How many minutes had passed?

How long had I been running?

I had no idea.

I guess it had been more than five minutes.

Without looking back even once, I had been following the dark corridor ahead of me the whole time. I was running—doing the only thing I could do.

Before long, I reached a junction. I had to choose one of the corridors stretching to the right or left.

I clicked my tongue and chose the one on the left.

I passed through the metal walls, who knows how many meters below ground, as the red lights of the alarm—which had been blaring nonstop and was starting to drive me a little crazy—flicked on and off endlessly.

Of course, my problems weren’t limited to that.

“Hah… ha…”

The leaking gases had started to seep deep into my lungs. I was able to filter out a significant amount at first thanks to Sith. But once there was nothing left but toxic gas along the corridors, there was no ‘clean air’ left for me to inhale.

Every breath I took felt like it burned my throat.

“Ugh… cough!”

My breathing aside, my legs were starting to give out too. I was using as little caora as possible, holding as little mana in my body as I could. With everything piling up, sharp cramps were starting to shoot through my already rather weak legs with every step I took.

This is what happens when someone who can’t walk properly without a cane is made to run this much. And the wound on my left leg wasn’t making things any easier.

“You can’t run, Aiden.”

That irritating voice, which I hadn’t heard in a while, seemed to echo everywhere. As if it had been watching my struggles all along… and had finally grown bored.

“You were overconfident.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have anything to say anyway. So, I kept doing the only thing I could do.

“And now, you’ve reached the end.”

I kept moving forward.

“To your own end.”

I clenched my teeth. And also ignored the voice speaking right behind me. It was as if no matter how much I ran, no distance was opening up between us.

I passed by countless rooms. I chose a random one from countless junctions, whichever seemed to work for me. All the while, no one stood in my way. No one tried to stop me.

He had been right when he said no one but he would deal with me.

And he also had been right… when he said he alone would be enough to stand against me.

Leon Vincus was a man I could hardly hope to defeat, even if I used everything I had. In fact, he was someone I could barely even escape from…

But I didn’t stop.

In the end, the inevitable happened.

I hadn’t entered a single room I’d seen so far. Some of their doors were actually open, as if inviting me inside, but I’d ignored every single one.

Now, though…

My steps slowed involuntarily, then stopped completely.

I was no longer in corridors lined with metal walls on all sides. I had reached the end of them, a massive room so dark that its far end was not visible.

I had reached a dead end.

A dead end from which I could not turn back.

“Oh, is this where you escaped to?”

Leon’s voice echoed once more.

The room was as dark as the corridors I’d passed through. But it wasn’t as empty as they were.

In the center stood a round table, with red holographic screens floating above it, seemingly reaching all the way to the ceiling. Six people were seated around this table. Each was dressed in the finest suits I’d ever seen, their faces bearing an absolute coldness.

On the screens in front of them were… mostly camera footage. Countless footage of the corridors I had passed through.

“To the very heart of the whole underworld…”

And with that, I realized.

I… hadn’t arrived here entirely by chance. I had been guided here. They had wanted me to reach this place eventually.

They had wanted me to come to them.

After all, they were all… my targets.

These six people were the rulers of the underworld—and thus of Black Blood.

One hannya, two dwarves, and three humans.

They were the people I had planned to kill today, one by one.

Right in front of me, they were staring at my pitiful figure with an unnerving calmness. As if they had known this would happen from the very beginning.

“A perfect choice for your place of death.”

I had finally managed to reach them. Even if it was just a tiny bit different from what I had planned, I was here. The distance between us was so short that if I wanted to, I could be right in front of them in less than a second.

But… there wasn’t the slightest trace of fear on their faces.

They had no reason to be afraid.

They were all aware.

They’d been watching from the very beginning.

They’d seen that Leon was much stronger than me and that I had run away from him like a coward.

With him nearby, they had no reason to fear me.

I gripped my sword even tighter than usual. I slowly turned around, toward the dark corridors I’d come through.

And… just then, as I’d expected, a figure appeared.

His steps were the same as when we first met. Heavy, but measured. There were a few bloodstains on his white shirt—my blood, of course. But there was nothing on any other part of his clothing… as if he’d carefully avoided getting them stained.

As he drew closer, he loosened his tie with his right hand and gripped the last remaining dagger in his left hand just as tightly as I did.

“It must be… embarrassing to realize you’re going to die in front of the people you’re trying to kill.”

His eyes, shimmering with a purple glow, were almost filled with pity. It was as if he were feeling that ’embarrassment’ he spoke of in my place.

I glanced over my shoulder at the men watching me.

Could I take one of them hostage? It would certainly make my job much easier…

~whoosh!

But my thoughts were abruptly cut short by something whizzing past my ear. Even though I was standing still, it had missed me.

Its target was… the table I’d glanced at?

~tchink!

But before it could reach the table, it seemed to hit an invisible wall and bounced, falling to the ground as I saw… that it was the dagger Leon had been holding just now.

“You can’t reach them, Aiden.”

“Tch.”

It was as if he’d read my mind. He’d anticipated my attempt to reach them and had demonstrated, practically, why I couldn’t.

I narrowed my eyes, then shifted my gaze from the dagger on the floor back to the men at the table.

“It must be easy to sit there.”

But I didn’t keep my focus on them for long. Even though it seemed like they were planning to have a little fun at my expense… I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off Leon for too long.

So I turned back to him quickly.

And the moment I did, a voice echoed through the room—a voice that wasn’t Leon’s.

It had come from behind me, from the table.

“Saligia may have underestimated you. But it is bold of you to assume that we would do the same.”

Another spoke afterward.

“It is an amazing feat that you even made it here. Our heartfelt congratulations to you, Aiden Tenebra.”

And another.

“And for that… you deserve an award.”

Immediately after that, a change occurred.

One of those red holographic screens on the table appeared between Leon and me.

On it… was someone I recognized very well.

It was the first time I’d seen her with a smile on her face. Her black eyes were filled with excitement, reflecting the triumph she’d achieved.

Syla Formida.

“Hi, Aiden!”

Her voice echoed throughout the room, resonating in my ears. Her voice carried the same excitement and joy as her expression.

“We last saw each other in Eshaware, right? After you made the king cleanse the palace there…”

“…”

“What did you say you were going to do at that time?”

She took her eyes off me for a moment. She brought her finger to her chin as if she were thinking.

“Was it ‘Stop me, if you can’? I think it was, right…? My memory is quite good.”

She leaned back, her smile widening slightly at first. It was as if she were trying to hold herself back…

But she failed. The expression on her face suddenly changed as if she’d gone completely mad.

“Well, guess what?!”

She slammed her hands on the table and jumped to her feet.

“I did it!”

Her eyes, wide open, were fixed entirely on me.

“I stopped you!”

Some of her hair had fallen across her face because of her sudden movement, but she didn’t even care. She burst out laughing, unable to stop for several seconds.

“Thank you for letting me know in advance that you were coming here! It really helped a lot. If it weren’t for you, we could never have stopped you! Oh, the irony! Puhahaha!”

She laughed again. Then, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, she licked her lips as if she’d seen her favorite meal and tilted her head slightly to the side.

“Heh. This is what happens when you get overconfident.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Death.”

And… the room was engulfed in silence.

A silence where no one uttered a sound.

A silence I broke by taking a deep breath.

“Huuuu…”

I channeled mana into the sword in my hand. It was instantly covered in blue sparks, quickly transforming into its other form… into a cane.

I also withdrew the tiny bit of caora I’d been keeping active. A sharp pain spread throughout my body, and a ringing began in my ears. The only thing holding my left leg together gave way, and it felt like it would buckle the moment I stepped on it.

But I didn’t utter a sound. I didn’t let my expression falter. I leaned on my cane, which made it much easier to stand.

Then, though…

I simply closed my eyes.

“Oh?”

Without saying a word, without trying anything.

As if… I was waiting.

Syla’s voice echoed through the room again. Though it was quite hard to make out because of the ringing in my ears, it was also surprisingly clear.

“So you’ve accepted it… I would have accepted it too if I were you, so don’t worry, no one will make fun of you behind your back.”

I heard Leon move just then.

“Ah, actually…”

He was taking a stance, ready to kill me. He had deprived himself of his only weapon by throwing his dagger at me, but he didn’t need it against me anyway. He was stronger than me, after all. By a lot.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d managed to hear it with my injured ear. Maybe its condition wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. But… I didn’t really care about it.

“I will because it’s so damn fun! And I’ll do it until the very end of my life! Like… The idiot who brought about his own end… I wonder how much more stupid he could have been? Ahahahah!”

Then I heard the whistling sound coming from between Leon and me, as if the air were being torn apart.

He was coming.

“See you in the afterlife, Aiden! But don’t expect me so soon!”

My death.

“Ahahahah!”

Like that, the last thing I’d hear before my death would be Syla’s unceasing laughter.

…

…

But it didn’t happen.

“Syla…”

Because the moment that word left my mouth, Leon had stopped his fingers—which were about to snap my neck—at the very last second.

“Huh?”

And Syla had stopped laughing, too.

“What, do you have a few last things to say or something?”

I opened my eyes, which I’d kept closed until now. The screen showing Syla’s image was right behind Leon’s face, his fingers only a few millimeters from my throat.

“I’d be delighted to hear it! Are you going to apologize? Beg for your life? Ask to work for us? Go ahead, say it!”

As if granting me permission, Leon took a step back with a slight sigh, moving away from me.

But his eyes were still on me. He was at a distance where he could incapacitate me the moment I so much as twitched a hair. From this point on, he wouldn’t let me try anything.

I had no intention of twitching a hair anyway.

“Do you know how dungeon portals form naturally?”

“Huh?”

Syla’s eager expression, which had been waiting for me to beg, vanished the moment I asked the question. Her smile faded. Her eyes narrowed as her eyebrows lifted slightly.

“What are you even babbling about?”

She had no idea what I was talking about. She was looking at me as if I’d finally lost my mind.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep