A hollow area lurked deep within the crevice, housing a five-ter diater dinsional rift at the center. The childlike voice they had heard earlier emanated from this void, growing louder as though it was beckoning them to approach.
Gawain broke the tense silence, his voice steady but laced with concern. "A dinsional rift… This explains the anomalies in this area. But why here?"
Carn's eyes remained fixed on the faint glow emanating from the fissure. Yet, he found himself as clueless as Gawain.
In the past, he would have jumped into the rift without hesitation. But now, things were different. He had sothing to lose.
Wong's face flashed in his mind, reminding him that he had left her behind at the PX convenience store. He also thought of Han as he had been branded as a traitor by the ECD.
He couldn't leave them behind.
Weighing the risks, Carn made a bitter decision. "We don't have the right tools or people to deal with this rift. For now, we'll retreat. Let's clear out the smiling spiders in the spiral stair room and harvest their Aether. Better to strengthen ourselves before sothing worse happens."
Gawain proposed an alternative. "My lord, allow to enter the rift instead. You can wait for here. If I don't return within an hour, consider lost and move on."
Carn raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. The offer was noble, but he disagreed with Gawain's approach.
"Nah, instead of sending you, I'll just turn a few spiders into expendable minions and send them to scout the other side."
"But can they react or escape if they're in danger? What if they run into the Lich King's army and get silenced before sending any useful information? Let go, my lord. I'm more than capable of handling myself. Besides, if sothing does happen to , you'll know it's too dangerous to pursue."
Carn hated to admit it, but his subordinate was right. Newly animated gargoyles always lacked the intelligence or skill required for reconnaissance. Entrusting the task to Gawain, despite the risks, was the more logical choice.
"Fine. Go. But if you don't return in an hour, I'm heading back."
"Leave it to !"
Without hesitation, Gawain teleported into the hollowed chamber beyond the crack. With a single leap, he disappeared into the rift.
Carn turned away from the rift, scanning the subway station again to ensure he hadn't missed anything.
Making his way back to the spiral staircase room, Carn found the nest of smiling spiders. Their grotesque grins widened as they spotted him.
Carn wasted no ti to test his new ability. Channeling 10 silver marks of Aether, he detonated their blood.
A hundred spiders, big and small, splashed green liquid everywhere. Floating rusty swords all dropped to the bottom of the stairwell. Each spider's death released the souls of their victims, who blessed Carn with Aether as usual.
The stairwell had been cleaned. His Aether reserves got 300 silver marks richer. He then returned to the rift.
Unfortunately, 30 minutes later, Gawain hadn't returned.
40 minutes…
50 minutes…
An hour had passed.
Carn's expression darkened. He lingered near the rift for ten more minutes, clinging to a fragile hope that Gawain might still return. Yet, as each second passed, the silence confird that Gawain had failed to fulfill his promise.
Whatever lay beyond the dinsional rift was far more dangerous and complex than Carn had anticipated.
With a heavy heart, Carn took a ntal note of the location, vowing to return when his Aether reserves surpassed 10,000. For now, he had no choice but to retreat, leaving both the mystery of the rift and Gawain's fate unresolved.
As Carn teleported outside the sealed stairwell, he felt a familiar yet unsettling shift in the atmosphere. The air distorted as if a black hole was tearing through reality itself. Before Carn could react, a razor-sharp nail sliced through the dinsional fabric, creating a rift.
A second hand with black nails gripped the edge of the rift and wrenched it apart. Erging from the opening was a pale, sunken-cheeked man with unnaturally long limbs that almost scraped the ground. He was entirely hairless, devoid of eyebrows, and had no muscles, fat, or defining human traits. His fra seed like that of a professional athlete trapped in a skeletal, alien body.
The being's eyelids slowly lifted, revealing empty, pupil-less white eyes that seed to pierce through the void.
Carn flinched as he scanned for any sign of life or energy within the entity but found none. Its presence was reminiscent of a wraith, yet it neither carried Aether nor holy power.
Summoning his courage, Carn addressed the entity with his Aether.
"Who are you?"
The creature stepped out of the rift, bending its impossibly long body to fit within the cramped, three-ter-high corridor. At five ters tall, it had to contort itself, folding its back and knees to avoid the ceiling.
The entity waved a single bony finger behind itself, and the dinsional rift closed like a zipper sealing a fabric tear. With the rift gone, the entity shifted its focus to Carn.
"Are you Demon Lord Pebble?"
"Yes. And who are you?"
"My na is Nobody."
Carn suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "And what do you want? Why are you here, Mr. Nobody?"
"I bear a ssage from your creator, Demon Overlord Impermanence."
Carn froze. "...What?!"
The words hit him like a hamr. Demon Lords and Demon Overlords were vastly different entities. There could only be one Demon Overlord at a ti, and that role belonged to Carn's father, the supre being that all demon lords served.
The na "Impermanence" was an alias Carn's father had chosen, serving as a reminder to his subordinates that nothing lasted forever. Only his children, trusted aides, and fellow demon lords knew of this na. Most simply referred to him as the Demon King.
Realizing that the entity might be a servant or ssenger of his father, Carn adjusted his tone.
"What is the ssage, sir?"
The entity nodded, then drove its bony hand into its own chest. With a crunch, it broke off one of its rib bones and pulled it free. The wound sealed instantly, and the bone transford into an enormous scroll in its skeletal hand.
Unrolling the scroll, the creature's voice shifted, perfectly mimicking that of Carn's father.
[Pebble, my boy! If you're hearing this, it ans the transmigration spell of mine worked, and your soul has survived the ordeal. Looks like we hit the reincarnation jackpot! To be honest, I was shocked to find out you were also from Earth. But hey, small multiverse, right?]
The mimicry was so precise that Carn wanted to cry. He missed this voice so much.
[So, here's the deal. There's an afterlife. When we die, our souls end up in the Netherworld, where I am now. Everyone gets judged, and their past lives are put on public display LITERALLY, like on TV. Yeah, you heard . Our lives are turned into drama films for everyone to see. Very humiliating, but VERY VERY entertaining. I wish you could see this.]
[TL;DR: If you've done sothing batshit crazy, you're f-cked. I almost didn't make it, but hey, raising you properly and being a benevolent king saved my ass. I even got a job because of that, but I still have to do my ti here for a couple thousand years.]
[TAKE NOTE, Pebble! Smashing sexy ladies of other species counts as a sin! You get 100 years for nutting in a girl that you're not married to and 200 for crossbreeding with another species! Don't be an idiot like ! Be smart. Marry everybody you want to nut inside and save yourself several thousand years!]
Carn's lips curved into a bittersweet smile. The sound of his father's voice, even through this bizarre dium, made his heart ache with longing.
[Anyway, I'm doing fine here, so no need to worry about . But recently, I saw new broadcasts from the souls of your world. There's sothing urgent you need to know.]
The entity's tone shifted as it read the next lines, now grave and serious.
"[DO NOT ENTER A RIFT! DO NOT RETURN TO OUR WORLD!]"
"...What?"
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