I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 405: You Are Already Doomed

Victor finally allowed the timer to tick down as the Void Emperor markings faded.

The domain collapsed and time resumed its natural rhythm.

Victor stood as the timer reached zero.

His consciousness slipped away.

—

The moment Victor’s eyes opened back on earth, he immediately could tell that something was wrong.

His vision was inverted.

The world hung upside down.

For a split second, he thought he had woken mid-fall.

Then he realized, he wasn’t falling... he was suspended in mid air.

His body was bound at the ankles, strung upside down on some kind of elongated wooden pole. Thick, vine-like restraints coiled around his legs, pulsating faintly with mana.

He twisted slightly and spotted several other figures hung nearby.

Some were humanoid in form but not humans while some were not at all...

One creature looked nearly three times his size even while bound. Its skin was rough and stone-like, etched with glowing veins. Another was slender with elongated limbs and a face partially covered in bioluminescent patterns.

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

"What the hell..." he muttered.

His surroundings looked... very strange and dim in visibility.

The sky above was choked with bloated purple fog. It churned sluggishly, like something alive breathing slowly overhead.

The trees were twisted beyond natural geometry...

Trunks spiraled unnaturally while branches bent at impossible angles.

Roots protruded from the ground like knotted serpents and some of them had eyes embedded within bark and root alike.

They blinked lazily, watching.

Rocks nearby moved subtly, as if adjusting their positions when no one was looking.

The ground beneath or what he could see of it... was marked with massive circular rings carved into the earth, layered and intersecting like ritual diagrams.

And beyond—

In the distance, were structures.

These were not primitive huts... this was actual architecture.

Spiked towers, suspended platforms woven into trees, bridges of black wood and bone-like material connecting elevated sections of forest...

This wasn’t just wilderness... this was some sort of strange but organized civilization.

A low voice suddenly came from beside him.

"You’re awake, human..."

Victor turned his head and spotted a being on his left but this one wasn’t strung up.

Its skin was pale gray with faint iridescent streaks beneath the surface, like veins of moonlight. Its eyes were entirely white without pupils. Thin ridges ran along its jawline, and its ears tapered sharply backward.

Victor saw wings attached at the sides of its neck and his eyes instantly widened.

"A Sylrith...?"

The most powerful of all three humanoid magical aliens that came from the other world... and this was his first time ever coming across one of them.

"I hear you’re the one who killed Vaelun’s playthings," it said calmly.

Victor’s pupils narrowed. He didn’t understand what it meant. Why was a Sylrith here? Why was he here? What happened in the last two days?

"...Playthings?" Victor repeated quietly.

The Sylrith chuckled softly.

"Ah," it said. "You truly don’t know."

It tilted its head.

"You killed several of his bonded titans. Tore them apart. Shattered the shallow sea."

Its white eyes gleamed.

"You are already doomed."

Victor’s mind instantly raced with a couple of thoughts.

Vaelun? Bonded Titans? The same creatures that nearly sent them to an early grave? Did this Sylrith just call them playthings of someone named Vaelun?

So this place—

This forest—

This civilization... was theirs.

Which meant, he had somehow found himself within Sylrith territory.

But how?

He had been on open land flying... he had confirmed safety... so how?

Unless someone intercepted them while he was inside Ascendant Realms.

His jaw tightened.

"Where are Eirene and Gojo?" he demanded.

The being smiled wider.

"Eirene and Gojo?" it said softly. "Oh right... those strange creatures you were with... they’re probably dead by now."

"Don’t you dare mess with me!" Victor gritted his teeth in annoyance.

The being whispered almost sympathetically—

"Welcome to the Veilwood Playground, human."

It paused briefly before leaning in slowly.

"Try not to struggle too much... it will only increase your suffering..."

...

...

~ One day earlier ~

The sky had been blue, clear and open.

Gojo’s massive wings carved through the air with steady and rhythmic force as he soared over a stretch of land that seemed almost deceptively peaceful. Mountains rolled gently in the distance, capped in light mist.

Forests below swayed in the wind as leaves shimmered under clean sunlight. Rivers cut silver paths through the terrain like threads of polished steel.

Victor’s astral projection had confirmed it that this place was stable without storm clusters or territorial anomalies.

It was safe.

Eirene sat near Victor’s unconscious body, with a relaxed posture for the first time since their encounter with the Titans. Her fingers occasionally brushed against Victor’s arm instinctively. He was vulnerable while his consciousness remained in Ascendant Realms. His breathing was steady, body upright but limp, supported by subtle spiritual energy.

Gojo’s wings continued to flap, but the air resistance changed. The temperature dropped several degrees in a blink as the sunlight dimmed.

Eirene’s eyes snapped upward.

The blue sky flickered like glass cracking and then shattered.

It wasn’t a physical sound but it felt like something breaking.

The mountains ahead twisted... the forests below blurred.

The rivers warped into dark streaks and in less than a heartbeat, everything transformed.

The sunlight vanished.

The sky became a bloated mass of thick, purple fog that churned slowly, swallowing the sun entirely. The terrain beneath shifted from gentle green to warped, dark vegetation. Trees spiraled unnaturally, bark rippling like flesh. Roots protruded in spiky formations, some embedded with blinking, half-lidded eyes.

Structures which were previously nonexistent, now rose between the trees. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Spiked towers grown from wood and bone as platforms fused into rock faces.

Bridges of black material suspended between unnatural growths.

Gojo faltered mid-flight as his pupils narrowed.

He was no longer flying over the land they had just seen... he was flying over something else entirely.

Something that had been concealed.

Eirene stood immediately with an expression of confoundment. Even for her level... she never sensed that something was wrong until the final moment.

"Hmm...?"

Her voice trailed off as she scanned the horizon.

They had crossed into another region without moving.

No boundary.

No transition.

It was as if the serenity had been nothing more than a curtain.

And someone had just pulled it back.

Gojo growled while Eirene’s instincts were on high alert screaming of danger.

Her gaze swept downward and that’s when she felt it...

Two presences, rising rapidly.

She turned her head sharply.

From below, emerging from between twisted tree canopies, two figures ascended effortlessly into the sky.

They did not flap wings nor cast visible propulsion... they simply rose.

Both were slender and humanoid with dark translucent skin faintly glowing from within.

Their eyes were entirely white, radiating soft luminescence and from the sides of their necks extended elegant, membranous wings that fluttered gently, more decorative than functional.

They moved in perfect sync, side by side... watching.

Eirene immediately stepped closer to Victor’s unconscious body, gripping him instinctively and pulling him behind her.

She emitted an aura of immense hostility while the two beings slowed until they were flying parallel to Gojo...

Close enough to observe.

One tilted its head slightly.

"Fresh meat wanders so willingly into our midst," it said calmly.

Its voice was audible enough despite the windless sky.

The other narrowed its glowing eyes.

"And one of them is human."

Eirene’s gaze sharpened.

Sylrith...

Recognition hit her instantly.

One of the three magical species that had been the most powerful on the world they arrived from... she knew this due to some of the memories from the sacrificed pregnant women.

She was completely unaware that they also invaded Earth.

She did not hesitate.

"Gojo," she snapped with a serious tone.

Snow clouds erupted around them as Gojo roared and surged forward with explosive speed. The air behind him fractured under the force of his acceleration as ice particles spiralled in his wake.

They shot forward like a comet.

Eirene tightened her grip on Victor, anchoring him against her body while turning her head back.

The Sylrith did not react with surprise.

They simply moved and their speed increased without visible effort.

In seconds, they matched Gojo’s top velocity.

In five—

They surpassed it.

Eirene’s eyes widened...

Gojo roared in frustration, pushing harder, but the Sylrith glided forward until they were once again level with them.

Eirene’s hand ignited with corrupted energy.

Darkness coiled around her arm like living smoke.

She thrust her palm forward.

A compressed blast of corrupted magic tore through the air toward the nearest Sylrith—dense, destructive, capable of eroding spiritual constructs.

The Sylrith didn’t dodge.

Instead, it raised a single hand and a faint sigil formed in front of its palm.

Eirene’s attack disappeared like a chalk drawing wiped from existence.

Eirene’s pupils shrank.

These beings—

Were on another level.

The second Sylrith extended two fingers casually.

A soft incantation slipped from its lips causing the air to warp.

A crescent-shaped wave of condensed force materialized behind Gojo.

It struck his rear with crushing precision.

The impact was devastating.

Gojo roared as his massive body lurched forward violently while his wings faltered.

They plummeted and the ground rushed upward with twisted trees and shifting rock formations racing toward them.