Becoming a God Starts with Acting-Chapter 461: Reuniting with Dorian

The howling wind roared violently until a sound like interlocking gears snapping into place echoed out.

The massive door opening before them still failed to rouse the two guard mages standing on either side. Silvanus and Leon were unimaginably fast; they vanished from the spot in an instant, and the door closed behind them as well.

Only a moment later did the two guard mages widen their eyes, yet they could sense almost nothing out of the ordinary—aside from the vague feeling that they had just spaced out for a brief moment. Very quickly, they returned to their posts.

The path ahead was not a staircase at all, but a flat stretch of ground. Silvanus and Leon glided forward as if skating over ice.

Suddenly, the sound of voices rang out ahead. Silvanus abruptly accelerated, his figure shooting forward like a bullet.

The two mages there were caught completely off guard—and horrified—by this sudden appearance.

They hurriedly raised their staves, but before they could unleash even a single attack, Silvanus had already seized their heads with one hand each and slammed them together with explosive force. The resounding impact was so painful it made one’s teeth ache.

The two mages’ eyes rolled back as they collapsed straight to the ground, unconscious.

An age-old weakness of mages—no matter how powerful their magic might be, their physical bodies were always frail. Of course, their spellcasting speed was not slow, but no matter how fast it was, it was still nowhere near as fast as Silvanus.

Silvanus brushed off his hands and looked ahead. This was a long corridor, bathed in dim red light that easily made one feel stifled and uncomfortable.

At the far end stood another door. Silvanus took the lead and headed forward, Leon following closely behind.

"Ziggg-----!"

Almost the instant the door opened, a piercing sound suddenly rang out, deafening and violent, like a powerful alarm. The ground seemed to tremble slightly.

Silvanus did not slow down in the slightest. He lunged straight ahead, shoving open the next door.

At the same time, countless holes abruptly opened in the ceiling. Mages swiftly emerged from these hidden passages, their movements sharp and agile.

Their gazes all locked onto Silvanus’s retreating figure!

"Bang!"

But before they could do anything, the sound of machinery disengaging suddenly rang out. Leon pulled a nearly two-meter-long sword from his spine; a single slash instantly shattered the mages’ protective barrier, sending them crashing violently into the wall to one side. Spiderweb-like cracks spread across it as fresh blood flowed out, soaking the floor.

Leon leapt straight forward, blocking the doorway where Silvanus had already disappeared.

Both hands gripped the sword, the blade held level with his face. Reflected light gleamed off his pale skin, making his deep blue eyes seem to flash.

"Kill him!"

The shouts outside were almost completely cut off by the door. The scene beyond the second door was entirely different from the chaos outside.

Light poured down from above in a pale, sacred gold. Various chests and curtains lay scattered ahead, messy and disordered. Yet Silvanus’s gaze went straight to the tallest cage placed at the very center of the space.

A sharp whistling sound suddenly tore through the air. A streak of light shot toward him like an arrow—but Silvanus merely raised a hand lightly. The arrow instantly rebounded, piercing straight through the other mage’s throat and pinning him to the wall at the side.

The remaining mage stared at the scene in shock, fear filling his eyes as he looked toward Silvanus.

Silvanus turned his gaze to him. Even though he was clearly wearing a mask that concealed his entire face, the mage could still feel that look.

"Continue doing your job."

Silvanus said.

The mage hurriedly nodded again and again, then quickly scurried off to hide in a corner.

On that side was a pulley system constantly in motion—clearly, this person was responsible for transporting the next items when it was their turn. Silvanus also noticed another massive door standing wide open in the corner. The two mages just now had come from there; most likely, that door led to the bottom of the stage.

But Silvanus’s gaze did not linger there for long. He stepped forward, heading toward the source of the crying.

The sound of weeping did not echo at all. Instead, Silvanus felt as if it were whimpering from deep within his own mind.

Almost holding his breath, Silvanus moved forward. He raised his hand and gently pulled down the pitch-black curtain that covered the enormous cage.

"Rip..."

At that very moment, all sound seemed to cease, as if time itself had frozen. The form of the thing inside the cage was laid bare before Silvanus.

The cage stood five meters tall and more than four meters wide, its golden bars shimmering under the light.

Inside the cage sat a creature... truly strange—so strange it was difficult to describe, as though even illustrated bestiaries had never recorded a form like this.

His skin was pitch-black. Two horns jutted out sideways from his head, with a few wisps of white hair loosely hanging from them. His eyes burned a vivid red. A long nose extended down to thin, elongated lips, and his chin was indistinct, merging directly into a neck more than half a meter long. His body was massive yet grotesque. Withered, dead branches grew from his spine, stretching forward and wrapping around his neck down to his waist like enormous ribs.

His sleeves were composed of countless pitch-black tendrils gathered together, and his hands were slender, with sharp, elongated fingers, shriveled like scorched dead branches.

His lower body seemed not to exist at all—only twisting vines clustered together like a small hill, propping up his torso.

A pair of tattered, translucent wings tinged with black drooped at his sides. They were enormous, and it was clear that this cage was far too cramped for them—indeed, far too cramped even for him.

Tears streamed endlessly from his eyes, as bright red as his gaze. They soaked into his body, even flowing down onto the floor in rivulets like a small stream.

Silvanus lowered his head and only then noticed that the ground beneath his feet was already stained a deep crimson.

Instinctively, Silvanus raised his hand and removed his mask, immediately feeling dampness on his face. He could not help but curl his lips, as if mocking himself.

He lifted his head and found that the creature had already bowed down to the golden bars, tilting his head slightly as he looked at him.

Another tear fell. Silvanus spoke softly,

"Dorian, I’m sorry."

The creature blinked at Silvanus, so stunned that even the tears stopped falling. The constant wailing that had been echoing in Silvanus’s mind also came to an abrupt halt.

Silvanus could even clearly see his own reflection mirrored in those vivid crimson eyes.

He smiled faintly, raised his hand, and gently caressed the face that could be called ugly—indeed, terrifyingly deformed—before him, then spoke softly: "Long time no see, Dorian. I’ve come to take you home."

Silvanus had no way of knowing what had happened. He only knew that Dorian—the prince cherished and revered by the entire Elven race—was now imprisoned deep underground, waiting to be brought up and sold like a commodity. Once the most beautiful of all elves, he now bore a body so strange and grotesque it felt utterly alien.

Silvanus exerted strength in his hand, but before he could shatter the cage, Dorian suddenly threw his head back and let out a long, piercing scream. His wings, which looked so fragile, beat once—just once—and the seemingly solid golden cage instantly exploded into countless fragments, shooting outward at a speed even faster than bullets.

Yet even though Silvanus stood so close to the cage, not a single fragment managed to harm him. Vines had already wrapped tightly around him. Dorian’s long, gaunt arms pulled him into a fierce embrace, branches and tendrils blocking out all light, almost as if they wanted to cocoon Silvanus into a warm egg held close to the chest.

Violent gusts of wind surged forth as Dorian’s wings began to beat. The raging airflow nearly swept everything into a small, whirling vortex.

So it turned out that he could leave this place—leave it at any time—and even wield a power no one could stop.

It was just that he had been crying all along.

Just that he no longer yearned for freedom.

As if only by gnawing at his own pain could he constantly remind himself of the terrible things he believed he had done...

He himself had killed Silvanus—with his own hands, with his own arrows, with the very power of the entire tribe that he had once taken pride in.

Just thinking about it made him want to die. But death was far too merciful. After doing all of that, how could he dare to seek death?

"Boom—boom—boom!"

Violent, earth-shaking impacts rang out without end. A raging gale swept everything away. Leon kicked the mage blocking his path aside and rushed into the secret chamber, only to be nearly blown off his feet by the ferocious wind. A bizarre creature had wrapped itself around Silvanus, flapping its wings again and again as it rose higher.

This was... a Dark Elf?

Hadn’t this thing already died?