Episode 85
“Wrong. No, that’s not it.”
[…Not it? Unless the perception of the Four Realms shifts, there shouldn’t be a new true seat, right?]
A low voice rumbled.
[So, you weren’t the true seat of the Four Realms after all. How dare you insult me.]
A chilling, soul-piercing aura radiated out.
It felt as if it could shatter Chris’s body into pieces at any moment.
A sharp sense of danger surged, but Chris didn’t back down.
This was the crucial moment.
“No, I’m not lying.”
[The truth? How laughable. I’ve already revealed the true names of all Four Realms.]
“That can’t be. Isn’t there one name you haven’t mentioned?”
[Nonsense. I have already named them all.]
“Well, you’d better think carefully. Are you sure you mentioned every single true name? There’s definitely one you left out.”
[What nonsense is this…?]
For a moment, the figure faltered.
He realized it.
Which name he hadn’t spoken.
“Now do you understand? What you missed.”
Chris took a steady step forward.
Toward him.
The closer Chris got, the more his aura changed.
Completely different from before.
An indescribable pressure radiated from him.
Incredibly, it was the same oppressive spiritual force that the figure had emitted earlier.
Feeling this soul pressure, the figure’s voice trembled.
[H-How…? What is this feeling…?]
“That’s right.”
Chris lifted the corner of his mouth.
At the same time, a fierce energy burst forth.
One the figure recognized.
An unmistakable aura.
It was his aura.
“My true name is ‘Istaroth.’ I am your original self, you fake.”
The figure’s eyes widened as if they might tear apart.
His soul suddenly convulsed wildly.
And then, something astonishing happened.
[Th-That…! Lies. This can’t be. Aaaahhhhh!!!]
With a scream, he began to shatter into nothingness.
A horrifying, incomprehensible sight.
Chris exhaled deeply.
‘Thank goodness it worked.’
The reason this happened was simple.
The figure wasn’t the original being, but a fake—a clone.
Not just him. All the high-ranking bosses in this underground garden were clones of people who had existed in reality.
‘The moment they doubt their own existence, they immediately vanish and reset.’
Chris had learned this when he and the hero party challenged the 28th floor.
The 28th floor boss was a super-intelligent being with insight piercing the truths of the world, but absurdly, it endlessly questioned its own existence, repeatedly vanishing and regenerating.
‘A truly dreadful scene.’
Chris shuddered at the thought of the beings who created this underground garden.
Transcendent entities existing in the highest realms of Gehenna and the Celestial World.
Why would they create such a bizarre labyrinth?
‘Anyway, I was worried, but the gamble paid off.’
He sighed deeply.
From start to finish, Chris had been acting—to make the figure doubt his own existence.
Of course, it was an extremely risky gamble.
Without one particular tool, he wouldn’t have dared to attempt it.
‘Without the Constellation’s Veil, this would have been impossible.’
It was a sacred relic Chris had smuggled away during the expedition to the extremely poisonous Maga.
The Constellation’s Veil was also known as the “Veil of Concealment.”
In other words, it was an artifact with camouflage abilities.
‘One of its key functions is to temporarily mimic the essence of another’s soul.’
It wasn’t just disguising appearance or aura like a magic spell.
It actually transformed the very essence of the soul to perfectly resemble the target for a limited time.
Of course, if the figure had been in full form, even the Constellation’s Veil wouldn’t have fooled him.
But since his perception was sealed and Chris had laid the groundwork with his acting, he was deceived.
At that moment, a strange voice echoed through the air.
It was the voice of a null-elemental spirit belonging to the ruins.
[You have cleared the 27th floor for the first time!]
[Your name, achievements, and epithet will be recorded in the Underground Garden’s Hall of Honor!]
Characters shimmered into the air.
The record to be inscribed in the Hall of Honor.
Christiang Van Barren Kazaar
Achievement: First to pioneer the 27th floor
Epithet: ‘The One Who Toyed With Demons’
Chris whistled quietly to himself.
‘That epithet sounds grandiose.’
Not bad at all.
If this got out, the Dark Maga and the entire Southern Magic Kingdom would be thrown into chaos.
Then, the voice Chris had been waiting for came.
[You have been awarded the first-clear bonus!]
‘Excellent!’ Clearing the 27th floor was an achievement no one had managed before.
Of course, beings of demon lord rank could clear the 27th floor routinely.
But once you reached that level, the responsibilities on your shoulders were too great to risk such dangerous challenges, so it remained unconquered.
Flash!
Finally, the reward Chris had hoped for appeared.
A small wooden box.
With a pounding heart, he opened it to find a familiar ring inside.
A dull gray ring engraved with five circular patterns. One of the circles faintly glowed.
‘The Vampiric Ring.’
A top-tier relic.
One of the highest-ranked artifacts among countless relics.
‘It’s powerful now, but it’s a growth-type relic that becomes stronger over time.’
It was the relic most treasured by the hero party’s 9-star archmage, Lanya, so its power was unquestionable.
‘And it suits me perfectly.’
Chris was actually better suited to maximize this relic’s power than even Lanya.
Though it was only at the first stage of unlocking, using this relic allowed Chris to instantly boost his strength by over 30%.
If he reached the second stage, he could amplify it by over 50%.
And with each further unlocking, the relic would grant new abilities.
‘This will be my secret weapon.’
Chris briefly thought of the First Noble, Sherard.
Could he kill him?
‘Not yet. But soon.’
He would grow a bit more.
Once he unlocked more of the Vampiric Ring’s power, he’d be able to strike Sherard down.
‘I will kill him, no matter what.’
Chris vowed with a heavy gaze.
Anyway, it was about time to head back.
If he delayed too long, the demon who had vanished would reset and revive.
‘I need to find the key first before I teleport.’
Chris already knew the location of the 27th floor key from when he explored it with the hero party.
Just as he was about to activate the teleport after grabbing a suitable treasure for Ruina—
‘Huh? What’s this?’
The 27th floor key, befitting its status as the top floor key, had an additional function.
It allowed him to observe the situation on the lower floors during teleportation.
Chris muttered in surprise.
“Why are they causing such a ruckus down there?”
Jupien, Marisa, Kashmir.
And even Simon.
They were locked in a fierce battle with the 17th floor boss—the spider queen Tarantula.
All of them were on the brink of losing their heads.
“Be careful!!”
Boom!!
With Kashmir’s shout, a massive explosion swept through the area.
Jupien, already in disarray, frowned.
“Your magic’s too flashy.”
“S-Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, just block better.”
Endless waves of spiderlings born from the queen swarmed in.
Though called ‘spiderlings,’ each was the size of a foal.
Their individual strength was only about that of a level-1 magical beast, but their numbers were in the hundreds, thousands… no, infinite.
No matter how many they killed, new spiderlings kept appearing.
And the bigger problem—
The spider queen herself.
Her upper body resembled a human’s.
Her face was even strikingly beautiful.
But below the waist, she was a complete monster.
A body as large as a house was attached.
Dozens of legs writhed like giant spears.
A level-6 magical beast.
The terrifying presence of the spider queen Tarantula.
“This is troublesome. I thought it wouldn’t be worth it.”
Spurt!
Blood splattered from Simon’s shoulder.
He’d been wounded by the queen’s silk.
“I didn’t expect this to be such a losing battle.”
They had come to rescue Christiang, but he was nowhere to be found, and they were locked in a desperate fight with the spider queen.
Simon stretched out his hand toward the spiderlings rushing at him.
Vwoooom!
The spiderlings’ faces swelled up and burst like balloons.
It was the blood explosion technique, a hematoma magic that uses the opponent’s blood inside their body to cause an explosion.
Hundreds of spiderlings were wiped out at once, and silence fell briefly.
But only briefly.
More spiderlings kept pouring in.
And the spider queen stretched out her ‘will-thread’ silk, waiting for an opening.
Simon smiled wryly.
‘Annoying. What a pain in the neck.’
At this rate, they’d all be wiped out.
‘There is one way, though.’
Simon quietly observed those fighting around him.
Jupien, Marisa, Kashmir.
The heirs of three noble families.
‘If I sacrifice them as blood offerings, the spider queen will be easy to handle.’
The blood explosion technique wasn’t black magic or magical arts.
It was a ‘trick.’
A strange technique that used blood to create various effects without any fixed form.
Therefore, it had many unique applications that other black or white magics didn’t possess.
Among all his skills, Simon’s specialty was the “Blood Sacrifice.”
He amplified his power by offering someone else’s blood as a sacrifice for himself.
“Since it’s all noble blood, the effect should be strong.”
He swallowed hard.
Suddenly, an overwhelming, almost maddening urge to feed surged through him.
He felt the temptation to sink his teeth into those bastards’ throats right then and there.
No hesitation at all.
After all, Simon was the kind of scoundrel who treated other people’s lives like insects.
But—
“That would make me an enemy of Prince Christian.”
Simon frowned deeply.
Of course, even if he killed them, Christian wouldn’t know.
But would he really stay in the dark forever?
That crazy young lord had the sharp wit to piece everything together from the slightest clue.
“Honestly, becoming Prince Christian’s enemy wouldn’t bother me. Actually, it might even be kind of fun.”
Simon chuckled quietly at the thought of Christian trying to kill him.
It did sound intriguing.
But—
“I might have to introduce this to Edrinne, though. That could be a problem.”
Swish!
Simon swung his hand, and a rain of blood poured down.
The baby spiders hit by the blood crackled and burned, dying a gruesome death.
“Ladies, can you hear me?”
The three pricked up their ears.
“At this rate, we’ll be wiped out. Of course, I have a way to survive, but you three will definitely die.”
If the worst came to pass, Simon would use their lives as a sacrifice.
“So, let’s come up with a plan. Lady Jupien and Lady Marisa, please subdue the baby spiders.”