Regression of the Manaless Sword God

On the 20th floor 20.

Ethan reached the floor using the elevator. The moment he entered, the first thing he noticed was the clutter of keyboards and people speaking nonstop.

Red alerts were popping up on a few of their computer screens, indicating that a rift had been formed which was yet to be cleared.

Simultaneously, there were some where the alerts turned green, assuring the clearance of the rift.

The entire floor was just that. Hundreds of people kept track of the rifts and monsters in different regions.

’It’s all chaos... how do they even do this?’

He simply couldn’t imagine himself ever being in this place.

He kept looking at them while moving further down, and as he went by, someone stepped out from that chaotic atmosphere.

He was a tall guy in a clean suit with glasses. With a smile, he extended his hand towards Ethan.

"You must be Ethan? The guild leader informed me about you. I am Joah."

Ethan shook his hand and nodded his head. In that brief moment when he touched his hand, he knew that the man before him was strong.

It was a given that he would be, since he was in the top guild of the world.

"Follow me. I will brief you about the Abyss of Origin."

He said and walked ahead, heading for the area where they keep tabs on the forbidden zones.

After almost a minute, they reached the section where the atmosphere was different.

There was only one person there staring at the huge screen before her with a big cup of coffee in her hand.

"There isn’t much that we can do in the forbidden zones, so only one person is enough to monitor that area."

The woman glanced at Ethan with a side eye once, took a sip of her coffee, and continued after Joah.

"The changes keep on happening there, but there isn’t much we can do about it. Besides monitoring what happens and drinking coffee, I don’t have to do anything else."

"Don’t be like that, Meg. It’s an important task." Joah spoke in a gentlemanly manner, not minding her words at all.

"Then you do it. You have been keeping me here only cause you are afraid I will surpass you."

"Yeah, yeah. You are better than me. And it’s not me who wants you here but the guild leader."

"As if I will believe that. You were the one who asked her to place me here."

Meg slammed the cup on the desk and was about to go at Joah, but before she could, Ethan stopped them.

"Can you tell me what’s going on here?"

He was getting annoyed seeing them go at each other like cat and dog.

One was calm and polite, like a gentleman, while the other one was fierce, ready to tear him apart.

"Ah, he is Ethan. The guild leader asked me to give him all the information we have about the Abyss of Origin and also to arrange a flight for him to go there."

"The guild leader did? Hmm?"

Meg sized him up more clearly now, but did not say anything even though she couldn’t understand why Aurora would do something like this.

"Alright." She said and showed him the full satellite view of the Abyss of Origin.

"This is it."

Ethan looked at the continent that no longer had any humans.

"Why is it all red?" He asked after seeing only the red mark on the screen.

The image did look like a continent with its shape, but what it contained was all red marks.

He had only just asked that question, but before anyone could brief him on that, he realised what that meant.

"Monsters?"

The red markings on the screen symbolised millions, if not billions, of monsters that inhabit the continent now.

Each red dot on the image was a monster, but their quantity was so large that it felt like the entire continent was red.

"There isn’t even room for a single person to live there," Meg spoke but didn’t say anything further.

There was no need to. Anyone who looked at that would understand just how grave a situation it is there.

Going there meant death. Even S-rank hunters can’t come back unscathed from there, the sole exception being Aurora, and he was planning to go there alone... that only meant one thing: even his corpse won’t be left if he goes there.

The only thing that was good enough to explain this place now was... hell.

"We have only been able to venture to the outskirts of the continent; no one has ever managed to get to the core till now," Meg explained further.

She pointed her finger at the screen and pulled away, changing the 2d image into a 3d projection.

Now the scenario was clearer. There were many small dots on the edges; the number got lower and lower as it followed the core. But the dots got bigger there.

The real ones, the ones who were responsible for killing the S-rankers, were there.

Meg then pointed at one of the parts, closer to the core but still far from there.

"This is the point till where guild leader has managed to go. She turned back after reaching that point."

’How many monsters did she kill to reach that point? The sword must be somewhere around the core. So I will have to go even further than Aurora. How did Ellie do this?’

He couldn’t believe it. The more he got to know what Eleanor went through in his past life, the more he felt indebted to her. More than that, he hated that she had to go through all of that alone, while he remained useless.

"Not anymore. Give me the information about every monster there, and also prepare for my departure."

Nothing could stop him from going there now.