I Can Only Cultivate In A Game

"Guys..." Brin voiced with a disturbed tone. "We're not alone."

From the shadows, slithering shapes crawled forward. They were insectoid in appearance, with glistening black exoskeletons and too many eyes.

A low screeching sound began to echo.

Victor barely had time to react when one lunged at Xuan Qing.

She turned to bolt left but her body flung itself right, directly into the path of the beast.

"Xuan!" Victor shouted and moved without thinking.

He turned right, slashed left, and his blade surprisingly found its mark.

The beast let out a strangled hiss and crumpled while twitching after two of it's limbs had been cleaved off.

"Right is left and left is right... Up is down and down is up..."

Victor muttered as he hoisted Xuan Qing onto his shoulder as she yelped in protest.

"Don't drop me again!"

"Stop running off then!"

Another creature shrieked.

This one leapt at Mirael, and she dodged straight into a player's sword swing.

Blood spattered, not from the creature, but from her arm. "You idiot! That was my side!"

"It's not my fault! I thought you were on my right—"

"You mean your left, dumbass!"

She had leapt in the opposite direction of where she intended to.

Victor growled whe adjusting Xuan Qing on his back. "We can't fight like this. No one moves unless they call it out. Treat left as right and right as left."

"You expect us to remember that in the middle of battle?!"

"Do it, or we die here."

Another shriek that sounded more grueling rumbled across the bizarre landscape.

From behind a floating cliff, a massive predator emerged. It looked like a spider, but with wings made of smoke and eyes that flickered like broken lanterns.

Aeri Fan immediately took the lead. "Defensive formation! Back-to-back! Call out all movements!"

Victor passed Xuan Qing to Mirael. "Keep her safe."

Xuan Qing huffed while kicking lightly. "I don't need to be kept safe."

Victor ignored her. He activated his Void Emperor Bloodline.

His body radiated with that now-familiar milky glow, and arrow-like marks lit up along his arms. His perception sharpened despite the world's nonsense.

The monster lunged.

'Opposite... opposite...'

Victor sidestepped, recalculating the reversed physics in real-time and slashed upward. His blade caught the wing.

Black ichor splattered the ground, hissing where it landed. The creature screamed as its entire body unraveled into shadow before reforming again.

Aeri Fan leapt in, activating a soul pulse. A golden ripple burst from her palm, disrupting the creature's cohesion.

"NOW!" she shouted.

Victor followed up.

His blade ignited with qi as he activated his dragon Breathing arts.

[ Dragon Breathing Art Activated ]

Flames escaped different parts of his body and converged towards his blade, turning it into a serpentine looking blaze of glory.

He cut left and hit the mark on the right.

The monster shrieked and collapsed, melting into the earth upon catching fire.

On the other hand Juno, Brin and Vortex had dealt with the other creatures around.

Silence ensued briefly as they panted.

The group stayed tense for a full minute.

"Is it over?" Mirael asked.

"For now," Victor muttered. He glanced up at the seven moons. They hadn't moved.

Aeri Fan walked over while wiping her blade. "What is this place? It's like we stepped into another dimension."

Victor stared into the shifting shadows of the strange world.

Even with his bloodline active, he could barely sense what lay ahead. But he knew one thing:

"Tarkos has to be here. I'm sure of it. But we're no use to him dead... We first need to make sure we survive this hell hole."

They began to move cautiously and slowly, relearning every step, every swing, every breath.

Welcome to the inverted world beneath the Blight Swamps. A place where the laws of reality refused to play fair.

...

...

(( Hours Later ))

The strange world beneth the waterfall was nothing short of surreal.

Victor crouched inside the moss-coated alcove that served as their temporary refuge.

Faint blue light emitted from the glowing spores growing from the walls, providing just enough visibility to make out the others as they collapsed in exhaustion.

Half a day of navigating this twisted realm had taken its toll on everyone.

The air felt almost syrupy, and rippled subtly like the very world breathed alongside them.

Their qi which was normally flowing like a river now felt sluggish and muted, as though the very fabric of this place resisted their power.

"Whatever this place is…" Victor muttered, eyes narrowing, "Its not meant for normal folks of Ascendant Realms."

"We barely made it out alive," Mirael gasped while sitting on a stone with her bow lying across her lap.

Blood caked the bow and streaked her robes. "One more wave of those monsters and I would've lost an arm."

Xuan Qing pouted as she sat beside a crumbled pillar. She still struggled to master the strange reversed navigation of the realm. "Forward is backward, left is right—who designed this place, a drunk array master?"

No one laughed. Not because it wasn't funny, but because fatigue and caution had dulled their humor.

Victor leaned back and exhaled. "This realm's logic… it warps everything. Even qi behaves differently here. I can't channel as much force through my Shadow Crescent Strike anymore."

"And those creatures," muttered Aeri Fan while wiping grime from her cheek, "their skin is absurdly durable. It's like their flesh is reinforced with metal threads."

Vortex nodded. "My venom doesn't work as good. I had to pierce the skull of that centipede-like thing for effect."

They had no idea where they were, how deep they had fallen, or how large this hidden world stretched.

But one thing was certain—it was dangerous.

As they debated their next steps, Victor stood up and walked to the edge of their hideout, gazing out over the twisted landscape.

To the north, were spiky peaks pierced the sky like melanin spires. Chained trees floated sideways between them, some swaying as though caught in a perpetual storm.

Black birds with ember-like eyes cawed and vanished into the thick clouds swirling above.

To the east, the land descended into what looked like a massive basin filled with glowing purple marshes. Thick fog blanketed the area, and strange serpentine shapes occasionally writhed within it, just beneath the surface.

To the south, a chasm yawned wide, splitting the terrain. The crack glowed faintly from deep within, as if magma or something far more mysterious pulsed in its heart.

And to the west, endless twisted forests stretched out, where the trees whispered unintelligibly. Even from afar, Victor could feel a faint psychic pressure emanating from that direction.

"Every path looks like death," muttered Mirael.

"But we need to find Tarkos," Brin stated. "He came here for the plant. It must be somewhere in this… hellscape."

Aeri Fan suddenly snapped her fingers. "Wait. The robe piece. Let's try it again."

Everyone was instantly on board.

Without wasting a second, Vortex who had previously performed the technique, stepped forward and retrieved the piece of Tarkos's robe from Victor.

Vortex channeled qi through his fingers and closed his eyes as he formed a precise set of gestures in the air.

Pale green light enveloped the ragged piece of cloth. A low vibration riopled through the surroundings and then the cloth floated.

Just like last time, it was tethered by a thin golden thread that appeared visible for an instant and then turned invisible in the next.

It hovered like before but this time there was a noticable difference...

It suddenly jerked forward swiftly as though yanked by an invisible hand, and began gliding through the air toward the east.

Everyone stared.

"East… toward the fog-covered marshes," Victor muttered.

"Then he's here. The assassin Tarkos is in this realm and he's alive," Aeri Fan whispered.

"Or barely holding on," Juno added grimly.

Victor clenched his fists. "Let's move. But no unnecessary fights. We have to conserve our qi."

Xuan Qing stood up while brushing her clothes with faux dignity despite looking like a mess. "About time we stopped sitting around."

The group packed up what little they had and formed a single line behind the floating cloth, which moved steadily through the blue-lit environment.

As they followed, Victor couldn't help but reflect.

This place wasn't simply a pocket realm, it had rules.

Twisted ones. It affected qi flow, changed orientation, and somehow felt… ancient.

He wanted to know more about it but it wasn't a place he enjoyed spending time in.

His thoughts were broken when Mirael stumbled into a floating branch and cursed as it turned into a swarm of spiritflies.

Another battle was barely avoided as the team cloaked themselves in low aura signatures, sneaking away from potential confrontation.

Hours passed, and the sky remained in eternal night under the eerie watch of seven pale moons.

It never turned day.

Each moon seemed to shift slightly as they moved, changing shape and orbit like they were alive.

The cloth stopped once or twice and spun in place before continuing again... almost like Tarkos was on the move, or worse, being moved.

No one could tell.

Victor's expression tightened.