Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 1541 Terrifying Orion!

Several minutes dragged on in an eerie, restrained mood, the earlier tension gradually fading into silent readiness.

The teams assembled in the garage started to depart one by one, their movements organized but vigilant, as though all grasped that leaving the camp meant stepping into a realm where life was far from assured.

Max observed them intently.

No idle talk echoed anymore.

No pointless actions.

Each team advanced with clear intent.

Observing this, Max realized it was their turn to depart too.

He directed his eyes to Lucia, scrutinizing her face for an instant. The previous turmoil had evidently rattled her, but composure had returned. The anxiety in her gaze had vanished, giving way once more to the serene and attentive poise he knew well.

A subtle relief settled over Max.

"Let us go," Rose declared, striding ahead to assume command effortlessly.

Lucia kept step beside her, Max and Isabella close on their heels. A bit offset, the other team Rose had consented to escort slotted into line. With no overt cue, the two parties synchronized and proceeded together.

United, they quitted the garage.

One step at a time, they progressed to the southern camp's outflow.

En route, Max scanned his surroundings. The camp's density waned near the perimeter, edifices thinning, cultivators scarcer, the mood turning profoundly precarious. Beyond awaited Orion's unmasked reality.

Right before the gateway, Max detected an inconsistency.

"If thousands of people are heading toward the same destination," he remarked thoughtfully, "then why do you guides not gather together and lead everyone at once? Would that not make things much safer? A larger group should be stronger."

Rose eased her pace.

Then came to a full halt.

She twisted her head, fixing Max with a subtle grin that blended mirth and hidden depth.

"If only it were that simple," she responded.

Max's brow furrowed faintly, eager for her reasoning.

Rose went on, her tone firm from lived knowledge over mere ideas. "A guide can only lead a group of up to ten people. That is the rule on Orion. No guide here dares to break it."

Max's frown intensified. "Why?"

Rose kept her smile, though her eyes grew grave.

"It is just how things are here," she explained. "Orion is not like other places. When too many people gather in one place, it draws attention."

She held briefly, letting the statement sink in before proceeding.

"Not the kind of attention you want."

Her voice deepened with recollections of history. "A long time ago, before this rule existed, guides used to lead large groups. Sometimes a hundred people or more would travel together, believing that strength in numbers would guarantee their safety."

Max listened without a word.

"One such group left," Rose recounted deliberately. "A large group full of strong and experienced people."

She stared forward, eyes remote as though dredging up a familiar tale.

"And none of them came back."

The atmosphere chilled further as her story unfolded.

"Not a single one," she stressed. "Not the people. Not the guides. No one. They simply disappeared."

Max's eyes narrowed a touch.

"Nobody knows what happened to them," Rose appended. "There were no traces. No signs of battle. No remains. It was as if they had been erased."

A short hush fell.

"After that," she pressed on, "the rule was established. No group should exceed ten people. Ever since then, everyone has followed it without exception."

She swung back to face Max.

"And since then, incidents like that have almost never happened again."

Max took in her explanation in quiet reflection.

The reasoning rang straightforward.

Yet its undertone chilled to the bone.

'What had happened to this place to make it so terrifying.' Max pondered intensely. He knew a long time ago a war had taken place in this place. A war so terrifying a true black dragon had fallen here. Max could hardly imagine a power capable of killing a true dragon.

"We are far enough from the other groups now," Rose's voice pierced his musing.

Max shifted his attention to her.

She had paused momentarily to assess the area, her look concentrated as she gauged their distance from the rest. The earlier-departed teams appeared as faint silhouettes ahead, scarce against the immense, fractured terrain.

"It is time to move properly," she stated.

Without awaiting acknowledgment, Rose advanced briskly, her steps turning precise and intent as she steered them deeper into Orion's wilds.

Lucia trailed right after.

Max and Isabella stayed directly behind her.

Behind them, the camp dwindled away.

Upon crossing the southern camp's edge, the world transformed.

Within the camp, despite the strain and vigilance, order prevailed: buildings, inhabitants, a comprehensible cadence. Beyond, it all evaporated.

Raw wildness took its stead.

The earth itself seemed distorted.

Not merely desolate or dead. It appeared ravaged and abandoned to rot across endless ages. The dirt bore a sinister crimson tint, beyond mineral origins—something profound, evoking ancient blood soaked into the ground's core.

Fissures veined the surface chaotically, some mere scratches, others yawning pits to engulf a man, as if colossal might had once sundered the world.

The air hung dense.

Every inhalation dragged, resistant, like the very wind opposed them. A subtle iron tang mingled with primordial decay, a stubborn echo persisting millennia later.

Max's gaze swept the skyline.

Wreckage dotted the expanse.

Not weathered by ages or elements, but born of obliteration. Blades half-sunk in soil, enormous chunks of mysterious edifices, crumbled spires from majestic halls—all hurled randomly like battle's refuse.

Certain fragments still hummed with subtle power ripples, echoes unextinguished.

Afar, the terrain buckled irregularly, heaving and dipping bizarrely. Some expanses gleamed reforged from melt, others gouged into endless chasms visible no end. No vitality stirred: no verdure, no stir.

Nothing but quiet.

An oppressive quiet.

Max perceived it sharply.

No mere hazard zone.

A sepulcher.

A killing field of unfathomable strife.

'What happened here… to make it like this?'

The question surged within as devastation hemmed them. He knew Orion had hosted a war. Word of it had reached him. But beholding it firsthand struck differently.

This transcended ordinary warfare.

This was ruin on an inconceivable magnitude.