Merin learns the man’s name—Salem.

They push open the compound gate together.

Inside, robed demon worshippers rush at them, chanting in guttural tones, blades and cursed spells flying.

Even if they could stall Merin, they are nothing before Salem.

With effortless movements and waves of raw energy, Salem tears through their lines, and Merin follows, black spear carving a bloody path.

Together, they descend a spiral staircase into the depths of the compound.

The air thickens with damp rot and foul incense.

At the bottom, a wide stone chamber greets them, filled with more demon worshippers who scream and charge.

But their faith means nothing against the force of two martial artists moving with purpose.

Bodies fall.

Silence returns.

In the centre of the room stands a large oval stone, carved with strange runes, and in its heart ripples a black, water-like substance, still and unnerving.

Salem steps toward it and says, “They have their own exclusive dimension.”

Merin blinks, shocked.

“A dimension?”

Salem nods. “Some form naturally—just one to ten kilometres wide—flickering in the void, here for a breath, gone the next. But if someone has a magical-level treasure… they can stabilise it. Use it as a hidden base.”

Merin frowns. “But how do they live in it?”

“They build it themselves,” Salem replies. “From dirt to walls to air. Everything.”

Without another word, Salem steps into the black liquid.

Merin hesitates only a second before following.

The world twists.

They find themselves before an iron door—ancient, silent, looming.

Pushing it open, they step into a narrow stone corridor lit with floating blue flames.

The air feels wrong.

Heavy.

The path ahead soon splits into three.

Salem takes the left.

They walk through turns and bends, the silence growing louder, the light dimmer.

At last, they enter a wide stone chamber.

And from the far side, a beast snarls.

A two-headed dog, massive, fur scorched and patchy, stands guard.

Each of its mouths glows red with rising flame.

It charges and breathes twin gouts of fire.

Merin dives to the side as heat sears the air.

Behind him, Salem shouts, “Two-headed fire dog! It’s a demon beast—its strength is on par with a King Kong realm martial artist!”

The twin flames roar across the chamber.

Merin rolls to the side, his coat catching fire at the edges as he slams his palm into the ground and extinguishes it with a pulse of Karst energy.

Salem surges forward.

The two-headed dog growls, flames licking its fangs, and lunges with monstrous speed.

Its claws gouge the floor where Salem stood a heartbeat ago.

Salem reappears above it, fists crashing down like hammers onto its spine.

The beast stumbles but does not fall.

One head turns, blasting fire; the other lunges at Merin.

Merin blocks the bite with his spear, but the impact launches him across the chamber.

He crashes against the wall, pain flaring through his ribs.

The dog charges him, flames pouring from its jaws.

Merin grits his teeth and leaps forward through the fire, enduring the heat, jamming his spear deep into the beast’s shoulder.

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It shrieks.

Salem lands beside it, both palms blazing black.

“End.”

He drives his fists into both skulls simultaneously.

The demon beast convulses.

Then collapses, lifeless.

Merin stumbles, panting, blood trailing from a burn across his side.

Salem looks at him and nods once.

Merin straightens.

They turn back, retracing their steps toward the only path that leads out.

Salem walks ahead, fists clenched.

“We’re in a maze,” he says, then punches the wall beside him.

The passage shakes with a low boom, but the wall remains untouched.

A flickering green shimmer flashes over the stone, then vanishes.

“A barrier,” Merin mutters. “We’ll have to find the exit the old-fashioned way.”

Salem nods. “Let’s go, then.”

“You go first,” Merin says, stepping back. “I’ll come later.”

Salem frowns. “Why? You were fighting like a storm to reach your girl. Now you’re stopping here?”

“I’m going to break through,” Merin says quietly. “To the King Kong realm.”

Salem blinks. “You sure? Want me to guard you?”

“Can they send someone straight to this room?”

“No,” Salem replies. “They’d have to walk through the maze.”

“Then I’ll be fine,” Merin says. “Mark the path. Write that it’s a maze, so others don’t get lost.”

“Understood,” Salem says, turning away. “The others might already be inside—the Manford family, the hunters.”

“Then don’t waste time.”

Salem walks off, boots echoing down the passage.

Merin exhales slowly.

He sits down cross-legged.

His breathing deepens.

Inside his dantian, the lotus stirs.

A new seed forms.

This is the tenth bloom of his lotus.

The air around him turns still.

He starts merging his soul’s field with his body, something he always believed would be difficult—dangerous.

But in one seamless motion, they fuse.

No pain.

No resistance.

Just stillness.

Then the lotus fades.

The seed materialises.

It grows slowly at first, then blooms into a ten-petaled black lotus, each petal unfolding like the night sky cracking open.

He waits for the release of the black, mysterious energy that should accompany this bloom.

But nothing happens.

Instead, another seed appears, floating above the lotus.

The black lotus dissolves.

The seed takes form once more.

It blooms again—this time with eleven petals.

Again, no release.

A new seed forms.

The cycle continues.

Lotus after lotus blooms and fades, each with one more petal than the last.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Twenty.

Twenty-five.

Twenty-seven.

And then—at last—it releases.

A surge of black, enigmatic energy bursts from his dantian.

It pours through him.

It doesn’t burn—it reshapes.

It nourishes every bone, tendon, muscle, and nerve.

His cells reorganise, becoming stronger, denser, sharper in structure.

Every heartbeat now echoes with silent power.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed.

But when he opens his eyes, the world seems to shift.

His gaze no longer holds the light of youth.

Instead, it carries the quiet weight of a hundred years.

A smirk curves on his lips.

“Hello… new world.”

Merin had unsealed all his memories.

The seal placed by the mirror unravelled the moment his body broke through to the King Kong realm.

With full awareness of who he truly was and what had happened to him, he resumed his practice without pause.

The King Kong realm did not focus on the body, but on the spirit.

In this realm, one nourishes the spirit to gain further strength.

But Merin’s spirit was already refined, far stronger than most.

So he continued to cultivate, and in one flow, reached the peak of the King Kong realm—the end of the martial artist’s path in this world.

Merin stands.

A black sphere of light appears in his palm, shifting form into weapons, armours, then into small creatures before returning to his body.

He pauses, thinking of what to do next.

The idea of rescuing Evelyn surfaces, but the intensity of that emotion has dulled.

He thought he still loved her, but now he realises he can control that feeling—or discard it if needed.

Still, he must rescue her.

Not because he desires to—but because it would be strange not to.

Just before entering this chamber, he was desperate to find her, so how can that emotion vanish so quickly?

From his recovered memories, he knows demons exist that can take over bodies.

If his behaviour changes too much, others might suspect he is possessed.

He exhales slowly, and his aura shrinks from peak King Kong realm to its initial stage.

Then he leaves the chamber, setting off to find Evelyn.

Exiting the narrow passage, he sees Salem’s message marked on the wall, along with an X on the middle passage—signalling a dead end.

So he takes the last unmarked path.

He walks through the maze, past rooms filled with corpses—some enemies, some allies.

Every crossed-out passage he avoids.

He keeps following the ones unmarked.

At last, he enters a large chamber littered with bodies.

Some surviving demon hunters and members of the Manford family stand there—among them, Evelyn’s grand uncle.

They explain that this dimension is a hidden route used by the enemy to cross vast distances in their world.

On the other side lies the Stone Forest—a dangerous terrain in the far east of the continent.

This path allows the enemy to bypass the entire continent, moving from the western front directly to the east.

Merin steps through the portal into the heart of the Stone Forest.

After arriving, he comes across other demon hunters and learns the enemy controls nine such dimensions.

Each one was used to secretly transport kidnapped members of the nine seal families to their main base.

Now, all the demon hunters have launched an assault on that base, hidden deep in the centre of the Stone Forest.

Merin moves forward, entering the forest and following the sounds of distant combat.

Even from far away, he sees the chaos of battle—pillars of flame shoot into the sky, then vanish beneath spikes of ice.

Tornadoes whip across the treetops.

A massive stone palm rises above the canopy and slaps someone midair, sending them flying out of sight.

Merin halts, spotting many people standing still ahead.

Among them, he notices Salem and walks up beside him.

Salem explains that the Demon Hunters of the Demon Weaver Realm are clashing now.

Merin already guessed that—just from the scale of destruction.

King Kong realm martial artists know better than to join a fight of that level; doing so would be suicide.

So they stay back, watching from the edges of the battlefield.

Merin does the same.

As he stands, his field begins resonating with the magnetic field of the Earth beneath his feet.

Subtle forces tug at his body.

His cells start reorganising, energy condensing.

His skin hardens, his bones stabilise—until his body takes on the weight and stillness of stone.

In that moment, while observing the chaos with his deep understanding, Merin builds something new.

The next martial realm beyond King Kong—he names it the Stone Body Realm.

In the professional ranking, it qualifies as Rank-8.

Creating it was not difficult for him.

Peak King Kong realm martial artists already hover near half-Rank-8.

And in his last life, Merin had reached Rank-11.

So even though the cultivation method of this world is vastly different, a half-rank jump is simple.

Moments after his quiet breakthrough—one no one else notices—Evelyn’s father approaches.

He says they’ve discovered a hidden passage leading straight into the enemy’s base.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep