BOOOOOOM!!!

An invisible force slammed into him like a collapsing mountain, launching his body backward violently through one of the broken sanctuary pillars before he skidded across the stone floor in an explosion of debris. Cracks spread beneath him as he finally came to a halt, blood erupting from his mouth while unbearable pressure crushed down on him from every direction at once.

Pain exploded through his body, but not the kind caused by broken bones or torn flesh. This was something far worse. Existential. It felt as though his very existence was being crushed beneath the weight of something infinitely above him.

His vision blurred violently. His heartbeat became uneven. Even breathing suddenly felt difficult.

And for the first time since entering the Legacy Land, Alex felt small.

Like an insect standing beneath an endless ocean, realizing too late that the water above could come crashing down at any moment.

The dead god hadn’t even moved. It still sat chained to the shattered throne exactly as before, its body lifeless and unmoving, yet merely opening its eyes had nearly crushed Alex into paste. The pressure radiating from the being thickened until the entire sanctuary began trembling violently around them. Broken statues cracked apart piece by piece while the ancient walls groaned under the strain like they were seconds away from collapsing entirely.

Alex forced himself upright slowly, one hand pressed firmly against the fractured floor as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. The glowing pathways beneath his skin flickered violently, his mutated body instinctively fighting to survive the divine pressure pressing against every inch of him.

The god simply stared at him in silence.

Its eyes were horrifying. There was no light inside them. No warmth. No emotion. Only age—an impossible amount of age that felt heavy enough to suffocate the soul itself.

Then the being spoke.

Its voice did not echo through the chamber like normal sound. Instead, the single word slammed directly into Alex’s mind, reverberating through his very existence.

"...Impossible."

Alex’s breathing gradually steadied as the corpse tilted its head by the smallest fraction, ancient golden chains creaking loudly from the movement. Its hollow gaze slowly traveled across Alex’s body, studying the glowing pathways beneath his skin, the faint horn forming near his forehead, the unstable Emi circulating through his veins, and the unnatural evolution of his core. Then suddenly, the pressure radiating from the dead god changed.

"You are becoming one of them."

Alex frowned immediately.

"One of who?"

The corpse didn’t answer right away. Instead, its dead eyes seemed to stare deeper, beyond flesh and bone, as though it were examining the very structure of Alex’s existence.

Like it wasn’t looking at Alex himself anymore, but at something hidden underneath him. The dead god’s hollow eyes narrowed slightly after a moment, and when it finally spoke again, its voice carried the cold certainty of something that had seen countless beings rise and fall before him.

"The system can no longer fully regulate you."

Alex’s expression hardened immediately.

The corpse continued speaking calmly, almost mechanically, its chains rattling softly as each word echoed through the ruined sanctuary.

"Mutated pathways. Direct Emi assimilation. Forced evolution through overload. System desynchronization. Clone-linked adaptation."

Its dead gaze remained fixed on him.

"An anomaly."

A cold chill crept down Alex’s spine.

The corpse had identified everything instantly, including things even Alex himself barely understood yet. It wasn’t guessing. It knew exactly what he was becoming.

"What exactly are you talking about?" Alex asked cautiously, his voice lower now.

The dead god stared at him for several long seconds without answering immediately, and the silence pressing down on the sanctuary somehow felt heavier than the pressure crushing the air itself.

Then the corpse finally spoke.

"The Legacy Trial is a lie."

The words echoed across the chamber, and silence swallowed the sanctuary whole.

Alex’s eyes narrowed.

"A lie?"

"No," the corpse corrected slowly. "An incomplete truth."

The chains around its body groaned louder as faint golden cracks spread across its dried skin.

"You contestants believe you are competing for ascension. For divinity. For the right to become gods."

Its empty eyes locked onto Alex.

"But ascension is not the true purpose of the system."

Alex felt his heartbeat slow.

The corpse leaned slightly forward on the throne.

"Selection is."

The word landed heavily.

The atmosphere itself seemed to tighten.

Alex remained silent, listening carefully as the dead god’s voice echoed through the sanctuary like an ancient verdict being read aloud.

"The system was never designed to create stable gods," the corpse continued calmly. "It was designed to identify irregularities. Anomalies. Beings capable of surviving beyond divine law."

Alex frowned deeply, but the corpse didn’t stop there.

"The trials are not meant to nurture heroes. They are pressure chambers. Torture mechanisms created to force evolution through suffering, desperation, conflict, and fear."

Every sentence felt intentional. Precise. Like truths buried for millions of years were finally being dragged back into the light.

"The majority fail because they remain obedient."

Alex blinked once.

"Obedient?"

The corpse nodded slowly, its hollow eyes darkening slightly as the chains wrapped around its body creaked.

"The system rewards growth, but true evolution requires deviation. The strongest candidates are not those who follow the rules. They are the ones willing to break themselves to surpass them."

Alex’s mind immediately flashed back to everything he had done since entering the Legacy Land—the Essence Roots, the mutation, the direct Emi absorption, the forced system overloads. Every step of his growth had involved violating warnings that should have killed him instantly.

And somehow...

He had survived anyway.

The corpse stared directly at him, and the pressure filling the sanctuary seemed to sharpen alongside its gaze.

"That is why the gods fear beings like you."

Alex’s expression hardened immediately.

"The gods fear me?"

The golden chains wrapped around the corpse rattled softly as the dead god leaned forward ever so slightly on the throne.

"Not because of your current strength," it said calmly, its empty eyes scanning the glowing pathways beneath Alex’s skin. "But because of what you are becoming."

Silence settled heavily across the sanctuary after those words, thick enough to make even the distant whispers disappear. Then the corpse spoke a phrase that made Alex’s blood run cold.

"System Divergence."

The words themselves felt wrong somehow, unnatural in a way Alex couldn’t properly explain. Even hearing them triggered a faint instability within his system, causing fragments of static to flicker briefly across his vision.

Despite the crushing pressure bearing down on him, Alex slowly forced himself fully upright.

"What is that?"

The dead god’s expression remained emotionless as it answered.

"A System Divergence is a being the system can no longer fully regulate."

Alex’s eyes narrowed slightly while the corpse continued speaking in the same calm, detached tone.

"Most players evolve within acceptable parameters. The system guides their growth, filters their Emi intake, stabilizes their evolution, and shapes their progression carefully to prevent deviation."

Its gaze darkened slightly.

"But divergences adapt beyond intended limits."

Alex immediately understood what the corpse was implying.

The direct Emi absorption.

The constant system glitches.

The mutations spreading through his body.

The evolution of Doppelking and his clones beyond their original functions.

The dead god wasn’t speaking generally anymore.

It was describing him.

"Historically," the dead god continued, its hollow voice echoing through the trembling sanctuary, "every divergence eventually became catastrophic. Some destroyed entire worlds.

Some consumed civilizations so completely that not even ruins remained. And some..."

The corpse slowly lifted its chained head higher, the ancient restraints creaking loudly as its dead eyes locked onto Alex with suffocating intensity. "...murdered gods."

The chamber fell silent after those words.

Alex felt genuine shock ripple through him as he stared at the being seated before him.

This wasn’t some forgotten deity that had fallen during an ancient divine war, nor had it been destroyed by some legendary weapon capable of killing immortals.

The god sitting before him had been killed by a player.