Kade came to and promptly sucked in a mouthful of water. He sputtered and coughed the water out before immediately wheezing in pain at making a sound.
His vision was so blurry that he could barely see anything more than a few feet away and his ears didn’t seem to work since the world was silent.
He glimpsed his body.
Kade had no idea how he was still alive. There was no place he looked where his body was unbroken. If he had to search for a positive, it would be that he still had all his limbs intact.
The most concerning part was that he could feel no pain. It was like all his nerves had been damaged, along with his bones.
Not a bad thing when his body was in ruin. Pain would not be useful.
Kade supposed this could be considered a miracle. He remembered what he last saw, and being alive after what should’ve been assured death should be celebrated.
He moved his fingers and limbs as a test. It was doable but at a minimal speed. Even if he couldn’t see how broken his body was, it would have been obvious there was something wrong with it.
Kade finally noticed the interface flashing softly.
Warning: Your health has fallen below 1%!
He froze, afraid the wrong movement could send him into the afterlife. It concerned him that the warning wasn’t the worst of what the interface showed him.
The Infernal Orc Patriarch has broken the Rift Zone’s barrier.
A Class S Rift Zone is beyond Planet Earth’s capabilities. This Rift Zone is now set to be unlinked from Planet Earth.
We have summoned a custodian. Standby.
He reread the interface before blinking rapidly, attempting to bring the world back into focus. After several seconds of trying, it worked.
Kade almost wished that he had stayed ignorant. The patriarch’s size was beyond comprehension.
A ferocious face loomed above the sky. A pair of eyes blazed brighter than the sun as it burned the world with the rage it contained. The features were a grotesque amalgamation of orcish brutality and elemental fury. Horns of obsidian jutted from his brow, and his molten beard flowed like rivers of lava.
If even a drop fell into the Rift Zone, Kade did not doubt it would burn the entire world.
The sight of a colossal hand forged of molten rock and swirling flames reached down from the sky. Each finger was as large as a mountain, and the spaces between them could swallow entire cities.
The interface might have told him it was called the Infernal Orc Patriarch, but to Kade, it might as well be a god of death.
His shock at seeing this otherworldly being somehow repaired his ears. Again, he wished it stayed broken.
The sound that slammed into him nearly deafened him again. It sounded like the world was ending, and with what he saw above, it really was.
It took Kade several seconds to grasp what the patriarch was doing. Just two of its fingers were within the Rift Zone, while the rest of his body loomed above like an omnipotent god.
A stream of black liquid was being drawn high into the sky before it dropped back to the ground, filling the inside of the mountain with a missing peak.
… the patriarch was transferring the nexus into the broken mountain.
Kade felt tempted to question the system, but was terrified that any noise would draw the patriarch’s attention. He was confident that the patriarch was aware of his existence, but since the orcish god made no move to end his life, he wanted to take zero chances of changing that decision.
He stayed as still as possible, but found it hard to stare at the patriarch. As terrified as he currently was, he was still getting incredibly idiotic, stupid, brain-dead ideas of trying to fight it.
Kade didn’t think he was suicidal, but with how frequently he had to stamp out these types of thoughts, he might as well be.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
He forced his eyes away to find a distraction. Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard.
The frozen Rift Zone had been unfrozen. There was no snow to be seen anywhere, a thin layer of water above the ground. The culprit stared into the Rift Zone from above.
Kade had experienced a significant disaster from the patriarch’s appearance, but he was thankful for it in this case. He would’ve probably died from the cold if it hadn’t melted the Rift Zone. An embarrassing death that he wanted no part of.
He was proud of himself for thinking of the positive. It was the little things that counted… or so people constantly told him in the past.
Kade’s gaze unknowingly returned to the patriarch. He started thinking of fighting again.
The interface saved him.
The custodian has arrived. Standby.
He held his breath for an unknown reason. He was finding it near intolerable that he just had to play dead while his life was going to be saved.
Kade was glad for it, but if the patriarch hadn’t increased the class of this Rift Zone to a level that went beyond Earth, he would be shit out of luck.
For the second time in a row, the Rift Zone he entered turned out to be anomalies of different sorts. The first Rift Zone might have been considered an extreme outlier, but this one was simply a stroke of bad luck.
Maybe finding the molten orcling was never meant for him, but what he was ‘meant’ to do didn’t matter since he had stumbled into the orcling’s chamber out of pure dumb luck.
A strange thought passed through Kade’s mind.
Is he trying to revive the orcling by using the nexus? What if that was his son… no. There is no way something as weak as the orcling could come out of the patriarch’s balls.
He felt a gust of super-heated air. He tensed, thinking that the patriarch somehow found out what he was thinking.
The orcling was very strong! He was a testament to your strength, patriarch!
Kade expected to be burned to ash at the rate the heat increased around him. Unexpectedly, the nexus fell to the ground, and the patriarch looked away with annoyance.
Shockwaves fell from the heavens above. He grunted at the increased pressure and was thankful it wasn’t enough to cause harm. The multiple shockwaves were from the unseen custodian speaking an unknown language.
Kade obviously couldn’t understand it, but the patriarch certainly could. The patriarch replied with a mocking sneer before his looming presence disappeared from the Rift Zone.
The Infernal Orc Patriarch has added this Rift Zone to its domain.
The custodian has occupied the Infernal Orc Patriarch. An emergency extraction is now possible.
You are exiting the Class S Rift Zone #N/A.
The extraction didn’t have a delay. One moment, he was staring up at the black void that made up the sky of the Rift Zone; the next, he was under a familiar blue sky.
Kade hadn’t realized how comforting Earth’s sky was until now. However, there was a significant issue.
His body remained broken, and he remained a whisper away from death. Thankfully, the interface appeared to lift his mood.
Rift Zone Summary:
Lifeforms Killed: N/A
Monsters Killed: 82
Direct Kills – 71 (355 points)
Indirect Kills – 11 (14 points)
Bonus: Kill the seed of an Overlord (5,000 points)
Total Points from Rift Zone: 5,369 points
Total Ranking Points: 10,198 points
Currently Ranked #2 in North America.
Kade felt happier with every line he read until the last, which let him know he still hadn’t overtaken Anita Shah.
The girl already had more points than this.
He struggled to his feet before stumbling out of the blackened area where the entrance of the Rift Zone used to be. He slid down the nearest tree trunk to sit on the ground before demanding answers from the system.
“How could something like the patriarch get into a Rift Zone that was supposed to be at my level?!”
Such anomalies are to be expected. We choose to connect Rift Zones to Earth on a randomized basis. Some Overlords seed lower-class Rift Zones with their puppets in hopes of finding a newly inducted planet.
Now I know why it didn’t bother to kill me. I was unimportant to its goals.
“So you’re telling me this was just my bad luck? It could happen to anyone, but somehow I walked into it.” Kade knew he sounded hysterical, but it was better to do so with nobody around.
He could stabilize himself when he walked into society… with broken bones and all.
Yes.
Kade stared at the interface before choosing to let it go for his own sanity. Who knew if increased blood pressure would be enough to kill him. And speaking of health…
“Is there any way I can heal myself outside of the Rift Zone? The monsters that roam Earth are nowhere near strong enough for me to level up after killing them.”
Find a [Healer], or buy a potion that restores your health.
Kade frowned. “With what money and where?”
The points you earned while clearing the Rift Zones. The universal shop is currently ineligible to be opened on Earth. Still, there will soon be [Alchemists] selling such potions.
He was happy to know the points weren’t just vanity for the rankings, but they were still useless to him at the moment. He doubted any [Alchemists] existed since that was not a base [Class]. No one could evolve their [Class] so soon after this whole thing started.
Kade had to find a [Healer]. He pushed himself up and summoned his [Soulrend].
He used it as a walking stick and slowly limped to Chicago. Speed was not a concern; the key was to avoid damage.
Kade couldn’t help but think of the patriarch in the lull. There were beings like that in the universe, and there were beings that could fight it.
I will be a match for the patriarch in the future.