That night, in a highly concealed underground chamber.
Countless magical runes, painted with various kinds of fresh blood, covered every corner of the room, forming a massive ritual formation.
At this moment, the ritual had taken effect. A pale, ghostly light hovered at its center.
Kneeling before the light was Sarah, her expression fanatical—like the most devout of believers.
And in truth, she was exactly that.
As the shimmering light flickered, a deep, imposing voice echoed through the chamber.
"Sarah, have you acquired the statue?"
Just the sound of the voice brought a sense of bliss and submission to Sarah's heart and mind, as if it possessed an innate authority that commanded obedience.
Under normal circumstances, she would have basked in that voice with joy. But given the situation, she had to suppress her reverence and speak quickly with regret,
"Master, I've already contacted the target today. I tried to approach the statue under another pretense, but it seems he possesses some kind of detection ability… He somehow realized that the statue contains a summoning ritual inside…"
"What?!"
The voice immediately grew several degrees louder.
The fact that Sarah hadn't managed to secure the object wasn't too surprising. After all, while her fabricated story was decent, anyone powerful enough to approach demigod-level wouldn't be easily fooled. Being exposed was within reason.
More importantly, now that the target's exact location was confirmed, everything could still proceed—slow, methodical probing would suffice.
He wasn't in a hurry.
As an immortal being, even if his path was a crooked one and his throne that of a dark god, he had the luxury of patience.
But the fact that someone had seen through the statue's concealed interior—that was truly unexpected.
That statue was one of his deepest hidden contingencies in the Myling World.
It had been crafted specifically to anchor the coordinates of this world and aid in establishing a stable portal.
Back then, creating it had cost him a tremendous amount of effort.
Not only did he need to preserve the inner core perfectly, but he also had to layer anti-divination enchantments externally to prevent anyone from detecting the secret inside.
Even now, just thinking about the resources consumed in its creation made his heart ache.
In terms of raw materials, it was enough to raise several demigods.
If the Myling World hadn't been so high-level and resource-rich, he never would've parted with such a treasure.
After all, without enough returns, wouldn't it be better to simply cut his losses and leave?
But in the end, he was too reluctant to give up the tangible profits this world offered.
After a long moment of grim contemplation, the dark god asked coldly,
"So… he's already uncovered the truth, but hasn't moved against us? What terms did he offer?"
He had a bad feeling he was about to be extorted—and he hated that feeling.
Sarah hesitated briefly, clearly struggling, but ultimately gave in and answered truthfully,
"He said… if we give him ten thousand soul crystals, he'll hand over the statue."
"Bastard! He actually dared to ask for that?!"
Under normal conditions, it takes several hundred healthy souls to condense a single soul crystal. Ten thousand soul crystals meant millions of souls.
Even for a dark god like him, that was an enormous sum—equivalent to bleeding out a major portion of his earnings for a long time.
His fury ignited, and an invisible shockwave erupted around the pale light at the ritual's center!
Tiny blades of wind surged through the chamber, spiraling like a tornado.
Had he not reined in his power at the last moment, the entire chamber would've been obliterated on the spot.
But even so, the turbulent force still left Sarah covered in shallow cuts, blood seeping from her robes.
——
Only after a long while did the dark god calm down and withdraw his power. His thoughts, however, remained turbulent.
'Why soul crystals, of all things?'
Soul crystals were rare and precious, yes—but to the native inhabitants of this world, they held far less value than gold or gemstones. They were only useful for banned, sinister research and lacked practical, widespread application.
Unless…
Unless this man practiced some forbidden path. Or perhaps, he wasn't human at all, but a creature that could directly absorb the power of souls.
His gaze turned to Sarah, still bleeding and deathly pale from blood loss. In a low tone, he asked,
"Tell me everything you know about this man—his traits, his habits."
After hearing Sarah's detailed description of Orsaga, the dark god's brow furrowed tightly.
"Golden eyes… horns… sounds like a dragon.
But three eyes? A mutant?
Then again, there are a few rare races in this world that share similar traits. Not common, but not unheard of.
Among them, the most plausible is… demonkind.
Demons from the Abyssal Depths take on all kinds of appearances.
But demons are intruders. Even if they've managed to sneak into this world, they should be operating in the shadows. That kind of bold, high-profile behavior—drawing attention like that—is practically suicidal. Even I wouldn't act so brazenly."
Eliminating that possibility, he arrived at a tentative conclusion:
"That guy is most likely a mutated dragon.
Vertical pupils, horns, greedy, lustful, lazy, evil—classic evil dragon traits."
You could slap that description on any random dragon and it'd probably fit.
It would also explain why the city's detection barriers didn't react to Orsaga.
Unless a native dragon had committed egregious acts across the continent and been recorded in the barrier systems, they typically retained full access to cities. There would be no restrictions.
"He's probably trying to absorb the soul crystals to purify and enhance his bloodline."
With that reasoning, everything Orsaga had done made sense. After all, for an evil dragon, as long as you paid him enough, returning the statue to a dark god wasn't out of the question.
But thinking about that price tag again…
The dark god felt fury bubbling in his chest.
Being extorted by a demigod—there was no angle from which that felt like a good thing.
Strictly speaking, he didn't need the statue to open a portal to this world.
A regular sacrificial ritual would suffice.
However, Myling was currently engulfed in all-out war. The protective barriers of the world were fully active.
If he wasn't prepared properly, a single slip-up could result in the gods patrolling outside the world's shell noticing—and then smashing him flat against the dimensional barrier.
So, with a dark expression and a conflicted heart, he finally agreed to Orsaga's outrageous terms—albeit through gritted teeth.
___
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