It wasn't just Kag who was on the verge of death. Lina still lay unconscious nearby, the scales covering her body dull and lifeless in the dim light.
"Hang in there, Kag!" There was a tremor in Saruman's voice, one he didn't even notice himself.
He quickly examined his friend's condition, but the more he investigated, the heavier his heart became. Ordinary healing spells were completely useless against the black markings.
Whenever the magic touched them, it was like water falling onto red-hot iron, it vanished in an instant. Worse still, it only caused the markings to writhe even more violently in retaliation.
Meanwhile, Kag's life force was being devoured by the strange corruption at an alarming rate.
"Damn it... I have to save you." There was no more time to hesitate. Saruman's eyes became sharp with determination, and he lowered his voice. "Listen to me, old friend. You can't die here. I'm going to use an unconventional method. It may... be extremely painful. It may also have consequences neither of us can predict. But it's the only way to stabilize you for now."
It was obvious Saruman still possessed a forbidden technique he had never used, deliberately holding it back until now. The cost of using it was clearly immense.
"Ngh..." Kag struggled to focus his fading eyes. "I... dying here wouldn't be so strange. Don't... do something you'll regret forever."
He saw the unwavering resolve in Saruman's eyes. He wanted to shake his head and stop his closest friend from risking himself, but he no longer had the strength to lift even a finger.
"No," Saruman cut him off. "If you die here, you'll become just like the enemies we've fought. You'll be trapped forever. I refuse to let that happen to you."
He said nothing more. Closing his eyes, he placed both hands over Kag's chest and began chanting an ancient, difficult incantation.
This wasn't a spell recorded in any orthodox tome of ancient magic; it came from fragments of a forbidden scroll Saruman had discovered within sealed ruins, knowledge that had long been condemned as taboo.
There was a reason archaeologist-wizards were so dangerous. Those who explored ancient ruins often mastered forms of magic that ordinary wizards could scarcely imagine.
And now, Saruman was casting an ancient form of dark magic. The words of the spell sounded twisted and blasphemous, and every syllable made the surrounding air colder. The grotesque carvings on the corridor walls seemed to pulse in time with the incantation.
Even the magical phenomena surrounding the spell made one thing obvious, this wasn't merely dark magic; it was among the darkest of all dark magic.
"...At this point... the only one to blame is me."
A pitch-black radiance, as though drawn from the depths of the underworld itself, emerged from Saruman's palms and slowly seeped into Kag's chest. It wasn't the warm light of healing. Instead, it was a paradoxical power that carried the scent of death, yet forcibly sustained life.
"AAARGH…!"
Kag's eyes flew open, his body convulsing violently. He felt an overwhelming, ice-cold force surge into him. It didn't erase the black markings; instead, it suppressed them through sheer dominance.
At the same time, another sensation flowed into him. He could clearly feel Saruman's own life force passing into his nearly exhausted body through the dark light like a gentle stream.
The pain eased, and some of his sanity returned. Kag stared at Saruman in disbelief, his voice hoarse. "You... what are you doing, Saruman?! You're sharing your life with me?!"
He could feel it. It wasn't merely magic power, but something more fundamental, his lifespan, fragments of his soul. Saruman was using a life-sharing spell.
"No more questions." Saruman's face had grown even paler, and tiny beads of sweat covered his forehead. Yet the hand pressed against Kag's chest never wavered. He forced a tired smile. "Trust me. This is the best option we have. The reason you and Lina ended up like this... is because of me."
He paused, a faint silver light flashing in his eyes. "After defeating those ancient wizards one after another... my understanding of magic..."
He looked at his own hands. "...has already reached the threshold of the Legendary realm. My life will be a long one." He smiled faintly. "Sharing a little of it with you won't hurt."
He spoke as though it were nothing, but Kag knew better. This was forbidden dark magic; the price could never be as simple as Saruman made it sound. He wanted to resist and refuse, but the life force flowing into him was like sweet spring water.
His body, which had been on the brink of collapse, regained a trace of vitality. For the time being, it also suppressed the agony and madness brought on by the black markings that clung to him like a deadly curse.
"You're really insane," Kag let out a sigh, cursing his best friend under his breath. "No wonder this place hasn't corrupted you as quickly as everyone else."
At this point, the spell had already been completed. All he could do was grit his teeth and engrave Saruman's sacrifice into his heart. After all, it wasn't as if he could survive this only to slit his own throat afterward; that would be truly idiotic.
This wasn't some melodramatic stage play. Kag understood that the life Saruman had saved had to be worth something. Besides, even if he killed himself now, it wouldn't undo the price Saruman had already paid.
Though he wasn't a wizard, Kag knew more about magic than many ordinary wizards. After all, he'd been part of an archaeological expedition for years. Growing up around people like Saruman, anyone with half a brain would naturally pick up a great deal of magical knowledge.
"All right. Let's keep looking for a way out."
After a brief respite, they had no choice but to press on. Saruman helped Kag back to his feet, hoisted the unconscious Lina onto his back once more, and stepped back into the seemingly endless corridor.
What followed was a nightmare repeating itself over and over. It was as if the Infinite Corridor had grown angry at their continued resistance, revealing even stranger traps and deadlier enemies.
They encountered the 'Dream Weaver', a phantom-like being that manipulated fragments of dreams to weave deadly illusions. They fought the 'Abyss Fire Demon', whose body was made of lava and obsidian, capable of summoning molten earth and poisonous sulfur fumes with a wave of its hand.
They even faced a 'Time-Space Weaver', a creature that twisted space itself and trapped them inside fragments of looping time.
"Maybe... breaking through to the Legendary realm is our only chance."
Every encounter was a battle where death was only a step away. Under relentless pressure, Saruman's strength grew at an astonishing pace. His mastery over elemental magic, mental spells, and even space-time magic became increasingly refined. Just as he'd said, he was drawing ever closer to the legendary realm itself.
"The corruption doesn't affect me as badly anymore," Kag said. His body temporarily stabilized and sustained by sheer willpower, he continued swinging his greatsword again and again, fighting like a true warrior to buy Saruman the time and space he needed to cast his spells.
They fought. They won. Then they dragged their battered bodies onward through the endless corridor. It was a journey filled with constant brushes with death, where hope was like a candle in the wind, flaring to life again and again only to be nearly snuffed out each time by cruel reality.
No matter which direction they chose, no matter how many traps they solved, and no matter how many powerful enemies they defeated, they always ended up back at the same place, the alcove carved with the enormous octopus relief.
The corridor truly was infinite, a real prison.
One day? Two days? Many days? No one knew. Deep beneath the earth, with neither sun nor moon, time had completely lost its meaning. Any device capable of measuring it simply stopped working inside this place.
Eventually, their food and fresh water ran out. Saruman kept them alive only by using magic to convert energy into nourishment.
Lina's corruption continued to deepen, slow but unstoppable. During the rare moments when she briefly regained consciousness, there was nothing human left in her eyes, only emptiness and madness.
The black markings covering Kag's body continued spreading as well. Even with Saruman's life-sharing spell suppressing them, every battle loosened that suppression a little more.
For the moment, however, nothing catastrophic had happened yet. The forbidden dark magic Saruman had used was unimaginably powerful, powerful enough to resist even Cthulhu's corruption. It was almost unbelievable.
Of course, that was also because Saruman himself had evolved into a life-form approaching the Legendary realm, dramatically increasing his resistance to corruption. And because Kag now shared Saruman's life force, he also benefited from that heightened resilience.
Even so, the exhaustion, the despair, and the endless whispers and low, droning hum that never ceased wore away at the trio's minds like a dull blade slowly carving through flesh.
"...Can we really still find a way out?" One day, during another brief rest, Saruman leaned against the cold stone wall. His hollow gaze swept across the strange carvings that never seemed to change.
His mind raced faster than ever before. Everything that had happened since entering the ruins, every detail, every battle, every shift in the corridor's layout, he reconstructed them all like pieces of a massive puzzle, examining every possibility.
"No... No... I've got it!"
Suddenly, a thought he'd overlooked, or perhaps one he'd subconsciously refused to face, split through the fog clouding his mind like a bolt of lightning. Saruman's eyes flew open, his silver pupils shining with both shock and sudden understanding.
"Kag..." His voice was hoarse with excitement, as though he had uncovered something extraordinary. "...We've been wrong. We've been wrong from the very beginning."
"What?" Kag looked up at him wearily.
"It's obvious now. There isn't an exit anywhere inside this corridor. But every time we encounter an enemy... every time this place tries to stop us... It always happens under the same circumstances."
He took a deep breath and pointed back the way they had come, the direction they had returned to countless times before.
"Don't you see? It always happens when we come back to that place. When we return to the stone door. We have to go back. Back to the stone door where we first entered."
Kag froze, confusion and disbelief written all over his face. "Why? That's a dead end! We already tried it! The stone door can't be opened from this side! What could we possibly accomplish by going back?"
"Because that's exactly my point." Saruman stood up, his eyes filled with unwavering conviction, as though he had finally grasped their last lifeline. "If this place keeps trying to stop us, then it has a reason. The only exit... may not be hidden at the end of the Infinite Corridor. The only way out... is most likely hidden within that stone door itself."
He paused, looking directly into Kag's confused eyes. "We assumed the stone door was simply the entrance to this place. But maybe it was the real test all along. We thought escaping the corridor would lead us out. But perhaps this entire corridor exists for one purpose alone... to lure us away from that door and make us overlook its true secret. We're going back. Back to the entrance. That's where our only chance of survival lies."
Saruman wasn't returning because he already knew the answer; he was returning to prove his theory. Kag stared at the certainty in his friend's eyes. Despite all his doubts and the unease in his heart, he knew Saruman's judgment was the only thing they had left to rely on.
"...All right." He gave a heavy nod.
And so, within the Infinite Corridor that no one seemed able to escape, two battered men supported one another as they carried a companion corrupted by the power of the deep sea. They began retracing the countless futile paths they had already walked, heading back toward both their starting point... and what might also be their final destination.
The entrance to 'R'lyeh'.
They had no idea what lay beyond that door. They only believed that if there was an exit at all, it had to be there. So they turned back, clinging to that last sliver of hope. Ignorance truly was a kind of courage. They didn't know what slept beyond the stone door; they had never even heard the name 'Cthulhu'. All they knew was that, in the depths of despair, this was their final, their only, direction left to take.
The return journey was even more agonizing than the first. It wasn't because it was more dangerous; the bizarre traps were still there, and the phantoms of the ancient wizards still appeared. At any moment, another ambush could come, forcing them into yet another desperate battle. No... the real difference was in their state of mind.
When they'd first ventured forward, they had still carried the faint hope that perhaps the next corner would reveal the exit. Turning back meant abandoning that hope. It meant admitting every step they'd taken until now had been in the wrong direction, willingly walking back toward the unknowable, toward the unbreakable, toward the door of death itself. Every step felt like walking across the ashes of hope. If they found nothing there, then there would truly be nothing left to do except accept their fate. That was what weighed on them the most.
"Stay alert." Saruman walked at the front in silence, his senses spreading outward like an enormous web, watching every corner of the corridor. "This place may try everything it can to stop us. It's aware. It may have heard everything we said... including my theory."
After so many battles, and after repeatedly using forbidden magic, the silver radiance that had once surrounded Saruman had become tinged with a faint shadow, a mark left behind by delving too deeply into the knowledge of the Abyss. Yet despite that, his eyes had never been sharper, like steel tempered in ice.
Inside his mind, every detail of the stone door replayed again and again, its carvings, its material, even the strange magical fluctuations he had felt when they first pushed it open. His thoughts raced at incredible speed. He wanted only one thing: before they reached the stone door again, he had to figure out how to open it and find a path back to the world of the living.
If only it were really that simple.
(End Of This Chapter)
You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395