Walking away from the old guard, the two of them began their walk in Abyssheaven

Fortunately, this wasn't a particularly large settlement and most shops and stalls could be seen at an eye's view

Within a few minutes a walking, they stood before the Bone Hall.

It was a cathedral of death, constructed entirely from the upturned ribcage of an Ancient Abyss beast.

The white, calcified bones curved hundreds of feet into the air, creating a vaulted ceiling that dripped with condensation.

Unlike the chaotic abyss filled with the constant screeching and roars of monsters in the distance, the Hall was eerily silent.

Damien pushed open the heavy leather doors. The smell hit him instantly, the sharp, horrid smell of mold and body odour mixed with old, dried blood.

Inside, hundreds of Drifters huddled in the shadows. They spoke in hushed whispers, clutching their weapons like security blankets.

"Look over there," Damien whispered to Isabelle.

He pointed to a counter near the entrance.

A Drifter with a mutated, chitinous arm was slamming a bloody sack onto the desk.

A skeletal clerk opened the sack, revealing the severed head of a multi-eyed wolf.

The clerk, seeing this, didn't talk much and handed over a single, small vial of glowing green liquid.

The Drifter snatched the vial and uncorked it, downing it in one gulp.

His shaking hands stabilised. The red veins in his eyes receded.

In an instant, he gasped, slumping against the counter as if he had just been pulled back from a ledge.

"Sanity," Damien noted, his voice grim.

"On the surface, adventurers fight for glory or gold. Here, they fight to stay sane. It's a losing economy. The more you fight, the more you mutate. The more you mutate, the more potion you need."

Isabelle shivered. "It's no different from slavery."

"It's survival," Damien corrected. "Come on."

He ignored the crowded "Low Risk" boards where Drifters fought over scraps and walked straight to the far back corner of the hall, the section shrouded in cobwebs and dust.

The Suicide Board.

Here, the parchments were yellowed with age. No one touched them. To take a commission from this wall was to sign your own death warrant.

Damien scanned the requests until his eyes landed on a black scroll stamped with red wax.

The seal of a Blindfolded Angel.

[Commission: The Weeping Angel]

[Target: Retrieve the Veil of Stone (Face Mask)] [Location: Region 1, Sector 4 – The Garden of Silence]

[Reward: 500 Abyss Cores, 5 High-Grade Sanity Potions, and A Token of Audience with the Sanctuary Lord.]

"A fortune," Damien murmured. "And a meeting with the boss."

He reached up.

RRR-RIP.

The sound of the heavy parchment tearing echoed through the silent hall like a gunshot.

Instantly, the hushed whispers stopped. Every head in the Bone Hall turned. Hundreds of eyes, human, mutant, and insectoid, all fixed on the man holding the black scroll.

They didn't look impressed; rather, they looked at him like he was already a corpse.

"Another fool," someone whispered. "He's just feeding the statues."

Damien turned to leave, but the path was blocked.

A hulking Drifter stepped out of the crowd.

He was massive, wearing armor made of sewn-together tyres and bone. His right arm had been amputated at the elbow and replaced with a rusted, whirring buzzsaw powered by a mana crystal.

"Hey, soft-skin," the Drifter grunted, revving the saw. VVV-VVT.

He looked at the scroll in Damien's hand, then at Isabelle.

"That quest is for dead men. Why don't you leave the girl and the scroll here? I'll save you the trip."

Isabelle stepped forward, purple mana flaring around her hands.

Damien raised a hand, stopping her.

He couldn't afford a brawl. He needed every ounce of energy for the Garden. But he couldn't look weak, or the entire hall would swarm them.

'The Damn side characters, ' Damien thought, his eyes narrowing behind the mask.

He activated [Will Art: Sensory Intent].

The world slowed down. He felt the Drifter's intent. He felt the buzzsaw's vibration. He saw the path.

The Drifter lunged, swinging the saw at Damien's head.

To the crowd, it looked like a kill shot. To Damien, it was telegraphing a mile away.

With a smile, he calmly stepped forward, into the Drifter's personal space, slipping past the arc of the blade by a millimetre.

Before the Drifter could retract his arm, Damien placed his palm gently on the man's sweaty forehead.

"I am not looking for trouble," Damien whispered, his voice calm and cold.

He unleashed a focused spike of Greedy King's Intent.

"However, I'm not afraid to cause it if needed"

BOOM.

Inside the Drifter's mind, the world ended.

In a trance, he felt like a giant wrapped in gold and shadowy light wrapped around his skull. The primal terror of death flooded his nervous system.

The buzzsaw powered down. The Drifter's eyes rolled back into his head.

THUD.

He instantly collapsed, foaming at the mouth, his mind shut down by the sheer weight of Damien's presence.

Damien stepped over the twitching body. He looked at the silent crowd.

"Anyone else want to save me?"

The crowd parted instantly, creating a wide path to the counter.

….....

[Location: The Reception Desk]

Getting rid of the side character, Damien placed the scroll on the stone counter.

The receptionist was a nightmare, a skeleton whose ribcage was fused into the stone desk, leaving only his skull and arms free to move. He wore a monocle over an empty eye socket.

The skeleton looked at the scroll, then at Damien.

"The Weeping Angel," the skeleton rasped, his voice like grinding sand.

"It has been five years since anyone touched this."

"Although we can't tell where it came from but no one who has accepted this quest has come back alive from it"

He stamped the scroll. [ACCEPTED].

"Be warned, Drifter," the skeleton said, handing it back.

"The Garden of Silence is a no man's land, rumours have it that as long as you even blink, everything is over!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.