The moment the trap activated, Wirn was swallowed up by the blood just like the others.
‘Who would've thought there was a structure like this in the mountains?’
He had also been transported to a strange place he had never seen even in his previous life.
‘Illusion magic...’
Wirn rotated his Circle.
At the same time, he very slowly examined his surroundings.
He wanted to make sure he hadn't fallen for some cheap trick.
‘Doesn't look like it.’
However, Wirn couldn't see any mana.
To make absolutely sure, he even touched a stone beneath his feet, but it was nothing more than an ordinary rock.
So he concluded that this really was an underground sanctuary.
“That one's quiet too.”
Even the Mark, which could never resist devouring magic, remained still.
There was no point in checking any further.
‘There's no exit.’
Every direction was completely sealed off, and there wasn't a single opening through which he could leave.
The only thing Wirn could do here was move forward.
Once he realized that, Wirn's gaze turned toward the sanctuary.
“...It's a bit much to call this a sanctuary, isn't it?”
Dark red bloodstains were clearly caked onto the stairs leading into the sanctuary. On top of that, the statue standing before the entrance was nothing like something one would expect to find in a normal sanctuary.
‘Three heads, huh.’
Anyone could tell that it depicted a demon rather than a god.
‘Disgusting.’
Wirn extended his right hand toward the statue. Wirn had no hobby of admiring statues erected by Demon Worshippers.
‘I’ll blow it away together with that boulder blocking the entrance.’
The entrance to the sanctuary behind the statue was also buried beneath rocks, so Wirn decided to blast the statue away along with them.
—HUM!
The moment he rotated his Circle—
RUMBLE...!
A tremendous vibration echoed through the ground.
CRACK!
At the same time, the statue Wirn had been about to destroy split in half.
RUMBLE—!
Then the rocks blocking the entrance came crashing down.
“....”
Wirn stopped moving when he saw it.
No, more precisely, he had no choice but to stop.
What was revealed when the rocks collapsed was anything but ordinary.
‘Human sacrifice.’
Corpses were tangled among the rocks.
Their bodies had been grotesquely twisted, making it obvious that their deaths had been anything but normal.
‘Demon Worshippers.’
It wasn't difficult to figure out who they were.
The Cult's ‘Brand’ was engraved into the bodies of the dead.
“...Not exactly a pleasant sight.”
He had seen scenes like this many times in his previous life while wiping out Cults of Demon Worshippers.
His stomach didn't churn, but it still left him in a foul mood.
‘Was there a Cult this large?’
Wirn had exterminated countless groups of Demon Worshippers.
Yet even to him, this place was completely unfamiliar.
The same was true of the Brands on their bodies.
HUM....
‘Someone's coming.’
At that moment, an ominous presence could be felt from inside the sanctuary.
“....”
The instant Wirn noticed it, he assumed a combat stance.
HUM... HUM... HUM!
[He... He is coming.]
Then something climbed over the corpses from deeper inside the sanctuary and appeared before Wirn.
“...A Wraith?”
It was a lowly monster that grew by feeding on the souls of the dead.
“It's being controlled?”
But this wasn't an ordinary Wraith.
Wirn could see that its body was connected to something deeper inside the sanctuary.
‘And this energy is....’
The power being used to form that connection was Demonic Energy, the power wielded by demons.
It possessed qualities similar to Wirn's Darkness, yet was clearly different.
HUM... HUM... HUUUUUM....
Then black shadows emerged behind the lone Wraith.
“Hah.”
Wirn clicked his tongue at what he saw.
Hundreds of Wraiths were gathered within the black shadows.
[Become Lord Dailius's sacrifice.]
[Our master desires you!]
Then all of them spoke to Wirn at once.
Hundreds of creatures speaking as though they were one created a grotesque sight.
“A sacrifice... Ha!”
Wirn snorted at their words.
The very idea of saying something like that to him was laughable.
—HUUUM...!
So he made up his mind.
He would show them his power.
BOOM—!
Wirn exploded his mana outward and closed the distance between himself and the Wraiths in an instant.
WHOOSH!
Then he seized the head of the one in front of him and slammed it into the ground with all his strength.
CRUNCH—!
The face of the Wraith that had mocked Wirn was destroyed in an instant.
“You're already dead... You shouldn't mock the living.”
The Wraith's body burst apart like spilled ink splattering across the floor.
Wirn looked down at it and lightly clicked his tongue.
[You bastaaard!]
The hundreds of Wraiths flew into a rage at the sight.
They charged ferociously toward Wirn, intent on tearing him apart.
“Besaranben.”
But that could only be called a mistake.
HUUUUUM!
Because Wirn wasn't an ordinary mage.
Rustle.
As he chanted the incantation, a gigantic shadow emerged from the floor.
It was large enough to swallow the entire mass of Wraiths.
[!]
The house-sized mass of Wraiths froze in alarm.
They had never imagined that the human standing before them could wield Darkness denser than their own.
[Impossible!]
[Darkness is devouring darkness!]
They tried to put distance between themselves and the shadow Wirn had created.
CRUNCH—!
But the Darkness descended upon them far faster.
Sssssss....
The shadow began absorbing them.
The Wraiths being dragged inside struggled desperately, like creatures trying to escape a swamp.
Ssssss....
But the Darkness didn't let them go.
Instead, it made the Wraiths' darkness its own and bound them together.
HUM....
In the end, it absorbed every Wraith within the shadow.
Then, as though nothing had happened, it seeped back into the ground.
Swish.
After confirming that they were gone, Wirn turned his head toward the depths of the sanctuary.
‘This isn't human power.’
The moment he absorbed the Wraiths, he sensed mana with properties different from theirs.
Through that, Wirn became certain that someone inside the sanctuary was controlling them.
‘They said Dailius, didn't they.’
From what the Wraiths had said, he had even managed to deduce the bastard's name.
“I don't know where the hell you crawled out from.”
Even so, Wirn wasn't afraid.
“But you picked the wrong person.”
He had already smashed apart several dozen demons.
***
The interior of the sanctuary was larger than Wirn had expected.
“They really gathered every kind of demon here.”
Statues of demons with bizarre appearances were scattered everywhere, practically getting underfoot.
Wirn continued deeper inside while sweeping his gaze over them.
‘The others are still alive and kicking, right?’
As he walked, he thought of the mages who had participated in the demon subjugation alongside him.
They were undoubtedly facing situations similar to his own.
After all, the Blood Magic hadn't swallowed only him.
Still, he wasn't worried.
‘Even I had trouble killing those bastards.’
Wirn knew just how tenacious the people who had come with him were.
More precisely, he hadn't merely heard about it.
He had experienced it himself.
So Wirn continued farther inside without worrying much about them.
Before long, he came upon an enormous door.
Creeeak....
Wirn opened it without hesitation.
A vast chamber in which nothing but darkness could be seen revealed itself beyond the door.
STEP... STEP.
Wirn slowly walked into the murky darkness.
Each time he took a step, the sound of his footsteps echoed throughout the chamber.
After he had taken roughly ten steps—
“A fine sacrifice has entered.”
The torches that had remained unlit until then burst into flame.
At the same time, the darkness receded, revealing an old man wrapped in a black robe.
“You will be more than sufficient as Lord Dailius's vessel.”
“I'm a person, not a vessel. Are your eyes made of steel or something?”
“Now that you have entered His domain, you cannot escape the fate of becoming His vessel. Accept it quietly.”
Madness filled the old man's eyes.
Moreover, patterns symbolizing Demon Worshippers had been carved into the skin visible beneath his robe using blood.
Anyone could see that sanity was far beyond his reach.
“Tsk.”
Wirn briefly shook his head at the sight of the old man.
“....”
Then he silently stared at him.
WHOOSH!
“Eat this!”
Wirn hurled a black sphere he had prepared beforehand at the old man with all his strength.
HUM!
Black light erupted from the sphere.
BOOM—!
The condensed Darkness exploded and swallowed the old man whole.
...THUD!
The old man's torso was consumed by Darkness and disappeared completely.
However, Wirn didn't approach him.
Instead, he clicked his tongue and gathered mana once more.
He knew very well that Demon Worshippers covered head to toe in Brands didn't die from a single attack.
CRACK! CRRRAACK!
Just as Wirn had expected, a change occurred in the old man.
“A pity... Had you approached me as you were, I would have absorbed you.”
His body, which had clearly been reduced to half, returned to normal in the blink of an eye.
Even the clothes the old man wore returned to their original state.
“After watching you deal with those Wraiths, I became certain. There could be no vessel more magnificent than you.”
Having returned to his original form, the old man gave Wirn a sinister smile.
“Consider it an honor. You will be the first to receive Lord Dailius. Right now!”
Rustle.
Then he pulled a red book from inside his robe.
“I want to eat ramen.”
He chanted an incantation that couldn't be expressed in human language.
FLASH!
A dark crimson light poured from his body.
‘This isn't magic!’
Wirn rotated his Circle to its limit the moment he saw it.
Then he spread a veil using his Darkness.
Sssssss!
At that moment, a black sphere emerged from the book in the man's hands.
‘What?’
HUM!
The instant Wirn saw the sphere—
“Receive Him.”
The old man's eerie voice echoed beside Wirn's ear.
“!”
At the same time, Wirn's consciousness faded away.
***
An inner world ruled entirely by Darkness.
FWOOSH!
A demonic flame ignited in a place like an abyss where not even an inch ahead could be seen.
[Is this your soul world?]
The owner of that flame was Dailius, the Soul Devourer who had entered Wirn's inner world.
[Dark.]
Endless Darkness stretched out before him.
Dailius stopped moving as he looked upon Wirn's world.
[...To think Darkness like this could exist.]
He was genuinely impressed.
Even the worlds of demons who wielded Darkness in the Demon Realm were not filled with an abyss this deep.
This place was an abyss....
No, calling it a hellish bottomless pit beyond even that would not have been an exaggeration.
Even Dailius, a Soul Devourer, couldn't grasp everything within it.
[There is a soul in a place like this?]
That was why he found it strange.
[I cannot see it.]
Among the countless lives he had devoured until now, nothing had ever possessed a place this bizarre.
No matter how skilled someone was at wielding Darkness, finding the location of their soul had never been difficult.
[....]
A chill ran through Dailius.
His instincts were telling him something.
He had invaded a place he should never have entered.
They told him to escape this place, where even his power of devouring refused to activate.
[No. That cannot be.]
But Dailius rejected his instincts.
To think he was afraid of some mere brat?
Such a thing was unacceptable for a demon.
So just as he tried once more to examine the Darkness—
Sss....
The Darkness split in half.
“This is funny. I was thinking the same thing.”
A man emerged from between the divided Darkness.
[...Who are you?]
Dailius flinched at the sight of the man casually walking through the Darkness as though it were his own home.
‘Was I frightened?’
Only then did he realize that he had taken a step backward.
“I'm the vessel you were talking about.”
The man spoke to Dailius.
[What—]
“Once, I was a damned hound.”
An invisible fury was buried within the man's voice.
The emotion, as cold as ice, seemed to seep across Dailius's skin.
“And now, I'm the bastard who's going to tear into your neck.”
The corners of his lips twisted.
—HUUUM.......
At the same time, the Darkness surrounding them slowly crept toward Dailius.
An unpleasant aura seeped from it, revolting enough to send chills even through a demon like Dailius.
“Thanks. It's been a long time since I've gotten to see this body.”
You've brought back old memories, and now I'm in a really shitty mood.
The power from his previous life that had been built up layer upon layer—
More precisely, the five Circles the man had created began to rotate.
Ssss... Sssssss....
And the Darkness surged.