Chapter 55

Chapter 55. Perfect Hell

A bitter smile spread across my lips.

"K-kik?"

The trailing demons faltered at their comrade's pathetic death.

The ferocious energy they'd been exuding moments ago crumbled in an instant.

"Why are you stopping?! Kill him! Tear his throat out, now!"

The succubus shrieked in panic.

Her composure was shattered.

But before the demons could charge again.

HUMMMMMM!

Abriel blazed with blinding light.

—Wicked, filthy aura.
—I shall burn it away.

The Holy Sword's telepathic voice rang through my mind.

Sacred light radiating from Abriel's blade filled the narrow cavern.

I kicked off the ground.

The Heavenly Demon Shoes' option activated, and my movement speed exploded.

CRASH!

Speed that seemed to leap across space itself.

The demons' eyes couldn't have even tracked my afterimage.

SLICE. SLICE. CLANG!

Abriel danced.

The Heavenly Demon Swordsmanship traced arcs of sacred light that lashed outward in every direction.

Wherever the light grazed, necks, arms, and torsos were sheared clean off.

"GRAAAGH!"

"Grgh......!"

They couldn't even get their death cries out.

Black blood hadn't even hit the ground before it was ignited and purified by the Holy Sword's light.

It was over in an instant.

The time it took for dozens of demons to become rotting heaps of meat on the floor was a mere ten-odd seconds.

"Th-this can't be......!"

The succubus stumbled backward.

Her face was white as a sheet.

Every trace of her earlier allure was gone.

Terror.

Watching her subordinates get butchered one-sidedly, she trembled violently.

I closed the distance to the succubus.

I leveled Abriel's cold edge at her nape.

"Plea—KYAAAH!"

No mercy.

The blade pierced her throat.

Purple mist scattered as the dream demon's form crumbled away.

And once every last one was cut down.

WHOOOOSH!

Abriel blazed with fierce intensity.

Dark energy seeped from the demon corpses littering the floor and was drawn into the Holy Sword's blade.

Purification.

And absorption.

A Holy Sword that devoured the essence of demons.

Ding!

[Holy Sword Abriel has absorbed demonic essence.]
[Demonic energy purified and converted to sacred power.]
[Holy Sword's power permanently increased by 5%.]

A message appeared.

My grin climbed higher.

The more I hunted, the stronger the blade became.

This Incomprehensible difficulty wasn't a death trap—it was a buffet for upgrading my equipment.

That was when.

"Hah!"

"Cough, cough!"

Ragged breathing came from behind me.

Park Hayan and Park Jihun snapped their eyes open almost simultaneously.

"Wh-what......?"

Park Jihun clutched his chest and staggered to his feet.

Park Hayan, too, wiped the cold sweat beading on her forehead and looked around with dazed eyes.

The first thing they saw was the dozens of grotesque demon corpses carpeting the floor.

And then.

My back, standing with a gleaming Holy Sword in hand, not a drop of blood on me.

"B-Boss......"

Park Jihun's jaw dropped.

A stupefied expression.

He looked back and forth between me and the corpses, stammering.

"Did you...... did you do all this? Before we even woke up from the dream?"

Park Hayan couldn't say a word.

No—she couldn't.

Because of the waves of terror her spirits were trembling and relaying to her.

'Those corpses.'

The aura of the slaughtered demons before her eyes.

Judging by the spirits' reaction, every single one of them had been roughly her equal—or far stronger.

And those monsters, in the brief moment it took her to flail in the dream and barely stab her own heart.

'He slaughtered them all alone.'

Without a single drop of blood on him.

Without so much as a disrupted breath.

Awe rippled through Park Hayan's eyes.

Her benefactor was a far more vast and distant being than she had ever imagined.

Ding!

That was when.

A crimson message window blocked all three of their visions.

[You have broken through the guardians of illusion.]
[You have overcome the first trial of 'Incomprehensible.']
[Warning: The path ahead grows only harsher.]
[Would you like to abandon the challenge and return now?]

An offer to quit.

The System was kindly opening an exit.

Park Jihun read the message and swallowed hard.

"B-Boss. It says...... we can give up?"

He looked around.

They'd nearly died in a dream the moment they'd entered.

They'd woken to find demons stronger than themselves sliced apart before their eyes.

Honestly, he had to be terrified.

But I smirked.

Give up?

[Warning: Should you abandon or fail the challenge, demons of the 'Incomprehensible' tier will descend upon Earth.]

As if.

If I ran away here?

The weakling demons scaled to my level wouldn't be what came out.

The instant they manifested on Earth, they'd shed the System's scaling.

They'd revert to their true caliber—genuine Incomprehensible-tier demons pouring into the heart of Seoul.

Not just Korea. The entire planet could be reduced to ash overnight.

If I couldn't even overcome this, Earth was doomed to fall again.

So I would not quit, even if it killed me.

"If you want to quit, leave on your own."

I flicked the message window away.

Then, Abriel's tip trailing along the ground, I strode forward.

"W-wait! Boss! Let's go together!"

Park Jihun fumbled with his longsword and scrambled after me.

Park Hayan, too, took one short breath, then followed my shadow with a hardened expression.

There was no retreat.

The only option was to chew through this insane difficulty to the bitter end.

***

"Haa, haa......"

Yamamoto let his blood-soaked katana hang limp.

His breath was ragged.

Beads of sweat trickled from his brow down his jaw.

"As expected......"

He twisted his bloodstained lips upward.

"A perfect hell indeed."

It was on another plane from regular hell difficulty.

His current level was 45.

A monstrous figure reached through relentless slaughter, quests, and Nectar supplied by his true body.

But.

The demons appearing here seemed to be even higher.

Somewhere around level 50 to 60.

What had greeted them the moment they entered was a deluge of bats from the darkness, and the stench of blood.

'Vampires.'

High-ranking demons.

Summoning thralls endlessly from their own shadows, using scattered blood as a medium to rain curses—a thoroughly troublesome opponent.

"GRAAAGH!"

"Guild Master! Cough!"

The fighting was brutal.

One party member's body ruptured from the inside out, struck by a vampire's blood curse.

One of the Hero Guild's elite had died horribly within ten minutes of entry.

But Yamamoto didn't care.

A party member's death didn't even register.

'The weak die. That's the natural order.'

His blade flashed.

The Authority bestowed by the God of War.

Fighting spirit erupted in crimson, piercing the vampire's heart with surgical precision.

"Gkh, urrgh...... a mere human......!"

The Vampire Count crumbled to ash.

In that instant, warm light cascaded over Yamamoto.

Ding!

[High-ranking demon 'Vampire Count' has been vanquished!]
[Massive experience gained.]
[Level increased!]
[Level: 45 → 46]

"Kahahaha!"

Yamamoto laughed heartily.

A single monster kill, and his level went up.

This wasn't hell—it was the finest hunting ground, one that would elevate him to the realm of myth.

But the System's notifications didn't end there.

Ding!

[Party leader's level has increased.]
[The abyss of the Demon Realm adjusts to the party leader's caliber.]
[Warning: Demons appearing henceforth will be strengthened in proportion to the party leader's level.]

"......Oh?"

Yamamoto's eyes flashed.

As he grew stronger, the enemies grew stronger too.

What a fair and blood-pumping battlefield this was.

Naturally, the experience yield would rise along with it.

Ding!

[Warning: The trials of 'Perfect Hell' grow harsher.]
[Would you like to abandon the challenge and return now?]
[Caution: Should you abandon or fail the challenge, demons of the 'Perfect Hell' tier will manifest on Earth and bring ruin.]

Yamamoto scoffed at the message.

Demons manifesting on Earth?

Bringing ruin?

It was happening because he'd opened this difficulty.

He was the only one in the entire world who had unlocked this door.

But.

'Irrelevant.'

Yamamoto flicked the blood from his katana.

'As if I would ever quit.'

His eyes glittered with madness.

'I will clear this difficulty with ease.'

Yamamoto turned to the surviving ten party members.

"On your feet."

He growled.

"There is no time to rest. We press on."

The exhausted party members dragged themselves upright.

Some trembled with terror. Others gasped for breath through their bleeding wounds.

And behind them all, Satoshi stood with an expressionless face.

They followed Yamamoto's back in silence.

No one dared open their mouth.

Because they instinctively understood: the moment they crossed Yamamoto, a death far more terrible than the Vampire Count's awaited them.

***

How far had we walked?

We were traversing a desert of dark-red sand.

"......Boss. Am I seeing things?"

Park Jihun rubbed his eyes and pointed.

His jaw hung open.

"That...... that's supposed to be in Egypt, isn't it?"

Beyond the sandstorm, a massive silhouette emerged.

A colossal structure soaring as if to pierce the sky.

A pyramid.

And blocking the way before it, an enormous guardian.

A stone statue with the body of a lion and the head of a human.

A sphinx.

"A pyramid in the Demon Realm......"

Park Hayan murmured in disbelief.

Her spirits trembled anxiously, orbiting her in tight circles.

It was alien.

Could a space called the Demon Realm and an ancient Earth civilization's relic really overlap this blatantly?

It was as jarring as a demon's castle sprouting in the middle of Seoul.

That was when.

RUMBLE!

Golden light flashed in the sphinx's eyes.

The frozen colossus moved.

Its mouth yawned open, and a ponderous voice shook the air.

【Who dares approach the tomb of the great king?!】

A roar that could burst eardrums.

Park Jihun reflexively grabbed his sword hilt.

Park Hayan, too, drew on her spirits' power.

But the sphinx didn't attack.

Instead, it gazed down at us with imperious disdain and spoke.

【I am the guardian of wisdom and death. To pass the tomb, you must survive my trial.】

The sphinx's glinting eyes swept over us.

【I shall pose a question. Fail, and you die. Succeed, and you earn the right to enter the tomb.】

A question.

A type of gimmick.

Another pattern.

Usually, failing this kind of trial triggered an instant-kill attack or a devastating area-of-effect.

A fundamental rule of escape rooms.

"Uh, what kind of question? Since it's a sphinx, is it like, four legs in the morning, two at noon, three at night...... something like that?"

Park Jihun gulped and tried to show off what he knew.

But the sphinx kept its mouth firmly shut.

Its golden eyes glowed fiercely, but it said nothing more.

Silence passed.

Only the sound of the sandstorm grazed our ears.

【Now, speak your answer.】

The sphinx said abruptly.

【You have five minutes. One chance only.】

"......Huh?"

Park Jihun looked utterly lost.

"Wait, you have to ask the question before we can answer it!"

"I really didn't hear anything either."

Park Hayan chimed in urgently.

But the sphinx offered no response.

It merely stared us down with bulging eyes, as though counting the seconds.

"What kind of nonsense is this?!"

Park Jihun erupted in frustration.

It hadn't said a word. What question had it supposedly asked?

Had it sent telepathy or something?

I organized my thoughts calmly.

'......If it really did pose a question.'

If the sphinx wasn't lying, we'd genuinely missed it.

Had it asked on a frequency inaudible to human ears—or to any living being?

I quietly scanned our surroundings.

'No.'

If that were the case, the spirits would have reacted.

Spirits that read the waves of nature could pick up even the faintest sound.

But Park Hayan's spirits were merely anxious—they hadn't relayed any message.

The Holy Sword Abriel in my hand was the same.

Silent.

Then it wasn't 'sound.'

I studied the sphinx, and the pyramid rising behind it, with careful deliberation.

The Demon Realm.

Demon territory.

Why would a pyramid and a sphinx exist here?

Those were artifacts of Earth's civilization.

Had the System glitched and its textures broken?

'No.'

The System was flawless.

Then the incongruous backdrop itself was the hint.

Those things themselves were the 'question.'

It might be demanding an answer about this very situation.

Why Earth's relics existed here.

Why we were standing in this contradictory space.

And why it demanded an answer without having made a single sound.

The puzzle pieces began to click.

'Dream.'

A single word flickering through my mind.

Hallucination.

When we first entered the Demon Realm, the succubus had trapped us in a dreamscape.

We'd definitely broken out of that nightmare by stabbing ourselves with Abriel.

Then we'd slaughtered the succubus and the demons.

'We've fallen back inside.'

More precisely this time.

Refined to a degree indistinguishable from reality.

'......Vicious.'

Goosebumps rose.

Truly 'Incomprehensible.'

An unfathomable labyrinth.

A double, triple trap that plunged you into an even deeper dream the moment you believed you'd woken.

That was why Earth's relics were here.

Because the one spinning this dream was a being from Earth.

I smirked.

"Now I see."

When I spoke, Park Jihun and Park Hayan turned to me.

"Boss? You know the answer?"

"This isn't a question the sphinx asked."

I stared straight at the massive stone statue.

And beyond it—at the true master controlling this vast illusion.

"Enough with the games."

Not a dream demon—but something beyond one.

There was, however, one critical difference from before.

'If I take drastic measures here, I actually die.'

If I cut my throat or stabbed my heart the same way as last time, I would truly die.

Even knowing this was a dream, the same method wouldn't work.

Ha.

A truly horrifying difficulty.

I readjusted my grip on Abriel.

The Holy Sword's edge gleamed.

And I spoke its name.

"'Mayon.'"

Mayon.

The demon from the age before recorded history who had appeared in Park Hayan's dream and tried to force a contract.

The Aberration of Timal mythology, known as the Black Human!

—H-how does a human know my name?!

The instant the name was spoken, space began to warp like a crashing wave.