Chapter 237: An Unbelievable Power Gap

The Shadow, or what remained of him, was Reinulf, the very one who had apologized before hitting Magna on the head during the test.

Magna could still remember him clearly. He even knew exactly how many times Reinulf had gotten back up after a punch and rushed at him again.

He had been a kind, respectful, talented, hardworking man.

On top of that, he had been his friend. Even only for a very short time.

Magna bent down, slowly reaching for the dark red helmet on the ground.

It was hot enough to almost burn his hand.

The armor worn by the Fire Unit’s Shadows naturally gave off heat, but this much couldn’t have come from the armor alone.

The worms seemed to be responsible. They had probably used that heat to break down his flesh before devouring it, along with most of his bones.

Magna slowly stood up again. He no longer looked saddened or frustrated by the loss of a friend.

Instead, he seemed quite calm as he looked down at the empty armor.

"I’ll bring you back to your friends."

Reinulf’s body was gone, but Magna didn’t want to leave what remained of him to rot here.

"But first..."

His golden eyes turned toward the horizon, where black ash stretched as far as he could see.

The heat made the air shimmer, twisting everything in the distance.

Every detail he noticed, every sense and instinct he had, told him that a powerful monster was approaching from that direction.

Magna wasn’t sure he could beat something like that alone. But he didn’t need to beat it.

He just wanted to see it.

He wanted to see what one of Gaia’s earliest creations looked like.

With that thought, he bent his legs and jumped toward it.

—

Magna could still remember parts of the Underworld’s earliest days from when he had watched its creation.

Back then, the beings in the Living World had been unable to endure the endless pain of living in their flesh bodies. Gaia, as the Matriarch of Death, had created the Underworld for them, believing they could finally find rest by leaving those bodies behind.

At first, everything had seemed fine. Those who had lost their flesh bodies could live in the Underworld as souls, without ever having to feel pain again.

But along with their pain, they had also lost their emotions. They could no longer feel happiness or anything else that had once made them feel alive.

That existence had become another kind of torture. Eventually, they had begun searching for ways to create bodies that would let them feel again, even if that meant experiencing pain too.

That was how the 7 races of the Underworld had been born.

The Devoring Desolation had been one of those beings. She had formed a body for herself from stone, and the Stonemen had later been born from that stone body.

The Bleeding Desolation, meanwhile, had used the Underworld’s water sources to recreate the blood that had once flowed through its veins in the Living World.

Magna couldn’t recall every detail. There was simply too much information, enough to make his head hurt even when he tried to think about it.

But he did know that they were flawed creations of Gaia, beings who had ended up condemned to endless suffering.

He wanted to see for himself what his AI had created.

If he could, he also wanted to end its life, giving it the rest it had been seeking for so many years.

After all, if he felt responsible for the mess Gaia had made and wanted to fix it, he had to start somewhere.

As he moved closer to the monster, the air grew unbearably hot. The heavy smell of blood had also changed, becoming something chemical that stung his eyes and burned his lungs.

’My body is reaching its limits.’

He hadn’t even gotten close enough to see the creature yet, but he was already considering retreating.

Now he understood what Renna had meant when she said the outside was dangerous and the Desolations were powerful. She hadn’t been exaggerating. If anything, her warnings hadn’t been enough.

His head had begun to spin. His body was struggling to function in the unbearable air when he finally saw what he had come for.

He landed on a patch of high ground, dropping to his knees in the hope that the calamity ahead wouldn’t notice him.

His golden eyes, already dry and bloodshot, stared at the creature. Its appearance alone was horrifying.

It had a humanoid shape, resembling a hunched old man dragging his feet as he slowly walked.

It wasn’t that large either, at most 2 or 3 meters (10 to 13 feet) tall. Perhaps a little bigger than Titus in his frost armor.

What made it so sickening to look at was its body.

It wore no clothes. It had no skin, no eyes, no mouth.

Its entire body looked like a mixture of thick, dark red mist and clotted masses of cartilage. The liquid parts constantly flowed inward, like a waterfall of blood collapsing into itself.

The creature moved very slowly, but gravity seemed to bend around it with every step. Thick drops of blood fell from its body, only to burst upward instead of hitting the ground, twisting into strange shapes in the air.

Across the surface of its bloody body, blind, pitch-black eyeballs without pupils kept appearing and closing again.

Jawlike shapes made of cartilage formed beside them before sinking back into the blood.

Sometimes, strange faces appeared too, along with limbs that resembled hands, reaching outward as though someone trapped inside was trying to escape.

Yet the worst part wasn’t any of that.

It was the sounds coming from it.

The creature had no mouth to speak with, but loud, choking gasps and whispers kept spreading from its entire body, as though people were drowning inside it.

Even as Magna watched, his eyes began to water and burn. His vision was slowly blurring from the damage the air was causing.

The tips of his hair occasionally caught fire, breaking into tiny sparks that drifted away. Smoke had also begun rising from his body, making him feel as though he were boiling alive.

Realizing he had reached his limit, Magna turned away before he could lose consciousness.

His body felt stiff, almost rusty. He stumbled as soon as he tried to take a step, nearly falling to the ground.

He was in no condition to jump. After stumbling a few more times, he managed to steady himself enough to retreat with hurried steps.

When he looked down, he saw small patches of discoloration spreading across his chest, stomach, and arms. They were brownish, like rust forming on iron.

The sight of those patches growing made him move even faster, trying to escape the strange aura as quickly as he could.

Thankfully, his high regeneration was still working, healing his body even as it rapidly corroded. It couldn’t fully keep up with the damage, but it was enough to keep him on his feet.

It had taken him only 1 hour to reach this place. Yet escaping the strongest part of the monster’s aura took more than 3 hours because he could no longer move fast enough.

By the time he returned to the place where Reinulf had died, he was completely worn out. Still, he let out a breath of relief. The Underworld’s air, which he had found so unpleasant until now, actually felt good.

He gathered what remained of the Shadow before continuing toward the camp as quickly as he could.