Chapter 70: 70. Who is Within the demon’s amulet?

“Dammit!” Owen snarled as his tail lashed around in frustration. “Where did they go?

“Teleportation crystals can be attuned to any location within several hundred kilometers. They could be anywhere in or around Nexus Prime by now.” Alfred said, already pulling out his phone.

So, Owen closed his eyes and expanding his Mana Sense to maximum range. The skill swept outward in waves, searching for the distinctive signatures he had memorized during the fight.

Nothing within his range. Either they had teleported beyond his perception radius, or they had entered a location with magical shielding.

But there was something else. A faint trace of Outer-Divinity miasma, leading away from the battle site. Like a trail someone had walked through miasma-contaminated space and carried traces on their clothing.

“I’ve got something,” Owen said. “Not them directly, but a trail. It’s northeast, out of the city.”

“The mountains,” Alfred said immediately.

Odessa was already moving. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go after them!”

“Not yet,” Yuki said, her calm mind overriding emotional impulse. “We need to report this. I don’t think this is something we should push alone, we should alert the Hunter association, I have a feeling, we are walking into something more than just Vonn’s Antics”

“She’s right,” Alfred agreed. “I’ll contact the Association immediately. But…” He glanced at Owen. “You might want to be elsewhere when they arrive.”

Owen understood immediately. The fewer people who knew about his evolution, the better. The mystery was advantage.

“I’ll track the miasma trail from the air,” Owen said. “You three handle explaining all of this to the authorities. We’ll regroup after and decide next steps.”

Yuki nodded, understanding the logic even if she didn’t like splitting up. “Be careful.”

“I will” Owen promised.

His wings spread, preparing for takeoff.

Then he launched into the air with a single powerful downstroke, climbing rapidly until he was just another bird-shaped silhouette against the clouds.

Then he flew northeast, following the faint trail of corruption that his Mana Sense could barely perceive.

Below, Yuki watched him go.

“Miss Goldberg?” Alfred’s voice pulled her attention back to immediate concerns. “The Association is on their way. We should prepare our statements.”

“Right. Yes.” Yuki forced herself to focus on the present. The street around them was a massacre scene with eight bodies, massive property damage, and enough evidence of high-rank combat to trigger every alarm the Hunter Association possessed.

This was going to be a long day.

But somewhere northeast of the city, Owen flew through clear skies, following a trail of darkness toward whatever source had provided his enemies with weapons from knowledge that should have been lost.

—

The purple light of the teleportation crystal faded, leaving Rogers and Vonn stumbling on cold stone flooring, collapsing on his hands and knees, breathing hard.

They had materialized within eckstein’s dungeon disoriented by the displacement of space.

“Get up,” Rogers said, his voice flat and emotionless despite the disaster they had just escaped. “We need to report to Eckstein immediately. The longer we delay, the worse this gets.”

“Worse?” Vonn looked up, his face pale and slick with cold sweat. “How could this possibly get worse?”

“I said get up.” Rogers’s tone didn’t change, Vonn swallow his protests and stood on shaking legs.

They moved through the dungeon to Eckstein’s villa, through the villa’s corridors, Past the opulent living spaces, past the gardens that shouldn’t exist inside a dungeon, down the steel door that led to the underground levels where Eckstein kept his real business.

The guards at the entrance recognized them and stepped aside without question. Everyone who worked for Eckstein knew better than to delay news.

Down the stairs. Through the corridor lined with cells. Past the chained prisoners who watched their passage with dead eyes, too broken to even hope for rescue anymore.

They found Eckstein in the punishment room, the same chamber where they had met him before. The lion-girl was still shackled to the wall, her amber eyes burning with an undiminished fury despite days of captivity and abuse.

Eckstein stood with his back to the door, rolling his shoulders like he was working out tension. He’d heard their footsteps, knew they were there, but didn’t turn around immediately.

“Well?” he said finally, his voice deceptively calm. “I assume you’re back early because you have good news. Where’s my damn dragon?”

Rogers opened his mouth to respond, but Vonn—panicked and stupid—spoke first.

“The dragon evolved! It’s not a baby anymore, it’s huge! The smoke bomb didn’t work properly and it killed everyone and—”

Eckstein moved.

His hand grabbed the whip from the nearby table and in one fluid motion, he spun and lashed it across the lion girl’s already-scarred back.

CRACK!

“AAGH!” She screamed despite herself, her body jerking against the chains, fresh blood welling from the new wound.

“Not. You,” Eckstein said, his voice deadly quiet as he pointed the whip at Vonn. “I was asking Rogers.”

He struck the lion girl again. And again. Each crack of the whip punctuating his words as he spoke to Vonn without looking at the lion-girl he was beating.

“I gave you. One. Simple. Job. Capture a C-rank tamer. Take her baby dragon. How. Did you. Fuck. That. Up?”

The lion-girl’s screams filled the room. Blood ran down her back, pooling on the floor beneath her suspended form.

“Sir—” Rogers tried to interject.

“SHUT UP!” Eckstein’s composure shattered completely. He threw the whip aside and wheeled on both of them, his face flushed red with rage. “Do you have any idea what you’ve cost me?”

Neither man answered.

“Get out,” Eckstein said suddenly, his voice dropping back to that deadly calm. “Both of you. Get out of my sight before I chain you up next to the beast-girl and see how long you last.”

Rogers grabbed Vonn’s arm and dragged him toward the exit before Eckstein could change his mind.

For a moment, Eckstein just stood there, fists clenched, jaw working as he tried to control his fury.

Then he moved deeper into the underground complex.

Past the cells. Past the storage rooms. To a section of the facility that even most of his employees didn’t know existed—a corridor that required three different biometric scans and a passphrase that changed daily.

The final door opened into a chamber that looked more like a wizard’s sanctum than part of a dungeon villa. Ritual circles covered the floor. Artifacts lined the shelves. And in the center of the room, lounging on a chair that looked salvaged from some expensive furniture store, sat a figure that made every instinct in Eckstein’s hindbrain scream danger.

She was humanoid—roughly five and a half feet tall, slender build, purple-tinted skin that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Small black horns curved back from her forehead, elegant rather than threatening. A slim tail coiled around one leg, the tip occasionally twitching like a cat’s.

Her eyes were solid black—no whites, no pupils, just darkness that seemed to go on forever.

A demon.

An actual, living demon, somehow existing outside the sealed continent where her entire race was supposed to be imprisoned.

She looked up as Eckstein entered, took one look at his expression, and smiled without humor.

“I take it the mission failed?”

“The dragon evolved,” Eckstein said through gritted teeth. “Somehow, in less than two months, it went from hatchling to juvenile form. My entire team was slaughtered.”

The demon stood gracefully and moved to a cabinet in the corner. From it, she withdrew an amulet hanging on a silver chain.

The amulet itself was unremarkable—a circular pendant perhaps two inches in diameter, made from some dark metal that might have been iron or obsidian. But inscribed on its surface was a magic circle.

The demon held the amulet in one hand and produced a small knife with the other. Without hesitation, she drew the blade across her palm, purple-black blood dripped from the cut.

She let three drops fall onto the amulet’s surface.

The magic circle blazed to life.

Light erupted from the amulet and coalesced in the air above the pendant, forming a shape.

A face.

Or rather, the suggestion of a face—features obscured by blur and distortion, as if reality itself refused to properly render whatever was being projected. But the impression of eyes came through clearly enough. Golden Eyes that burned with fury and power that made Eckstein want to prostrate himself on the floor.

“Have you gotten the baby dragon?” The voice that emerged from the projection was distorted, layered, as if multiple beings were speaking in imperfect unison.

Eckstein swallowed hard. “There have been… complications, my lord. The dragon—”

“Complications?” The word came out as a snarl. The projection flickered, growing larger, more defined, as if whatever was on the other end was trying to force more of itself through the limited connection.

“The dragon evolved faster than we anticipated—”

“I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR EXCUSES!”

The chamber shook, magic pressure radiating from the projection like heat from a furnace. Small objects on the shelves rattled. Dust fell from the ceiling. “You are USELESS! Do you understand me? Useless! I have given you everything you needed to succeed, and you bring me nothing but failure!”

The demon woman stood impassive, holding the amulet steady despite the violent energy coursing through it.

“My lord, please—” Eckstein tried.

“If I wasn’t sealed in this damned prison dimension,” the voice continued, each word dripping with venom, “I would reach through this connection and tear your head from your worthless shoulders myself.”

“I can still get the dragon!” Eckstein blurted out desperately. “I just need more time!”

“Fool.” The word was spoken with infinite contempt. “Time is the one thing you don’t have. If that dragon truly evolved into it’s juvenile form, then you better be ready because it definitely can track you now.”

The projection leaned closer, close enough that Eckstein could feel cold radiating from it despite being composed of nothing but light and magic.

“You have one day,” the voice said with terrible finality. “Twenty-four hours to bring me that dragon. Dead or alive,If you fail…”

The projection smiled, and even blurred and distorted, the expression promised suffering beyond imagination. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal clear, my lord,” Eckstein whispered.

“Good.”

The projection vanished. The magic circle on the amulet dimmed and went dark. The oppressive pressure in the room dissipated like someone had opened a window.

Eckstein stood trembling, his expensive clothes soaked with cold sweat.

The demon woman calmly wrapped a cloth around her bleeding palm and returned the amulet to its cabinet.

“You should probably start planning,” she said conversationally. “My master is not known for his patience. Or his mercy.”

Eckstein nodded mutely and fled the chamber, his mind already racing through possibilities, contingencies, desperate gambits that might somehow salvage this disaster.

Behind him, the demon woman sat back in her chair and smiled to herself.

“This is going to be entertaining”

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