My SSS-Rank Gluttony Talent: I Can Evolve Limitlessly

Riley's fists clenched tighter at his sides as his sharp gaze swept across the chaotic scene once more.

The others who had been spat out looked pitiful, some sprawled in bloodied heaps, others struggling even to breathe.

The thought came unbidden to him—if not for his current state, if not for the sheer boost his attributes had undergone, he too would have been crushed, battered, or worse.

'If not for my high attributes, I would have sustained serious injuries from that crash…' he thought, his brow knitting into a deep scowl.

The tumble he had endured would have shattered bones, ruptured organs, maybe even left him sprawled lifeless like the others.

His body would've been no different from those still groaning in agony on the stone streets.

But it hadn't.

His chest rose and fell with measured steadiness, his limbs responding without weakness or pain.

His constitution and strength were far beyond ordinary players now. With attributes this high, a fall like that meant little.

The harsh slam against the ground that would've killed another was reduced to nothing more than a jarring impact for him, a bruise at worst.

'With such high attributes, something like this does nothing to me,' he thought, his eyes narrowing slightly. That truth was undeniable, and for a flicker of a moment, it was almost reassuring.

Almost.

But the small comfort quickly evaporated. A shadow crossed his expression as reality crashed back into focus. Even if his body remained intact, the situation around him was anything but fine.

'That doesn't really help my current situation though,' he thought grimly. Because the truth was obvious—he might be without injuries, but he had been forcefully pushed out of the game.

Something had gone wrong, something he couldn't understand. And that was far more dangerous than a broken rib or crushed leg.

The weight of that realization pressed on him like a mountain. Being spat out against his will, thrown from the dungeon mid-progress—it was nothing short of terrible.

'This is bad… really bad,' he thought, his jaw tightening. 'Especially since nothing like this ever happened in my past life.'

The thought struck him like a blade. His rebirth had given him certainty, knowledge of what was to come, the ability to walk ahead of the others by retracing old steps. But this? This was new. Unknown. It shouldn't have happened, and yet it did.

And that uncertainty gnawed at him, hard.

His frown deepened as he quickly pushed himself upright, his body a blur as he dashed across the uneven ground.

His instincts screamed at him not to linger, to investigate, to search for whatever anomaly had displaced him.

His boots dug into the cracked cobblestones until he reached the edge of a trench several meters away, his figure halting sharply.

He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he peered into the depth below. What greeted him twisted his expression even further.

Inside the trench, hovering several feet above the shattered earth, was a portal.

It swirled violently with radiant yellow hues, its circular frame unstable, bending inward and outward as if the very fabric of space struggled to hold it together.

Sparks of yellow energy crackled across its surface, lashing out like bolts of lightning that fizzled before touching the trench walls.

But what made his heart jolt was how fast it was shrinking.

The swirling golden light spun frantically, contracting tighter and tighter with each passing breath.

The once-wide gateway was collapsing, its diameter visibly decreasing before his eyes. And the sparks—it wasn't just the portal shrinking. The vibrant energy around it was dying.

Each arc of yellow lightning appeared weaker, dimmer, flickering with less vigor than the last.

Riley's frown worsened, the muscles around his mouth twitching.

His jaw tightened hard, grinding together as he gnashed his teeth in frustration.

The portal's contraction accelerated rapidly, folding into itself with a faint hum that grew sharper and sharper. Riley's eyes narrowed further, his breath heavier.

And then, almost as if mocking him, the golden vortex collapsed into a pinprick of light. For the briefest of moments, it hovered there—just a tiny dot floating in the dark trench.

Then it vanished.

The sound of silence followed, a suffocating absence in place of the energy that had roared seconds before. Only a few faint sparks lingered in the air, drifting aimlessly as though reluctant to fade.

However, even those soon flickered out, dissolving into nothingness like dying embers carried away by the wind.

Riley's fists clenched once again, his expression grave, his eyes dark and unyielding.

The yellow sparks faded fully, leaving the trench barren and dark.

But before he could let the silence settle, a new wave of chaos swept across the city.

The same thing was happening everywhere.

All across the streets, trenches and broken spaces glimmered faintly for a moment, yellow sparks spasming desperately as if clinging to life—before collapsing in on themselves, shrinking down to nothing just like the one Riley had seen.

Portals winked out of existence one after the other, leaving only trails of dying sparks behind.

Within moments, every last one was gone.

The air trembled with confusion. Cries of panic rose in the streets as the reality of the situation sank in. Players stumbled to their feet, their faces pale, their bodies trembling.

The disorientation of being expelled had left them rattled enough, but now, with the portals gone, a far worse fear spread among them.

"What the hell just happened?!" a young man cried out, clutching his bleeding side as his gaze darted wildly around the streets.

"They're gone! All the dungeon portals are gone!" another shouted, his voice shrill with disbelief.

Chaos erupted.

Players who had been groaning in pain now shouted furiously, some struggling to stand while others slammed their fists against the ground in frustration.

The anger was thick, raw, and desperate. Dozens of voices overlapped in a cacophony of rage and fear.

"What the fuck was that crash for then?!"

"I lost half my health bar from that fall!"

"My party got wiped! All of them!"

"This doesn't make sense—this doesn't make any damn sense!"

The fury in their voices wasn't without reason. Some had sustained grave injuries in the violent expulsion. Others had outright died in the crash or from the rampaging monsters earlier, their white particles still drifting faintly in the air as proof. The dungeon had chewed them up and spat them out, broken and furious.

Riley's eyes narrowed sharply, his teeth gritting together.

'Is… this another plan of the demons?' he thought, his gaze scanning the despair and anger surging around him.

The timing, the sudden collapse of every portal, the unnatural way the dungeon had closed—it all reeked of something deeper, something far from ordinary malfunction.

And then, before he could press deeper into that suspicion, a sudden glow flickered into existence before his eyes.

A notification.

Not just for him.

All around, translucent screens appeared, flashing crimson and gold text in front of every single player. The chaotic shouts dulled for a moment as hundreds of eyes turned toward the new words floating before them.

[Due to some strange interference, the dungeon 'Forgotten Depths' has closed!]

The line of text burned itself into their minds.

Gasps erupted immediately, scattered voices rising in disbelief.

"What? Closed?!"

"No way! That dungeon can't close—!"

"What kind of 'strange interference' even does that?!"

Confusion spread like wildfire, players glancing at each other with wide eyes as if anyone could explain the impossible words floating before them. But there were no answers, only more questions. And then came the frustration.

"This is bullshit!" a burly man cursed, his voice shaking with rage.

"Yeah! I lost my loot because of this! What's going on?!"

"I had almost cleared the first floor! What the hell is interference supposed to mean?!"

Shouts layered on top of one another, curses flying freely as players vented their fury into the air. The sound of it all—the frustration, the fear, the helplessness—was suffocating.

But among them, Riley stood the most silent. The most tense. The most angry.

His fists clenched tightly, the leather of his gloves creaking under the pressure. His gaze locked on the glowing notification, eyes narrowing until they were like blades.

'The dungeon… closed due to an interference?' he thought, his pulse quickening as his rage boiled inside.

The word itself twisted in his mind like poison. Interference. Something unnatural, something foreign. Something not meant to be there.

'What's going to happen now?' he thought further, his shoulders stiff. This wasn't just some broken system message—this was rewriting everything he remembered.

The Forgotten Depths was supposed to be a foundation stone for the early stages of the game. An event every player, every guild built upon. It had shaped countless outcomes in his past life.

And yet here, before his eyes, it was collapsing.

'The event was one of the huge parts in the early stages of the game,' he thought, his teeth gnashing so hard it almost hurt. 'And now… nothing like this happened in my past life. Everything had progressed smoothly back then.'