"Next... enjoy it... properly..."

"..."

Muen and Ariel stared at each other. The atmosphere froze for a few seconds—to the point that both of them forgot they were still gripping each other’s hands.

Unexpectedly, the last words left behind by Zagu’s soul didn’t seem to be an answer to Muen’s questions at all, but rather some kind of... party surprise teaser?

"If I’m not wrong, the ‘existence’ Zagu was talking about definitely isn’t something cute like Teletubbies and Peppa Pig, right?"

Muen’s cheek twitched.

Even dying, he hadn’t expected this bastard to still be holding a card like that.

So this was what “steadiness” looked like in a mature First Demon General of the demon race? He’d planned for “if I can’t win, I’ll blow it up” from the start? Hey—back then you clearly had a huge advantage, okay? Being this pessimistic, is that healthy?

No... it wasn’t pessimism. It was just that he’d calculated every possible outcome from the very beginning. That was also why he’d chosen to fight him and Ariel at this time, in this place.

Damn it. He won—he really did win—but in the end he still got screwed by Zagu anyway.

Give me back my respect, you bastard. If I’d known, I would’ve set you on fire and burned you—body and soul—into nothing!

"I don’t know what Teletubbies and Peppa Pig are supposed to be, but the problem right now is..." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Ariel stared at him with dead-fish eyes, then yanked her hand free like she was throwing away trash. She looked genuinely furious that Muen hadn’t let her “whip the corpse” to vent. "What do we do next?"

"What do we do..."

Muen rubbed his chin and thought.

"First, don’t panic. We still don’t know what this ‘existence’ Zagu mentioned actually is. If we try to think positively... there’s been enough time to finish the fight and even go back and light incense for Zagu, and nothing’s happened yet. Maybe we didn’t disturb anything at all."

Yeah. That was the best-case scenario.

And also the least possible scenario.

Because with how steady Zagu was, there was no way he’d miscalculate at a moment like this.

Which meant...

Rustle... rustle...

A strange sound abruptly disturbed the quiet of this place—where only two living people remained.

Muen and Ariel both tightened inside at the same time. His death premonition still hadn’t issued a warning, but some weird sensation was constantly reminding them to stay alert.

And it also completely shattered Muen’s last shred of wishful thinking.

He gave Ariel an embarrassed smile.

The only thing he got back was an eye-roll.

Rustle... the sound continued.

It was very light—easy to miss if you weren’t listening for it.

But it seemed to carry a kind of eerie magic, making every other stray noise in the world voluntarily hide itself in front of that rustle.

Or be swallowed by it.

This was clearly a ruin-site where a huge battle had just ended, full of countless lingering noises—yet it was now silent in a way that was terrifying.

"Look."

Ariel suddenly spoke beside him.

The two of them were standing close, so even when she deliberately dropped her voice as low as possible, Muen could still hear her clearly.

"Over there."

Muen followed the direction she pointed.

It was a corridor.

The corridor looked completely ordinary—so ordinary that compared to the wreckage of the former botanical garden, it felt like someone had clipped a frame of daily life and pasted it into a war scene soaked in blood. The mismatch was jarring.

It wasn’t the corridor Muen had passed through earlier. It was the direction Zagu had come from.

Zagu had crossed that heavy door, come out of that corridor, and appeared in front of Muen and Ariel—starting the savage slaughter between them.

And now, that mottled, battered door had somehow opened on its own again, revealing the corridor beyond.

The corridor was bright, because the ceiling was also set with many precious demonstones that still hadn’t decayed even after a thousand years.

And now...

Rustle... rustle...

Like the noise of a tape malfunctioning.

Like two rough pieces of cloth rubbing against each other.

Or like... a powerless body dragging powerless feet, step by step, trudging forward.

In Muen and Ariel’s line of sight, there was nothing on the other side of the door. The corridor was empty.

Yet every time that weird rustle sounded, those bright demonstones went out one after another.

One.

One.

Then another.

Unfathomable darkness rushed out from deep inside the corridor, stretching rapidly toward the two of them—like a monster opening a giant mouth and chewing away at the space itself.

And as the rustle grew clearer and clearer, the darkness spread faster and faster.

"Gulp..."

This kind of waiting—facing the unknown—was the thing that tensed the mind the most. Muen’s heart was practically in his throat.

Finally—

"It’s coming!"

Holding his breath, Muen warned Ariel to be ready. Ariel didn’t relax for an instant either—her hand was already gripping the hilt of the Skyfire greatsword.

Rustle.

The massive demonstone above their heads—the one that had illuminated the garden for a thousand years—went out in an instant.

Darkness fell.

Muen instinctively started to draw Elizabeth and cast a light spell. No matter what, facing an enemy in the dark was never a rational choice.

But before he could move—

【Don’t move!!】

A stab of pain went through his mind.

The Black Book had risen to the surface of his consciousness at some point. Its pages were open, and the scarlet text on them was blinding—like a severe warning.

【Don’t make a sound!!】

【Don’t pray!!】

【Don’t let It notice you!!!】

Muen had never seen the Black Book this on-edge.

"Wh—"

The question in his heart hadn’t even finished forming before Muen brutally strangled it himself.

Because in that instant, he finally felt an indescribable... death premonition.

Like a sharp knife—without any process, without any defense, without any warning at all—being shoved straight into his heart.

And then twisted.

Rustle.

The darkness suddenly vanished, so Muen didn’t need any extra light source to see his surroundings.

But the environment wasn’t bright either. It was stuck in a dim, blurry state.

As if... the two concepts of darkness and light were both forbidden to exist here.

So this place presented a chaotic in-between. Muen racked his brain and still couldn’t find a word for the color of what he was seeing.

Rustle.

And yet this seemed to be only the “foreplay.”

As that sound drew closer, everything within Muen’s vision began to warp in a grotesque way.

Shattered steel seeped blood like rotting meat. The piled-up magic circuits in the corners writhed in madness, tangling with each other, tearing at each other, biting and chewing—like a nest of snakes in heat, restless and frenzied.

Stench.

Musk.

Classical music.

Noise.

Knocking.

Countless chaotic smells, impossible-to-describe chaotic sounds slammed into Muen’s senses and mind. It was like the whole world went completely insane at that moment. Even the straight lines that were usually so upright began a deranged dance—everything he could see flipped and twisted. Even the most crazed abstract painter couldn’t paint a picture this bizarre and hallucinatory.

When Muen looked down—

it felt like even he had already been assimilated by that madness. His hands sprouted grotesque mouthparts, accusing each other, screaming that the other wasn’t pulling their weight. One of his legs grew seven or eight tentacles and suddenly ran in the opposite direction, declaring it was going on strike. His kidneys protested the way he’d exploited them every day. His heart, liver, and stomach simply tore open his belly, folded their newly grown limbs together, and sighed in bliss that they could finally enjoy fresh air and sunlight too.

Whispers.

Hissing.

Crying.

Wailing.

Every chunk of flesh was rejoicing. Every bone was screaming. Every drop of blood was «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» mutating. In the briefest instant, the individual called “Muen Campbell” seemed to have twisted into a mass of incompatible—

Clatter.

A cool wash swept through him, and Muen snapped back to himself.

The warping and madness hadn’t truly polluted him yet. His hands and feet were still there. His organs hadn’t crawled out and declared “independence.”

Aside from the terrifying assault on his senses and mind still lingering, everything felt like a dream.

Even so, cold sweat had already soaked through his clothes.

He finally understood why his death premonition hadn’t worked at first. In the face of something like this, even “perception” was the kind of thing that could be warped at will.

What kind of existence was it, that he hadn’t even seen its true form and he’d almost been contaminated into a lump of deformed flesh?

Muen reflexively turned his gaze, wanting to glimpse the true face of that existence.

No.

The moment the corner of his vision brushed past a few chaotic, deep, childlike scribble-lines—before he could see anything with real meaning—Muen forced himself to stop.

He shouldn’t look.

Because the moment “It” appeared, he should’ve already known what that existence was.

Fear.

Powerlessness.

Aftershock.

That kind of despair that didn’t allow even a hint of resistance. That kind of terror that, the moment it existed, could drag the entire world into distortion and destruction...

He’d never felt it even when facing the Withering King, the Silent Moon, or countless other Evil Gods.

So far, only one existence had ever made Muen feel this way, and that was—

No.

He couldn’t think it.

Muen immediately cut off his thoughts again.

Back then, in the old loli’s illusion, a fake existence had been able to lock onto him across a thousand years of time. Let alone now, at this close a distance—if that name surfaced in his mind at a time like this... even a single word related to It...

it would be over.

Muen carefully retracted all his senses and perception. He even forcibly moved his gaze away and shut his eyes, not daring to look toward where the rustling sound was coming from.

"Is it really It?"

Using his powerful bodily control, Muen forced himself to calm down, and cautiously asked the Black Book in his heart. Since the Black Book could appear to warn him, that meant the situation should still—at least for now—be within the range the Black Book could handle.

Don’t move, don’t make a sound, don’t pray... It seemed that as long as he followed those rules, he wouldn’t be noticed for the moment.

【A remnant.】

Scarlet text appeared again on the page, but compared to usual it was much dimmer—like for the Black Book, this was the equivalent of “speaking quietly.”

"A remnant..."

It was only a remnant...

Why would a “remnant” of It appear in a place like this? And it looked like high-ranking demonmen like Zagu clearly knew It existed here.

No—if he thought carefully, this kind of thing wasn’t actually that strange, because the so-called demon race was—

Muen jerked hard, a chill running through him. Too close. He’d nearly lost control and let those two words surface in his mind. This kind of natural, self-evident line of thought felt like he was being lured along by some kind of force.

Luckily, his willpower was firm enough.

And the important thing right now wasn’t chasing the “why,” but how to—

"Speaking of which—Ariel!"

Muen suddenly realized something.

He’d only survived because the Black Book—usually aloof and tsundere and ignoring him—still always showed up at the critical moment to warn him and protect him.

But what about Ariel?

She might be directly exposed under It’s gaze!

"I hope I’m not too late..."

Muen didn’t dare open his eyes, and he didn’t dare carelessly confirm the environment around him. He gritted his teeth and moved the hand closer to Ariel... just slightly.

That violated the rule of 【Don’t move】.

In an instant, Muen felt the chaos in his ears jump up by more than a level. Amid indistinguishable laughter, roaring, and crying, some vague—but extremely terrifying—muttering was drawing closer.

【#&@&#￥......】

“It” whispered in a language that seemed able to drive someone insane directly. Even with his eyes closed, Muen felt as if he could see the entire world twisting and collapsing.

He could even feel a bizarre, clammy wind brushing straight across his skin. That meant “It” was getting closer...

"Damn it."

Muen clenched his teeth, forcibly suppressing the terror in his heart and the trembling in his body. After taking a deep breath, he suddenly reached out hard to his side—

Finally, at the very last second, he grabbed the only warmth in this bizarre place.

The muttering, after a sudden spike of urgency and sharpness, slowly faded again.

Muen let out a long breath. But before he could do anything else, his palm suddenly trembled—because in that instant, what he felt wasn’t only warmth.

It was also an extremely powerful soul-force.

With that soul-force supporting him, he even felt it become noticeably easier to endure the external assault on his senses and mind.

【Don’t worry.】

Only then did the Black Book slowly turn its page, unhurried.

【Her teacher is already awake.】

...

...

Time rewound to the moment darkness fell.

"Ariel! Don’t speak! Don’t make a sound! Seal your senses! Seal your breathing! Don’t think about anything related to gods!"

As the eerie thing arrived, a familiar voice also rang out in Ariel’s mind.

"Teacher..."

Out of trust in her teacher, Ariel sealed herself even faster than Muen did. Compared to Muen, she didn’t even see the twisting madness at all.

But she still sensed just how terrifying that “existence” drawing closer was. It couldn’t be fought, it couldn’t be touched, it couldn’t even be looked at. All she could do was shrink every trace of herself back as far as possible and flee in panic.

She also had to be thankful that even after breaking through to Fifth Tier, she was still nothing but an ant to “that existence.” So as long as she quietly hid in a corner, she could avoid the fate of being crushed under a foot.

"Teacher... you woke up?"

"Heh... If I didn’t wake up now, I’d be turned into a carrier and breeding ground for pollution together with you."

In Ariel’s mind-space, a faint candlelight flared to life, illuminating her teacher’s gentle, familiar face.

There was helplessness on her face.

And relief.

"...Sorry."

"There’s nothing to apologize for. And it’s thanks to you that I finally understood what that familiar feeling was—and where this place actually is."

"Huh? Teacher, you remembered?"

"Sigh. It’s not that I remembered. It’s that I finally managed to match some things here with some fragments buried deep in my memory. After all, whatever happened here has most likely been completely erased from history."

Ariel’s teacher spoke with a tone of deep, wistful heaviness.

"Then where is this, exactly...?"

"I can’t say."

Ariel’s teacher’s expression turned serious, signaling Ariel to be silent.

She lifted one finger and pointed outward.

“It” was still there.

"The details—I can’t say for now. But..."

Ariel’s teacher held her finger upright in front of Ariel.

That meant one.

Ariel immediately understood.

Then—

that finger suddenly flipped downward, dropping.

"This represents descent."

Ariel’s teacher stared into her eyes and spoke word by word:

"Do you understand? Here... this Gutongs Castle is the source of that great chaos—the place where ‘It’ descended!"