Chapter 234: A Convincing Lie…

Adoni turned and moved without wasting another second.

At the other end of the Labyrinth chamber, the Rune Stone hovered quietly, pulsing with ancient, dull light. It was very much bigger than the rune stone Bruce had encountered so far, it was the same size as Vaelith’s diamond form that Bruce once interacted with in the core of the world.

Adoni approached it, unhurried. He raised Bane’s hand and cut the palm cleanly, letting blood drip freely.

The moment it touched the Rune Stone, the Labyrinth reacted.

Mana surged violently as the stone flared, its will rising instinctively. But there was no resistance. No hesitation.

Zorvak had already ordered this Labyrinth to lose.

And even without that command, it would not have mattered.

Adoni’s will pressed down effortlessly, vast and refined, overwhelming the SSS Labyrinth’s consciousness as if it were nothing more than a stubborn ember.

The outcome was inevitable.

And deep within the body, beneath layers of foreign authority, Bane felt it.

Another chain being forged.

The next second, as a series of notifications surfaced before his eyes, Adoni smiled, fingers slowly curling into a tight fist.

“Alright,” he murmured quietly. “The first step is done.”

His gaze lifted, piercing through layers of space and corrupted mana as his awareness extended outward.

“Now,” he continued calmly, “to handle this kid in the dungeon who seems to be heading this way…”

A faint glint of interest flickered through his eyes.

“The boy is… strange,” Adoni admitted inwardly. “Even during Bane’s last encounter with him.”

That memory replayed briefly. Bane had not gone all out. He had restrained himself, testing rather than annihilating. Because of that, even though it had seemed as though Bane’s domain had no effect on Bruce, Adoni hadn’t paid it much mind.

After all, this world was filled with oddities.

Strange authorities. Abnormal abilities. Unrefined systems clashing against rigid laws. One anomaly among many did not warrant immediate alarm, especially when Bane himself had not treated it as a threat worth exposing his full hand.

Adoni exhaled slowly.

“There are too many peculiar abilities in this world,” he thought calmly. “One more doesn’t change much.”

What did matter, however, was perception.

He stepped forward and released his aura deliberately.

Not explosively. Not recklessly.

Just enough.

The oppressive demonic pressure rolled outward in heavy waves, crushing the surrounding terrain as if it were being pressed beneath an invisible mountain. The ground fractured violently. Bone-littered plains collapsed inward. Craters formed as layers of corrupted stone imploded under the sheer density of his presence.

It looked like devastation.

It felt like the aftermath of a battle between monsters.

In truth, the actual exchange had been brief. One overwhelming punch from Bane. One perfectly timed counter from Vexor. The resulting shockwave had torn through the Labyrinth, but not nearly to this extent.

That wouldn’t do.

So Adoni made sure the surroundings told a different story.

He dragged his aura across the battlefield, carving scars into the land, twisting broken structures, pulverizing skeletal remains into dust. Every crack, every rupture, every collapsed formation screamed of two beings with unfathomable strength going all out against one another.

A convincing lie.

A necessary one.

He didn’t want to invite questions.

And he definitely didn’t want to draw Bruce’s suspicion too early.

Curiosity led to observation.

Observation led to interference.

Interference ruined plans.

Adoni adjusted the flow of mana one last time, ensuring the damage pattern aligned with what Bruce would expect from a clash between Bane Reign and multiple invaders. He half expected Bruce to think Boss beasts, but Bane had already revealed the existence of invaders to Bruce once, so Adoni was expecting that Bruce might come to that conclusion after the burst of aura from Bane, Zorvak and Vexor that happened a while back.

Satisfied, he withdrew his aura and stood still once more, expression calm and composed.

“Come,” he thought, gaze settling on the distant presence moving steadily closer. “Let’s see what kind of variable you really are.”

And with that, he waited.

…

Anyway, Bruce was only minutes away from the area now, his speed still pushed to the absolute limit as the ruined landscape tore past beneath his feet. Wind screamed against him, broken terrain blurring into streaks of dryness below, it gave off an eerie feeling, yet his mind was nowhere near the present.

It was fixed on what he had felt earlier, back when he was still crossing the Labyrinth at full speed, when his senses had brushed against something deeply unsettling.

A burst of aura. Then another. Then a third. Then a fourth.

They had erupted at different intervals, each distinct, each heavy enough to warp the surrounding mana. The first had felt familiar. The second carried an eerie, foreign sharpness. The third was colder, stripped of warmth or life. The fourth had been something else entirely, wrong in a way that had made Bruce’s instincts tighten instantly, as if his very soul had recoiled.

All of them had been powerful.

With Vaelith having already warned him that invaders were at work, Bruce had immediately linked the three unfamiliar, unsettling auras to them.

Invaders.

Yet just as suddenly as they had appeared, they vanished. All of them. No fading trail. No retreating presence. The abrupt disappearance unsettled him far more than the auras themselves ever had.

Bruce didn’t slow down. Instead, he expanded his perception even further, spreading his aura wide as he continued forward. He swept through terrain and shattered structures, traced warped mana currents, probed for spatial distortions, anything that might explain what had happened here.

There was nothing.

No lingering presence. No fleeing signatures.

Collapsed Bone Kings littered the land as he closed in. Massive skeletal frames lay across the terrain, their regeneration completely overridden, their remains still and unmoving. Creatures that should have risen again and again lay utterly lifeless, as if erased rather than defeated. That alone deepened Bruce’s frown.

Soon, he reached the other end of the Labyrinth.

And there, Bane Reign stood.

He was dressed in his black suit, standing calmly at the center of a devastated battlefield. Craters overlapped one another in chaotic patterns, the ground pulverized and compressed unevenly, as if struck repeatedly by overwhelming force. Even a nearby bare mountain had been partially erased, its lower half blown apart and scattered across the land like debris from an explosion.

Bruce slowed to a stop and stared at him.

For a moment, he said nothing.

’Did Bane… win against all three?’ The thought surfaced instinctively.

He surveyed the surroundings again. There were no corpses. No remains belonging to invaders. His gaze shifted briefly to Bane’s hand, catching sight of a ring resting there. Bruce couldn’t immediately tell whether it was a spatial ring or something else, but a possibility formed quickly in his mind.

’Did he store the corpses?’

It would make sense. It would explain the absence.

But then Bane spoke.

“I lost,” he said calmly. “And they got away.”

Bruce froze.

For the briefest moment, his mind went blank.

’Lost? Got away?’

It didn’t align with anything Bruce had in mind.

Before he could respond, Vaelith’s voice rang sharply inside his mind.

[Be careful, Bruce.]

The tone was wrong, too sharp, too urgent. Bruce felt a chill run through him. The last time Vaelith had sounded like this was when he had faced the invader carrying the Cthulhu-shaped soul.

’What?’ Bruce frowned inwardly.

[The man in front of you is not Bane.]

Bruce’s heart sank.

[Bane is alive, but his soul is completely suppressed. The invader inhabiting that body is in full control.]

Bruce kept his expression neutral, but his focus sharpened instantly, every sense locking onto the figure before him.

[Be extremely careful. This soul is insanely strong, multiple times stronger than the Cthulhu soul you destroyed.]

That alone sent a cold shiver through him.

[You know what to do. Treat this with the utmost care.]

The exchange took less than a second, yet Bruce understood immediately. If this invader had gone to the effort of concealing what truly happened here, then killing him outright was likely not his goal. As long as Bruce didn’t act out of character, he could get close, close enough to strike directly at the soul.

Bruce adjusted his expression subtly and acted as if nothing was wrong. He looked around the battlefield, eyes scanning the devastation with controlled concern.

“As soon as I heard the situation,” Bruce said calmly, “I came as fast as possible and helped your Reign family.”

“Good work.”

Bane smiled.

No, Adoni smiled.

The expression was warm, natural, convincing in a way that would have fooled almost anyone. He stepped forward and extended his hand. “You arrived in time.”

Bruce smiled back.

As he stepped forward, he activated Life Glance.

The world shifted.

Bruce saw it clearly. Two souls occupied the body before him. One was small, blue, faint, suppressed almost to the point of extinction, Bane. The other was massive, red, and dominant, filling most of the body as it coiled around the weaker soul like a living prison. Its presence radiated overwhelming pressure, refined and complete, terrifyingly dense.

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