Chapter 202: Daemoth

As they ventured deeper into the tunnel, the presence of Umbra grew increasingly oppressive and denser.

Vlad was barely holding himself back from puking just from the gnawing sensation. Even his teammates, who had no affinity with darkness, could sense the ominous presence by now.

"Everyone, stay on guard," Seraphina ordered the team as she released several fireballs forward to light up the path.

Around a dozen metres ahead, the tunnel opened into another cave. It was so dark that it even consumed the light from the fireballs, completely obscuring their vision.

Once the squad reached the utterly dark cave, they felt the ground beneath them was soft and wet.

Alisha weaved a series of hand signs, materialising a concentrated sphere of light like a miniature sun. Its brilliance bathed their faces in a golden hue.

She released it upward, its radiant light swallowing the darkness of the cave.

The moment their vision became clear, the entire squad was left completely frozen. Absolute terror crawled down their spines.

Everyone except Vlad immediately closed their eyes and puked.

Even he wasn’t unfazed. His hands trembled at his sides, his crimson eyes witnessing the horror before him.

The cave was massive, around ten times larger than the one where they had fought the oni.

Around five hundred capsules of different sizes were mounted on the ground. Even the smallest one was over a dozen feet tall.

The capsules were filled with monsters of different ranks, submerged in a thick crimson liquid. From Rank Two monsters like orcs to a Rank Six monster like a behemoth, every monster they had read about in the books was present in the cave.

Each capsule was connected to a gigantic array engraved into the ground. At regular intervals of around ten seconds, a crimson light pulsed into the array from the centre, spreading to every capsule.

However, what actually made the squad puke was the source of energy that the array was using. At the centre of the cave lay a towering mound of corpses. Corpses of humans.

Just from a glance, Vlad could tell that not a single human among them had died a peaceful death. Some had their limbs missing, while others had their internal organs spilled out. Nearly every corpse bore numerous scars from torture.

The blood from these corpses was being pumped into the capsules by the array. Vlad knew that the agonised souls of these humans were what produced the Umbra Mana of Tempest Grade. Their grief, anger, and sorrow had corrupted the mana, hence the ominous feeling.

A cylindrical barrier covered the corpses, likely to keep the Umbra Mana and the stench of the decaying bodies contained within.

"H-how cruel would someone have to be to cause such a massacre?" Vlad muttered, his knuckles turning white.

Seraphina, Raphael, and Hugo had also pulled themselves together by now. But Alisha seemed too traumatised by the sight. Her face turned pale, her breathing grew heavy. The miniature sun vanished from the ceiling, and she fell unconscious.

"Alisha! Alisha!" Hugo called out to her, catching her. No response came. She was already out cold.

Now, the only source of light in this cursed cave was the momentary glow from the array, colouring everything red like hell.

"T-the blood and vitality of these humans are being used as a source of energy to evolve the monsters," Seraphina revealed, holding a hand over her mouth. "If such a number of evolved beasts are released, the academy will suffer catastrophic damage."

She clenched her jaw and took deep breaths to calm herself.

"We must return as quickly as possible and alert the academy!" she ordered in a commanding tone. "Leave as fast as possible."

"B-but, Lady Seraphina," Hugo muttered, his eyes burning with suppressed fury. "Since we are already here, why not destroy this array—"

"I didn’t ask for any opinions!" Seraphina snapped, her voice ringing through the cave. "We are leaving right now!"

Hugo didn’t pursue the matter any further. He carried Alisha on his back and bolted through the tunnel with the rest of the team.

’Whoever is capable of such mass killing of humans and capturing even Rank Six monsters must be someone way out of our league,’ Vlad muttered inwardly, knowing the reason behind Seraphina’s sudden retreat order. ’Thankfully, the owner of the cave wasn’t present, or we might have already been killed by now.’

They moved out from the first tunnel, landing on the ground of the cave where they had fought the oni.

Their movement came to an abrupt stop as they found a man sitting at the crater where Seraphina had unleashed her spells, his back facing them.

"Hah... such young geniuses from the academy," the man spoke in a calm tone, his fingers brushing against the horn of the oni. "Tch-tch-tch-tch, what a pity... these geniuses would die because they didn’t follow the script."

He looked back toward the squad over his shoulder, causing them to instinctively sheathe their weapons.

His sclera was deep black and his eyes a deadly grey that only added to his intimidating presence. He had long, disheveled black hair reaching all the way down his back and covering his forehead from the front.

His eyebags carried deep, dark circles, and his cheeks were sunken. His cracked lips were spread into a wide smirk.

"Who are you?" Seraphina demanded, her hands ready to cast a spell at any moment.

"I’m Daemoth, the host of the show," Daemoth introduced himself, rising to his feet and giving the squad a deep bow. "Five brave students from Arcane Academy, sent out on a mission to find and claim the Genesis Artifact."

He paced back and forth dramatically as he continued, "The young heroes ventured deep into the Forest of Death. They fought terrible orc monsters, used their brilliant minds to lure even powerful troll monsters, and found the location of the Genesis Artifact. However, guarding the artifact was a fearsome mutated oni, an early-stage rank-five monster. Yet the brave heroes didn’t back down. They showed their remarkable skill and slew the beast, though it was even stronger than them. Now that every obstacle was gone, they claimed the Genesis Artifact and returned to the academy, becoming an inspiration to their peers."

He suddenly stopped, his brows furrowing as his dark eyes fixed on the squad. "That was my perfect script. All you had to do was follow it like professional actors. Yet you dared to go off script and saw something you shouldn’t have."