Unexpectedly, he opened his eyes.

  Lucas knew any chance of survival was unlikely, but he felt better. The oppressive burning was gone, although he still felt the raw scraping of flesh from the dagger wound. He pushed himself up and felt the sharp ground dig into his hands. As he raised his head, all he saw was an angry landscape of obsidian. Ominous spires dotted the land, ending in sharp points that radiated malice. A hateful red glow permeated everything.

  The fuzz around his vision intensified, an almost tangible thing. He looked behind him, but the portal had vanished into mist. He blinked, and the fuzz did solidify.

  It flashed into view with an angry blaring, fading in and out of view worryingly.

  It flickered out of view then, leaving a fretting Lucas wondering about Gods and what it meant if they were all busy, or worse, gone.

  Two of the new windows battled for his attention, and it killed his hopes for any other humans near him. Either this Grand Duchy was fallen, or he was so far away from civilization there wasn't a Lord close enough to be perceived.

  They vanished as soon as he finished reading, so it clearly had some sort of capability to track his eyes or read his mind. That was a sobering thought. A new one appeared after about a minute, much larger than the others.

  Lucas was startled. Was this what it meant by the System? It looked like a video game, almost. He had so many questions. What was a tier one class? How did he get one? Why were some of his stats so jacked up compared to others? Were those stats normal? What were all of the titles and traits? He wet his lips and nervously stuttered out "M-menu"

  Locked? He hesitantly tried tapping them, one after another.

  Lucas's curiosity was sated about them. They required certain Achievements before being unlocked. Although, it was bad that more than half of his Menu was locked. Hesitantly, he brought his attention to his Status, pressing them in order.

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  Lucas also opened up the Achievements Menu, but it was empty at the moment. Perhaps it didn't register anything he did before integration as an achievement? Maybe he was outside of its sight? There were a lot of 'maybes' and not nearly not enough certainties. Why was the Magic description different from the others? Why could it grant him skills when he doesn't have a class? Are they active even though he can't access that menu? Were the hallucinatory whispers part of the [Dark Murmurs] skill? Did that mean these gods leaked through into his world and that's why the... Fire Sprites(?) got into his apartment building, along with some kind of Prophet? His train of thought was derailed by the crunch of broken glass under something's feet, and his head jerked up, scanning the horizon for anything that could have caused that sound. For some reason, Lucas felt that he wasn't quite alone out here.