I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 356: The Full Backstory

"Sending our people to Earth was not the hard part. The real difficulty was transforming this region—making a place cold enough for us to live. A world like yours has no natural climate fit for our survival."

Victor narrowed his eyes. "So what did you do?"

Rhozan swallowed hard.

"To alter Earth’s environment, to create a land resembling our old world... the forbidden spell demanded a sacrifice. Not of mana. Not of resources. But of life."

Victor felt something cold crawl down his spine.

"Whose life?" he asked, though he already dreaded the answer.

Rhozan’s voice broke.

"Ten pregnant Kahr’uun."

Victor’s face froze.

Rhozan voice trembled as the truth spilled out.

"No pregnant woman willingly agrees to die... to give up the child in her womb. Our leaders knew this. They also knew that without the sacrifice, the fleeing remnants of our race would perish almost as soon as we arrived here."

Victor’s fists clenched.

"The ten chosen... they begged for mercy. Pleaded for another way. But the leaders refused. Our survival was all that mattered. Everything else—morality, dignity, life—was secondary."

Victor looked sick.

Rhozan bowed his head deeply.

"They dragged the women to the ritual altar. Their screams could be heard across the capital. They cried for their unborn children... begged for anyone to help."

He paused—long enough for his trembling breath to steady.

"But no one did. No one dared challenge our leaders."

Victor’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached.

"And as their lives were taken," Rhozan said, "the spell activated. It reshaped this entire region of Earth into the frigid land you see today. Our people were saved."

He looked up with hollow eyes.

"But something else was born from that ritual. Something twisted. Something vengeful. A remnant of the sacrificed lives—a malformed echo of suffering and agony."

Victor’s eyes widened. "...the corrupt entity."

"Yes. That abomination is the collective resentment of the sacrificed mothers and unborn children, twisted by forbidden magic. It arrived on Earth alongside us. And from the moment it first opened its eyes—it hunted us."

Rhozan’s voice cracked.

"It hunts us still."

Silence ensued for a few seconds.

Victor felt his heartbeat hammering in his chest. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. All he could picture...

...was his mother back home.

Pregnant.

Vulnerable.

Human.

He imagined her dragged to an altar.

Begging.

Screaming.

No one helping.

If she had fallen into a similar situation, would he have let it go? Would he be willing to let his own pregnant mother be sacrificed to save a civilization especially if it was against her will?

The answer was NO.

His vision blurred with rage as he spoke with a cold tone.

"So all this time... the corrupted entity wasn’t lying."

Rhozan flinched as though struck.

Victor laughed with a bitter and furious tone.

"You sacrificed pregnant women," he said slowly. "For what? Some twisted idea of survival? And now you’re shocked the consequences came back to haunt you?"

Rhozan whispered, "It was forty years ago... none of us here were involved... I wasn’t the leader back then..."

"Doesn’t matter," Victor snapped. "Your civilization did it. And you hid it. You lied to me."

Rhozan lowered his head as shame flooded his eyes.

Victor took a step back, exhaling hard through his nose.

"I have a pregnant mom back home... or had," he voiced quietly. "I have a baby sibling probably born by now. Do you think I’d ever forgive anybody who tried to sacrifice them?"

The chamber fell dead silent.

Rhozan’s voice came out barely audible.

"I... understand your disgust, Great Iruhun."

Victor turned away with a dark expression.

"I’m not your savior. Not after hearing this."

The truth he had just heard... the sacrifice, the cruelty... the birth of the corrupted entity... was a poison that stung deeper with every breath.

Ten pregnant women.

Ten lives.

Ten unborn children.

All slaughtered, forced into death "for the survival of their kind."

Victor didn’t know whether he wanted to scream, punch something, or let out a bitter laugh at the absurdity of it all. He had trusted these people... they had him believing they were different from the evil magical alien species that plagued Earth... they had him thinking good could come from that world...

But now he realized his foolishness... his naivety...

Sentimentality had clouded his judgement of reality. His soft heartedness had been used as a tool for their bidding...

He felt played. For the sake of their salvation, they had fooled him.

And now he questioned if they even deserved any salvation.

He simply turned his back and took a step away, unable to look at Rhozan or anything in this chamber haunted by the weight of old sins.

But Rhozan’s voice halted him.

"Iruhun... the story is not yet finished."

Victor didn’t turn... His shoulders rose and fell twice, as he forced himself to swallow his anger enough to remain calm. Calm enough not to crater the ground with telekinesis or split the air with a qi-infused roar.

Then he pivoted slowly.

Rhozan’s gaze was resigned but steady.

"You wanted the full story," he continued. "I do not wish to hide any more truths."

Victor exhaled sharply, then gestured toward the center of the chamber.

"Fine. Then start with him."

Suspended in the heart of the room, encased in a pillar of luminous crystalline radiance, was the stranger Victor had briefly noticed earlier... a man frozen in light.

Victor approached with his boots echoing on the engraved froststone floor. The closer he came, the clearer the figure became.

He was tall, muscular and young.

Rhozan spoke solemnly behind him.

"As mentioned earlier, that is the last Iruhun before you."

Victor stared. "I’m still confused since you said the prophecy—" 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"Yes," Rhozan cut in quietly, "but before you arrived, he did. Five years ago."

Victor eyes narrowed. "That still makes no sense to me. When I first arrived here y’all made me seem like I was the first. Explain..."

Rhozan inhaled deeply, gathering resolve like a cloak around him. "I will start from when he arrived and why he fell."

He motioned toward the glowing figure.

"He came from nowhere. He stepped through the doors of eternity. Just like you. And like you, he never emitted a mana signature."

Victor stiffened.

No mana signature? What the hell did that mean?

"No one here had ever witnessed such a thing. A living being that didn’t give off a mana signature? Even a newborn contains at least a spark of elemental resonance. But he—just like you—had none. We figured it was due to his level of power..."

Victor’s heartbeat slowed.

This wasn’t something he could ignore or rationalize. The reason he didn’t give off a mana signature or ever seem to emit mana when using abilities was because he was a qi user.

But any one else that could use supernatural abilities on this world could only use magic so it made no sense.

There were only two explanations:

1. The man was like him and had cultivated qi without mana. This was something Victor immediately marked as impossible because Ascendant Realms: Cultivation Chronicles VRMMORPG didn’t even exist five years ago.

2. The man had power from another world, entirely unrelated to the game.

Also impossible... wasn’t it?

He folded his arms and fixed his eyes on the suspended figure. "So what happened to him? Why is he locked in... whatever this glowing cage is?"

Rhozan’s expression tightened with old regret.

"He learned the truth—just as you did. The sacrifice of the pregnant Kahr’uun, the birth of the corrupted entity. And he reacted the same way you are reacting now... with disgust."

Victor snorted. "Of course he would..."

Rhozan continued.

"But unlike you, he was... sentimental. Too sentimental. He believed the corrupted entity could be saved. He insisted that it was not its fault—that it had no choice. That if someone reached out with compassion, it might change."

"That’s stupid," Victor muttered under his breath.

He knew firsthand what compassion got you in a world full of monsters: death.

"He tried to approach it."

Rhozan’s voice lowered.

"Tried to speak to it. Tried to undo the corruption. He attempted to purge its essence, to change its nature."

Victor turned sharply. "With what ability? If he wasn’t using mana, what power did he use?"

Rhozan shook his head. "We do not know. It was unlike anything we had ever felt. Even now, I cannot describe it. It was... unnatural. Like existence itself bent around him when he raised his hand."

Victor felt a chill run through him....

It had to be qi.

What else bent the physical world? But that shouldn’t be possible? He was the only player who could use qi from Ascendant Realms and there was no Ascendant Realms five years ago.

So who the hell was this guy?

"And then what happened?" Victor questioned.

"The corrupt entity became enraged," Rhozan murmured. "Not at us. At him. As if his very existence defied it. As if he was the opposite of what it was born from."

Victor frowned. "Meaning?"