“So this is how you track my soul? Pretty straightforward.”

Muen let out a cold laugh, lifted his hand, and lightly passed his palm straight through that chain—like a ghost in a story. There was no physical sensation at all.

And yet one end of it was connected to his soul, while the other stretched off to somewhere unknown.

Aside from that, Muen didn’t feel that earlier sensation of his soul being tugged. It was probably because a single chain wasn’t strong enough to drag his soul—but as a “loose end” that followed his trail, it was more than enough.

“But now that I know how it works, it’s easy.”

Muen took out Elizabeth.

“Can you do it?” he asked softly.

Bzz.

Elizabeth trembled lightly, as if expressing displeasure at such a “humiliating” question.

With a casual flick of his hand, the pure white blade—glittering with holy radiance—cleanly severed the chain.

Of course. Its former identity had been the Church’s holy sword, forged by the oldest and strongest little loli of the current age with her own hands. How could it fail at something this trivial?

It was only because, in a certain sense, it had the trait of “growing stronger along with its master” that it hadn’t been able to show any effective power earlier against Shenyi’s Grand Duke.

If Muen had that old loli’s realm and strength, what Shenyi’s Grand Duke, what Myriad-Age Cycle—he would’ve chopped them all to pieces long ago.

“Sorry. I’m the weak one.”

After an apologetic bit of soothing, Muen put Elizabeth away and went back to fiddling with the “star ring” around his wrist.

“Still... what exactly is Myriad-Age Cycle?”

Maybe because it was only a “branch,” a lot of its functions couldn’t be used right now. But whether it was the endless chains evolved from the complete Myriad-Age Cycle—chains terrifying enough to make demon Grand Dukes fear and even the Life Church back off—or this branch’s ability to let him see souls...

Both were beyond Muen’s understanding.

This was an ancient relic.

So by common sense, it should have its own “rules.”

Like how 【Grudge of Singleness】 makes you utterly unnoticeable the moment you grasp the umbrella handle, or how 【Heart of True Love】 can imprison a target as long as you hold love for them in your heart...

Then what was the rule of 【Myriad-Age Cycle】?

Soul separation? Soul imprisonment?

“No. It has to be something even more terrifying.”

In Muen’s mind, he saw again those chains that almost blotted out half the sky—dense, endless, covering heaven and earth, as if the entire Abyss, the entire demon race, had been bound by them.

No wonder the current magic world couldn’t even reproduce ancient relics anymore. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Something this horrifying went far beyond common sense and comprehension—and it was completely different from the magic knowledge Muen had learned.

“The Black Book definitely won’t tell me the details of ancient relics either. This thing is still so mysterious... it probably involves some secret from that era a thousand years ago again.”

Muen sighed.

History.

Writing.

Magic.

Relics.

Thinking about it carefully, the scarcity of knowledge about these things now didn’t seem like something you could lump under “civilization was almost destroyed by that crisis” alone.

Whether it was a premonition, or some absurd guess, Muen faintly felt as if an invisible hand had deliberately separated everything related to it.

That old loli, the Life Church’s Pope, Shenyi... even the Black Book—those who had survived from that era, or inherited something from it, all seemed to be hiding something.

Hiding what...?

“Better not think too much.”

Muen quickly pulled his wandering thoughts back.

If it was one of those terrifying secrets where learning it meant disaster, then guessing blindly was just asking to die.

Because in this world where the Evil Gods’ favorite games were “human match-three” and “guess who I am,” curiosity really did kill the cat.

“The most urgent problem right now is still how to stay alive, recuperate my injuries, and then... pull An back out of that old bastard Shenyi’s clutches.”

He couldn’t let An wait too long. Even if she really did have some connection to the Demon King from a thousand years ago, he still couldn’t rule out that old bastard Shenyi might do something to her.

So he had to move fast.

The light around him dimmed. Muen could barely maintain Light anymore, and everything was swallowed by darkness. The deep blue of his eyes returned to its depth.

The tracking chain had been cut. For now, Zagu tailing him shouldn’t pose much of a threat—he wouldn’t catch up that quickly.

So what remained was...

“An handed you to me—there’s no way it was for just this much, right?”

Muen stared at the tiny chain on his wrist, rotated the “star ring” a few times, then thrust his arm straight forward. Facing a fork where he had no idea which way to go, he shouted in a low voice:

“Come on—point me toward the way forward!!”

Rustle!

As if he’d hit the correct switch at just the right moment—or as if it had been moved by Muen’s resolve—the tiny chain on his wrist suddenly trembled violently, and even those blood-red runes became clearer.

The chain temporarily slipped off his wrist. Muen held it in his palm. It snapped taut—

And then...

It drooped limply downward.

“Huh?”

That’s it? You can’t do it?

I haven’t even used any force yet!

Muen’s hopes were so high that this sudden turn nearly made him choke into a heart attack.

No way—after I forced myself to hype up and get this all hot-blooded, Chain-chan, you can’t even give me some face?

Even if you want to lie down and rot, at least wait until you point out the direction—

Huh. Wait.

Muen stared at the drooping little chain and sharply noticed something off.

Chain-chan didn’t look like it was slacking. It really had pointed out a direction—except that direction was...

Muen took two steps forward and stared expressionlessly at the bottomless cliff at his feet.

Mist churned. The cliff was so deep you couldn’t see the bottom. Only a cold wind of unknown origin wailed through, like ghosts crying.

He casually kicked a small pebble down. After a long while, Muen finally heard the faint, barely audible sound of it hitting.

“No way...”

Muen’s eyelid twitched.

Now it wasn’t just a heart attack—his whole body was about to seize up.

Chain-chan, the left path is so wide and you won’t pick it. The right path is so wide and you won’t pick it. You have to pick below?

Do you like “below” that much? You’re so lewd—can you pick something else? I’ll go “below” for you specially later—

“...Not good.”

Muen clutched his head. His forehead was already covered in a fine layer of cold sweat as he gave a bitter smile.

“My mental strength is so empty my brain’s starting to fill up with yellow garbage?”

He had to rest as soon as possible, but... now wasn’t the time to rest.

“I just hope I can hold out until I make it to the bottom.”

If he managed to temporarily dodge Zagu’s chain hunting, only to get pancaked into a meat pie here by Mother Earth’s gravity... that would be too ridiculous.

Oh, right. A double-layer one, too.

Muen shoved Ariel on his back a little higher. Without hesitating further, he started climbing down along the nearly vertical cliff face.

Even if the road ahead was unknown, at times like this, he could only trust An’s guidance.

...

...

“The chain... broke?”

In the broad underground space, before a dignified obsidian throne, Shenyi’s Grand Duke raised his brows slightly at what he sensed, revealing a trace of disbelief.

“Why? With just Muen Campbell, why can he sever the chain connected to his soul? He shouldn’t even be able to discover it...”

“Because he’s my young master.”

An’s lips curved into a gentle line of pride and love, as if Muen doing those unbelievable things made her even happier and prouder than accomplishing them herself.

“Is it you?”

Shenyi’s Grand Duke looked at An and asked.

The sounds of steel being smelted and hammered—ding-ding-dong-dong like instruments—were still drifting from far away in the underground space.

And in front of him, another throne had risen at some point without anyone noticing.

That throne wasn’t obsidian, but an even colder magitech material. Yet it was just as tall as the obsidian throne, and the same kind of faintly familiar magic patterns—like the ones on the earlier platform—were carved upon it as well, solemn and imposing, yet with a hint of eerie strangeness.

An sat upright on the icy throne. Her waist and back were still straight, yet she couldn’t move.

“Is it you? Was it you who gave Muen Campbell the method to break free of the lock?”

Shenyi’s Grand Duke’s tone was gentle. He didn’t look like he was interrogating her at all.

Yet those calm words carried a strange force that made it impossible not to answer.

“Who...”

Light flickered in An’s eyes.

“So what if it was?”

“To still have the spare strength to secretly tip off Muen Campbell at that critical moment... you really do keep surprising me—hm? Wait.”

Shenyi’s murky eyes suddenly narrowed.

“No.”

“Are you scared now? If that’s the case, I’d advise you—”

“No. You’re lying to me.”

After only a brief moment of confusion, Shenyi’s tone turned certain.

“You are absolutely lying to me. At that time, you had no way to remind Muen Campbell about anything related to 【Myriad-Age Cycle】. You also didn’t have the spare strength to leave any tricks on that branch.”

“...Who told you I didn’t? That’s just your guess.”

An’s face was blank.

“No. It isn’t a guess—it’s an inference. The logic is simple. If at that time you still had that much strength to spare... why didn’t you directly remove the lock for him?”

If An at that moment already held part of 【Myriad-Age Cycle】’s authority, then naturally she had the ability to remove the lock directly—to erase whatever Shenyi had done to Muen Campbell.

But she didn’t.

Not because she didn’t want to—but because she couldn’t.

The situation back then was too urgent. There was no room for her to do it.

If she truly could, there would’ve been no need to go in such a roundabout way, leaving hidden information on a branch of Myriad-Age Cycle.

What if Muen Campbell never found the method to obtain that information?

What if, before he obtained it, he ran into demon pursuit and died after a bitter fight?

With even a little thought, it was obvious: this little maid whose love for her young master was so deep it couldn’t be spoken—so deep it had become blind—could never take such a risky approach.

Lying... was just a spur-of-the-moment idea, meant to muddy the waters and affect his judgment.

“But if it wasn’t you... then how did Muen Campbell do it? Without Myriad-Age Cycle’s branch helping him, he shouldn’t even be able to discover the chain on him.”

Shenyi frowned slightly and began sensing the last place Muen’s soul information had vanished...

That was—

“Was it you?”

Shenyi’s pupils shrank. He spun around abruptly.

It was the same question, but the one Shenyi was asking wasn’t the same person.

No—rather, to Shenyi, the one he was questioning was the same. It was just temporarily “not quite the same.”

“Was it you who guided that human, Muen Campbell, to that place? Why?”

That place...

It should never have been somewhere a mere human could set foot, much less touch.

Silence fell over everything.

On the obsidian throne, the king in multicolored robes sat with his chin propped on his hand. Those hollow, deep eyes seemed to gaze eternally into the distance.

But at this moment, the king would not answer Shenyi’s question, because—

It was only a pale skeleton.