Chapter 68: Journey to the Demon Kingdom!

The Sky-Rail was humming beneath Albedo’s boots, constantly vibrating like a heartbeat. Albedo sat in a seat in the front cart, arms crossed as he stared out the crystalline windows

He’d left the Empire’s boards a couple hours ago, and was now, the scenery had already changed massively. Canyons clawing at the sky paired with hollowed-out mountain paths which were the battlefields for ancient battles.

The terrain here bore the scars of forgotten wars, faded banners still embedded in stone outcroppings, now rusted and broken. Wind howled outside like a distant dirge.

This was the Badlands.

A lawless region wedged between three superpowers, the Human Empire, The Elven Kingdom and the Demon Kingdom of Necrothorn.

Officially, it was unclaimed, left to its own devices. Unofficially however, this region was ruled by no less than four crime syndicates.

Crimson Hollow.

That was his stop.

And the last Sky-Rail hub before the teleportation network ended. Beyond Crimson Hollow, the only paths were the old roads: smuggler trails, monster-infested ravines, and corrupted mana zones.

A journey on foot would be required from there. It would take Albedo around 2-3 days of non-stop walking to arrive at the Demon Kingdom.

~DING!~

A loud ding echoed and the rail hissed, the overhead lights blinking red.

“Next stop: Crimson Hollow Terminus,” a cold voice echoed through the intercom, “Please disembark swiftly. Local law enforcement is not affiliated with the Human Empire. Stay alert.”

Albedo smirked, “That’s one way to say ’don’t die.’”

He adjusted the coat slung across his shoulder as the train screeched into the station, a blast of dry wind greeting him as the doors slid open, laced with the smell of blood.

Even at a place like this, the Crimson Hollow didn’t believe in subtlety.

The station platform was little more than reinforced concrete and rusted archways. He could see blood stains all over the exit and there were no guards, just mercenaries from the Hollow Syndicate dressed in black leathers and bone-etched armor.

Their eyes tracked him as he stepped off the rail, sizing him up with the casual malice of wolves watching a deer walk into their den.

“Keep walkin’, pretty boy,” one muttered, flicking his toothpick.

Albedo didn’t spare them a glance. It wasn’t the time to be picking fights with random people, and unlike Chinese Young Masters, randoms mocking him wouldn’t send him into a rage to destroy all 8 generations of their bloodline and cause him to be chased down by their backer.

He walked straight through the checkpoint without stopping, his mana signature hidden under a suppression seal. As far as anyone could tell, he was just a random traveler.

He quickly entered the City, which was like a vertical sprawl, a choked jungle of iron towers, stone bridges, and floating mana-forges billowing red smog into the sky.

Magic-tech trams hovered above the streets, while the ground level buzzed with people peddling their own products to anyone to buy, mercenaries, beast tamers and sellers.

There were also addicts, assassins for hire and thieves. In a place like this, no-one cared about hiding their profession, there was no point.

Neon runes burned on every wall, advertising illegal dungeons, brothels, crafters and even fight pits.

Above it all stood the Hollow Spire, a crooked tower of black iron and enchanted obsidian, pulsing with cursed mana. That was the main Syndicate headquarters.

He didn’t plan on getting near it.

Albedo slid into an alley and pulled his hood up. He moved through side streets, careful to avoid the major mana-beacons where tracking spells and detection arrays were laid.

Every ten meters, he passed someone being mugged or ambushed, but none of it concerned him.He was a shadow here, just another stranger passing through.

Finally, he arrived at his target, a place described in the Novel of William’s journey to claim Seraphyne: Old Fang’s Transit Vault.

It was a grimy building on the edge of the teleportation ward’s dead zone. Anyone who wanted access to the teleportation sigils to nearby areas had to pass through here and pay a toll.

The Vault was run by a neutral faction, an ancient beastkin clan who maintained the last working teleportation pillars outside the major Kingdoms.

The entrance was guarded by a massive bearkin, eight feet tall, fur braided with bone charms.

“Name,” the bearkin growled.

“Jhin,” Albedo muttered, using the name of one of his favorite video game characters from his past life as a cover.

The beastman grunted, then sniffed the air.

“You reek of fire and ancient blood.”

Albedo raised a brow, “I bathe.”

“Hah. You’ll fit right in.”

The doors opened.

The inside was far cleaner than the outside, lined with golden glyphs and silver mirrors reflecting infinite tunnels. At the center, beneath a hovering silver sphere, stood the teleportation sigil, a wide disc covered in runes, flickering faintly with dormant power.

The sigil wasn’t free.

A gnarled old beastkin woman sat behind a crystal desk nearby, sipping from a smoking chalice of mana-liquor.

“Destination?” she asked without looking up.

“Southern Tenebris. Closest to the Howling Marsh.”

She stopped mid-sip.

“That place’s been cursed since the Abyss War. Why in the seven hells would you go there?”

“Tourism,” Albedo said dryly.

She snorted. “Cost’s double. It’s on the edge of a forbidden zone. Not my fault if you get turned inside out by a spatial rift or eaten by Nightmare Shadows.”

“Fine.”

He responded and tossed her a small black pouch. In this place, dollars wasn’t the currency, all business was conducted using Mana Crystals, which were formed in mines where there was an obscene concentration of pure mana.

“Oh?” The lady said feeling the weight of the pouch, her eyes blinking as she opened it, spotting 70 Mana Crystals.

She grinned, “Pleasure doin’ business.”

Albedo stepped onto the sigil once he got the go ahead, and the runes around him immediately lit up one by one, golden lines racing across the floor like serpents. A sphere of light formed around him, glowing brighter and brighter until,

~FLASH!~

There was a burst of pain and pressure from all sides, disorienting him, and then, he was somewhere else.

The sky above was dark. Not night, but heavy with ash and thunderclouds. The air was thick, humid, and smelled of sulfur. He stood at the edge of a broken altar surrounded by black mangrove trees and whispering spirits.

The Howling Marsh.

He coughed once. The mana density here was intense, raw, and unstable. It made his skin crawl, like the land itself was watching him.

Around him lay ruined temples and shattered statues, remnants of a forgotten Demon religion that had been destroyed long ago.

According to the novel, Seraphyne’s tomb was hidden beneath the ruins of a place called the Vesper Crypt, located somewhere within the Demon Kingdom. The place wouldn’t be marked, but he needed to find 3 keys that would merge and lead the way.

The final two keys were somewhere within the Demon Kingdom, but for the first key, it was located here within the Howling Marsh behind a trial.

However, Albedo didn’t know what the trials would be and where they were, as none of that information would be explained in the Novel.

William was after all a villain, so the Author didn’t spend time explaining exactly where every single one of his power up came from.

“Of course it’s never easy,” he muttered, beginning walking around, looking for any sign of a trial.

Each step squelched against moss and wet rot, the earth breathing faint puffs of putrid mana with every disturbance.

Thick mangrove trees loomed like twisted sentinels, their gnarled limbs wrapped in decaying prayer cloths.

Wisps of greenish flame drifted through the air, occasionally forming half-faces that whispered nonsense before vanishing.

Even time felt unstable here; shadows stretched in the wrong directions, and sometimes his own reflection in the water didn’t move with him, it was an incredibly unique domain.

He kept moving, keeping Havoc and Ruin ready to summon. Arcane sigils flared in his pupils as he activated low-level detection spells, searching for hidden wards, residual curses, or traps buried in the terrain.

Occasionally, his foot would brush against bones that had already fused with the earth, consumed by the domain.

It took him another two hours to reach where he needed to be.

An ancient tree wrapped in chains, its trunk scorched by flame. Dozens of rusted swords were embedded in its bark. Hanging from one branch was a corpse that looked impossibly fresh.

Its head turned slowly as Albedo approached.

Its eyes opened.

“Who dares disturb the Gate of Grudge?”

Albedo didn’t flinch.

He raised Havoc and activated Infernal Mode.

“Someone who’s got no time for dramatic guardians.”

The corpse laughed, then twisted violently, detaching from the tree. Its body distorted, arms lengthening into blade-like tendrils, skin turning to ash. It floated forward, eyes burning with spectral fire.

Albedo narrowed his eyes as he saw it, ready for battle.

It seems this was the first trial, and he was not about to back down.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep