Evolving My Undead Legion In A Game-Like World

Chapter 802: Research Centre

Michael stared at the forming portal, mild surprise flickering across his face.

"...So the treasure isn’t even here," he said. "It’s in a secret realm."

Rynne nodded once, her gaze fixed on the shifting light ahead.

"It had to be," she replied. "There was no other way something like this could survive for so long."

The portal continued to stabilize, its edges smoothing out as the void around it grew quiet.

"If they’d kept it in a vault before this place became ruins," she said, "someone would’ve cracked it eventually. No matter how strong the seals were. But a secret realm barely anybody knows about?" She shook her head. "That’s much harder to brute force. After all, you don’t even know it exists. If not for our fortune, this secret could very well go on for another thousand years."

Michael’s eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the portal ripple.

"Let’s find out whether we’re actually the first ones through," he said.

Rynne stepped closer to the portal, stopping just short of its surface. The light reflected faintly in her eyes, illuminating the careful tension in her expression.

"That’s the part I couldn’t confirm with confidence," she admitted. "After all, it’s been thousands of years. Anything can happen."

Michael frowned.

If they truly were the first, that would be great.

But if they were not, this would just be a risky way to waste time.

Rynne took a slow breath.

"Even if someone managed to access it by accident, they wouldn’t necessarily know what they were looking at. Without the context, without understanding what the Breathing Metal is, they might mistake it for something else. Or leave it alone."

The portal pulsed once, brighter now. The air around it shifted, carrying a faint pressure that pressed gently against Michael’s senses.

"It’s stable," Rynne said. "We can go through."

Michael moved first.

He stepped into the light without hesitation, and for a brief moment, the world dissolved. No pain. No sound. Just a strange, weightless stillness that lasted less than a heartbeat before the ground caught him on the other side.

Rynne followed a second later.

Neither of them moved for a while after that.

The sky was red.

It simply sat there, heavy and still, pressing down on everything beneath it.

Michael tilted his head back and stared.

The light it cast was strange. Everything was bathed in a dull warmth, shadows falling at odd angles, colors muted and shifted in ways that made it difficult to judge distance at first glance.

Then he lowered his gaze to the land itself.

It was vast.

Far more than he had expected. The ground stretched out in every direction, broken into uneven terrain. There was no visible edge, no wall, no boundary. Just open space, wide and quiet.

And the buildings.

Clusters of them sat scattered across the landscape like villages dropped at random. Some were close together. Others stood farther apart, isolated structures with wide roofs and thick walls.

Michael counted at least a dozen clusters from where he stood. Possibly more, hidden by the gentle rises in the terrain.

Rynne stood beside him, eyes moving slowly across the landscape. Her expression was controlled, but Michael could see the way her armor pulsed silently.

"This is as far as my knowledge goes," she said.

Michael glanced at her.

"Everything I found in the records described how to reach this place," she continued, her gaze still moving. "That was the extent of it."

She turned her head slightly toward him.

"I don’t know what lives here. I don’t know what those buildings are. I don’t know if this realm has rules we aren’t aware of yet."

She paused.

"So from this point forward, I advise we move with caution."

Michael nodded once.

With everything he had seen so far, and with something as important as the Breathing Metal possibly existing here, he did not believe this place was truly safe.

Michael’s senses sharpened instinctively.

He felt nothing hostile. No pressure. No presence actively reaching toward them. But the stillness of this place was unsettling all the same.

"Let’s move," he said.

Rynne did not argue.

They walked forward together, neither of them speaking.

The crunch of stone beneath their boots echoed faintly across the empty space, the sound swallowed quickly by the vastness of the realm.

None of the buildings showed signs of life. There was no movement or light that stood out anywhere. No sound beyond their own steps.

As they moved deeper into the cluster, the structures grew larger and more deliberate in their layout. The smaller buildings formed loose rings, all subtly angled inward, as though oriented around a central point.

Michael noticed it first.

"These aren’t random," he said quietly.

Rynne slowed, her gaze lifting as she followed the lines of the architecture. After a moment, she nodded.

"No," she agreed. "They’re organized."

At the heart of the cluster stood the largest structure by far.

It dwarfed the surrounding buildings, its wide base anchored deep into the ground. Tall walls of dark stone rose several stories high, marked with faded etchings and worn metal inlays that had long since dulled. Whatever materials once reinforced it had either decayed or been stripped away by time.

Michael stopped at the edge of the open plaza before it.

"That one," he said.

Rynne did not argue.

They approached cautiously.

Up close, the building felt different. Heavy. The stone carried a sense of age that pressed subtly against Michael’s perception.

This place had probably mattered a lot once.

The main entrance stood open.

The doors were gone, reduced to twisted remnants half fused into the frame. Inside, darkness stretched outward, broken only by the red light filtering in from the sky above.

They stepped in.

The interior was vast.

Wide corridors branched outward from a central hall, their floors layered with dust and fragments of collapsed fixtures. Metal rails lined the walls in places, bent and corroded. Broken glass crunched softly underfoot. Strange tables and platforms lay overturned, their surfaces scarred by time and neglect.

Michael exhaled slowly.

"This looks like a research center," he said.

Rynne crouched beside one of the platforms, brushing away dust with her fingers. Beneath it, faint markings glimmered briefly, then faded.

"Yes," she said. "Or something very close to it."

The place felt abandoned in a way that went beyond emptiness.

Years of neglect layered on top of one another.

Michael straightened and looked around.

Though his eyesight allowed him to see in the dark, Michael still created a ball of fire above his palm.