Chapter 374: The Rift (6)

"The battlefield where the final twelve survive! Depart!"

Rumble!

The solid ground split apart like a spiderweb, and the surrounding buildings collapsed into dust as if they had never existed at all. The towering spires of Erast sank into the blackened earth like dew slipping from a windowpane. The initial ten-meter radius collapse spread outward, swallowing the entirety of Erast. Black darkness stitched itself over deeper layers of darkness, as though trying to shove my very existence into some abyssal place.

Slam!

I stepped onto the inventory that I had deployed in midair and held it beneath me, expanding it into a rounded sphere to shield myself from every direction. Shattered remains of the falling city struck against the inventory as debris. I barely managed to maintain any sense of balance or orientation, but I somehow endured it.

I refused to lose. I refused to let myself be dragged away without doing anything. Finally, I could not tolerate the thing hovering above me. Its tentacles wrapped around Rubia’s face as it looked down at me from the air.

Rubia grunted. "Mmgh... This is pointless resistance. I told you, it would be easier if you simply came quietly."

Dozens of thin tendrils writhed simultaneously inside her mouth.

"Don’t you dare speak to me... in that pathetic form," I hissed.

It was the power that devoured Demon Kings.

If the dagger engraved with the dragon’s power works on the thing mocking me right now...

At the very least, I wanted to land a single, decisive blow.

Swoosh!

I pulled the obsidian dagger from my inventory. The handle, wrapped in silver leather that contrasted starkly with the blade, fit my grip perfectly. I held it with one hand, then wrapped my other hand over it.

Wooong!

Sensing the danger, the dagger howled.

Just like before...

The exact same phenomenon had occurred when the marquis hunted me. It was never entirely under my control, but whenever its master was cornered, it always responded in some way. White letters drifted along the black blade and emerged on their own, circling around the inventory.

Bzzzt! Bzzt!

The white characters dancing across the inventory’s surface demanded power from me.

Open.

It was different this time. I had absorbed so much Lurium, so absurdly much that I couldn’t even fathom how I had taken in the amount once stored in the imperial archives. The Lurium that had lain dormant within my bones burst awake, circuits spinning wildly as if finally given purpose.

Nothing was lost. Just movement alone was enough. With that, the dagger’s true activation became possible.

Fwoosh!

Blinding white light pierced through the heavy darkness dripping around me. Power surged into the blade. The white letters carved into the dagger expanded with excitement, thrashing in every direction.

Rubia murmured through her tentacle-formed mouth, "Well now... This is impressive. I didn’t expect you to endure this well. To think you carried something like that... in your pocket."

I poured more killing intent into the dagger. The swollen characters, ravenous, consumed the surrounding darkness in bright bursts. The displaced shadows spilled away in diagonal streaks. The power supporting the letters was incomparable to what I had wielded when I died to the marquis.

Fwooosh!

The characters' activity, radiance, and sheer size could not be compared to before. The blazing characters covering the inventory pushed back the space around me, flooding it with light.

[Experience has increased!]

[Inventory Mastery has increased!]

[Swordsmanship Mastery has increased!]

[You have acquired 1,012 kruna!]

Messages continued appearing in midair, as if killing the encroaching darkness counted as slaying something.

It works! At this rate...

The illuminated space widened, and soon it looked as though it would reach Rubia, floating above me. However, just as the letter-coated inventory expanded to a radius of more than ten meters, a massive shock slammed into me from behind.

Craaaaash!

I had not been paying attention to that angle. In an instant, my inventory crumpled in half, shriveling inward, and the white letters flickered violently. Behind me stood Rena, now far larger than any fortress.

Once nothing more than a broken wagon, her form had absorbed the city’s shattered, collapsing debris, and her clenched fist alone had grown to more than twenty meters. Her upper body stretched so far upward that I couldn’t even see the top of her head.

Crackle!

Rubia’s tentacles wrapped directly around the shrunken inventory. Scarlet energy coated them like blood. Hundreds of lightning strikes and explosions layered over the white letters again and again. Each burst forced the inventory to shrink further, shaking the characters. Even my skeleton, protected at the very center, trembled from the shock.

She isn’t even a Demon King, and she’s this strong. Is the Demon Realm truly on an entirely different level?

I had never even heard of a being like this during the Demon Kings’ descent. Maybe this really was where I died.

Thud!

One of the white letters, swollen full of Lurium, burst like a balloon and cleanly sliced a tentacle wrapped around the inventory.

[You have damaged part of a True Domain with low-level Swordsmanship.]

[You have achieved an impossible feat.]

[Swordsmanship Level has increased.]

[Swordsmanship Level has increased.]

Two Swordsmanship levels rose at once, and black blood-mist drifted through the air. Out of the hundreds, no, thousands of tentacles, I had cut only one. Yet, even that made the creature freeze. Its eyes darted around.

"No, what a waste! Let’s stop!" the scorpion shouted.

Swoosh!

Meanwhile, Rena continued to grow. She raised her massive hand overhead. The sight alone drained whatever I had left to resist.

I don’t even know which one is the real...

"Let’s stop! I admit I’m curious how far you could go, but it’s too wasteful, so let’s stop!" Rubia shouted. "How about this? Why don’t you hand that dagger... over to me? If you do, I will tell you... What was it? Ah, yes. I will tell you how to reverse the engraving curse."

So that’s the bait.

I refused. "No."

I desperately wanted that information, and it was the reason I pushed myself into the Demon Realm in the first place. Yet, this was an illusion, and she was the one who had already toyed with me once.

How could I trust her?

At the very least, she could change that revolting form before asking.

"Oh... so it’s a refusal?" Rubia hesitated, then continued as if offering a favor, "As long as you are willing to stand on my side... I could even help you learn how to use your pocket, you know."

"This?"

"Yes. That portable domain. You’ve only been using it to store items or, like now, to... hmm... wield it so roughly, which is impressive, I admit."

She was definitely talking about the inventory.

"There are countless ways it could develop further. However, only beings like me would know such things..."

She knows how to evolve my inventory?

"That’s impossible!"

"Kuhuhu... Impossible? You are the one speaking of impossibilities. Have you forgotten that this entire space is my domain?"

This place moved according to her will. She was the expert here.

What should I do?

Her offer tempted me because it involved the inventory.

I can’t win.

Even if I risked death, the best I could do was expend every last character on the dagger to inflict a small wound. After that, it would be over. There was even a chance that I wouldn’t be able to kill myself and would instead be trapped here forever.

Should I trust her and hand over the dagger? The moment I surrender it, my bargaining power would plummet. The dagger... no, the engraved letters are what matter.

Rubia had only tried negotiating in the first place because one of the letters on the dagger had exploded and vanished.

I was thinking it through when a white envelope suddenly sliced through the air toward me. It was sealed tightly with a complicated pattern.

A letter... for me?

Swish!

However, before it could reach me, Rubia snatched it out of the air with a tentacle and flung it upward.

"Hmph..."

Rubia didn’t even read it. She scowled, crumpled it, and shoved it into her clothes.

What is she doing?

It almost felt like she already knew what it contained.

"That letter... looked like it was coming to me," I commented.

"No. You’re mistaken. It was mine."

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Several more letters flew my way in quick succession, but her tentacles intercepted every one, and she hid each one.

Her expression twisted even further. "Mm... This is annoying. Fine, get out of here! I’ll hear your answer to my offer if you survive!"

Fwooosh!

Rena had absorbed nearly all of the fallen Erast. She pressed her enormous palm down on the surrounding space. Thousands of layers of writhing darkness surged upward beneath the false "ground," swallowing everything in an instant.

Gwooooo!

The torrent of darkness made the very space my inventory held in place warp and flow. The flowing air spun wildly. Direction and time were chewed away. I felt nothing, sensed nothing, and I was pulled somewhere beyond reach.

A fleeting thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should have accepted the offer sooner, before the centrifugal force crushed my bones and my consciousness unraveled into blackness.

***

The darkness thinned. Wind brushed against my bones, carrying a low, mournful howl. Pale shards of moonlight slid between my ribs. When I looked up, the round moon hanging above was a dark green.

So this is... the Demon Realm?

The moon’s color and pattern were nothing like those seen from the surface. The strange green moon blinked like an eye, sweeping its cold gaze across the land. That gaze felt as though it inspected everything down to the smallest grain, and I flinched before forcing myself to look around.

Massive whirlwinds slowly twisted around buildings floating in midair. Black, gnarled trees shifted their roots and branches as if they were trying to take a more active part in the scene. There were lush patches of forest, but most of the surroundings were barren ruins where even weathered corpses were rare.

Fragments of colossal floating towers lay scattered everywhere like broken halves of forgotten monuments. At the center of it all stood a massive shining display, swelling and shimmering as though alive. Its very presence distorted the entire ruin. I tightened my grip on my sword as letters appeared across the glowing screen.

[Rules of the Arena]

[— Become one of the final twelve.

— Collect all four cards: Chalice, Gold Coin, Sword, Acorn.

— Victory is achieved upon fulfilling either condition.

— Conversation is impossible!]

So it’s kill or be killed.

Disgusting as it was, I had to follow the rules to become one of the final twelve. If I drew even a false piece of information from the prison master, it would still increase the odds that my next life could use it.

I had gathered some information so far, but even with that, saving Gith-Za-Rai in the next regression would be nearly impossible.

Is this another illusion?

For now, I activated my inventory and spun it around me, letting it strike the ground and debris again and again. However, only dirt and stones burst into dust. Nothing changed like the false Erast.

So this was real. At the very least, it was not an illusion I could disrupt with the inventory. As I accepted that, I felt something strange beneath my foot.

I lifted it. A green card with an acorn symbol lay where I had been standing.

So this is it...

I placed the card inside my inventory. No one could steal it now. Whoever these participants were, I already had a massive advantage over those without an inventory. I wouldn’t have to worry about the card being taken.

I had plenty of time, as I only had three more to collect. The display didn’t reveal who held which cards. Perhaps someone who picked up multiples would discard the extras. If I wandered around long enough, I might collect cards without fighting at all. That was my hope, until a tremendous roar erupted.

Crackle!

Steam blasted dozens of meters upward, swallowing everything.

What was that?

Crackle! Crack!

I froze where I stood, staring at the clash occurring in the air. Far in the distance, a storm of fire collided with a storm of ice far above it.

Is that... a battle between participants?

Cold tension crept through me. Even the Tower Lords of Azure I had seen before could never dream of such power output.

Crackle!

The ice storm condensed, repeatedly slamming into the fire. The firestorm raged in response. It resembled two mages locked in aerial combat. Both floated in the air.

I absolutely cannot go there.

Fighting was suicide. Even approaching would be madness. I needed weaker opponents.

All I could do was collect cards and survive. I cautiously walked in the opposite direction of the clash, then stopped.

No...

A thought flickered across my mind. With a collision that intense, one of them would definitely die. The loser of that fight would be absurdly strong.

I clenched my fist. I would absorb their essence. Slowly, I turned my steps back toward the distant battle. They weren’t close enough to threaten me yet, as I was at least ten kilometers away.

Detection.

There was always the chance I could lose something or get robbed. I returned the obsidian dagger carefully into my inventory and drew another sword.

Crackle!

The clash repeated again and again. As I approached, nothing registered within my Detection range. I hid behind a pile of stones about three kilometers from the battlefield.

Time passed. Gradually, the tide of battle shifted.

Crackle! Boom! Crack!

The frozen plates suspended in the air shattered one after another. I heard the brittle screams of cracking ice. Soon, the steam faded, leaving only a searing blue heat, then even that vanished. My prediction was that the ice side had lost.

Rushing in would be dangerous. Anyone without an absorption ability would only take their card. They wouldn’t touch the corpse. Only after a long time did I move forward carefully.

Well, I have the inventory...

My inventory had pushed back the angels and endured the prison illusion. I might not win, but I was accustomed to defending myself. I wouldn’t lose.

I crossed halfway through the forest, moving toward the clash when the wind rustled the branches. Moist air obscured my vision. From the opposite direction of the wind, I felt a presence.

What is that?

It didn’t appear in Detection, but I felt a gaze collide with me from a not-so-far distance. I couldn’t tell whether the entity was approaching or only watching. Detection couldn’t sense it, but my inventory covered a three-meter radius.

My defense was perfect. I could endure, absorb a strong corpse, acquire abandoned cards, then learn how to break the curse...

Swoosh!

While I focused on the unseen gaze in the forest, something suddenly approached from the opposite side. I had no time to turn before it was slipped directly into my inventory. It didn’t break through my defense; it simply passed through as if nothing existed.

I felt no resistance or impact. The intruder emerged behind me, pulled something over my back, grabbed me, and moved. The scenery compressed and folded like collapsing ground as I was dragged through space.

Thud!

The figure dragged me far back and dropped me near the base of a massive floating ruin. Only then could I twist my neck to see who it was.

A figure wearing a white hooded robe smiled slyly. "I knew this would happen. Long time no see."

In his hands, moving in a prayer-like rhythm, were eight volumes of Kevin Ashton’s books. I had definitely placed those books inside my inventory.