I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 415: Endless Night?

Meanwhile, the Sylrith watching, fell silent.

Their laughter died as they stared at the luminous screens with confusion.

"How..."

"How did he know that to end the game with the Root Child, you had to slap the offering away..."

"He disrupted the exchange."

One of them leaned forward slowly.

"He refused the game."

Another narrowed its glowing eyes.

"He attacked not the being—but the rule."

A murmur spread among them.

"The Root Child only continues when the exchange is accepted... and stops when it is refused in that specific way..."

"He broke the acceptance."

Silence again.

A low voice spoke from the center.

"He understood the nature of the game... without being told."

They watched Victor carry Aria down the newly opened path.

"Interesting."

Back in the Veilwood Playground, the forest grew quieter as they moved away.

Aria rested weakly against Victor’s shoulder.

"Remind me," she whispered faintly, "to never accept gifts from strange tree children again."

Victor let out a shaky breath that was half a laugh, half hysteria.

"Deal."

The safe passage the Root Child had opened did not lead them back to anything familiar.

If anything, it led them deeper.

Victor and Aria emerged from the narrow corridor of twisting bark and breathing walls into a space that felt... constructed. Not grown like the Veilwood Playground, not wild like the labyrinth of flowers and thorns, but deliberately shaped.

The terrain sloped downward in a wide spiral, like an enormous basin carved into the earth. Layers of platforms and broken walkways descended step by step into darkness below. It almost resembled an amphitheater—if an amphitheater had been abandoned for centuries and partially swallowed by roots and creeping vines.

"What is this place..." Aria muttered quietly.

Victor scanned the area with narrowed eyes.

Even without access to his power, the Void Bloodline made his senses sharp unnaturally so he could feel disturbances in space itself, slight distortions in air currents, hidden cavities beneath flooring, subtle pressure shifts that hinted at traps or movement.

"It’s crafted," he said. "Not natural."

Aria adjusted herself slightly against him. With only one leg, her balance was precarious, and Victor had become her support almost entirely. She leaned into him without hesitation now. The awkwardness that might’ve existed days ago had long vanished under survival pressure.

They began descending carefully.

The slope was riddled with broken platforms, half-collapsed staircases, and hollowed pillars wrapped in creeping vines. The design forced travelers into narrow choke points that seemed like perfect ambush zones.

Victor halted abruptly at one turn.

"Don’t step there."

Aria froze mid-hop.

"What?"

"There’s tension in the wood. Something’s embedded beneath it."

He picked up a loose piece of debris and tossed it onto the section ahead. Instantly, the ground splintered inward and a row of spiky wooden spikes shot upward before retracting again.

Aria let out a low whistle. "You weren’t joking when you said you could detect traps."

Victor gave a small shrug. "Just a bit of heightened senses."

And so they continued forward slowly and carefully.

Whenever Victor sensed movement of what seemed to be creatures up ahead, they’d move to an hiding spot.

Fortunately, the terrain made it much easier to hide from creatures that lurked and they were glad that these creatures were nothing like the rootchild or they would have been caught almost immediately.

The deeper they went, the more hiding spots appeared. Cracked walls, hollow pillars, fallen beams large enough to conceal two people... and they used it to their advantage.

Then, unexpectedly, they found something else....

At one lower tier, half-buried in root growth and vine clusters, stood a structure unmistakably different from the organic chaos around it...

It was built from concrete, metal framing and had rectangular windows that were mostly shattered.

Victor stopped in his tracks.

"That’s... old Earth construction... pre mana incident."

Aria stared.

It was an abandoned school building that stood partially sunken into the slope. Its faded signage was barely visible under grime and moss. Its architecture was unmistakably pre-collapse.

"How is that even here?" Aria whispered.

It was surprising to see anything around here from old Earth, considering that everywhere had been terraformed.

They entered cautiously.

The interior smelled of dust and rot. Lockers lay dented and rusted along walls. Classroom doors hung from broken hinges. Desks were overturned. Long decayed papers clung to floors like ghostly remains of a forgotten world.

It was quite the sight.

They had only used the school to get safely across to another end and were about to leave when darkness descended without warning.

Darkness fell like a curtain being dropped over reality.

Both of them froze.

For days—however many it had been—the Veilwood Playground had existed in perpetual illumination. No sunrise. No sunset. Just constant eerie dim purple daylight, filtering through impossible skies.

But now, night had suddenly arrived.

Aria’s grip tightened around Victor’s arm.

"That’s not normal."

"No," Victor agreed quietly. "It isn’t."

His senses still functioned but vision mattered—especially with her condition. Moving through unfamiliar terrain in pitch blackness while supporting someone missing a leg was asking for disaster.

"We shelter here," he decided.

They chose what appeared to be a former classroom. The windows were cracked but mostly intact, offering some semblance of protection. Victor dragged fallen desks and stacked them against the doorway as a crude barricade.

For the first time in what felt like forever, they sat still.

All of a sudden, Aria’s stomach growled loudly.

Victor blinked... and then, his own stomach responded in kind.

They stared at each other for a second before both almost laughing.

"We haven’t eaten in days..." Aria murmured.

Victor nodded slowly. "True but I’m good."

But internally Victor told himself he’ll be fine. ’I can last longer. Two weeks if I absolutely need to thanks to cultivation.’

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Your belly says otherwise."

He smirked faintly.

Then he gestured toward her pack. "We still have the fruit."

Aria immediately stiffened.

"That plant creature’s fruit."

"Yes."

"Too dangerous. How do we know its not poisoned or something?"

"I doubt it. The plant Child wasn’t exactly trying to harm us," Victor responded with a thoughtful gaze.

Aria crossed her arms. "And I’m missing a leg." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Victor raised both hands. "Fair."

Silence lingered for a bit and soon another growl rang out even louder this time.

Aria sighed deeply. "Alright, you’ve convinced me. If the fruit doesn’t kill me, hunger will."

She pulled the fruit out.

It looked harmless withbsmooth skin with slightly luminescent glows underneath the surface and gave off a faint, pleasant scent.

Victor watched carefully as she took a bite.

They both waited for about ten seconds... and then, Aria blinked as her expression changed.

"...That’s actually really good."

Victor leaned forward. "You don’t feel weird?"

She shook her head while chewing thoughtfully. "No dizziness. No pain. No extra missing limbs."

He snorted.

She continued eating slowly, savoring it despite everything. The flavor seemed almost impossible to describe—sweet but not sugary, refreshing but not cold. It felt nourishing in a way beyond normal food.

When she’d eaten about half, she extended it toward him.

Victor shook his head. "I’m fine."

She frowned. "There’s no way you’re not starving too."

"I’ll manage."

She shoved it closer to his mouth. "We’ve been stuck together for days. Don’t act tough now."

He hesitated, then finally took it and bit.

It was... extraordinary...

After finishing, they decided to take turns sleeping.

Aria slept first.

Victor remained awake, leaning against the wall with his senses stretched outward. He briefly considered entering the Ascendant Realms. If he could access them, maybe he could find solutions to their current problem that renderer them incapable of using their powers without suffering excruciating pain.

But the memory of how he’d ended up here in the first place stopped him...

If his consciousness left and something happened here...

It was too risky so he decided to stay.

Many hours passed before Aria eventually woke.

"Still dark?"

Victor nodded.

She frowned.

Time was wrong here.

Even without tracking days precisely, they both knew this darkness had lasted too long. It felt like over twenty-four hours at least and yet no dawn came.

It made no sense.

They explored the school quietly during this endless darkness.

They found old classrooms with faded chalkboards. A science lab with shattered glass beakers. A gymnasium partially collapsed inward.

In one classroom, Aria found a faded poster of the solar system.

She stared at it for a long moment.

"Remember when things were simple?" she said softly.

Victor leaned against a doorway. "Were they ever? This was the age I was born into so I have no idea."

She smirked faintly.

They even joked at one point about how if this was some kind of twisted field trip from hell, the teacher had seriously failed them...

After waiting so long for the darkness to disappear, it still didn’t...

At this point, they felt stillness was more dangerous than movement...

"We can’t just stay here," Aria stated and Victor agreed.

Even if it was dark... leaving this place remained top priority.

They dismantled their barricade and carefully stepped outside.