Chapter 5
Raime stepped out of the alcove and into the lavender haze of Ithural.
The twin suns loomed high above, casting down their cold, dispassionate radiance. There was no warmth in it. No comfort — only that constant, humming pressure. Like a slow drill behind the eyes, it scraped at the edges of his thoughts, unraveling coherence one thread at a time.
He clenched his jaw and pushed forward.
Don’t think about it. Keep moving.
The lever rested on his shoulder, its weight familiar now — grounding, almost comforting. But it was weight. Eight, maybe ten kilos of iron or steel — he’d never cared what it was made of back on Earth. It had been a tool. For prying, lifting, digging. Not surviving alien hellscapes. Or... becoming somewhat magical.
Thunk. He smirked faintly. Hah! Maybe the twins were more right than they believed.
Strangely though, it didn’t drag at him as much as it should.
He paused on the ridge's incline, looked down at the grass, then back up at the steep slope. A curious thought bloomed.
The gravity here… it’s off. Lighter.
He crouched, testing the tension in his legs. Then, with a sudden burst, he jumped.
And flew.
Not for long. But longer than expected — nearly four meters in a shallow arc before landing with a thud on a jutting stone shelf. The impact barely jarred his knees. His body felt almost buoyant, as if the planet had let go of him.
Maybe I’m not even on a planet…
Raime blinked.
“Okay,” he muttered aloud, “that’s new.”
He took the lever in both hands, gave it a few test swings. It moved easier than it should. It was lighter — he was too. Every movement traveled further. Carried more force, faster arcs and less resistance. But the mass was still there. He needed to pay attention not to get overbalanced while swinging.
He gave a low whistle. This place might kill me, but at least physics is on my side.
With renewed purpose, he began scaling the ridge — using the lighter gravity to leap between outcroppings, always careful to brace with his legs and keep low on landing. No need to make himself a beacon.
As he rose, the landscape unfolded behind him like a dream painted by a madman.
The Rift forest shimmered below, metallic trees bending in directions that looked like they mocked Euclidean geometry. Their jagged leaves caught the light and fractured it into flickering shadows that danced over the black grass. Beyond that: a field of twisted vines, some coiled around crystalline spires, others wrapping themselves into strange lattice shapes as if building something on their own.
And further still, to the west, if it could be called west given the presence of two suns — plains. Wide and flat, stretching toward the faint outline of distant hills. The air shimmered above them, disturbed by heat or magic or both.
Raime crouched near a cluster of quartz-like growths and scanned to the north.
That’s when he saw it — a ruin half-buried in the slope of another ridge. Dark stone blocks covered in strange markings, too distant to make out clearly, partially overtaken by giant white stuff resembling moss and crystalline growths. The architecture looked strange. It didn’t look ancient, but forgotten. Like something time hadn’t weathered, but rejected.
And to the far south — a mountain.
Tall and jagged, its peak cleaved open like a wound in the sky. From within spilled a faint violet glow, pulsing in time with something Raime couldn’t name. He felt it even from here — not pressure, not sound, but gravity of a different kind. A pull.
The sight drew a frown to his face. Too far. Too exposed.
He looked down again at the lever. Grit shifted beneath his boots.
And then, the light made itself remembered again.
That creeping light pressed in again — slithering into his mind like oil beneath the skin. Thoughts slowed, focus dulled. Eyes burning and head pounding.
Shit. Not now.
He ducked behind a crystalline outcrop, blinking rapidly, fighting the haze. I need shade, and a drink… I’ll have to try the vines.
Just remembering the strange sap he saw before made his throat ache. He would have to drink that until he could find something approaching real water. Raime turned, scanning the slope.
There — draped along a jagged rock, tangled between shards of black vine and amethyst roots. A slick coil, its surface shimmering faintly. The same kind as in the forest below.
He approached quickly but cautiously, watching for motion.
No creatures. No movement. Just that thick purple vine pulsing faintly, almost like it was breathing.
Raime crouched beside it, wiped sweat from his brow, and sliced the skin with a bit of broken quartz found on the ground nearby. The vine split with a soft hiss, releasing a slow trickle of clear, viscous fluid.
I hope it’s not alien bacteria that ends up killing me.
But he had no choice.
He cupped his hands, catching a mouthful and bringing it to his lips.
The taste was… strange. It wasn’t sweet or bitter but something like citrus filtered through thought. Not a flavor. A sensation. As if memories stirred at the back of his mind — distant dreams, moments he’d forgotten waking from.
He exhaled, slow. The pressure faded almost instantly, the colors sharpened and his thoughts cleared.
It’s like a mental stimulant… but it shouldn’t work so fast by ingestion. Magic? Or just nature finding a way? Maybe this world evolved in this strange direction because of the suns… How can stars even mess with the mind in the first place? The frequency of the photons? Too many questions and no answers.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
He touched the vine again.
“Whatever you are,” he murmured, “you’re keeping me alive.”
As he stood, another flicker in the periphery of his vision caught his eye.
Movement — low and fast, maybe thirty meters to his left, skimming the side of the ruins.
He froze.
Another creature. Not like the one that came out of the portal. This walked on four legs. Its body not bigger than a child, leaner too, smoother, segmented like an insect, but with the gait of a lizard. It had a dark carapace, the chitin nearly absorbing the light. It paused near a collapsed pillar, head tilting slightly, tasting the air.
Raime didn’t move. It hasn’t seen me. At least... I don’t think it has. Can it sense me some other way?
His grip on the lever tightened. He stepped slowly back into the rocks, lowering his body into a crouch.
It’s not going to charge. I’m alone with no backup and no rifle. I’ll have to go melee. Find a weakness. Or avoid it altogether.
His thoughts ran in circles while observing. He went hunting many times with his dad, but this was something else altogether. Still, he had to do it — even just to follow the request of the tutorial. But he had an inkling that violence would be a new routine he’d have to adapt to with the advent of the System.
I hope I’m wrong though.
He studied the creature. Its joints were exposed beneath layered armor, twitching constantly — responsive, alert. But its legs were long. Ungainly. Built for speed, not close-quarters.
So hit it before it builds momentum. Draw it in. Break the limbs. And go for the kill.
The fight would happen. He could feel it already. But this time, he’d be ready, and it would happen on his own terms.
Raime remained still, crouched behind the ridge, his breath shallow and controlled. The creature was still out there, skimming low between the ancient stone pillars of the ruins. Its movements were irregular — sometimes crawling, sometimes bounding, each step unnervingly silent. It was too sleek to be a beast of burden, and too twitchy to be a predator relying on brute force.
That’s not just instinct. It’s calculating… patrolling, maybe.
He studied it from afar, eyes narrowing as he tracked its pattern. It circled the main ruin structure in a lazy arc, occasionally pausing to check at the ground, limbs splayed wide to anchor its weight. The creature’s body gleamed slightly under the pale suns, armored in deep purple-black chitin, segmented and too smooth, like it had never been meant to reflect light. Not a beast of muscle, but of angles and speed.
As it crept behind a taller fragment of wall, Raime scanned the layout again. That’s when he saw it — tucked low behind a tilted arch, partially sunken into the ground — a room with no roof. A square space maybe five meters wide, encircled by collapsed stone, open to the sky above.
That’s it.
There was only one entrance. No other way in. And from inside, he’d have line of sight on anything approaching. If the creature was following a patrol path — and Raime was starting to think it was — then sooner or later, it would pass by.
He waited, let the beast vanish again behind a broken colonnade. When it was fully out of sight, he slipped from cover and moved quickly toward the exposed chamber, hugging the walls, staying low. His footsteps did not make too much noise on the dust-choked floor, the lever heavy in his grip, but balanced now. A part of him.
The room was perfect.
Stone dust lined the ground. Twisted vine roots crawled in from the corners, pulsing faintly with that same inner glow he’d seen in the forest. The walls were broken, but intact enough to give him cover. He moved just to the side of the door and crouched, facing the entry.
The sky above flickered in his peripheral vision, the suns casting their usual weight — a pressure at the back of the skull like a thought too loud to ignore. But in the shade, it was manageable.
Raime exhaled, slowly. Then waited.
Alright. It’s going to circle back. Just like before. Same loop. It’ll check this space. One entry. One exit. When it sticks its head in…
He tightened his grip on the lever.
Seconds passed.
Then minutes.
Time crawled.
His muscles began to ache from stillness, but he forced himself to remain quiet, focused. The tension wasn't panic. It was purpose. A drawn bowstring waiting to snap.
Then—
Scrape.
A whisper of motion. Outside the entrance.
A flicker of shadow.
Now.
The creature slipped into the opening — cautious, it was looking at his footprints on the dusty floor.
Raime realized too late.
Fuck!
Only the head and upper torso of the creature crossed the threshold, chitin-covered arms stretching ahead like antennae.
Now!
He swung the lever in a tall, two-handed arc and brought it down hard on the creature’s back as hard as he could.
The sound was sharp — a crack and a wet crunch.
The beast shrieked and got smashed to the ground, an arm joint broke but the chitin was still intact. He followed through with another hit, reversing the swing and hitting the side of its head like a golfer. One of its dark eyes collapsed with a burst of fluid. It got pushed on its back, fully into the room now, disoriented, its long limbs scrambling for balance.
Raime followed it.
He stepped in, careful of the clawed limbs, and brought the lever down again — this time targeting the exposed chest. The weapon hit it with a disgusting sound, the plates were softer here, shattering and sinking inward with a sickening give. The creature writhed and swung a claw wildly — catching the stone wall with enough force to send sparks flying.
Raime took a step back in reflex and then shoved forward, a fourth strike hit the creature on the same damaged spot. And this time, Raime felt the lever reverberate in his hands as it split the beast with a wet tear and hit the floor below.
A high-pitched keen filled the room — psychic, not physical. It vibrated in his skull, rattling his thoughts for half a second before fading. It was similar to the gaze of the other creature but much less intense.
The beast slumped. Torn nearly in two by the violence it was subjected to.
Only some muscle fibers and ligaments kept it connected to its lower half.
Raime remained standing for several seconds, shoulders heaving, the lever in a white-knuckled grip. Sweat dripped from his chin. He hadn’t even realized he was holding his breath.
Then the tension broke.
He dropped to one knee beside the body, panting. The fight had lasted less than ten seconds, but it had been a storm of movement, limbs, and thought.
And now silence.
His heartbeat thudded in his ears.
That worked. Holy shit, it actually worked!
He forced a breath through clenched teeth. A strange mix of repulsion and excitement built in his chest. He prevailed, he won. There was something extraordinarily primal and brutal in what he just did, and it felt fantastic for a moment.
He looked down.
It could have been me… No matter. Assess now, existential crisis later.
The creature lay twisted in death, its limbs curled inward, like a bug sprayed with poison. The softer seams between chitin plates had burst open from the strikes, leaking thick purple ichor. But the main armor plates — the back, the outer limbs — were mostly intact.
Raime reached out and tapped one.
Solid. Cool. When he pressed a little harder, he could feel just the faintest give — like layered composite, flexible but strong.
Might be worth harvesting. Could I carve this into bracers? Or bind it to cloth?
He frowned, thinking. No tools. No cord. But if I find something sharp enough… I can cut along the seam lines. Strip the plates. Maybe line my jacket, give myself a layer of defense.
He sat back, letting his head rest against the wall. The light above was growing harsher — the suns shifting again, their strange rays beginning to leak into the chamber. He’d need to move soon.
But not before he understood what had just happened.
The fight hadn’t been luck. It had been planning. Terrain. Patience.
But he nearly got hit too, he wasn’t the strongest. Not here, maybe not anywhere.
But he could plan his battles.
And thinking would keep him alive.
One-on-one, I can handle these things. If they come in packs though… He grimaced. I’ll need a better strategy. Traps. Tools. Distraction tactics. The thing that scares me the most is not knowing if these are the bottom feeders or not. The System classified this Rift as tier 2, so I need to be careful.
His gaze returned to the corpse.
Or I’ll be the one torn in half on the floor.
Then he stood, wiped the lever clean the best he could with the dust and sand, and turned around toward the entrance of the room. He froze.
Perched atop the broken wall, outlined by the harsh violet sun, was another one, bigger — its black eyes fixed on him, limbs still, watching.
How much screwed is Raime?
