Chapter 392: The Truth

The flame was not large—only about the size of a fist—but it burned with remarkable stability. Deep within the crimson glow, dark patterns coiled and shifted, the unmistakable marks of Wizardry fire.

Pandora gave a light flick of her wrist, and the flame fell upon the wall.

The moment it made contact, it spread like flowing magma, creeping outward across the gray-white surface in every direction.

Everyone present watched with unblinking eyes.

At first, the wall remained still, as though it truly were nothing more than an ordinary wall. The cement surface slowly discolored under the heat, and faint crackling sounds rose from the brick and stone. All perfectly normal reactions.

But as the fire grew—

Suddenly, in a single instant—

The wall “came alive.”

That was no building material at all.

It was countless living Building-Borer Ants, disguised as a wall.

They swarmed frantically, layer upon dense layer, as though the entire wall had shattered into tens of thousands of pixels—and every pixel had legs.

Where the fire burned, they massed in wild desperation, hurling themselves at the flames, using their own bodies to smother those crimson tongues.

One layer was scorched black, and the next surged forward to take its place. Another layer burned, and another replaced it.

The sight was grotesque beyond words—like a wall sweating, except what oozed out was not sweat, but countless tiny black insects writhing and crawling with frantic purpose.

But Wizardry fire feeds on Pandora’s magic. How could mere flesh and blood extinguish it?

Far from dying, it blazed hotter.

The crimson flames greedily swallowed those reckless morsels. The fire spread with terrifying speed, ballooning from the size of a fist to engulfing half the wall. A thick stench of scorched flesh filled the air—bitter, rank, sickening.

Only when the Building-Borer Ants finally understood the fire could not be quenched did they change tactics. Without hesitation, they abandoned the burning section, forcibly peeling that entire chunk of wall free, like a gecko shedding its tail.

Tens of thousands of ants tore themselves away from the burning area all at once, as though a slab of living flesh had been carved from the wall.

Charred insect corpses and still-twitching remnants rained down, revealing a fresh stretch of wall behind.

Or rather, a fresh face of Building-Borer Ants.

The flame tumbled free from the wall, and the “wall,” after a brief ripple of agitation, settled back into stillness. The ants rearranged themselves, filling the gap left behind, as though nothing had ever happened.

Once again, the wall looked rough and cold—indistinguishable from any ordinary wall.

Pandora glanced down at the smoldering mass near the base of the wall—the writhing heap of dead Building-Borer Ants crackling faintly in the fading fire.

The tiny corpses lay piled together, charred shells intermingled with gray-white ash.

Here and there, one or two ants not yet fully dead twitched feebly, limbs struggling.

But the struggling grew weaker, slower—

Until finally, it stopped altogether.

With a thought, she cut off the supply of magic, and the flames guttered out.

The crimson tongues were snuffed as if pinched by some invisible hand, leaving only a thin wisp of smoke that coiled upward and dissolved into the gray-white mist.

If she had wished it, this method clearly could not truly stop Wizardry fire. With a sustained flow of magic, the flames could have swallowed the entire building, burning every last ant hidden within the walls and beneath the floors to ash.

But there was no need for that. Not yet.

She turned back to face the support squad members, whose expressions had grown deeply complicated.

“Well? By now, you should have some idea of what’s really behind all of this.”

The support squad members’ eyes all gleamed with sudden understanding.

And with it, a chill that sank deep into their bones.

They stood several paces away, their faces a tangle of emotions, like people who had just clawed their way out of a nightmare—only to find reality was more absurd than the dream.

Betty had not returned, not because she did not want to come back, nor because she had collapsed unconscious as the assistant squad leader had guessed.

But because—

Her room had been quietly “relocated” by these Building-Borer Ants.

The insects disguised as walls had shifted the position of her room without her ever noticing.

By the time she or anyone else realized what had happened, the room’s location had long since changed, making it nearly impossible for them to find one another.

She might have opened a door, only to discover not a corridor outside—but another wall.

She might have run down the corridor, only to find every path leading to some unfamiliar place.

She might have been mere dozens of meters away, yet sealed off in a different “block” by the shifting rooms and misaligned corridors—unable to find her way back.

The assistant squad leader’s failure to return after going after Betty—

And their own repeated returns to the same location—

All of it had the same cause.

The Building-Borer Ants were silently altering their positions, rearranging the entire internal layout of the building.

Like some sliding block puzzle.

They thought they were moving forward, but in truth, the “board” beneath their feet had already been scrambled.

They thought they were opening new doors, but in truth, they were always opening whatever door the Building-Borer Ants wanted them to open.

In the same way, the assistant squad leader’s death was simple to explain.

He must have encountered those Killer Ants at the edge of the mist. In his depleted state—his body not yet recovered from overexertion—he could not possibly have stood alone against a Killer Ant at the peak of Rank-2.

And since he also lacked skill in evasion, his first instinct had been to enter a defensive posture, encasing himself in his carapace of flesh and bone.

That layer of blood-red armor was his final fortress, his most trusted line of defense.

But in the end, he did not die at the Killer Ants’ hands.

Instead, it was his very condition that killed him.

Curled up motionless, his flesh saturated with rich vital essence—

It was like a silent invitation to the Building-Borer Ants within the walls.

Some primal instinct awoke in them. They bypassed his defenses entirely, pouring in through the gaps in the armor’s seams, through every pore, every opening...

Until at last, they devoured him alive, leaving only a skeleton behind.

That process must have been long. And it must have been agonizing.

Gnawed away bit by bit by countless minute mouthparts—from skin to muscle, from muscle to organs, from organs to marrow...

And all the while, he lay folded within that shell of bone armor, unable to flee, unable even to scream.

No wonder those bones were unnaturally clean.

No wonder the inside of the armor was completely hollow.

Every strange phenomenon—in the end, that was all there was to it.

But without strength like Lady Pandora’s, and the perspective that came with such superior power, if it had been them instead—

Even if they had been trapped to death like the assistant squad leader—they could never have found a way out.

They would have pushed open the same door again and again, returned to the same starting point again and again.

Until their minds shattered, their bodies gave out, and those Building-Borer Ants decided the time was ripe—to turn them, too, into clean, bare skeletons.