CH 19 F*ck Do You Mean We Are Cranking Up The Difficulty

??? POV

The room was dim, lit only by pale blue panels embedded into the walls. At the center, a tall, translucent screen floated in the air, displaying the image of another figure. Both of them shared similar features—grey skin, four eyes arranged in pairs, and two curved horns rising from their foreheads—but the one on the screen carried a stronger presence. His posture was composed, and even through the projection, authority radiated from him.

The younger figure standing before the screen placed his hand over his chest in a formal salute. His voice remained steady, but there was restrained excitement beneath it. “We have almost reached the tipping point. Only six more hours remain. Once that passes, terraforming will enter the Irreversible Genesis Stage.”

The older figure nodded slowly.

The younger one continued his report, “All preliminary layers are already active. The conversion field is stable. External interference is within acceptable margins.”

The older figure nodded again, and spoke in an ancient and majestic voice, “Do not become careless. This plan has been in motion for decades. We cannot afford failure now. Even a minor mistake before the transition could destabilize the entire sequence.”

“Understood, Supreme Commander. I will maintain full alert until the transition begins,” the younger figure said, bowing his head slightly.

The screen flickered once, then faded, leaving the younger figure standing alone in the quiet chamber. He lowered his hand slowly, then turned toward another display. On it, a white sphere floated above a small structure, black sludge dripping from countless distorted faces.

He watched it for a moment, then muttered softly, “Six hours.”

Ren’s POV

Ren stared at the structure in the center of the depression, unable to hide the disbelief on his face. A Base. An actual Base. This was good news, but if there was a Base here, it raised far more questions than answers.

Why hadn’t they encountered anyone until now? If this was a human Base, shouldn’t there have been patrols, signals, or at least some traces of activity? And if it wasn’t human, then whom did it belong to?

His thoughts moved quickly, trying to connect what he knew. Human summoning had been happening in this region repeatedly. That wasn’t random. There had to be a reason. A Base here would explain that, but then another question surfaced. Why were people being summoned in the Salt Sea region instead of directly near the Base? Why not in the forest, in the valley or somewhere else. Why only in a dangerous zone like Salt Sea region?

Ren exhaled slowly. The questions kept stacking, and none of them had clear answers.

But what worried him more wasn’t the Base.

It was what floated above it.

A giant white sphere hovered directly over the structure, suspended in the air. Its surface was covered in countless faces, each twisted in agony. Their mouths were open in silent screams, and their eyes were hollow. From those eyes and mouths, black sludge slowly dripped downward.

The faces moved.

They shifted slightly, their expressions changing, as if something inside the sphere was alive.

Ren felt a faint chill run through him. The sense of wrongness radiating from it reminded him of the [thing] in the center of the Salt Sea. It was exactly the same, and it was far stronger

“…what is that?” Freya murmured quietly.

Her gaze remained fixed on the sphere. Even she looked uneasy.

“I don’t know,” Ren replied, his eyes moving between the sphere and the Base below. “But if that’s a human Base, we need to get there. There might be a portal back home inside.”

Freya nodded, though her eyes flicked back toward the dripping sludge. “We should avoid that thing.”

“Definitely,” Ren said. “Let’s not touch anything that comes from it.”

They began moving along the edge of the depression, searching for a safe way down. The valley walls were steep in most places, but after some time, they found a narrow path that sloped downward naturally. The ground there showed many signs of movement. Tracks, crushed vegetation, and disturbed soil.

Ren crouched briefly and examined the marks. “A lot of monsters used this path.”

Freya looked down as well. “They must be the ones that came out of the Windows.”

“That’s likely,” Ren agreed.

They began descending carefully.

As they moved lower, Ren’s thoughts returned to the situation. Monsters usually spread out after emerging from a Window. They formed territories, hunted nearby, and fought among themselves occasionally. It was rare for them to gather and attack a single location repeatedly unless they viewed it as a threat.

But the signs here told a different story. These monsters had clearly gone out of their way to attack the Base. As if they were rabid animals.

Two things stood out.

One, the Boss Monsters had likely fought amongst each other, and one of them had won, then taken the lead to attack the Base. Because even if two different monster species worked together, only one leader could be present. The concept of alliance didn’t exist for monsters who didn’t have sapience. They would dominate with strength and force the others to merge into their tribe.

Second, someone was present in the Base. This someone was the one who defeated all monsters who attacked the Base—defeated because Ren couldn’t see a single monster corpse, meaning they had been cleared by someone and that wouldn’t be true if the person in the Base lost the battle—and this person might also be the one who called Ren and Freya here.

“Do you think someone is inside?” Freya asked.

“I do. They probably fought the monsters. They must also be the ones who injured the Elite Hawk. And…” Ren turned to her. “They must the ones who called us here by turning your sword back then.”

Freya nodded with a complicated expression.

If someone inside had summoned them, then another question arose. Freya had been here for months, yet they never called for her. Why call them now? Why not before?

“The people inside must be strong,” Freya said quietly.

Ren didn’t disagree. Fighting off that many monsters wasn’t something a single person could do.

Unless…

His thoughts drifted toward old stories.

There were rumors from the time of [Ascension]. When Earth—the home world of Human Federation—first connected to the Land of Origin, chaos had spread everywhere. Windows and Rifts appeared across the planet, releasing monsters in massive numbers. Humanity had been pushed to the brink.

And then, according to those stories, nine people returned.

They had been summoned months earlier, along with thousands more. They trained in the Land of Origin, and came back powerful enough to hold the line. With the nine who returned, on the day of Ascension, they established a city that became humanity’s last refuge.

Ren had never believed those stories. Most records suggested hundreds returned, not nine. It made more sense that way. Defending an entire city with only nine people was impossible. Even if the attacks came in waves and not all at once, the number of monsters that would gather over time would still be overwhelming. Hundreds every day, perhaps more, depending on the number of open Windows nearby. There was no way a handful of awakeners who had only recently completed their First Class Evolution could hold something like that indefinitely. The stories might have exaggerated their strength, or perhaps the truth had been simplified over time.

I don’t know how many awakeners are inside that base, but whoever defended it must be strong. Three Windows opened here, and the monsters clearly attacked, Ren thought.

Even from a distance, the Base didn’t look well-maintained. The walls were damaged, sections of the outer structure were broken, and the overall appearance suggested something that had endured repeated battles rather than something actively used as a settlement.

They reached the forest at the bottom of the depression and moved through it carefully. The trees here were dense enough to provide cover, and the silence spread in all directions. Ren stayed alert, keeping his Mana Zone lightly extended as they walked.

Suddenly, Freya stopped.

Her head snapped to the left.

Ren reacted immediately, preparing to cast a Spell. His eyes scanned the direction she was looking, expecting something to lunge out of the foliage. Seconds passed, but nothing moved.

“What did you sense?” he asked quietly.

“I’m not sure. I thought I felt something there.” Freya frowned, still staring at a nearby bush.

Ren followed her gaze. The bush was well within his Mana Zone. If anything had been hiding there, he should have sensed it. But there was nothing. No movement, no presence, not even a faint disturbance.

“Maybe you’re just on edge. This place is strange. That sphere, the Base… it’s easy to overthink,” Ren said after a moment.

Freya hesitated, then nodded slightly. “Maybe.”

They resumed walking, though both of them remained more alert than before.

The forest ended abruptly, giving way to the large circular clearing surrounding the Base. From this distance, the structure was even more imposing. The walls rose nearly thirty meters high, and several mechanical cannons were mounted along the top. They looked old with their metal surfaces worn, but they had clearly been repaired. Some parts looked newly reinforced compared to the rest.

Ren studied them carefully. Technology was unpredictable for awakeners. The laws of physics in the Land of Origin differed from those in the main universe. Equipment designed in main universe might not work in Land of Origin, but those that worked in Land of Origin would always work in main universe. Many scholars debated this happened because Land of Origin was more ‘real’.

As a result, most advanced weapons from the main universe simply wouldn’t function properly here, which meant these cannons had likely been designed specifically for this environment.

The duo moved closer.

The main gate came into view. It had been smashed inward, the metal bent and twisted as if something enormous had forced its way through. Above the gate, a faded marking remained. The word “Base” was still visible in common human language, but the name beside it had been scratched out violently. Over it, something else had been written in a different script.

“That doesn’t look like human language.” Ren narrowed his eyes.

Freya leaned slightly closer. “Yes. I’ve never seen that language before.”

Both of them instinctively grew more cautious. If the base belonged to another species, then there was no guarantee they were allies. Whoever was inside could just as easily treat them as enemies.

“Let’s move quietly,” Ren said.

He cast Silent Veil over himself, then extended it to Freya as well. Due to the position of the Base in the center of an empty path of land, they were forced to walk in open earlier, but that didn’t mean they should not try to be discreet after entering the Base.

Another reason for being discreet was that there might be monsters inside the Base. The Base clearly looked old and abandoned, and there was a chance whoever called Freya and Ren did so because they were overwhelmed by monsters and about to lose control of Base. If they had lost already, then the Base might have some powerful monsters living inside. Ren and Freya couldn’t make noise, lest they attract something like that.

Freya entered the massive broken doors first, and Ren followed.

“Did you know Salt can purify all evil?”

Ren nodded and kept walking silently. They had to make sure they did not make noise, or they might alert whoever was inside the Base.

Inside, the base looked worse than expected. Buildings were damaged, some collapsed, others partially destroyed. Barricades had been constructed along the roads, forcing movement through narrow passages. It looked like someone had deliberately reshaped the layout to control how things moved inside.

They followed one of the available paths, moving deeper.

After a few minutes, Ren noticed something odd. The path didn’t lead straight toward the center. Instead, it curved repeatedly, forcing them to take longer routes. The deeper they went, the more obvious it became.

“This is a maze,” Ren muttered.

Freya glanced around, noticing the same thing.

They kept moving, but even after fifteen minutes, they didn’t seem any closer to the center. Ren stopped and turned back, retracing a few steps. The route they had come from was no longer open.

A new wall had shifted into place.

“Someone is moving the walls,” Ren said quietly.

“If the walls can be moved, they must have an inbuilt mechanism. It must be something created by the people in the Base to fight off against the hordes of monsters.” Freya stepped closer to the wall and examined it. How did these people know monsters would attack the Base in large enough numbers that they would need walls like this? And why hadn’t they repaired the Base? All they had done was make walls and repair the weapons mounted on walls. None of the buildings were in any condition to be used.

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She swung her sword and shaved off a small piece. The metal resisted more than expected, and she frowned slightly. “These walls are strong, and they are present in the entire Base. Someone put serious effort into making them.”

Ren leaned closer to the exposed section. Inside, he saw gears and hollow space. The outer layer was relatively thin, but the interior held the mechanical structure.

“If the people who made these walls are shifting them to trap us in this maze, then…”

He didn’t have time to finish.