She didn't need to finish the sentence. Everyone understood the implications. The First Demon Lord would have been resurrected, and nothing in this valley—possibly nothing in the entire region—would have survived what came next.

The temple's entrance stood open, clearly guarded but the guards were the mindless enhanced warriors rather than thinking beings. They attacked the moment Satou's team came into range, but without coordination or strategy, they were easily dispatched.

Satou's blade flashed three times, and three serpent warriors fell with severed throats. Grimnir's axe took another two in a single wide swing. Kelvin's daggers found the eyes of a sixth warrior, dropping it instantly.

They entered the temple, and the wrongness intensified a hundredfold.

The main chamber had been completely converted into a ritual space that made Satou's skin crawl just from proximity. The floor was carved with massive magical arrays that glowed with that same sickly green light, the patterns so complex and intricate that looking at them too long made his eyes hurt. The arrays weren't just carved—they'd been etched with what looked like melted bone and blood, creating channels for the dark magic to flow.

Altars stood at the four cardinal points, each one stacked with bones—hundreds of bones, maybe thousands, the remains of everyone who'd died in this conflict. Lizard-folk and serpent-folk skulls were arranged in specific patterns, their empty eye sockets seeming to stare accusingly at the intruders.

The walls were covered in runes that Satou didn't recognize, written in what might have been blood or something worse. They pulsed with that same green light, and he could hear whispers emanating from them—voices speaking in languages that hurt to hear.

And at the chamber's center, suspended in mid-air within a sphere of concentrated dark magic that was almost solid in its intensity, was something that made even Satou's stomach turn.

A body. Or what would become a body. A skeletal framework was slowly forming, bone by bone, as corruption-magic pulled matter from some other dimension and shaped it into physical form. It was perhaps sixty percent complete—a ribcage had formed, a spine, a partial skull, one complete arm ending in fingers that twitched with horrible life despite having no muscles or tendons.

The First Demon Lord, slowly being resurrected through accumulated death and dark ritual.

Three robed figures stood around the central sphere, positioned at equal intervals. Their hands were raised in continuous spell-casting, feeding power into the working. Even from the entrance, Satou could feel the magical energy flowing from them into the ritual, sustaining it, pushing it toward completion.

Cult members. Their faces were hidden beneath deep hoods, but their dedication was absolute. They hadn't even reacted to Satou's team entering—their entire focus was on maintaining the ritual.

The moment Satou and his team crossed the threshold into the chamber proper, all three cult members turned as one, their movements perfectly synchronized like puppets controlled by the same strings.

"Intruders!" one of them shrieked, their voice distorted by magical enhancement until it was barely human. "You're too late! The ritual is nearly complete! The First One will be reborn, and your world will burn in his glorious flames! All will be ash and ruin!"

"We'll see about that," Satou said coldly, his blade already in hand.

He didn't give them time to react or cast any defensive spells. [Shadow Step] took him directly to the first cult member, crossing thirty meters in an instant. His blade already in motion as he materialized.

The cultist tried to raise a barrier, magical energy sparking around their hands, but they weren't fast enough—Satou's [Void Fang]-enhanced strike passed through the forming shield like it didn't exist and separated the cultist's head from their shoulders in one clean cut.

The head tumbled through the air, the hood falling away to reveal a gaunt face with eyes that glowed with fanatical fervor even in death. Then the body crumpled.

[Devour] activated, and Satou absorbed the cultist's essence—dark magic knowledge, ritual theory, years of forbidden study. All of it flowed into him, the information integrating with his existing skills.

Kelvin and Grimnir moved on the second cultist simultaneously, their coordinated attack one born from fighting together for years. Grimnir's axe came down in a devastating overhead chop that forced the cultist to dodge left—directly into Kelvin's waiting daggers.

The cultist screamed as blades found gaps in their robes, striking vital points with surgical precision born from decades of combat experience. Dark blood sprayed, and the cultist fell.

Grimnir finished them with a brutal kick that snapped their neck. No hesitation, no mercy. These were enemies who'd orchestrated the deaths of thousands. They deserved none.

The third cultist, realizing they were about to die and that the ritual was in jeopardy, did something desperate. Their hands moved in a pattern Satou recognized with horror—a self-sacrifice technique.

They pulled a ceremonial dagger from within their robes, the blade carved with more of those painful runes, and plunged it into their own chest without hesitation. Their blood sprayed onto the central ritual circle in a specific pattern.

"Final offering!" they screamed with their dying breath, voice filled with fanatical triumph even as life faded from their body. "My death fuels the resurrection! The First One comes! THE FIRST ONE COMES!"

They collapsed, blood pooling beneath them in patterns that seemed deliberate, flowing along carved channels toward the central sphere.

The sphere of dark magic at the chamber's center pulsed, and the skeletal form inside convulsed violently. Energy surged through the ritual arrays like lightning, the green light intensifying to blinding levels. The incomplete body began forming faster—flesh appearing on bones, muscles growing, organs taking shape.

For a horrible moment Satou thought they were too late, that the cultist's sacrifice had provided the final push needed to complete the resurrection.

Then Freda stepped forward, her hands already weaving the most complex spell pattern Satou had ever seen her attempt. Despite her exhaustion, despite having already cast a master-level purification spell less than an hour ago, she poured everything she had left into this final working.

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