After entering the second Monolith's circle formation, his surroundings suddenly changed.
"Huh?"
The terrain inside the circle formation transformed into a bizarre, alien landscape. The ground was barren and rocky, resembling the surface of a desolate moon.
It was the first time he encountered something like this, but Niveus maintained his composure.
"Has something like this happened in the past?"
There was a short pause before Nono answered hesitatedly.
["No... this situation never happened."]
"You're not lying, are you? You sound like you're hiding something from me."
A pause struck again, this time longer.
["I did hide something from you, but not this one. I really have no idea about this situation."]
"So you did hide something from me!"
["Sorry. But trust me for this one."]
Niveus pondered about her words, eventually forgiving her for keeping something from him. But he made sure he would get an explanation from Nono later.
["Alright. I'll tell you everything after all this is done. I swear upon my name, and if I break it, may the universe punish me."]
"What a way to make a vow, but okay."
Taking a deep breath, Niveus closed his eyes and opened it again.
"By the way, why is it taking so long to activate?"
Soon after he spoke, the usual phenomenon of a Monolith ready to take anyone within its formation began.
The cold stone beneath him thrummed with energy, and a low, resonant hum filled the air.
For a moment, nothing happened—then the world around him suddenly twisted and spun, everything warping as if reality was being pulled apart.
In an instant, Niveus felt a familiar sensation—a rush of displacement, like being pulled through a wormhole.
When the sensation finally subsided, Niveus found himself standing on a vast, desolate plain.
The terrain stretched out endlessly in all directions, a wasteland of jagged rocks and deep craters. The sky above was a swirling vortex of purples and blacks, casting an unnatural light over the alien landscape. The air was thin and cold, carrying a decaying scent.
Niveus scanned his surroundings, his senses on high alert.
"What is this place...?" Niveus whispered to himself, his breath visible in the cold air.
["This place..."] Nono said cautiously. ["It's almost as if... it's a different world entirely."]
Niveus nodded, his gaze narrowing as he scanned the horizon.
'It feels like I was standing on the Moon,' he thought, looking at the stretched light red-colored terrain. 'No, it feels more like Mars.'
He began to walk, his footsteps crunching against the rocky ground.
As Niveus ventured further into the desolate landscape, searching for a way to clear this realm, his eyes were drawn to the horrifying yet beautiful sky above.
"The more I see it, the more I feel something isn't right with the sky."
["I feel the same."]
At first, it appeared to be a swirling of purples and blacks—perhaps an unknown weather phenomenon in that realm. But as he continued to watch, the true nature of the sky began to reveal itself.
Niveus stopped in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat as realization hit him.
The purple sky wasn't just a sky—it was a portal!
A massive, swirling vortex that stretched across the entire horizon, its edges pulsating with a dark, ominous energy.
The portal loomed overhead like a colossal maw, and Niveus could feel the immense power it radiated as if it were capable of devouring entire worlds.
The swirling mass seemed to suck in the light around it. The flickering lights—stars that once twinkled in the distance now appeared to be drawn into the vortex, vanishing into the darkness as though swallowed by some ancient void.
"What the hell is that?!"
The portal's presence filled him with a deep, unsettling dread. It felt as if the very ground beneath his feet could give way at any moment, dragging him into the void above.
["It's dangerous to stay here any longer,"]
Nono's voice echoed in his mind, laced with concern.
["That portal seems drawing in energy from this realm, maybe even preparing to expand. You must leave this place at once, Niveus!"]
'Noted. But, no. I can't ignore a dangerous Monolith like this. Not until I get useful information about what is here.'
["Isn't that portal enough information?!"]
Nono shouted in his mind, causing a slight headache for Niveus.
"Ouch, don't yell in my head," Niveus complained. "And no, the portal isn't enough. I feel like there is something more I can learn here."
["Niveus!"]
Niveus ignored Nono, his golden eyes narrowing as he scanned the terrain. He needed to find where the core was located.
Determined, Niveus pressed on.
He wandered for what felt like hours, his senses on high alert for any sign of the Monolith's core or the enemies. But the terrain was vast and desolate, and with every step, the weight of the portal above seemed to press down on him more and more.
Just when he began to wonder if the core was hidden somewhere far beyond his reach, the ground beneath him trembled.
Niveus halted, his instincts flaring as he gripped his sword tightly.
A low, rumbling sound echoed through the air, growing louder with each passing second.
The earth beneath his feet shook violently, and from the cracks in the rocky terrain, something massive began to emerge.
Niveus stepped back, his eyes widening as he watched the ground split open before him.
"Everything just shaking and trembling whenever something happened, becoming more cliche and cliche that I started hating earthquakes."
Rising from the depths was a towering figure—four meters tall, its body made entirely of stone.
"A golem? No, it feels alive..."
The creature resembled a golem. However, rather than a non-living object that was animated by magic or some arcane energy, it looked like a living creature, an alien of some sort.
Its rough, uneven surface covered in line marks, resembling a gorge, glowed faintly with otherworldly light like its joints. Its eyes were twin orbs of blue flame, burning with a fierce, adamant intensity.
The stone man's blue eyes locked onto Niveus.
At that moment, Niveus felt weirdly familiar with the creature. It felt like he had seen it somewhere, even fought against it, not just once but multiple times.
'Was my game had a part where a player has to fight against this thing? Or my comic? Or maybe it was my novel? Either way, that can't explain why I feel like I, myself, as a real person had fought against it multiple times?'
Niveus quickly snapped out of his thoughts as the stone man began to move. Each step it took shook the ground, sending tremors through the earth as it lumbered toward him with surprising speed for its size.
With a swift motion, he readied his sword, the blade glinting faintly in the dim light as he prepared to face the stone man head-on.
Something like a golem or any tough, rock-based creature was usually a weakness for sharp, bladed weapons, but Niveus felt like he could slice it even knowing that.
"Alright, big guy," Niveus muttered under his breath, his golden eyes narrowing.
"Let's see what you've got!"