The Shattered Temple

The last monster blocking their path wailed and dissipated into points of light under the dual strike of Vivian's precise ice spike to the brain and Greg's follow-up sticky incendiary bottle.

The clamor of battle abruptly receded, leaving only the slightly hurried breathing of the two, which sounded exceptionally clear in the unusually empty and silent environment.

Greg raised his head. With his vision no longer obstructed, he was finally able to get a close look at the temple.

"Tsk, this modeling, this atmosphere... the dev team was really afraid players wouldn't know this is the final boss room."

Even though he was mentally prepared, and even though he had stared at its pixelated compositions or rendered screenshots countless times before a screen, Greg still felt a strong sense of novelty and oppression when the building actually appeared in its physical form, carrying the weight of ten million years of erosion and a tangible texture.

What stood before him was not a sacred and towering temple in the traditional sense.

It was more like a malformed creation haphazardly piled together by some mad giant using shards of nightmares and the scars of the world.

The overall structure presented an irregular tilt, covered in jagged cracks as if it might collapse at any moment, yet it was forcibly held in this eerie balance by some invisible force.

The stone making up the main body was not a simple gray-white, but a muddy and oppressive mixture of dark red, deep purple, sunken black, and large patches of sickly green moss that looked like festering sores.

Countless twisted human reliefs crawled over the towering walls and broken pillars. Their postures were filled with despair and a sacrificial sense of the macabre. Under the dim, flickering light, they cast distorted, swaying shadows that seemed to wiggle like living things.

No matter how well a game rendered it, there was always a screen in between.

This feeling of one's very soul being tainted by the malice of the architecture itself... was something that could only be felt by actually standing here.

Greg licked his dry lips. There was no fear in his amber eyes; instead, they flickered with the light of a battle rush.

He didn't know if he had been infected by Victoria's personality or if his increase in strength had changed his mindset, but he certainly didn't hate exploring dungeons anymore.

Standing beside him, Vivian felt something entirely different.

She had never been exposed to the concept of a 'game.' Her perception of this building was entirely derived from the direct impact of the moment.

A massive and cold invisible pressure, like viscous seawater, emanated from the shattered temple and weighed heavily on her heart, even causing a subtle, almost imperceptible sluggishness in her mana circulation.

Her ice-blue eyes widened slightly, the distorted outline of the building reflected in her pupils as an instinctive wariness quietly rose within her.

However, when she caught a glimpse of the fearless Greg beside her from the corner of her eye, the heavy sense of oppression in her heart strangely dissipated by more than half.

An indescribable sense of security quietly blossomed.

As long as he was by her side, even the terror of this desecrated place became something she could face.

"Then let's keep moving."

Greg's voice pulled her back from her momentary daze. He cracked his neck with a slight click, his gaze locked onto the main entrance that looked like the mouth of a giant beast.

"Everything in the way has been cleared. The final goal is right in front of us."

Without the slightest hesitation, he took the first step toward the entrance that radiated an ominous aura.

The stone doors, covered in eerie reliefs, were not completely closed, leaving a gap just wide enough for two people to pass through side-by-side. Inside the gap was an even denser darkness.

Greg reached out his hands, pressed them against the ice-cold door panels, and pushed slightly—

"Creeeeeak..."

The ear-grating sound of friction echoed before the empty ruins, sounding exceptionally piercing.

The doors were slowly pushed open further, and the thick darkness from behind the doors rushed out, mixed with an even more stale scent and a hint of a strange, sweet fishiness.

Vivian took one last look at the desolate and deathly silent ruins outside and took a deep breath. Her ice-blue mana circulated slightly over her skin, dispelling the bone-chilling cold that tried to seep in. She then followed quickly, her figure disappearing into the darkness of the temple's interior along with Greg.

Beyond the door was not the open hall they had imagined, but an exceptionally long corridor.

The stone walls on both sides were similarly covered in twisted reliefs, though the ones here seemed relatively better preserved. One could vaguely discern patterns of blurry scenes, but every figure presented an extremely uncomfortable sense of distortion and fragmentation.

Dust, accumulated over untold years, uniformly covered the walls and floor, as well as the long-extinguished lamps embedded in the walls, making the entire corridor seem even more deathly silent.

The air was almost stagnant. Only the sound of their footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, traveling far before hauntingly returning as eerie echoes.

In the original game, there was a save point here, but this was reality, so no such thing existed. Greg had to complete this on one life; there would be no second chance.

"By the way, my other half, your constitution is simply too abnormal."

During their long walk, Nightmare's lazy voice, carrying a hint of inquiry, rang directly in Greg's mind.

"Even though you currently possess the Godhood of a Demigod, it is simply incredible that you could tank that breath attack earlier without any Divine Protection and only suffer such minor injuries..."

Greg didn't stop walking, but a somewhat roguish smile appeared on his face as he responded in his mind.

"What's so strange about that? I was born with a unique skeletal structure—a once-in-a-thousand-years martial arts genius. It's only natural for me to be able to do something like this."

He paused. "Why? You want to learn? I can teach you! The secret is simple: just stick to ten pushups, ten squats, and a one-kilometer run every day. As long as you can keep it up, I guarantee you'll be as strong as me in no time!"

Nightmare was silent for two seconds—a silence that seemed filled with a speechless stare.

Then, her cold voice rang out with a hint of gritted teeth. "...Are you treating me like that foolish and shallow bitch Serafina?"

Greg replied, "Hey now, she is your younger sister after all, isn't she? Why do you hate her so much? Is it just because she uses divine arts to give herself those two eye-blindingly giant treasure chests?"

Greg voiced the doubt that had been bothering him for some time.

In their daily interactions, he could clearly feel that Nightmare wasn't a petty deity. Otherwise, their relationship wouldn't have evolved into the kind where they could tease each other like this.

Therefore, there had to be some other reason why their relationship had turned out this way.