Chapter 54

Chapter 54. Yamamoto

There was something I had to check first.

['Fragments of the Broken Golden Rule' remaining: 38]
[Current Descent maintenance time available: 38 hours]

'Plenty.'

Enough to push through even dangerous situations.

"......This is the Demon Realm?"

Park Jihun swallowed dryly and muttered.

His hand was still clamped tight on the hilt behind his back.

"The air feels wrong."

Park Hayan was just as tense, scanning the surroundings.

The Demon Realm.

The land of devils.

In the past, during the early days of the Great Cataclysm.

Humanity had firmly believed that the beings of the Demon Realm were the culprits who'd driven Earth to ruin.

The word itself had 'demon' in it.

They'd assumed the demons had punched through dimensional gates, unleashed monsters, and scattered Calamities.

'But they were wrong.'

A truth I'd learned only at the very end of the Tower, much later.

The demons, too, were nothing more than 'chess pieces' and 'victims' dragooned into the gods' Game.

The gods had simply handed humanity quests to 'hunt demons' and enjoyed watching them destroy each other.

'The terror of prejudice.'

We'd praised the real enemy—the gods—as heroes, labeled the fellow victims—the demons—as absolute evil, and shed blood.

Of course.

That didn't mean the demons in front of us would take pity and spare us.

To them, we were unmistakable 'invaders.'

Vandals who'd kicked in someone else's front door without permission.

"Hoo."

I took a short breath.

In the standard difficulties of Episode 4.

It progressed as a sort of massive 'escape room.'

You were dropped into a labyrinth in the Demon Realm, collected clues hidden throughout, found the answer, and advanced to the next zone.

The demons patrolled the maze as guards.

'The broad framework probably hasn't changed.'

That was my assumption.

But.

Even that could be my own shallow bias.

'A first-ever unlock via a Hidden Piece.'

Meaning a difficulty that had never existed before.

Because it hadn't existed, it might not follow any of the existing System's framework or laws at all.

"Shh."

I raised a hand to silence them.

Park Jihun and Park Hayan shut their mouths instantly.

I crouched.

Closed my eyes.

Opened every sense and listened.

Drip. Drip-drip.

'......Water drops?'

The sound of water droplets falling.

Very faint and rhythmic.

I mentally calculated the source and distance.

'Odd.'

I opened my eyes.

We were standing in a barren wasteland of swirling red sand.

There was no water nearby—not even moisture.

I removed my gloves and pressed my bare hand to the ground.

Sight and hearing could be fooled, but not a mage's sense of touch.

Hsssh.

An infinitesimal current of mana brushed my fingertips.

A pulse of mana beating with deep regularity far beneath the ground.

'Wait.'

This was a magic circle's configuration.

Had we been hit with a spell the moment we entered?

No, no.

Not magic.

A conventional magic circle would have a discernible structure and formula.

Above all, if I'd been hit, I would have detected the activation instantly.

This flow wasn't a deliberately drawn formation.

In other words.

This wasn't magic—it was the innate 'trait' of some living entity, breathing and emanating it.

"Abriel."

I reached into the air to summon the Holy Sword.

But.

"......"

No light.

The noble voice that always answered my call with its usual fuss was absent.

She was silent as a cold slab of metal.

'An illusion.'

I was certain.

We weren't standing in the Demon Realm's wasteland.

In the instant we'd entered, we'd already fallen into their trap.

I rose slowly.

I turned to Park Jihun and Park Hayan.

"You two."

"Y-yes, Boss!"

"What is it?"

I reversed my grip on Abriel.

Blade aimed at my own chest.

"Your heart."

I said it flatly.

"Or your throat. You need to do it yourselves."

"......WHAT?!"

Park Jihun's eyes nearly popped out of his skull.

Park Hayan's face went white; she stumbled backward.

"Wh-what kind of joke is that, Boss?! Suicide, out of nowhere?!"

"It's not a joke."

I fixed them with a hard stare.

"Can you do it?"

"Boss! At least tell us why......!"

"Where we are right now is fake. It's a dream. The only way to wake up is to die."

Death inside an illusion was the most primal trigger for returning to reality.

Especially when self-inflicted, the return was faster.

The brain would remember the pain, but the body would be unharmed.

"Hesitate and your real bodies get eaten."

I said nothing more.

And.

THUNK!

Without a moment's hesitation, I drove Abriel's tip into my own heart.

"BOSS!!"

"JEONG-SEOK!!"

Their horrified screams rang out.

Simultaneously, my vision turned red.

A vicious pain hammered my brain.

CRASH-CRACK!

The world shattered like breaking glass.

***

"HAAH!"

I sucked in air and snapped my eyes open.

I patted my chest.

No wound.

Not a drop of blood.

"......"

The air around me had changed.

No dry red sandstorm.

Instead, a clinging, nauseating stench of blood.

And.

"Keeeeh......"

"Human...... has awakened......"

Dozens of grotesque creatures had surrounded me.

Bat wings.

Goat horns.

And hideous monsters with human upper bodies.

Demons.

Among them, the one standing furthest back.

A female-shaped demon wreathed in violet mist, studying me with sinister eyes.

'A dream demon. A succubus.'

Just as I'd thought.

They'd set up camp at the gate the moment we crossed the dimensional door and trapped us in a dream world.

The succubus's sleep trait.

A moment's delay—a fraction of a second slower in detecting the wrongness.

And we'd have wandered a dream with no escape until our real bodies were devoured.

'So this is Incomprehensible difficulty.'

From the very start, escape-room rules were out the window.

An insane difficulty that slammed an instant-death pattern the very second you entered.

HUMMMM!

Abriel blazed with blinding light at last.

I readjusted my grip.

Dark miasma began pouring from the Heavenly Demon Armor.

I glanced to the side.

Park Hayan and Park Jihun were still collapsed on the ground.

Unfocused eyes groping at the air, or gasping for breath.

They hadn't escaped yet.

"Oh my."

The succubus at the rear flicked her tail coyly.

Admiration slipped from her lips.

"A human's willpower breaking through my dream."

The succubus grinned.

The leisurely poise of a predator watching a butterfly struggle in its web.

"But it's too late, mortal."

She snapped her fingers.

"Your lives are already in our hands."

At her command, dozens of demons surged forward, radiating murderous intent.

Goat-horned creatures charged with crimson eyes blazing.

Claws laced with demonic energy hurtled toward my heart.

I gripped Abriel tight.

Coiled my muscles.

Drew the trajectory of the Heavenly Demon Swordsmanship and prepared to meet the first strike.

'Probably can't cut them all in one pass.'

Incomprehensible difficulty.

A place that hit you with an instant-kill gimmick the second you walked in.

I'd assumed these monsters' stats would also be off the charts.

I planned to block, deflect, and hold out until those two woke up.

CRASH!

Abriel collided with a demon's claw.

A flash of light.

I braced my lower body for the impact of being thrown back.

But.

"......Hm?"

Light.

The resistance in my wrist was pathetically light.

SLICE.

Like cutting through tofu.

No—even softer than that.

"KIEEEK!"

The first demon to charge was cleaved diagonally in two.

Its upper and lower halves separated, spraying black blood.

A single sword stroke.

And I hadn't even put my full force behind it.

I stared down at the bisected corpse, dumbfounded.

'What?'

Was it because I was strong?

Because the Heavenly Demon Armor was overwhelming?

Because Abriel's sacred energy countered demons?

Please.

Sure, I was strong.

But this wasn't a matter of degree.

'They're weak.'

These things were pathetically weak for their supposed difficulty.

Their physicality actually felt inferior to the monsters from the ordinary 'Hell' difficulty I'd cleared with the Strike Force in the past.

And then.

A formula crystallized in my mind.

'The difficulty standard.'

Episode 4's difficulty was unlocked based on the Party Leader's Honor score.

The insane Honor of 1.35 million was what had triggered 'Incomprehensible'—true.

But.

The 'tier' of monsters inside the dungeon wasn't determined by Honor.

'What if it scales to the Party Leader's level?'

That was the System's absolute law.

Monsters' stats were scaled based on the entering Party Leader's level.

Ahhh.

It clicked.

'My level is only 7.'

My level was low.

Absurdly low.

Lower than Park Hayan's or Park Jihun's.

Because the stat inflation per level was so extreme and my tier was so high, my experience bar stretched to insane lengths—that was all I'd been able to surmise.

Where others gained a full level's worth of experience, I couldn't even fill one percent. A cursed growth curve.

But my actual stats?

Superior to Park Hayan, Park Jihun, and even the Avatars hailed as heroes.

I'd started with every stat maxed from the beginning.

On top of that, I was wrapped in ultra-high-tier gear like the Heavenly Demon Armor, the Heart of the Frozen Wastes, and the Great Sage's Staff.

'Single-digit level, but specs that are beyond reach.'

Yes.

The System had generated Incomprehensible-difficulty monsters based on a mere Level 7.

The patterns were Incomprehensible-grade, but the physical stats were calibrated for Level 7—feeble beyond belief.

Which meant.

Without even summoning Rag's true body—that colossal Divinity.

'This is doable.'

More than doable.

No, beyond doable.

......It meant slaughter was possible.