Before Evan stood a gaunt man with wild gray hair tucked beneath a low baseball cap. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his faded hoodie hung loose over a wrinkled T-shirt and baggy jeans. The man surveyed the warehouse, his gaze passing over Evan, who stood only a few steps away. Behind the man, the Rift sealed with a faint zip and disappeared.
Then the man put a strange device into his backpack, but not before Evan caught a glimpse of its construction. Its gray metal body and short barrel gave it the appearance of a pistol. Near the tip, a dark crystal lay beneath a transparent casing, held fast by a thick metal ring. Satisfied that the item was secure, the man headed for the exit.
Evan considered following him, but his stealth skill was nearing its limit. Once it expired, the cooldown would leave him vulnerable to discovery for a while. Staying put was the safer choice, especially if the man planned to return to the Rift.
Hidden behind a stack of shipping pallets, Evan weighed what he had witnessed. The stranger was trouble, and the device he carried made him even more dangerous. The Rift itself raised more questions. It bore little resemblance to the ordinary Rifts Evan knew. Had it given off none of the usual detectable signals? Was that why the RCB was none the wiser?
Evan could record the man entering the Rift and hand the evidence over to the authorities. After that, the problem would be theirs to deal with. He could walk away and leave the rest to them.
But...
The System window flickered to existence.
[Quest]
[Objective: Investigate the Rift]
[Time Limit: 17:39:20]
[Reward: ■■■■■■]
Yeah, Evan doubted the System would be satisfied with him waiting outside. It wanted him to go into the Rift.
If the decision were entirely his, he would have waited until tomorrow and prepared properly. The time limit made that impossible. He could return after school, but there was no guarantee the man would leave the Rift again tomorrow. The man had likely come out tonight only to buy daily necessities before locking himself away in his base, which made this the one chance to learn what was really going on.
Evan rubbed his throbbing forehead. This was exactly why he hated being a transmigrator. Sooner or later, he always got pushed into something reckless.
About half an hour later, the man returned to the warehouse with a bag that looked even fuller than before. Hidden by his stealth ability, Evan watched him aim the device at the Rift and force the opening wide once more. He slipped in right behind the man, and the same squeezing, twisting sensation seized him, drawing a grimace. This time, instead of being thrown to the ground, he stumbled out onto his feet.
Before him lay a circular chamber. Workbenches stood in rows, their surfaces crowded with blueprints and half-disassembled constructs. Shelves of alchemical reagents lined the walls beside a large cauldron. In one corner, a modest living space had been arranged with a bed and a few simple furnishings.
The man set his bag on a table and unpacked the supplies he had gathered outside. As Evan had suspected, most of it consisted of food and other necessities. He turned his attention to the blueprints and books, but their titles alone suggested they were intended for someone with a PhD. Two volumes, however, caught his attention: On Rifts and Their Histories and Understanding Wyverns and Dragons.
Approaching the window, he peered into the darkness beyond it. The tower stood atop a floating island suspended in the void, leaving Evan little doubt that venturing outside was out of the question.
Turning toward the stairs, he fished a coin from his pocket. Heads meant up, tails meant down. He flicked it into the air and watched it spin before landing on heads. Down it was.
The lower floor served as a storeroom. Wooden crates and burlap sacks stood in neat stacks. Some held preserved food and dried plants, others raw materials and supplies. A huge boar-like monster's carcass took up much of the space against one wall, its hide and tusks remarkably well-preserved.
Evan poked around and spotted a small bag stuffed with magic crystals, causing him to gasp. Picking it up, he examined its contents closely. They didn't look high-grade, but even lower-tier ones were valuable to Awakeners, who could use them to cast basic magic without proper skills, the way Harlan had used one to set the tree on fire.
He resisted the urge to take them, knowing the man upstairs would notice if anything went missing. With a reluctant glance at the crystals, he moved on, and the thought of lost wealth faded as something else came into view.
A group of children were chained inside a large cage. They looked weak and exhausted, their clothes dirty and their faces pale. Some slept on the ground while others stared blankly ahead. Among them was a familiar face: Marcus's cousin, Tyler.
Evan crept closer to the cage and strained his ears for any sign of the man coming down the stairs. Nothing came. He deactivated skill, and the children who were awake flinched at his sudden appearance.
"Shh. I'm here to save you guys. Don't scream." Evan crouched so he would look less threatening.
The children shrank back, fear plain on their faces.
Evan turned to Tyler. "You're Marcus's cousin, Tyler, right? He told me about you. My name is Evan."
"You know big brother Marcus?" Tyler's face brightened.
"Yeah. He was very worried about you. He even cried about it."
Tyler managed a strained smile, relieved and saddened at once. "I… I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Can you guys tell me what's going on here?"
Perhaps encouraged by Tyler's willingness to speak, the others began chiming in.
"We got kidnapped!"
"I was just coming back from school and he grabbed me!"
"I wanna go home!"
Evan raised his hands to calm them. "Okay, okay. So the man upstairs took all of you. What is he planning?"
"His name is Isaac, I think," Tyler said. "He sometimes comes down here just to talk to us."
"We don't really understand what he says," another kid added.
"I think he has a pet upstairs," a girl said.
"A pet?"
They all nodded.
"A very big pet."
"Sometimes it roars."
Evan frowned. Whatever this pet was, it was no small animal that nipped at your heels. Was the man planning to feed the children to it? That didn't seem right. They probably wouldn't make a full meal for it anyway.
"I see. Thanks for answering, kids." Evan rose to his feet.
"Brother Evan, please free us!" one child cried.
"I don't want to stay here anymore!"
"Shh, shh. Calm down. I will release you guys, but first I need to handle that man and his pet, all right?" Evan said. "If I let you out now, you'll get hurt. Like this, at least, Isaac won't see you as a threat. Just stay here a bit longer. I will definitely save you."
He activated his stealth skill once more and became invisible. The children looked at each other anxiously but stayed quiet. Climbing up, Evan reached the level above the man's living quarters. A horrifying scene awaited him.
A black-scaled wyvern lay sprawled over the tower's rooftop. Its long neck curled loosely and its head rested on a foreleg. The tip of its tail flicked now and then, and slow breaths lifted its chest, each exhale carrying a rumbling snore.
What unsettled him was the demonic sigil branded on the creature's forehead, a three-pronged claw forming a broken circle, with three curved, fang-like strokes pointing inward. Each stroke differed in length, and the bottom one split at the tip. Anyone else might have seen only an odd symbol, but Evan knew it meant bad news. It was Belzaroth's sigil.
Evan had seen that mark more times than he cared to remember. Reuel had never faced Belzaroth himself, and Belzaroth wasn't the Demon King he had slain, but Reuel had spent years hunting the demonic beasts born from Belzaroth's corruption. Every one had the same mark, and seeing it on Earth sent a chill down Evan's spine. How is this possible?
There were only a handful of ways a demonic beast could come into existence. The rarest was a Demon King's direct blessing, but Evan dismissed that almost at once, because this wyvern was far too weak to be Belzaroth's creation. That left the more troubling explanation: someone had deliberately corrupted an ordinary monster with Demonic Arts and imprinted the sigil onto it. Such a feat demanded forbidden knowledge and tremendous power.
Evan shifted his attention to Isaac, who leisurely brushed the wyvern's scales with the fondness of a man grooming a beloved pet. Was he involved? Evan activated You're Not Supposed To See This, bringing Isaac's status window into view.
[Name: Isaac Cadwell]
[Age: 48 years old]
[Status: Unawakened]
[Title: Demonic Arts Practitioner]
An unawakened man, yet a practitioner of demonic arts. Isaac had no Awakener skills, but Evan wasn't stupid enough to underestimate him. Evan knew how dangerous such practitioners could be. Chronicles of a Demon Hunter had taught him better than to assume they were easier to deal with than pure demons.
Challenging Isaac head-on was out of the question. Retreating to find outside help was wiser, and Evan might even call Reid back. As the Legendary Demon Hunter, his brother would make quick work of this practitioner and his pet demonic beast.
Just as Evan turned to descend, the wyvern stirred. Its eyes snapped open and locked onto him despite his stealth skill. Crap. He had read that wyverns and dragons had sharp senses, but not this sharp.
"What's wrong?" Isaac asked.
The wyvern growled and rose.
Evan dashed for the stairs, but Isaac's dark flames reached him first. He dropped to the floor, though the fire still caught his hoodie. By the time he had yanked it off and flung it aside, Isaac had spotted him.
"You there!" Isaac shouted, giving chase.
Abandoning any attempts at stealth, he turned off his ability and sprinted straight down to the storage level, where he snatched up the bag of magic crystals. His pocket knife wouldn't stand a chance against the man, but with these he might have a shot.
"Ignara!" He threw a red fire crystal at Isaac, who had just reached the storage level.
Isaac raised his arms protectively as flames flared in front of him. The blast left scorch marks on his clothes and singed his hair, nothing more. The crystal's poor quality had robbed it of real power.
Evan clicked his tongue, flicking more crystals toward his opponent. "Zephiron! Ignara!"
He launched two simultaneously, hoping their combined elements would amplify the damage. The crystals detonated on impact, creating a much larger explosion that thundered through the chamber, scattering debris and rattling the stacked crates.
Isaac barely reacted. Dark flames billowed around him before slamming into the explosion, overwhelming both elements and driving the attack back in a fierce counterstrike.
"Frostrein!" Two ice crystals flew next, cutting a path through the black fire and trailing freezing mist before they struck Isaac's feet. Frost spread over the ground on impact and locked his boots in place, ice creeping upward to bind him.
Evan grinned at the sight of him immobilized and cast his final attack. "Zephiron!"
Isaac recoiled.
…
Nothing happened.
Thud. Thud.
The crystals dropped like pebbles. Evan's smile froze. He had run out of mana.
Isaac grinned back. He shattered the ice around his feet with dark flames and stepped forward as the fragments dissolved into hissing steam.
Seeing that bloodthirsty look, Evan tossed aside the useless crystals and raised his hands in surrender. "How about we talk?"