Every last one of the corrupted had been acting.
Their objective was simple: to make Saruman and the others believe that discovering the 'stone door' had been the result of their own intelligence, guiding them into an irresistible curiosity, and an overwhelming desire, to unlock the final door when they reached the depths of despair.
They needed someone capable of seeing through the "infinity" of the corridor. Someone who could resist assimilation by this place. Someone who possessed enough wisdom and knowledge to discover the hidden 'key' concealed within the 'stone door' and activate it.
Only then could they release the Being sealed inside, the one capable of leading them all into eternity.
Many people had entered these ruins before, but not one had succeeded. Most had simply become part of the ruins themselves. They longed to escape, longed for it beyond measure.
Saruman, a young wizard blessed with extraordinary talent and immense knowledge, was the perfect candidate they had waited countless ages for.
Even his repeated narrow escapes had never been coincidences; they had been deliberately allowing him to grow stronger. Strong enough to open the 'stone door'. Strong enough to release the existence imprisoned within.
They were never guardians of the 'Ruins'. They were guides. They led those who met the necessary qualifications toward the door, toward the unspeakable realm of terror waiting beyond it.
Kag's martial strength and Lina's corruption had merely been additional pieces on the board, catalysts to deepen Saruman's obsession with finding a way out.
Now, the prey had finally entered the trap.
Their laughter echoed through the empty corridor, overflowing with blasphemous delight. The 'stone door' remained tightly sealed, yet the silent world connected to it, the dimension where the sleeping city known as 'R'lyeh' lay, had welcomed new sacrifices. Or perhaps, new variables.
Saruman's wisdom, Kag's unwavering resolve, and the abyss-born corruption within Lina, when those three elements were cast into that deathly still pond, what kind of ripples would they create?
Perhaps that was exactly what these ancient beings, or rather the incomprehensible will they served, had wished to witness all along.
As the laughter gradually faded, the blurry figures began dissolving once more, just as they had appeared. They slowly merged back into the darkness and emptiness of the corridor. Their purpose had already been fulfilled; there was no reason to remain.
Eventually, the stone chamber and corridor returned to absolute silence. Only the immense 'stone door' remained standing there, like an eternal gravestone that had never changed throughout the ages, silently watching another group of moths throw themselves into a flame capable of burning away even the soul.
Among the carvings upon the door, that enormous tentacled figure seemed, within the shadows, to reveal the faintest trace of a satisfied smile.
And beyond the door, what awaited Saruman, Kag, and Lina was never the escape or salvation they had imagined. Only despair, deeper, more complete, and entirely inescapable.
---
In the end, Saruman, Kag, and Lina disappeared completely into the swirling darkness beyond the 'stone door'.
The scene preserved within the memory froze at that instant. Like the final stroke of color upon an ancient, yellowed painting, it slowly dimmed, then dissolved into countless tiny blue motes of magical light that drifted around the fingertips of the blind old wizard, Saruman.
A thousand years later, deep beneath the 'African Ministry of Magic', silence descended once more. It was so heavy that it seemed capable of crushing the soul itself.
The black-robed man still stood where he was, the grotesquely mutated face hidden beneath his hood remaining buried in shadow.
Only his slit-like pupils occasionally caught the faint remnants of magical light as he silently digested everything he had just witnessed, the perseverance born from despair, the brilliance of wisdom, and the unwavering resolve with which they had stepped into the unknown.
Then, a sudden question slithered into his mind like a venomous serpent.
"Master," The black-robed man's voice shattered the silence, a subtle note of curiosity within it. "The memories you showed me ended when the three of you entered that 'portal'. But... how did you know that after you disappeared, those ancient beings manifested outside the 'stone door' and laughed as though their scheme had succeeded?"
The question pierced the heavy atmosphere between them like a needle of ice.
The elderly Saruman, whose expression had remained solemn and mournful throughout the recollection, visibly stiffened. The fingers resting upon his knees curled unconsciously. His empty eye sockets shifted ever so slightly, avoiding the black-robed man's invisible gaze.
The solemn weight accumulated over a thousand years suddenly evaporated, and an awkward silence settled between them.
"Uh... Well..." The old wizard let out a dry, embarrassed chuckle, something utterly out of character for someone of his stature. "When one grows old, my child, even the clearest memories become blurred after a thousand years. They're like footprints on a beach, washed over by the tide again and again. The brain... well, the brain has a habit of protecting itself. Or perhaps it simply tries to fill in the missing gaps, so naturally, it performs a little... reasonable reconstruction and deduction."
He paused for a moment, carefully choosing his words as his tone became even more elusive.
"You know... once you know what happened afterward, it's only natural to work backward and infer what might have happened before. Isn't that so? After all, we've experienced the malice of those ancient beings firsthand."
On the surface, it sounded perfectly reasonable. The passage of time could certainly distort the details of one's memories.
But for a wizard like Saruman, someone who had reached the threshold of the 'Legendary' realm, whose mental strength was as vast as an ocean, to attribute such vivid memories of the greatest secret to his mind "filling in the blanks" felt rather unconvincing.
It sounded more like an instinctive attempt to conceal something, an excuse hastily thrown together, especially coming from a wizard once renowned throughout the world for his wisdom and insight.
The black-robed man did not respond immediately; he simply watched the old wizard in silence. He knew his teacher.
Even in his youth, Saruman had been capable of sensing the slightest fluctuation of magic. How could someone like that become vague when speaking of memories so intimately tied to the essence of the soul?
After a long silence, the black-robed man ultimately chose not to pursue the matter.
"Very well." He listened quietly, his grotesquely transformed face hidden beneath the hood, betraying no emotion.
He wasn't someone who failed to recognize proper boundaries, nor did he forget that the old man before him remained a being who was not to be offended lightly.
More importantly, a deeper bond connected them, a story buried long ago, a secret never recorded even within the archives of the 'Department of Mysteries'.
Because of that, he let the question rest. Of course, it wasn't merely because he had suppressed his curiosity.
What truly concerned him was his teacher's past; it felt as though he had brushed against one small corner of the truth, only for an even thicker fog to roll in afterward. What he cared about now was what lay beyond that door, the place that even his own teacher seemed unwilling to describe.
"I understand, Master." The black-robed man gently steered the conversation elsewhere.
"Then... what exactly lies beyond that door? For generations, our 'Department of Mysteries' has guarded this place. We maintain the seal. We eliminate anyone who attempts to investigate it, or anyone already corrupted. But most of us, myself included, don't truly know what that door, or rather what these 'Ruins', are actually connected to. What kind of existence sleeps in their deepest reaches? And what kind of world lies beyond?"
His voice carried a complicated curiosity, mixed with the solemn weight of duty and a strange sense of acceptance born from knowing his own fate was already sealed.
He had spent years guarding a secret without ever knowing its true nature, there was undeniable irony in that. At the same time, perhaps it had been a form of protection.
And in this world, the only person capable of answering those questions was the teacher standing before him. After all, other than Saruman's party, no one had ever returned alive from beyond that door.
"Because you don't need to know," Saruman said, letting out a quiet sigh of relief as the heavy atmosphere returned. "Ignorance is a blessing."
His eyes suddenly grew unfathomably deep. He remained silent for a long while, trying to organize his thoughts, trying to use humanity's painfully inadequate language to describe something fundamentally indescribable.
At last, he looked toward the frozen scene preserved by the memory spell, his gaze settling upon the place where the 'portal' had once stood. It was almost as though he could still see beyond it.
His lips trembled. When he finally spoke, his voice was scarcely louder than a whisper. The great wizard from a thousand years ago, now standing at the very end of his life, spoke in a tone little more than a weary sigh.
"That place... is where language ends... the graveyard of reason. What lies beyond is more terrifying than the combined total of every nightmare you could possibly imagine. It is not merely something horrifying to behold; it completely overturns, and corrupts, your understanding of existence itself and of the universe. The moment you see it... your damnation has already begun."
It sounded exaggerated, almost alarmist, yet it was the truth. Such was the corruption of 'Cthulhu'. Those who understood it needed no further explanation. Just those few words seemed enough to make the temperature inside the chamber drop several degrees.
"I see..." Hearing this, the black-robed man's fingers, covered beneath his sleeves with countless tiny scales, trembled almost imperceptibly.
As one of the 'Department of Mysteries' Gatekeepers', he had watched over this place for more than twenty years. He had executed countless criminals who sought to uncover its secrets and contained innumerable magical leaks, yet he had never known what it was he had actually been protecting.
Beyond that door, was there an ancient creature slumbering there? Forbidden knowledge sealed away? Or some chaotic force capable of overturning reality itself?
Here, curiosity was a death sentence. The only thing he knew was that anyone who attempted to force the door open would instantly be reduced to ash, body, soul, nothing would remain.
And yet, though he understood that better than anyone, he did not retreat. Instead, a hoarse laugh escaped him, rasping like a pair of broken bellows.
"After all, I don't have much time left anyway, Master. This body, this soul... they've already been consumed by the same power you witnessed. So before the very end comes, to finally know what we've been fighting all these years... to understand what you truly faced back then... would be... a kind of release. Or perhaps, my final destination."
He spoke with complete sincerity; it was obvious that he had already made up his mind. Which was only natural. He had spent his entire life guarding this secret, and now that his time was running out, it was only human to harbor one final personal wish.
After all, the members of the 'Department of Mysteries' might appear cold and emotionless, but they were still human. And as long as they were human, they possessed the emotions that came with humanity.
The moment those emotions disappeared completely was the moment they ceased to be human. They would become fallen beings, wholly consumed by the corruption of 'Cthulhu'. That was the inevitable end awaiting every corrupted soul.
"I understand how you feel." Saruman "looked" toward him, a trace of profound compassion crossing the weathered old wizard's face. He understood that state of mind. When darkness had already seeped into one's very bones, knowing the source of that darkness could instead bring a strange kind of peace.
He nodded slowly. His gaunt fingers rose once more as pale blue magical light gathered around them again, preparing to reveal the forbidden memories that lay beyond the door.
But just as those streams of memory were about to unfold,
'BOOM!!'
A deafening explosion suddenly erupted above them. It was dull, violent, utterly unexpected, yet powerful enough to shake the entire underground chamber.
Immediately afterward came the sounds of magical blasts, crumbling stone, and several distant cries filled with panic and rage. The stagnant air inside the chamber shattered in an instant.
"What happened?" Saruman stopped mid-motion, the magical glow around his fingertips vanishing instantly. His blind face turned sharply toward the source of the disturbance. Though he could not see, his immense perceptive power had already spread outward like an invisible radar.
"Hm? What's going on?" The black-robed man's body tensed immediately, like a predator preparing to spring. He listened intently, his slit pupils contracting beneath his hood. "The upper level... the prison level!"
His voice instantly became cold and razor-sharp, the curiosity and solemnity from moments earlier replaced by the ruthless composure of an executioner.
"There are survivors. When I was eliminating the prisoners who had already been secretly corrupted... There were still some who managed to escape my detection..."
His words carried both self-reproach and disbelief. For anyone to hide from his full-scale purge, they either possessed extraordinary concealment abilities or they had adapted to the corruption far beyond anything he had anticipated. Either possibility was extremely dangerous; under no circumstances could they be allowed to escape.
"You became complacent," Saruman said, nodding slowly. "But the situation can still be remedied."
His empty eye sockets were fixed upon the black-robed man, his voice low, absolute, and leaving no room for doubt.
"Go. Not a single one may escape. The secrets of this place... must never reach the outside world. Not even the slightest fragment. Otherwise, the catastrophe that follows will be beyond imagination."
"'Not a single one may escape.'"
Those five words struck the black-robed man like a hammer, and his body stiffened almost imperceptibly. He understood their true meaning all too well.
It wasn't merely about preventing a prison break; it meant complete extermination. Even those whom he desperately wished to spare would have to be eliminated. He did not want to face that reality, but he asked no questions, knowing this was not the time.
"...Understood." The black-robed man gave no further reply; he merely drew a deep breath.
The air, thick with the smell of sulfur and the stench of the deep sea, burned inside his corrupted lungs.
Then, he spun around, his black robes flaring like the wings of a bat. His figure blurred into a streak of darkness, moving at a speed far beyond that of any ordinary human, and without making a sound, he disappeared into the shadowed staircase leading toward the upper prison.
In an instant, he was gone.
Once again, only the blind Saruman remained within the chamber. He silently "watched" the direction in which his student had disappeared, and a long time passed before he let out an almost inaudible sigh, its lonely echo drifting through the deathly silence.
The unfinished memories, the story of the unimaginable horror waiting beyond that door, would have to be postponed once again. Meanwhile, the hunt in the real world had begun anew.
(End Of This Chapter)
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