I Was Reborn in Another World, But I Awoke Inside a Corpse

Chapter 153: Into the Abyss

The path beyond the Guardian's throne should have been final.

Instead, it only deepened.

The light grew thin. The roots faded. The walls no longer pulsed with life.

Isaac, Sylvalen, and Lira descended into a cold silence—until they reached the chamber that wasn't supposed to exist.

It was empty.

No dreamscape. No illusion.

Just a massive circular cavern—and at its center, a single crack in reality.

It glowed softly with pale blue and black flame, rotating like a dying star. It wasn't a portal. It was a rupture.

"What is this?" Sylvalen whispered.

Isaac stepped closer.

He could feel it in his bones. In his system.

"It's not part of the Stillroot Nest," he said. "It's beneath it."

"Then what's on the other side?" Lira asked.

The air around the rift pulsed once.

And a voice echoed—not with words, but with feeling.

Hunger… apathy… and a dream that is no longer his own.

Sylvalen reached out with her soul-sense, eyes narrowing.

"Something's wrong. The dream Belphegor casts over our world… it's incomplete."

"Then what's fueling the rest?" Lira asked.

"Not Belphegor," Sylvalen replied. "Something else latched onto him. Something deep."

Isaac clenched his fists.

"So he's not doing this on purpose."

He turned to the rift.

"Then we go through. We find him. We wake him. We remove whatever's feeding off his mind."

But just as he was about to step forward—his vision flickered.

A familiar box appeared.

[Status – Isaac]

[Haven't selected 8 skills]

Reminder: Skill selection pending from milestone level advancement.

He blinked.

"I almost forgot…"

He hadn't chosen a single new skill since reaching Level 81. That meant 8 were still unclaimed.

The System flared softly.

Six skill choices floated in front of him—only visible to Isaac.

But one line stood out above the rest:

[EX Skill – Dreambreaker's Compass]

Allows you to detect and pursue the exact spatial location of any target within infinite-layered dream, illusion, or abyssal dimensions. Ignores cloaking, spatial misalignment, and false identities.

Can locate beings even across dimensions, as long as a dream signature or soul fragment is known.

Passive, always active. Perfect for tracking entities lost to sleep, madness, or false gods.

He didn't hesitate.

"I choose this one."

As he confirmed it, his eyes briefly shimmered with deep gold. The system etched a new compass rose into his soul—pointing straight into the Abyss.

He turned to the others.

"He's in there."

"Where exactly?" Lira asked.

Isaac's gaze sharpened.

"Below the ninth silence. Beneath the still-tide. Past a storm that doesn't move."

Sylvalen raised an eyebrow. "That… means nothing."

"It does now," Isaac replied.

"That's where Belphegor sleeps."

Entering the Abyss

They stepped into the rupture together.

Instantly, the world turned upside down.

No light. No sound. No form.

Only motionless gravity—a force that didn't pull downward, but inward. Like sinking into a forgotten thought.

And then… they landed.

They stood on black stone beneath a starless sky.

Endless towers of bone and frozen time stretched in every direction. No wind. No sun. Just pressure and the deep, ancient breath of something sleeping.

Lira looked around. "This is the Abyss?"

Isaac nodded. "One part of it. One layer."

His new skill pulsed in his vision.

A glowing thread, faint and delicate, tugged his soul toward the east—into a sea of unmoving mist.

"He's not far," Isaac said.

"But he's not alone either."

As they walked across the hushed plane, a shape stirred far beyond the mist—massive, coiled, unmoving.

And above it, something else writhed—small and parasitic, made of dreamstuff, stagnation, and stolen purpose.

The dream was not Belphegor's anymore.

But Isaac had come to take it back.