"I escaped." Prisha bit her lips. "He is too powerful. No matter what I did, my poison couldn't reach him. He actually took the overall first rank in the cross-labyrinth leaderboard of this Labyrinth."

"A brat like that should either join us or get erased." Qerin snorted. "But for now, we have to retreat. The Magic Towers should be coming here with their main forces right now, and it won't take long for them to come here."

"Let's go."

All of them, even the bulky guy that was roaming around the forest who had returned, were suddenly wrapped up in hazy darkness from their clocks and flew up.

"Miss Qerin, what was that thing there in front of the Labyrinth entrance?" Prisha looked at the big box that was shaking and had a glowing magic pattern on it.

"That's a gift I prepared for that Ainen for ruining our plan," Zurdon said with a chuckle.

"Do you know Zurdon's class?" Qerin looked at Prisha.

"I don't know, but I heard some rumours among others who have been on a mission with Mr. Zurdon." Prisha blinked, curious. "They say Mr. Zurdon's class is a nightmare. And that people would rather die then get in his hands. So, what is his class? What does it do?"

"It's a Class called Transfiguration Artist." Qerin glanced at the box last time as the group flew away. "An SSS-rank class. He can reshape the souls of living beings with various external influences he can get his hands on and also merge two or more souls into a figure, and initiate a fundamental disfiguration of the physical appearance in tandem with the process."

The skin-changing girl slapped Prisha's butt and said. "In short, that box has a creature. A scary, ugly creature that he created from merging two beautiful women into one. A work of art from Mr. Zurdon."

"But it's good that you didn't see it, haha."

'What the fuck?' Prish gulped. 'How mad will Ainen be once he sees that the creature in the box is the result of two people he knew?'

…

Ainen sat down. "Well, if they are still outside, I can't just exit."

'Indeed, you will die. So, just to be safe, spend one day here. By then, the Magic Towers should have fully responded.'

Ainen looked at the exit. "Can I peek outside and quickly return? Like only poking out my head?"

'That…' Lord Black wryly smiled. 'Yeah, if I remember correctly, if any part of your body is still inside physically, you can return inside. But if you fully exit, and then enter again, you will start from the first floor.'

'Gotcha, let's go peek.'

Ainen stood up and poked his head through the portal.

It felt a bit weird, but his head actually saw the outside scenery. However, his eyes shook.

Dead bodies everywhere.

"No…." Ainen felt his doused anger rising.

Sirika, Henil, James, Remia…

The party members of Naresh and Diana were also dead!

Lord Black sighed. 'They must have used the bangle to exit, but they didn't know there were enemies outside.'

"Fucking pieces of trash from Cradle!" Ainen ground his teeth. "If I get a chance, I'll destroy them."

Lord Black wanted to say something, like how common an occurrence this was, but didn't in the end and changed the topic. 'Why is there a brand new polished box here?'

'And it's shaking, so there's something inside.'

Ainen looked at the box and frowned. "It's five meters tall. The enemies are also not in sight. Did they escape while leaving behind a monster in the box?"

'Spread your heat sparks and sense the surroundings. See if there's anyone.'

"No one. It looks like they left. Still, I'll be cautious." Ainen jumped out of the exit and immediately summoned his Cafe Bistro and activated the No-Entry Barrier, as there was still some time left before it needed to be recharged.

Ron and Syl were still sleeping inside, and Ainen didn't want to wake them up.

"There's some lingering magic on that box." Almond walked towards the box.

But the moment he came within a meter of it, he felt mana stirring and the pattern on top of the box glowed before it displayed a large hologram on top of the box with a message on it.

[ Dear Ainen. Congratulations on foiling my mission, but not completely, as we have another Labyrinth marked for inversion. But that's not the point. The point is that you failed us and that demands a reward, right? The reward is in the box. Don't worry, you are very familiar with the reward in the box, and I think you will like it. ]

In the next moment, the front side of the box's wall fell.

"Jreeeee…"

"Mreee…"

Ainen was startled.

Two trunks with briars emerged first, issuing strange sounds, followed by two warped, beastly heads with warped horns and long, dark-colored hair hanging from the sides. The heads were stuck on a single, large, strange body with no necks in between.

The entire body was giant and fat with six flappy legs below and a single giant tail with spikes at the back.

Ainen was confused until he saw the creature fully emerging from the box and saw something on top of its back.

A picture displaying two people he knew. Lilian and Yelvina.

"Arr!…Arr!"

The creature saw Ainen and trembled, its big eyes that seemed to be tearing poured large tears.

"Jreeee...Mreee!"

"W-What…." Ainen's face turned blank. His legs literally turned weak as he fell upon thinking of a possibility.

"It's n-not true, right? How could someone do this?" Ainen's heart trembled just as much as his eyes as he looked at the creature.

Lord Black was also blanked out.

'A-Ainen…'

'It-it hurts…'

Suddenly, a weak voice rang in Ainen's mind, a voice sounding broken, as if it couldn't bear the weight of its pain anymore.

A voice…belonging to Lilian.

Ainen's entire being shook. His breathing turned chaotic, his pupils shrank, and his eyes turned bloodshot as an intense, undiluted rage bubbled in him.

'Ainen...'

Ainen saw the left head's trunk approaching him slowly, tremblingly, but then paused as if afraid to touch him.

Ainen snapped. He looked up, and his mouth opened before a pure, rageful throat-tearing scream burst out as if venting the maelstrom of wrath and sadness he was feeling.

He, who knew the weight of kindness and cruelty in equal parts, who believed himself to be a good guy, was seeing darkness that he had never fathomed before.

A fate truly worse than death.

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