Chapter 225: Close Relatives

Adam stepped forward, his presence steady as the essence thickened around him with every step closer to the rift. The air itself felt heavier, almost resisting him, as if warning him to turn back.

He didn’t.

Because he already knew what this place was.

An extinction-class rift.

Deadman’s Valley.

The name alone carried weight, whispered across factions as a place where even Masters hesitated to enter. A graveyard of failed expeditions. A zone where survival wasn’t guaranteed, no matter your rank.

Adam exhaled slowly, his aura tightening once more as his focus sharpened to a single point.

This was exactly what he needed.

Adam pulled up his panel the moment he stabilized before the rift, his gaze sweeping over the familiar layout with calm precision.

╭───────────╮

〖Name: Adam〗

〖Rank: Profound Master (Evolvable)〗

〖Cultivation Talent: G〗

〖Special Talent: Equip ❖ Connect ❖ Analyze ❖ Fuse〗

〖Affinity: Wind ❖ Death+〗

〖SLOT〗

↳ SOUL (5): Rapid Charge D ❖ Cryogen D ❖ Cultivation SSS ❖ Mind Control E ❖ Bone Generation D

↳ BODY (6): JUDGEMENT

↳ Gene (3): Chaos

↳ Blessing: +5 Star Power

╰───────────╯

‎[Star Power: 58±]

‎[Existence: 2,000]

‎[Martial Spirit: Profound 4 star Evolvable]

His eyes lingered briefly on the final values. Star Power hovered at fifty-eight, while his existence sat firmly at two thousand. It wasn’t enough yet, but this place would change that.

Adam dismissed the panel without another thought, his expression steady as he stepped forward. The moment his body crossed into the rift, the shift hit instantly, the sensation was different from and far less resistant than it should have been.

Adam could only attribute this factor to the fact that the rift wasn’t a sealed rift.

Rather it was breached.

The transition completed in a blink, and Adam landed silently, boots pressing into dry, uneven ground. His eyes lifted, scanning the surroundings as the atmosphere settled heavily around him, thick with death-aspected essence.

A graveyard stretched endlessly in every direction.

Countless tombstones rose from the earth like jagged teeth, some broken, others half-buried, all worn by time or something far worse. The air was still, unnaturally so, as if even the wind refused to pass through this place.

Adam didn’t react.

The Alliance reports had already described this zone in fragments, partial explorations, incomplete surveys, scattered images recovered at a cost. Deadman’s Valley wasn’t unknown. Just… unfinished.

Dangerously unfinished.

He exhaled slowly, aura tightening as his focus sharpened. This environment wasn’t just decoration. It was a warning. A domain shaped by death, saturated with something that had consumed countless lives before him.

Perfect.

Adam activated Connect.

The ability surged to life, threads of invisible perception spreading outward, linking him to the surrounding souls.

But suddenly the ground exploded beneath him and a decayed hand burst out from the soil without warning, its grip snapping tightly around his ankle with unnatural strength. The fingers dug in like iron, cold and unyielding, dragging slightly as if testing his weight.

The grip tightened around Adam’s ankle, cold and unnatural, but before he could react further, the ground around him began to split open. Cracks spread rapidly, and more decayed hands clawed their way upward.

Within seconds, bodies followed.

One after another, corpses dragged themselves free from the soil, flesh torn, bones exposed, hollow eyes locking onto him. The smell of rot thickened the air as the undead rose fully, forming a loose circle around him.

Adam’s gaze sharpened slightly.

Zombies.

It was his first time seeing them in reality.These weren’t constructs or test entities like the Abysmal-class monsters he faced during his chaos affinity trial. These were real and worse.

Extinction-class.

His mind processed it instantly. The gap wasn’t small. Even one of these creatures could rival bosses from lower-class rifts. Yet here, they stood in numbers, surrounding him without hesitation.

Still, something felt off.

The first zombie remained crouched at his feet, its hand still gripping his ankle, unmoving. The others slowed, their hollow gazes shifting toward it, confusion flickering across their decayed expressions.

Adam followed their attention, then spoke calmly.

“Oh… don’t bother with it.”

He shifted his leg slightly.

The frozen hand shattered instantly, breaking apart into fragments of brittle, icy flesh that scattered across the ground. The corpse attached to it collapsed a second later, lifeless before it even had a chance to act.

The moment it touched him, it had died.

Cryogen had already activated on contact, freezing the creature from the inside out before it could even react.

The surrounding zombies stiffened, their movements halting for a fraction of a second as if trying to process what had just happened. That hesitation was all Adam needed.

Analyze had already completed.

Their strength registered clearly in his mind. High Star Power. Dense existence signatures. Some of them even approached the level of minor bosses from weaker rifts. Dangerous, in any normal situation.

Not here.

Not to him.

A faint pulse of cold spread outward from Adam’s body, almost invisible, but absolute in effect. Cryogen activated again, not explosively, but quietly, efficiently, and without resistance.

Every zombie froze where it stood.

Their movements stopped mid-step. Frost crawled across their decayed flesh in an instant, locking joints, sealing cracks, halting everything. Then, one by one, their bodies collapsed.

Shattering.

[100 Existence gained]

[100 Existence gained]

[100 Existence gained]

[100 Existence gained]

[100 Existence gained]

[100 Existence gained]

The notifications continued, stacking rapidly as the last of them fell.

Twelve in total.

[Total Existence gained: 1200]

Adam stood still as the final fragments hit the ground, the silence returning just as quickly as it had been broken. The graveyard stretched out once more, unchanged, as if nothing had happened.

He glanced at the scattered remains briefly.

“I should’ve let them use their talent first.”

The thought came and went just as quickly.

There was no regret in his tone, only calculation. These were just mob units. Weak in purpose, disposable in value. Whatever abilities they carried would be inferior compared to what the boss of this rift possessed.

Adam lifted his gaze forward again, eyes narrowing slightly.

****

Authors Note

Thank you for reading!

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