counter.

CLANK.

The piece of the Runehammer Tank he had looted earlier, a small, hexagonal fuel injector stamped with the clan crest.

The bartender froze. His mechanical hand twitched, the gears grinding loudly in the silence.

He looked up. His eyes, one brown and one milky white, widened.

"Dwarf tech," the Dwarf rasped. He reached out, his stone fingers tracing the faded crest on the device. "Surface craftsmanship."

He looked at the Pantheon Sword strapped to Damien's back.

It was dull and grey now, but the design was unmistakable.

"I am Gorim," the bartender grunted.

"Descendant of the Runehammer Clan. I haven't seen a working injector in twenty years."

"I am Zero," Damien replied calmly.

"I don't have Abyss Stones. But I have knowledge of where the wreckage lies."

Gorim snatched the injector and hid it under the counter. "What do you want, Zero?"

"A path to Layer 2."

Gorim laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound like rocks tumbling in a dryer.

He poured a shot of black liquid and slid it to Damien.

"Layer 2? You can't get there, it's been blocked for ages now."

"Blocked by who?"

"The Corpse Collector," Gorim spat.

"A local Warlord. A mutated Ogre who controls the Bridge of Rot. He demands a toll of ten fresh bodies to use the exit. He's building a tower of flesh to reach the ceiling."

Damien's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "I don't plan on paying with bodies."

Gorim leaned over the bar, lowering his voice.

"Interesting…"

"You remind me of her," the Dwarf whispered.

"Who?"

"Another soft-skin. She Passed through here sixteen years ago. Silver hair. Eyes like the void."

Damien's heart slammed against his ribs.

Mother!

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