“My STICK?!” Joe gasped. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No,” Ralei replied, a brief look of annoyance on his face. “You see it as just a stick because this place’s Resonance has shaped it that way. This realm is... unstable. Warped. I don’t fully understand its logic. From what I’ve gathered, Earth’s inhabitants call it ‘Hell.’ That aligns with my readings.”

  “We’re in Hell?!” Pete blurted.

  Joe scanned the group. Horror crept onto every face. Even Levi, who had met chaos with nothing but snarls so far, looked rattled.

  Ralei, unfazed by their rising dread, continued. “I will assign your quests. You need to go deeper. The balance must be disrupted. Of the twenty-five who entered, only four remain.”

  “Five,” Pete corrected, knocking his knuckles against Betty’s hood. She hadn’t moved an inch.

  Ralei’s looked over Joe’s shoulder towards Betty. Joe could tell something about her unsettled Ralei, though he didn’t say it outright. Instead, he exhaled sharply and turned back to the group. “I hope you’re ready for what comes next. Time is running out.”

  Levi crossed his arms. “If you’re so powerful, why haven’t you stopped this yourself?”

  Ralei met his stare. “Bigger forces are at play. My presence here alone is a risk. Without my interference, your realm would already be gone.”

  Levi started to reply, then hesitated. Whatever comeback he had died before it left his lips.

  “You have a fighting chance, I suggest you take it. This realm has already consumed five percent of your world. It’s slowed for now, unnoticed—but that won’t last. You need to move. Now.”

  Behind him, the shimmering tear he had stepped through flickered. His posture stiffened. Urgency sharpened his features as he edged toward the portal.

  “Wait!” Pete shouted. “We’re trapped in this cave! How do we get out?”

  Joe cursed under his breath. Idiot! How had he not asked that first? He had a few ideas, but none solved the problem of getting Betty out.

  Ralei cocked his head, as if listening to something distant. Then, one by one, his eyes locked onto each of them.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  With a snap of his fingers, reality folded.

  The ground disappeared beneath Joe’s feet. The drop hit like a rollercoaster freefall—his stomach lurched, his head spun. Then, just as quickly, the sensation ended. Solid ground returned beneath him. The suffocating blackness of the cave had vanished.

  Blood-red skies stretched overhead. Jagged, scorched terrain spread in every direction.

  They were outside.

  Joe’s heart nearly gave out as he spun around. Betty was with them.Thank goodness.

  His knee buckled as he tried to step forward. He caught himself, legs still wobbly. “What the hell just happened?”

  “Looks like the old guy yanked us out of that shitty cave,” Levi said, now surveying the area, his gun was now back in his hand.

  “Who even was he?” Pete asked. “Where did he come from?”

  Joe took a second to breathe. The sudden shift had thrown him off balance, literally and mentally.

  “He spoke to me when I first got here,” Joe said, rubbing his face. “Told me to ‘level up’ and ‘disrupt the balance.’ Couldn’t have been more cryptic if he tried.”

  “He called it a ‘realm,’” Levi noted. “Think there are other places like this? Like home?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Silence hugged the group as the thought sank in.

  “This is where I came in,” Jane said, breaking the quiet. She turned in a slow circle, then pointed to a dip in the terrain. A jagged crevice. Joe figured it led back to the Harbinger’s cave. “I crawled down a hole there.”

  “Guess you didn’t need to abandon me after all,” Betty quipped.

  Levi scoffed. “Oh, now she talks.”

  Joe shot him a warning look before turning to Betty. “I told you we weren’t going to abandon you. But Levi’s got a point—what was up with you back there?”

  Betty hesitated. “That guy gave me the creeps.”

  Levi rolled his eyes.

  Joe stopped himself from rolling his. No point pushing it further now.

  “So we’re in Hell?” Jane asked. “Like, actual Hell? Or just something we think is Hell?”

  Joe turned, scanning the landscape with fresh eyes. Bloodstained rock. Endless, scorched plains. The ground looked almost... untouched, like it had reset after The Sullen Abyss.

  “Looks like it,” he said.

  “I never really thought about what Hell would be like,” Levi said, staring at the jagged horizon. “But honestly? This isn’t far off.”

  Joe nodded. “Yeah. Pretty close to the stories.”

  “At least we killed the Harbinger,” Pete pointed out. “And we disrupted whatever was happening back home.”

  True. It had looked bad for a while back there.

  “Still, five percent,” Levi said. “Depending on how he meant that... that could be, what, three hundred miles? More?”

  Joe shook his head at Levi. Trying to indicate that he probably shouldn’t be doing the math in front of Pete.

  Joe instinctively went to check his stats—then stopped. A memory clicked.

  “Wait a goddamn minute.” He spun toward Betty and stomped to her hood.

  Her headlights flicked onto him. “What?”

  “You can see your inventory now?” Joe demanded. “The map? Everything?”

  “Oh, yeah!” Pete cut in. “She said she couldn’t earlier.”

  Joe’s glare burned into Betty. She hesitated just long enough to set him off.

  “Why the hell didn’t you mention that sooner?!”

  “I don’t know!” Betty said. “I didn’t even realise I could see that stuff until suddenly I could! And when I woke up—after you killed that fat bastard—I was Level 10! No clue how it happened!”

  The group’s reaction came in unison.

  “WHAT?!”

  They all pulled up her stats:

  She really was Level 10... And what in the ever loving was a "Maniacal Warlord"?

  Same as that fire-roach that nearly took Joe out when they arrived.

  “You didn’t even fight the Harbinger!” Levi snapped. “How the hell are you that high?”

  Betty’s headlights flickered, almost smug. “Maybe it’s just a skill issue. Ever think of that?”

  Joe saw red. “You son of a—” His words cut off as he kicked her bumper, hard.

  “Hey! Watch it, dumbass! This ain’t cheap!”

  “I know! I paid for it!” Joe threw up his hands, pacing as his brain scrambled for answers.

  How?

  She’d barely fought. Just a few eels in the cave—nowhere near enough XP to explain this.

  Unless...

  Unless combat wasn’t the only way to level up.

  But what else would count?

  Joe turned back to her. “Are you absolutely sure there’s nothing you’re doing that’s boosting your level?”

  “Far as I know,” she said. “And don’t kick me again.”

  Joe ignored that last part. His anger cooled as logic took over. Something weird was happening with Betty. Ralei had hinted at it—he hadn’t given her sentience, meaning it had happened when they arrived.

  That raised more questions than answers. And if even Ralei didn’t know, Joe sure as hell wasn’t cracking the mystery anytime soon.

  He scanned their surroundings. Nothing was attacking them—yet. Small victories. Now was as good a time as any to regroup, check their Resonance, and finally figure out what the hell was up with that damn stick.

  Joe exhaled, rubbing his temple. “Alright. First, we check our stats, weapons, quests—everything. We’ll deal with Betty later. We should all take stock of our Resonance, and I need to see if this so-called mani-staff is actually worth anything. Once that’s done, we figure out our next move.”

  The group nodded in unison, then collectively slipped into that vacant, far-off stare—classic menu-checking mode. It never stops looking weird.