The universe must have heard me being optimistic and decided it was time to put me back in my place, because the purple sky suddenly turned a dark, angry shade of bruised plum and the wind started picking up with a low, wet whistle.
The miasma wasn't just drifting around anymore; it was beginning to swirl into thick, heavy clouds that looked like industrial smoke from a factory in the ABC region on a rainy Tuesday morning.
I could feel the pressure dropping fast, the air becoming so thick that every breath felt like I was inhaling wet cement that was slowly setting inside my windpipe.
There wasn't a single cave or overhanging rock in this part of the ravine that looked like it could provide even the slightest bit of shelter from whatever toxic hurricane was brewing above our heads.
My new bloodline was working overtime, my skin glowing with a faint, greasy golden light as it tried to process the massive influx of corruption, but I could feel my pores beginning to burn as if I were standing too close to an open furnace.
Even Profit seemed a bit annoyed by the change in the weather, his nine tails tucking in closer to his crystal body while he made a high-pitched sound like a microwave beeping that your food is finally done.
Then the system panel forced its way back into my field of view, this time with a faint smell of burning hair that really didn't help with the general atmosphere of impending doom and gross smells.
The text was flashing in that same terrible font, reading [The pressure is unsustainable. Recommends anchoring the 'Void Sanctuary Key' (Gift 2).] right over the top of my vision so I almost tripped over a flat rock.
I reached into the weird, non-existent pocket where the system stored my inventory, my fingers closing around a piece of cold, heavy metal that didn't feel like any material I'd ever handled in either of my two lives.
I pulled the thing out, and it looked less like a key and more like a heavy, industrial fuse you'd find in the basement of an old building in the center of the city, complete with grease stains and a small, cracked glass window on the side.
It didn't have any runes or glowing gems on it, just a dull, grayish metal that seemed to absorb the purple light of the sky instead of reflecting it, and it left a faint smell of motor oil on my palm.
I held it in my hand, wondering if I was supposed to stick it into the ground or if there was some invisible lock floating in the air that I was expected to find by trial and error.
The system didn't give me any further instructions, which is typical for a piece of software that clearly hasn't been updated since the late medieval period and doesn't believe in user-friendly tutorials or helpful tooltips.
I looked down at Profit, who was now sitting on my left sneaker and chewing on a stray piece of bone from the dead monster, his crystal teeth making a sound like someone grinding a handful of marble chips in a blender.
"Any ideas, bro?" I asked, but the fox just ignored me and kept working on his snack, leaving me to handle the existential crisis and the toxic weather patterns all by myself.
The air was getting so thick now that I could actually see the currents of the miasma, heavy gray rivers of toxic sludge that were flowing down the sides of the ravine like invisible water.
I could feel my lungs protesting with every breath, a dry, burning sensation that started at the back of my throat and worked its way down into my chest until I felt like I'd just smoked a whole pack of cheap, filterless cigarettes in a closed car.
I didn't want to die of chemical suffocation in a place that looked like a bad Photoshop job, so I just gripped the gray metal fuse tighter and slammed it against the flat rock at my feet with all the strength my new, reconstituted muscles could muster.
I half expected the key to just shatter against the hard granite or to make a pathetic clinking sound that would serve as the soundtrack to my embarrassing demise in the middle of this wasteland.
Instead, the moment the metal touched the stone, there was no explosion or celestial choir or any of that cinematic garbage you see in high-budget movies where the hero unlocks a legendary artifact; just a heavy, wet click that sounded like someone closing the door of an old refrigerator in a kitchen where the tiles are sticky with grease.
The key didn't break, but the rock underneath it simply gave up and ceased to exist in a perfect, square hole that was about the size of a shoebox from a pair of cheap sneakers.
The hole was filled with a thick, oily blackness that didn't look like empty space but more like a puddle of used engine oil that had been sitting in the sun for too long, and it didn't reflect any of the purple light from the sky above.
I stared at it, my heart doing a weird, irregular thump against my ribs that felt like a dying battery in an old toy, wondering if I'd just opened a portal to a worse dimension or if this was the sanctuary the system had promised me.
Profit didn't seem to have any doubts, however, as he hopped off my shoe and casually walked into the black hole, his crystal tails disappearing into the dark without a sound or a ripple in the oily surface.
I guess when you're a nine-tailed fox made of geometry and expensive perfume, you don't really worry about the logistics of stepping into a bottomless pit of pure void energy.
I took a deep breath of the burning, sulfur-scented air, which tasted like a bad decision made at a roadside diner at two in the morning, and followed the fox into the hole, hoping that the sanctuary had at least a decent couch and a working shower.
The transition wasn't some smooth, instant teleportation that left me feeling refreshed and ready to conquer the world, but rather a greasy, heavy sensation that felt like trying to squeeze through a narrow doorway while wearing a thick, wet winter coat.
My vision went completely black for a second, and the only thing I could smell was that intense, industrial odor of burnt rubber and cheap floor wax that seems to be the official fragrance of this entire system experience.
When my feet finally hit something solid again, it didn't feel like rock or soil, but more like a heavy rubber mat you'd find on the floor of an old gym where the machines haven't been greased since the eighties.
I opened my eyes, and I wasn't in some majestic white marble hall with floating crystals and golden pillars, which was probably the standard for this kind of fantasy setting if the webnovels I used to read during my lunch breaks were anything to go by.
The 'Void Sanctuary' looked exactly like a small, abandoned warehouse in an industrial park on the outskirts of Guarulhos, complete with stained concrete walls and a roof made of corrugated metal sheets that rattled slightly in a wind I couldn't feel.
There were no windows, and the only light came from a few buzzing fluorescent tubes that were hanging from the ceiling by rusty chains, flickering with a frequency that was definitely going to give me a second migraine before the day was over.
Profit was already sitting on a stack of wooden pallets in the corner, cleaning his crystal paws with a dedicated, rhythmic movement that made a dry, scraping sound against the rough wood.
He looked perfectly at home in this dump, and I couldn't help but feel a little cheated by the system's definition of a 'sanctuary' for a primordial empress who was supposed to overturn the heavens and all that jazz.
I sat down on another stack of pallets, my silk dress making a ripping sound as it caught on a rusty nail, and buried my face in my hands while I tried to remember if I'd left the iron on in my apartment back in the real world.
It was a stupid thing to worry about, considering I was currently stuck in a pocket dimension that looked like a storage room for a failed logistics company, but that's how the human brain works when everything else goes to hell in a handbasket.
You don't think about the fact that your soul was ripped out of your body and shoved into a villainess with floating neon hair; you think about whether you're going to lose your deposit on the apartment because you didn't clean the oven before you died.
I stayed like that for a while, listening to the buzz of the broken lights and the dry clicking of the fox, wondering if there was any chance the system shop sold instant noodles or at least a bottle of water that didn't taste like battery acid.
The system didn't give me a notification about my existential crisis, probably because it didn't have a specific metric to measure how much I missed having a normal life where the biggest problem was a delayed bus on a rainy Monday.
I looked at the dark core in my hand, which was still cold and greasy, and I realized that I didn't even have a bag to put it in or a pocket that was clean enough to keep it from staining my skin any further.
I just set it on the pallet next to me, where it looked like a very expensive and very cursed piece of coal, and decided that figuring out how to run a monopoly in a toxic wasteland was a problem for future Evelyn, who would hopefully have a better set of clothes and a brush for her floating neon hair.
Profit let out another microwave-beep sound and curled up on the wood, and I just stared at the ceiling until the flickering of the tubes made me close my eyes again.
The air in here didn't smell like the outside miasma, but it wasn't fresh either; it was just stale and dry, the kind of air that makes your nose itch and reminds you of a library where the books have been rotting on the shelves for fifty years.
I didn't have a pillow or a blanket, so I just leaned against the cold concrete wall, feeling the rough texture through the thin silk of my dress, and wondered if I was going to wake up tomorrow or if this was just a very detailed hallucination before my brain finally shut down from the truck impact.
I didn't even have the energy to check the system shop again to see if I could buy a cheap mattress or a bucket of fried chicken, so I just let the buzz of the fluorescent lights fill the silence.