Chapter 226: Producing Death Affinity

Adam didn’t move immediately after the last notification faded. His eyes stayed forward, sharp and focused, while his mind processed everything. Then, without wasting time, he activated Connect, extending his awareness outward across the deadman valley.

The response came instantly. The rift was massive, far larger than he had expected and saturated with a dense, suffocating energy. It pressed against his senses like invisible pressure. Adam narrowed his eyes slightly as the realization clicked into place.

“So that’s it…”

There was an overwhelming concentration of death affinity in the air, thick enough to almost feel tangible. It clung to everything, the ground, the broken graves, even the drifting particles in the air. Adam moved forward slowly, testing the space.

As he advanced deeper, more zombies began to emerge from different angles. They didn’t hesitate. They rushed him blindly, their movements stiff but aggressive. Adam responded instantly, releasing Cryogen without pause, freezing and shattering them in clean, efficient bursts.

Each kill added to his existence count.

The notifications stacked rapidly. Adam didn’t even look at them. His focus stayed ahead while his mind continued working through the inconsistency. Something about this place didn’t align with what he knew.

Monsters didn’t possess affinities.

They relied on physical traits and unique talents, nothing more. Affinities were reserved for intelligent races, the essential and non-essential alike. That was a fundamental rule. A constant. Something that didn’t change.

Yet this…

This environment was saturated with death affinity.

Adam stepped over a frozen corpse, expression tightening slightly as the contradiction settled deeper. If the zombies hadn’t left the rift despite it being breached, then this density of death energy had to be influencing them somehow.

But that didn’t make sense.

Unless…

“Something here is generating it.”

The thought snapped into place instantly. Adam’s steps slowed as his eyes sharpened further. Death affinity didn’t just appear naturally in this concentration. It had a source. Something at the core of the rift.

“Where is it coming from—”

He froze mid-step.

Then suddenly, he lifted his hand and smacked his palm lightly against his forehead, a small, sharp realization breaking through everything else.

“How did I overlook that?”

At that exact moment, something lunged from behind him.

The movement was faster and more coordinated than the others. Adam turned just enough to catch it in his peripheral vision. The aura was different too. An elite unit.

But it didn’t matter.

Cryogen activated instantly.

The creature froze mid-lunge, its momentum cut off completely before it shattered into fragments like brittle glass. Adam didn’t even shift his stance afterward. His gaze returned forward.

“Even the surroundings have changed…”

He glanced briefly at the drifting particles in the air again, his expression settling into quiet certainty.

“Despite being a rift… this entire area has already become an incursion.”

The frozen fragments of the elite still hadn’t settled when Adam resumed walking. His expression didn’t change. His mind was already moving ahead, linking what he had just confirmed with everything he knew about incursions.

There were rules to these things.

An incursion only formed after a rift breach, when essence saturation crossed its limit and spilled outward. That overflow didn’t just release monsters, it reshaped the surrounding area, slowly converting it into something else entirely.

Adam had seen the early signs before.

The second rule was even more important. Once the transformation began, the environment would start adapting to the rift’s nature. Terrain shifted. Energy thickened. Everything aligned with whatever affinity dominated the source.

Which brought him back to this place.

The third rule was absolute. Every incursion carried a natural resource. It didn’t matter how small or how dangerous the zone was. If nothing was found, it only meant one thing, no one had discovered it yet.

Adam stepped forward, boots crunching lightly over brittle remains as more shapes stirred in the distance. His gaze stayed steady, but his thoughts sharpened further.

“This one… it has to be tied to death affinity.”

The conclusion felt obvious now.

The density in the air wasn’t random. It was too consistent, too controlled. Something was producing it, feeding it into the environment like a constant source. That kind of output couldn’t exist without a core.

And yet…

When he had checked the records before entering, there was nothing.

No reports of rare materials. No mention of affinity-based resources. Nothing even hinting at abnormal environmental behavior. Just a standard classification, a moderately safe rift with low outward threat.

Adam’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“That doesn’t add up.”

Another pair of zombies rushed him from the side, their movements erratic but fast. He didn’t stop walking. Cryogen triggered again, freezing them mid-step before their bodies cracked apart into fragments that scattered across the ground.

The notifications flickered briefly.

He ignored them.

“If it was already like this before…”

Then the explorers should have noticed.

Even the lowest-ranked teams would have sensed something off. The density alone was impossible to miss. So either the rift had changed recently, or something had been deliberately overlooked.

Adam exhaled slowly, his gaze lifting toward the deeper stretch of the valley.

“Or hidden.”

The thought settled heavily.

Because the more he analyzed it, the less likely ignorance became. Too many signs. Too many inconsistencies. This wasn’t just a forgotten detail in some outdated report.

There was intent behind it.

Adam’s pace slowed slightly as his awareness expanded again, Connect probing deeper into the rift’s structure. The pressure increased the further he reached, the death affinity growing thicker toward a specific direction.

His lips curved faintly, in interest.

“Guess I’ll have to find out…”

His eyes hardened as he stepped forward, moving directly toward the source.

“…what exactly the Alliance is hiding.”

****

Adam moved deeper into the valley, following the pull without hesitation, while far from the rift, Ivy and Remedy were already in motion. The two had separated from Tristan earlier, leaving the mid-tier sector behind with a clear objective.

Their destination was far less forgiving.

Unlike Tristan, where Eden members slipped in and out with relative ease, the upper-tier regions operated under strict control. Every entry point was monitored. Every movement was tracked. Ivy adjusted her pace slightly as they passed through the final checkpoint, her expression calm but focused. The transition had been smooth, but that didn’t mean it was safe.

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