Primordial Awakening: I Can Evolve My Skills Infinitely - Chapter 281

Chapter 281: The Only Path For a Primordial, The Road of Purgatory
Fwish!

Sam pushed open the gray gate that led into [Purgatory].

A chilling wind poured out immediately, brushing against his skin like frozen smoke.

The air itself felt alive; cold, heavy, and suffocating.

[Heaven] had rejected him.

[Hell] had rejected him too.

And now, standing before the place that existed between both; the realm where souls were judged; Sam finally stepped forward.

This was the last option.

It was either he went through or stayed trapped here forever, waiting in a place that refused to let him die but would never let him live.

He had no other choice.

‘Also… I have a feeling the two monarchs are inside,’ Sam thought.

[You have a… neutral feeling about this.]

‘Heh. A new one yet again.’

Sam took a steady breath, gripping his sword tighter.

Then, without hesitating, he pushed the gate fully open and stepped inside.

The instant he crossed through, the gate slammed shut behind him.

A hollow sound echoed in the mist.

He turned around, but it was gone.

Only fog remained; thick, endless, and moving.

Sam looked ahead, but he could barely see a meter in front of him.

Everything was gray.

No ground. No horizon.

Only a faint white haze stretching infinitely forward.

The mist began to move, swirling slowly, then rushing toward him.

Within seconds, it consumed him completely.

The cold pressed against his skin like invisible fingers.

He couldn’t even see his own hand when he raised it in front of his face.

Meaning there was only one direction left to go. Forward.

Sam gripped his [Primordial Sword] and started walking.

His steps were slow but firm, every echo fading almost immediately into the emptiness.

Slash!

He swung the sword at the mist, testing it.

The blade cut through nothing.

Not even resistance.

‘Just had to test it,’ he thought quietly, lowering the weapon again.

And so, he kept walking.

Each step was silent except for the faint hum of his sword’s aura and the low rhythm of his breathing.

He didn’t expect anything to attack right away; but he stayed ready.

The rules of this world never changed: anything could try to kill him at any time.

He couldn’t gain experience anymore until he completed his advancement task; until both monarchs were dead; but it didn’t matter.

He’d kill anything that appeared. He couldn’t take chances.

Minutes passed, the mist never breaking, the silence never ending.

Then, finally—

Fwish!

A faint shift in the air.

Sam stepped out of the fog and found himself in a small clearing.

The mist stopped just behind him, swirling like a wall.

Before him stood another gate, and beyond it stretched a massive road made of gray stone.

On both sides of that road were shadowy, half-formed buildings, dark, lifeless, and partially swallowed by fog.

The road was long. Too long.

He couldn’t see where it ended because halfway through, the mist rose again, swallowing everything.

‘Another gate,’ Sam thought, narrowing his eyes.

He had already tried two.

If this one rejected him too… then it was truly over.

He tightened his grip on the sword and took a deep breath.

Then, slowly, he reached out and placed his hand against the gate.

He didn’t push it. He just waited.

And then—

Tremble!

The ground vibrated slightly, and the gate began to move on its own.

The metal shuddered, and with a slow, heavy creak, it swung open.

Panels appeared before Sam’s eyes in glowing gray text.

—

[Enter, Primordial.]

[Welcome to the “Road of Purgatory”.]

[Reach the end to face them.]

—

Sam stared at the words and felt a grin slowly form on his face.

It didn’t reject him. That meant this was his path.

The only one open to him. He could move forward.

But now came the difficult part, whatever waited at the end of this road.

Still, that didn’t bother him. Not even a little.

[Proceed.]

Sam nodded and stepped through.

As he crossed, the mist behind him began to shift again, slowly crawling over the clearing.

It swallowed everything, the ground, the buildings, the open space, and by the time Sam looked back, there was nothing left but the endless fog.

The gate shut behind him.

‘Can’t go back,’ he thought simply.

He looked forward again.

The road stretched far into the mist.

Gray buildings lined both sides, cracked and hollow, their windows filled with darkness.

And the mist didn’t just hang low, it surrounded everything.

Even above him, it formed a ceiling, as if trapping him in a corridor of smoke.

‘What’s the point of this?’ Sam wondered. ‘It’s not like there’s anything in—’

ROOOOOOAR!

The sound cut through his thoughts like a blade.

It wasn’t one roar, it was thousands.

Sam froze, and slowly turned around.

“What the fuck…”

Inside the mist behind him, tens of thousands of crimson eyes appeared, glowing faintly through the fog.

All of them blinked at once.

Then they roared again, in perfect unison.

It was deafening.

The sound felt like claws scraping the inside of his skull.

Sam gritted his teeth and looked around.

The same crimson eyes appeared in the mist on both sides of the road.

And above him too.

They were everywhere, tens of thousands of monsters hidden within the mist.

‘Guess I won’t be walking into that,’ Sam thought grimly.

Even with all his power, he wasn’t dumb enough to push his luck against things like these.

Horrors beyond reason, beyond even the system’s ability to describe.

‘Was [Forsakened] secretly a cosmic horror game? Because it sure feels like it,’ he muttered internally.

[Not even close to what we will see later.]

‘…Damn.’

That probably meant that once he reached the [Soul Realm], the horrors would only get worse.

He sighed. But for now, there was only one thing to do: keep moving forward.

And then—

Fwish! Ding!

[Road of Purgatory: You are a corrupt soul. You must cleanse your soul to proceed.]

Sam frowned slightly.

“…?”

[At every stage of the road, the mist will block your path. A wave of monsters will appear. Defeat them quickly to continue.]

[If you take too long… you’ll join the others. It is an instant game over, no matter how strong you are.]

RUMBLE!

The ground beneath Sam shook violently. He turned around, and his eyes widened.

The mist behind him was moving. It wasn’t just swirling anymore. It was advancing.

Slowly at first, then faster, creeping along the ground like a living tide.

“Holy shit.”

He could see faint shapes within it, massive figures, long arms, claws scraping forward.

The outlines of things that shouldn’t exist.

And every few seconds, another flash of crimson eyes blinked to life.

The mist was closing in.

Luckily, the fog from the sides wasn’t moving.

Only the one behind him.

But that meant the entire road had become a race against death.

‘A battle against time,’ Sam realized.

The [Road of Purgatory] stretched endlessly ahead, and each part of it would likely be worse than the last.

The sheer number of “things” moving inside the mist made it clear, almost nobody survived this.

The success rate had to be near zero. And then another message appeared.

[Only a few of your kind have ever completed the “Road of Purgatory”.]

[And even then… many of them are inside the mist. Won’t you join them?]

Sam’s expression darkened.

That meant other Primordials, beings like him, had tried this before. And died.

No matter how strong they’d been, once they’d been caught in the mist, they were erased instantly.

It didn’t matter if they were gods or monsters, one touch, and it was over.

Sam clenched his sword tighter. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Not to him.

[Well then.]

[Let us begin.]

The moment the words appeared, the mist behind him accelerated, rolling forward faster than before.

It rushed like a flood, erasing everything in its path.

Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“Fine.”

And with that, he dashed forward, his body cutting through the gray air as he raced into the endless road ahead.

He refused to be overtaken.