Cain's blade slid effortlessly into the eye of the {Mecurion Manabeast}, the creature's bubbling, metallic form halting instantly as its body shuddered. The last spark of life evaporated from the element Manabeast, its form crumbling, then freezing in place.

In the blink of an eye, it no longer twitched, neither did it writhe disgustingly.

For a moment, everything was still.

He silently let out a sigh.

He was currently in a bad mood.

The out of body experience he just had was obviously the cause.

However, thanks to it, he had gotten quite a look at what the system termed the Soul Devouring Beetle's "favorite form".

For a lack of better words, the thing was a strange intergalactic parasite that was embedded in reality itself.

Its eyes were the myriad stars that lit up the void, Nd its body was the darkness of eternity itself.

A being carved and birthed of the purest forms of evil, chaos and destruction.

He had seen many terrifying things in his time, but that had to be the most horrid of them all.

Not even the sight of the Primordial Devils had elicited such a feeling from him.

He couldn't help but wonder why the system had decided to show him such a thing. Now, that horrid image was stuck in his mind forever.

The cavern, now eerily silent without the constant squelching sounds from the Manabeast's presence, felt emptier than it had before. The heat and chill he had created were mostly gone, leaving a sensation that was just as physical as it was psychological.

Cain stood over the remains, his breathing light and fluttering in the still quiet.

And then, something shifted.

A faint pulse spread out with the smoldering corpses of the {Mecurion Manabeast} as the epicenter.

It was almost imperceptible at first, but very quickly, he was able to notice the changes, particularly through the {Demon's Eye}.

'These readings...'

The magic item was going haywire. His brows twitched violently.

With an almost absent gesture, his eyes flicked upward. There, on the farthest stone wall of the chamber, a faint tremor lit the air up.

A shimmering distortion that twisted the shadows around it, making for a rather peculiar, terror-inducing scene.

Cain's gaze narrowed, a sense of foreboding and familiarity filling him.

Could this be...

A Rift.

Reality itself split open and a deluge of violent energy poured forth. The thick scent of Aether instantly filled the chamber.

The black tear in reality was faint, a jagged wound in the air. Crimson light bled from its edges, staining the otherwise pitch-black space with a soft, ominous glow.

The death of the {Mecurion Manabeast} was like the lifting of a seal. Cain was now very sure...

'Something is definitely going on.'

Was the {Mecurion Manabeast} linked to the existence of the Rift, or was it all just some uncanny coincidence?

He tapped his fingers in his arms, curiosity filling him up.

But there was no time for an immediate inspection just yet. From the looks of it, he could tell that this Rift was relatively stable. Even better, he couldn't detect any unholy presence gazing at him from the gap between realms, so at least a huge chunk of the danger was absent.

His focus slowly drifted back to the {Mecurion Manabeast}'s body. Or rather, the pieces of its body strewn across the floor.

He had come here for one reason and one reason only— to gather resources.

And as it turned out, knowledge was the ultimate resource of them all.

Cain moved carefully through the room, his hands deftly picking through the remains of the creature's shattered form. And pieces that had well defined runes were instantly placed in his inventory.

The pool of molten metal that had once been its body had cooled, though thin veins of silver still moved slowly within the mass, making it easier to collect.

He crouched beside a rather large fragment, his fingers tracing the intricate runes etched across the broken pieces. Even now, after the Manabeast had died, the faintest traces of mana still lingered. The runes glowed faintly beneath his touch, like the remnants of some ancient script just slightly beyond his understanding.

Cain's eyes sharpened. Now more than ever, he was completely unsure of what this thing was.

That uncertainty. That mystery... It filled him with thirst greater than ever— A thirst to devour even more knowledge.

Cain sucked in a breath as he silently continued his examination. This went on for a few minutes before he decided to call it quits.

'This environment isn't the most suited for study. I ought to wait until better circumstances present themselves.'

Cain exhaled slowly, his fingers pressing deeper into the molten remains. Then he scooped the last of them into his inventory. There was no need for haste to study them. These fragments would be his focus for days to come, but for now, there was something else pulling at his attention.

And that was the Rift.

It had not disappeared, neither had it grown weaker. In fact, it seemed rather stable, perhaps too stable, for a Rift. So much so, he began to doubt if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

He observed silently for a moment longer,

"I guess it really is a Rift." He muttered to himself.

Although no nightmarish creatures had come pouring out yet, he still decided that the best thing to do, would be to exercise caution. free all, you never know when disaster would strike.

He tried using his mind to reach out to Hunter, but it seemed like he was in too deep. The link didn't even make it through.

He also tried reaching Steve through the comms, but there was no luck there was well.

"That means I'm all on my own here."

He turned back to face the Rift.

Despite the way the Rift felt, there was something else here, too. Beneath the crimson glow and the unnerving energy, there was a bit of something else, one he had never noticed in another Rift.

It was as if this tear in space-time had something behind it besides primal chaos and terror

For the first time ever, his danger avoiding instincts weren't kicking in when he was standing this close to a Rift.

Cain slowly took a step closer, his heartbeat steady, steadying himself against the pressure in the air.

Compared to his small frame, the Rift seemed rather enormous, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, extending from the center of the wall all to about thirty meters left and right at the base.

Suddenly, the world began to tremble once again.

Cain felt something in the depths of his stir violently.

His eyes widened.

'W-what is this?'

It was more than a physical reaction too. It came from his very depths, perhaps even deeper than his soul went.

The ground beneath his feet seemed to hum in response as well, a deep, resonant vibration that flowed from the Rift into the grey stones, as though the iworld itself was breathing.

The light surrounding the wound in reality pulsed softly, and Cain felt an overwhelming weight in his chest that tried to pull him in even closer.

His eyes narrowed, 'How odd...'

He had no idea where this strange resonance was came from. But whatever it was and wherever it came from didn't matter.

It was very suspicious

Very suspicious indeed.