Creak.

Muen pushed the door open.

Blood.

So much blood.

Scalding, crimson, vivid blood.

It filled the entire room until there was nowhere to set foot.

"Again... this place?" Muen let out a sigh.

What felt familiar wasn’t only the blood carpeting the floor, but also the ancient decorations all around.

Compared to last time, it didn’t look like much had changed. The patterns on the walls and windows were still old and exquisite—if these were out in the world, they would absolutely be valuable works of art, enough to make collectors fight over them.

But the only thing that had changed in a way you could see with the naked eye were those strange blanks, as if someone had directly wiped parts of the world clean.

Had there been more of them?

Something had vanished.

Yet Muen had not the slightest memory of what those missing things had been.

Maybe a piece of furniture, maybe a kind of pattern, or maybe... something that wasn’t important at all.

Muen’s fingers brushed over a porcelain vase on a mahogany tea table. The cold sensation felt utterly real.

But he didn’t find it strange that those blanks had suddenly increased, that things had disappeared for no reason.

Because that was normal.

This was a dream.

No matter how real it felt, it was still only a dream.

No one could clearly remember every detail of a dream. No matter how intense, how unforgettable a dream seemed, once you woke up, it became nothing more than a false phantom glimpsed through thick glass.

People dreamed every day—how much did they truly remember?

"But I can’t be having this kind of dream for no reason, let alone dreaming an almost identical dream twice in a row."

"Which means..."

Muen crouched down and studied the girl on the floor.

"Are you trying to... tell me something?"

"..."

The girl said nothing, because she had been dead for a long time.

Only that bright-red blood continued to stream from the wound at her neck, gathering into a lonely, sorrowful river.

Faintly, Muen heard many voices.

Laughter.

Crying.

Rage.

Cursing.

Prayers.

And...

"Save them."

The most humble...

a plea.

...

...

"Hah... hah... damn it... how much longer have I been walking?"

Ariel stopped to rest for a moment and took out her pocket watch to check the time.

Since she was inside an underground cavern, she couldn’t tell day from night, but from the moment she started running with Miss Muse on her back, it looked like a full seven hours had already passed.

For these seven hours—aside from one short rest in the middle—she hadn’t stopped moving for even a second.

After shaking off those "ghouls," Ariel didn’t actually need to be this rushed. Her injuries not only hadn’t healed, they’d picked up a few more during the earlier fight, and on her back was Miss Muse—who didn’t look heavy, but in reality weighed even more than Liya that big-titted cow.

You could say the strength she’d built up from that nap earlier was almost completely spent.

But...

What that weird white-haired loli had said before kept bothering her.

Get to the direction Miss Muse pointed as early as possible.

And—

Zagu and those demonfolk might already have caught up.

"Damn it. Even after it’s come to this, you’re still haunting me?"

Even though she’d already expected Zagu to cling on like a mad dog from her earlier talk with Miss Muse, Ariel still couldn’t help cursing out loud.

Things were different now.

Because during that exchange by the campfire, neither she nor Miss Muse had likely anticipated the existence of those monsters—the ones that white-haired loli had called Corruptors.

Getting to this point was already hard enough. If Zagu joined the battlefield now, it wouldn’t be throwing oil on the fire—it would be tossing a bomb straight into it!

"The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Sooner or later I’m going to pay back that grudge with interest. And that white-haired loli—she acted like she was so damn amazing, and she even knew me and Miss Muse. Couldn’t she have helped at all? Even if she couldn’t explain because of some taboo, she should’ve at least given me some kind of item to help clear the stage!" Ariel huffed.

Wasn’t that how stories always went?

Right before facing the Demon King at the Demon King’s castle, the hero meets a white-bearded old man. The old man hands the hero an item that looks useless, but it ends up playing a crucial role in the final decisive battle!

And even if it wasn’t a white-bearded old man, a white-haired old loli was basically the same thing, right?!

"No—how can I even be thinking like that?"

Ariel suddenly clenched her hand. Her neatly trimmed nails dug into a wound that hadn’t scabbed over yet, and the pain that flared up finally made her a little more clear-headed.

How could she think like that?

How could she rely on someone else?

The more it was a moment like this, the more she could only trust herself, depend on herself—use her own power to overcome the crisis!

"I’ve come this far like that... haven’t I?"

Even if she’d had a teacher’s help, in most situations she’d still pushed forward alone.

That was why she was strong.

"How embarrassing... is it because Miss Muse is too warm?" Ariel gave a self-mocking smile. After gently rubbing her cheek against Miss Muse’s soft cheek again, she tightened the rope connecting them once more.

"Let’s keep going."

Ariel took one step forward and crossed out of the flower sea.

The entire withered sea of flowers ended abruptly here. Under her feet now was ordinary dirt.

But even at her speed, it had taken a full seven hours to cross that flower sea—enough to show just how vast it was.

"Next..."

Ariel lit a small flame to illuminate the road ahead.

On the other side of the flower sea, there was still a broad stretch of darkness with no visible end. This underground cavern was so huge it was almost unbelievable—if Ariel hadn’t already experienced several ancient ruins with hidden worlds inside, she might have doubted whether she was really still underground.

And following the direction Miss Muse had pointed to—following the level road beneath Ariel’s feet—before long, the scenery in front of her abruptly changed.

"This is..."

It wasn’t some exaggerated transformation. It didn’t suddenly turn from night into day, and it didn’t suddenly reveal the moon and the sun.

But if she had to describe it—once this sight entered Ariel’s eyes, the shock she felt was probably about the same as when she’d first stepped into that underground flower sea.

Buildings appeared in the distance.

Low, flat, massive, tightly packed—stretching all the way to the limit of her vision. No, at this scale, it should be called a cluster of buildings.

Ariel couldn’t count how many there were. By the light of her flame, she could only vaguely see them pressed together in cramped piles, covering the ground like moss.

"What the hell? Cave-dwellers?"

Ariel found what she’d seen along the way even harder to process.

A complicated underground system—sure, that was normal. In certain geological environments, intersecting cavern mazes weren’t rare.

But ever since she’d woken up the second time, it felt like Miss Muse hadn’t climbed down a cliff like she’d said—she’d jumped straight into a spatial gate.

Weird Corruptor monsters. A withered sea of flowers blooming underground. And now this enormous cluster of buildings you couldn’t even count...

None of this should exist underground. It felt more like...

"An ancient ruin?"

Ariel frowned slightly, rubbing her smooth chin as she thought seriously.

Yes—this hellhole really did feel like a relic left behind from ancient times, which was why there were so many bizarre things here.

But ruins were ruins. For a place like this to remain after a thousand years, it should have been protected by strict seals. ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) For example, the ancient ruin she’d entered last time in the Forest of Dead Calamity had been hidden behind a bronze ancient gate.

But on this whole route...

"No. If you look at this place on its own, it really doesn’t seem protected—like you can just walk right in. But if you treat everything as one whole..."

Ariel remembered the towering city wall and massive gate she’d seen when she entered Gutongs Castle as a captive...

That’s right. Taken alone, each part was weird. But if she treated everything as one whole—one whole that belonged to the demonfolk city of Gutongs Castle—

then it all became perfectly reasonable.

"So that’s it. Gutongs Castle really wasn’t built overnight by the demonfolk—it was dug up. This is an ancient ruin! But..."

Ariel made the flame brighter, illuminating farther into the dark.

"This ancient ruin is way too big."

Gutongs Castle itself was already a huge city—towering walls, gorgeous ancient buildings, and countless high towers that stabbed into the sky. Even though most of the demonfolk had gone to the front lines and it looked a little empty, Ariel estimated the city could hold at least a million people.

And beneath Gutongs Castle, there was still a region this enormous. Because of the lighting and her position she couldn’t see the whole thing, but Ariel had a faint sense the population this place could hold absolutely far exceeded Gutongs Castle above.

Because this region’s style was completely different from what Ariel had seen in Gutongs Castle. It wasn’t towering and majestic, and it wasn’t gorgeous and grand. The ancient atmosphere was still there, but it felt more like... 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"A slum?"

Ariel’s gaze flickered as she murmured softly.

She thought of Belrand.

Belrand was the most populous and most prosperous city on the continent.

But precisely because of that, over centuries of development and evolution, it had been forced to split in two by the Gulain River.

The glamorous, spotless Upper City.

The cramped, filthy, stinking Lower District.

"So this is Gutongs Castle’s Lower District?"

No—this was even more extreme.

Ariel’s fingers brushed across a broken wall coated in dust.

These boxy buildings had no sense of design at all. Compared to the artistic architecture of Gutongs Castle, they were worlds apart—like simple boxes stacked together for the sole purpose of stuffing people inside.

Just sweeping her eyes over them, Ariel could already imagine how crowded and suffocating life here must have been.

She’d grown up in the Lower District. None of this was unfamiliar.

But there was also something here that was completely different from Belrand’s Lower District.

That was—

Belrand’s Lower District still counted as a place for humans to live.

Even with the gap between rich and poor, even with corners sunlight never reached, even though not long ago a woman alone wouldn’t have dared walk the Lower District at night... it was still a place where people could live.

There would be children’s laughter on dirty streets. Women would go out boldly during the day. And even in those sunless corners, you could still eat black bread—five Aimier a pound.

But this place was far too oppressive, far too cramped. Even if no one lived here now, one look was enough for Ariel to see only—

despair.

If wealth and poverty divided Belrand’s Upper City and Lower District...

Then the dividing line between Gutongs Castle and this place felt more like...

"Master—and slaves."