Location: Forest of Screamers, Valentine Dukedome.

Time: Present

…

Two men walked along a path leading to a small, restricted dungeon. The entrance looked as if it had been vandalized recently.

Even though the place had been cleaned, traces of lesser demon blood could still be seen sticking to the walls.

The smell was sour to the nose. Even though the place was small, the air circulation was decent.

Mining tools, equipment, and trolleys were scattered along the way, leading toward a small rail track that descended into the depths below.

The two men were a contrast to one another. One wore a brown trench coat, a hat, leather gloves, and boots, carrying himself with calm confidence. The other looked like a local citizen of Valentine Dukedome.

"This stretch is starting to annoy me," said the man in the coat.

"Umm, mister… whoever you are…" the local man asked quietly. "Do I really have to come as well? Don't get me wrong, even though you paid me, I still don't want to deal with all the guards outside."

The man in the coat ignored his scared rambling and walked in without a hint of concern.

"Huh, wait—Eek…!"

The local man stumbled backward, his foot hitting something round and squishy. He looked down and froze.

It was a severed demon head, dismantled and half-crushed, its features an unsettling fusion of spider and human.

"Tsk. Make another noise, and I will rip your throat."

"Y-yes… my bad."

The local followed the man, whose face remained hidden behind a high-standing collar and a rounded hat.

It wasn't that he wanted to see his face. But he could not help feeling curious about this gentleman who had offered him a hundred gold coins just to lead him to the nearest dungeon that had suffered a demon attack a few days ago.

One hundred gold coins was a massive sum for someone who earned twenty coppers for six hours of daily labor.

His life would be set.

He could even afford to fool around in the red-light district with that one woman he had always had his eye on. Even though he was married. Even though he had two kids.

"Hehehe…"

Just thinking about the red-light district made something rise within him.

"…"

The man in the trench coat rolled his eyes and decided to ask a question.

"Was Lady Veronica present in the Dukedome when all of this happened?"

"Hm? Oh yeah," the local replied. "She was sighted near the cathedral with her family when the ceremony occurred. I think she was here the whole time."

"Hmm… And yet, she was unable to notice something this big," the trench coat man muttered.

The dungeon incident had occurred right after the Tiara Incident, where the Demon God's vessel appeared and nearly wiped out the townsfolk.

With events of that magnitude, her reaction, or lack of it, was not what anyone had expected.

It was as if she cared for none of it.

'What is she plotting now…?'

He had his doubts that the Tiara Incident, the Dungeon Incident, and Veronica's lack of action were somehow connected.

But he knew better than to question Veronica Valentine.

Doing so would be suicide.

His heart could stop without warning. Or worse, he could be reduced to something far more humiliating like suddenly turning into a newborn baby.

Any of those outcomes were possible if he voiced his doubts publicly and Veronica gets the gist of it.

Which was why he wouldn't.

He had been given strict orders to carry out this investigation in secrecy.

If he were discovered, he would risk exposing 'Lady Aisha's' involvement as well.

As the current head of the Frost Calamity Tower, she did not want her name dragged into this mess. Especially not against Veronica Valentine, with whom Lady Aisha shared close ties.

His steps halted at a fork in the path, two tunnels splitting to the left and right.

He turned to the perverted creep.

"Where to?"

"Uhh… I think it's left."

"…You think?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, I mean, it's left. Definitely left! I can feel it!"

"..."

The perverted creep pointed to the left and hurried toward the corner.

He followed him, fully aware that this perverted creep did not even know his own shit.

But he had no other choice.

At that exact moment, he recalled Lady Aisha's scolding.

"What? You got scammed?! Again? That makes it the seventh time in the last two days!"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

As they walked deeper, both began to struggle for breath.

'That's weird…?'

A sudden chill raced down his spine as an unforeseen mana enveloped his entire body out of nowhere.

"…?!"

His steps halted abruptly.

The mana gathering around him originated from one of the rings given to the High Priest of the Cathedral of Lancaster.

The ring reacted instantly.

It was designed to trigger a protective shell the moment it detected a lethal environment.

"Hey… I… ca…n't bre—"

The High Priest, the man in the trench coat, turned his gaze to the perverted creep who had been guiding him just moments ago.

He was now on the ground, clutching his throat. Bluish veins bulged grotesquely across his skin.

The pervert extended his hands, pleading silently for help.

But all he received was a cold stare.

There was no grief.

As his vision blurred, the man's face finally came into view.

A pair of red eyes stared down at him.

Long golden bangs fell loosely over a strangely feminine face, despite him clearly being a man.

"Who…?" he croaked with his final breath.

"…"

The High Priest said nothing.

He could have saved him. He was fully capable of doing so.

But there was no reason to.

He had already found what he came here for.

Before leaving him to die, the priest crouched down and retrieved the sack of one hundred gold coins from his coat.

"…I will send this to your family," he said calmly, staring at the lifeless body.

"…"

He removed his hat and trench coat, storing them away inside his spatial vault. His long golden hair fell past his shoulders as he ran a hand through it, brushing away the stiffness.

From his waist, he drew a silver-polished estoc sword.

"Hmm… let's see. This should be fine… right here."

He drove the tip of the blade into the ground before him.

STAB—!

CREES—!

The sword slid halfway into the earth.

The ring's activation confirmed it.

The killing intent was close. And it was right below.

With his skill, he pinpointed the source instantly.

The sword began to hum.

One by one, faint runes etched along the blade surfaced, glowing a dim bluish-white as ice mana was drawn directly from his core and channeled downward.

The moment the channeling completed, the ground reacted.

It rippled. Like water disturbed by a single drop.

ZEEEENNNN—!!

The temperature plummeted.

Frost exploded outward from the blade's tip, freezing soil, stone, and even the lingering residue left behind. Thin white cracks spread across the surface like a spiderweb.

Then, everything stopped.

In the next instant, the earth beneath his feet folded inward.

A hollow opened.

He fell.

"Huph."

The High Priest kicked off the collapsing ground and landed atop a thin pillar of ice he had formed midair, without even glancing back.

He steadied himself instantly.

Then he looked ahead.

There was nothing.

Only pitch-black emptiness.

The sole source of light came from above, where the torn boundary between the Mortal Domain and the Endless Reality still shimmered faintly, unstable, bleeding light into the void.

"No wonder…" he muttered quietly.

So this was where it had gone.

The Endless. Lowest reality among the five.

The ice from his ring was still overlapping his body, protecting him from the corrosion outside.

From his pocket, he took out a prism shaped object.

The cracks on the prism started to react, glowing faintly along the fractures. As it did, the top of the prism opened up with mechanical clicks.

Revealing a palm sized miniature map with terraces and landscapes that felt otherworldly.

"Hahaha, I did it…" he muttered.

For the last decades, he had been given the task to find the medium. This prism could only be opened when it got near the source who had the curse or blessing of one of the five calamities, Dreamweaver.

The High Priest subdued his excitement and put the map safely back into his pocket. Then he looked around the Endless.

"Where is the source…?"

That was what he wanted to find.

He was told that the key to revealing the map lay in the Endless Reality. Where he stood right now. And if this map could only be opened when it got close to a source with Dreamweaver's blessing or curse, then that source must be present nearby.

He wandered through the Endless, floating in the air atop his ice platform. He encountered strange asymmetric patterns drifting around, ones he did not dare to touch.

After a few hours, just as he was ready to give up, he noticed several lights twinkling in the void sky. Bluish, white, and then golden.

"What are those…?"

He moved closer, and as he approached the lights or what he thought were stars.

His eyes widened.

"Good Lord..!"

There were more than a thousand cocoons hanging in the void, each one dangling from a thin thread extending upward into nothingness. Their outer layers continuously shifted in color, from white, to blue, and then to gold.

Inside the cocoons were humans and other species, sleeping soundly, their expressions changing subtly as every second passed.

But that was not what made him gasp.

What truly froze him in place was who was trapped inside.

All of them…

Every single one of them had been cursed.

.

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[A/N: 100 Powerstone in 24 hours to get 2 extra chapters!]

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