"Don't go near it!" Victor barked.
Tasha slammed on the brakes. A nearby rock had already demonstrated what rushing forward would entail. Drawn by an invisible gravitational pull, a solid chunk of stone the size of a human head hurtled toward the Wrath Demon, only to shatter abruptly half a meter from its skull. The stone turned to dust, vanishing in an instant—whether swept away by chaotic currents or reduced to microscopic particles invisible to the naked eye remained unknown.
The forcibly opened fissure twisted, its vicinity churning with spatial turbulence. The Wrath Demon's location was utterly inaccessible. Yet this very fact revealed the terrifying hardness of its true form.
"It's fine, it won't break through!" Victor offered stiff reassurance, unsure whether he was comforting Tasha or himself. "If spatial barriers were this easy to shatter, the Abyss and the Material Plane would've been turned into sieves long ago! Even using its true form would get it stuck in the middle, doomed to wait for death. There's a ninety-nine percent chance it won't succeed!"
"Shut up!" Tasha cut him off sharply.
That bastard Victor—every time he said "unless this or that," that less-than-one-percent "unless" got inflated into a ninety-nine percent chance. He might as well have said nothing.
"I wish I could say it'd never work!" Victor understood Tasha's meaning and protested, "But that'd be lying and withholding information—our pact forbids that!"
As he spoke, the Wrath Demon Lord's true form thrashed its neck violently, veins bulging like a wild bull caught in a noose. With a bone-chilling, unnerving sound, more of the Wrath Demon materialized in midair.
But it was true—some force was holding it back.
The Wrath Demon Simon's frenzied attacks struck the space itself, appearing to move mountains yet failing to widen the opening significantly. The emerging body would grow slightly larger, then shrink slightly, as if the space itself was desperately resisting this forced intrusion while the great demon strained outward. It was a tug-of-war.
Tasha attempted to apply additional force against the Wrath Demon.
Nearby ground and wall fragments were periodically sucked upward by immense gravitational forces, leaving pitted surfaces utterly unsuitable for inscribing runes. Even if the Patriarch of Saro hadn't departed, Samuel—having just activated his artifact—was far from recovered and could not possibly wield the Sunstaff again. Close combat was impossible amid the spatial turbulence, but ranged attacks might be worth attempting.
Under the Dungeon Hand's control, earth and stone hurled toward the Wrath Demon.
A fractured pillar several men tall crashed toward Simon's head. Not long ago, it had crushed the Dungeon Book beneath it; now, using it to smash Simon felt equally natural. Goblins swiftly gathered nearby, bustling to work. They could rapidly excavate vast quantities of projectiles for hurling. The broken pillar shattered with a thunderous crash, yet the dust lingered longer. Enveloped in the cloud, the Wrath Demon roared with redoubled fury.
It seemed there truly was no way to mount an effective attack now. Tash sighed, conjuring more goblins whose movements grew even faster.
Even if helpless against the Wrath Demon forcing its way through at this very moment, there was at least one thing left to do.
The goblins' digging wasn't solely for producing projectiles.
During the preparatory period of several tens of minutes before the fissure opened, the goblins had gathered here, ceaselessly reshaping the terrain. They hadn't stopped even when Victor's feint failed and he switched to Plan B. The goblins had excavated an isolated chamber housing the dungeon's core and the magic pool. This ensured demons arriving here wouldn't collide with others. Moreover, structurally, the core section containing the magic pool and dungeon heart had only a handful of connection points to the rest of the structure. Like a fruit hanging by a slender stem, severing that stem would cause it to fall effortlessly.
These frantically working goblins were cutting those stems.
Just steps away from where the Wrath Demon stood, the magic pool and dungeon core slowly began to collapse. The most vital part of the dungeon was rapidly moving away from danger. In just a little while longer, it would completely separate from this hall, like an ejected escape pod.
"Don't you dare leave!!" roared the Wrath Demon, Saemon.
It had realized this—any fool with eyes could see the building's escape right under its nose. The Dragonwing Nest Mother who had just torn it limb from limb stood cautiously at the edge of the pool. Victor, who had (once again) thoroughly humiliated it, floated within the pool, seemingly unscathed. The Wrath Demon Lord possessed enough intelligence to quickly grasp what had mended Victor's pages—let it be reiterated, a demon of Lord rank could not be a fool, and the Wrath Demon was no exception. Wrath Demons weren't stupid; they just got angry easily—just like Simon right now.
Simon was furious beyond reason.
His face was a patchwork of black and crimson. Even though his outer skin was as hard as iron, it still bore countless scars from the spatial turbulence. The Wrath Demon's skin peeled away like wall plaster, leaving pitted scars, though the flesh beneath kept regenerating as it was stripped away. Its own black blood smeared across its entire face, crimson patterns flickering on its features like a searing boiler poised to explode under pressure at any moment. With that roar, Simon's struggle intensified.
The space grew increasingly unstable, the confined storm intensifying. The naked eye couldn't discern the spatial distortions, but Tashar could see it on the Wrathlord's face: the skin tears worsened with each convulsion, not just the outer layer but the flesh beneath being ripped away. An invisible blade sliced through Simon's face, peeling off a large strip of thin skin that vanished instantly into the air. From cheekbone to mouth, the entire section of flesh vanished, exposing the bare teeth beneath in a horrifying display.
"Don't—you—think—you—can—leave!"
The drawn-out roar, its trailing notes already distorted.
The first half could still be considered some form of language—even if it was demonic speech that made your skin crawl—but the latter half originated entirely from some monstrous creature. It held not a shred of coherence, nothing but pure, raw fury. It was the kind of sound you might hear standing at the entrance of an abandoned tunnel—like wind yet not wind, resembling speech yet not speech. It was a roar, a vibration, an emotion radiating outward.
The Fury Demon's speed became terrifying.
Its single-horned head whipped around maniacally, leaving trails of afterimages as if fast-forwarded dozens of times, like a glitching game model twitching erratically. Witnessing this in reality caused a visceral discomfort in onlookers. Yet the sheer frequency of its ascent wasn't the root cause. At this moment, the Wrath Demon Simon remained trapped within spatial turbulence.
Like being immersed in a space filled with razor blades, such violent struggle only accelerated the growth of its wounds.
The rate at which new lacerations appeared far outpaced any healing. In the blink of an eye, the Wrath Demon's head had transformed into a blood-soaked gourd. Blood mist even lingered briefly in the air, like the shattered earth and stone Tashan had hurled moments before.
"It's gone mad," Victor muttered. "The more it flails, the deeper its wounds, the faster its death. Utterly reckless. Only boldness tempered by patience and caution could have brought it this far—though had it shown even a shred of that caution, it would never have appeared here at all..."
Tasha cut Victor off.
The more he spoke, the lighter Victor's tone grew, as if he were already certain Simon was about to fail. Judging by his tone, he was about to launch into another round of sarcasm—something along the lines of, "You just decide to leave like that? How embarrassing for us," or "Shouting out your ultimate move won't turn this around in one go. Think you can curse it? Sorry, but the Fury doesn't seem to have that skill," and so on. If Simon heard that, he'd be furious enough to smoke out of his ears.
Tasha knew better than to provoke a Rage Demon when it was this enraged—unless she was deliberately trying to goad it into a specific reaction.
Victor had relaxed, but Tasha hadn't. She stood at the edge of the slowly sinking magic pool, her eyes fixed on the raging Rage Demon before her.
No need to fan the flames further—Simon was already furious enough.
Snap. The lone remaining horn shattered amidst its frantic struggles.
This was the Wrath Demon Lord's true form. A broken horn wouldn't regrow. From now on, "One-Horned Simon" would become "Hornless Simon"—if it even survived to return. It was a tremendous sacrifice. Yet Victor showed not the slightest inclination to mock him now.
The atmosphere shifted subtly.
Something was brewing. The air felt different from just a moment ago. Though nothing had changed—neither temperature nor composition—what had altered?
The aura.
The aura of the Abyss erupted violently. Only now did Tashan realize this aura could still intensify. The arrival of the Wrath Demon's true form had been like tossing a powder keg before him, and now that powder keg had been ignited.
Boom!
Not a sound, not a flicker of light, not a trace of scent, not a hint of texture. To an ordinary person, oblivious to such sensations, it might merely feel like an inexplicable discomfort—like the oppressive heaviness in the chest before a summer downpour. But to Tasha and Victor, the scene before them was nothing short of an earth-shattering explosion.
"&%*@——!" the Wrath Demon roared.
It wasn't a sentence anymore, just a cacophony of static—the jarring screech of a skipping tape, piercing the soul and sending shivers down the spine. In that moment, Tash felt Victor's terror through their link—fear so intense it was overwhelming.
Even when the paladin charged into the dungeon's core, risking both their lives; even when his own existence threatened to summon demons, and Victor feared Tash might kill him—his fear had never been this acute. It was like a bird frozen in panic before a colossal predator, like a child raised in a concentration camp hearing the boots of the guards—a primal, overwhelming, almost instinctive reverence.
"Abyss," he murmured, "why do you favor my enemies..."
At that moment, the Wrathlord Simon received the favor of the Abyss.
Was it his resolve to kill even at the cost of self-destruction? Was it his chaotic fury that disregarded his own code and abandoned all rules...? The will of the Abyss was utterly unpredictable, a wretched law entirely distinct from that of the Material Plane. The mad, reckless Wrathlord had, paradoxically, earned the Abyss's favor.
You've got to be kidding me, Tasha lamented inwardly. A sudden power surge in the middle of battle? What kind of protagonist treatment is this?
Complaining was useless now.
The gap that had been closing around the fiend's neck suddenly shattered. The boundary cracked into countless shards—if space had a physical form, it would resemble shattered glass. The fractured horns began regenerating. Simon's savage grin stretched to his ears as one massive claw burst through the opposite side, followed by another.
Two thick arms plunged into the air on this side, flailing wildly as if trying to shake off a window frame clamped around its body. Crash! Simon broke free.
It wasn't so much emerging as shattering whatever held it back.
A violent wind swept through the entire hall.
Dim light flickered at the point of rupture. The Wrath Demon had torn open a black hole. Peering into it revealed nothing—as if even the light itself had been swallowed. As if a hole had been torn in the cabin, a vacuum hundreds of times more powerful than before appeared. In an instant, everything insufficiently anchored flew into the air.
Debris from the entire hall shot forward. Dust, fragments of earth, even massive stones were lifted from the ground, as if a powerful vacuum cleaner had appeared mid-air. Several goblins who hadn't held on tight floated upward. Their bodies, which had seemed stout and sturdy, now appeared as weightless as the debris, drifting effortlessly toward the void and vanishing behind the Wrath Demon Lord. Tasha flapped her wings violently to steady herself, one hand gripping the magic pool tightly while her teeth clamped down on the back of the Silverblade of Blessing. Her other hand grabbed Victor just as he was about to be sucked out of the pool. Disturbingly, the pool's water itself trembled, as if poised to float away at any moment.
The Wrath Demon Saemon stepped forward.
The spatial turbulence did not subside with the Abyssal Favored's arrival; instead, the rift's rupture intensified the chaos. Each step Saemon took was agonizingly difficult, his body lacerated by countless wind blades that healed too slowly to keep pace. Another large chunk of flesh peeled away, the wound deep enough to reveal bone, yet Saemon kept moving. It seemed utterly indifferent to the pain, like a monster straight out of a child's nightmare.
Tasha struggled to lift her head in the howling wind. She looked at Saemon, her pupils contracting.
No, the Wrath Demon marching like a Terminator did not frighten her. What sent shivers down her spine lay behind it.
The black hole. It was expanding.
It sucked in everything in its path—dust, goblins, objects of any size or weight—all were swallowed without discrimination. The void was nearly circular, wildly unstable. Within its terrifying pull, the surrounding space continued to collapse.
The void was devouring its own edges.
"Run! As far as you can!" Victor shouted frantically. "The Material Plane can't withstand a true archdemon! This place is collapsing!"
"If we could run, we would!" Tashan gritted her teeth. Both her dragon-winged form and the dungeon core were too close to the black hole. Staying from being sucked in was already draining every ounce of her strength.
Centuries ago, a Greater Demon's true form could briefly manifest within a dungeon on the Material Plane. But Tasha's dungeon had never been modified to suit a demonic presence. The Wrathlord's forced descent into this world—a world isolated from the Abyss for centuries, where much had changed beyond recognition—meant present-day Eryan could no longer bear such an existence.
For a fleeting instant, Tashar heard an odd, jarring noise. It inexplicably reminded her of a winter from her childhood. That winter, she had walked upon a frozen river. Beneath her feet, just before she fell and nearly lost her life, she had heard this very sound.
Perhaps it wasn't the sound itself that was familiar, but rather that bone-chilling, primal instinctive reaction before disaster struck.
The black hole shattered.
Its edges shattered without a sound. What becomes of a void when it shatters? — A terrifying gap without edges. The Wrath Demon, advancing step by step, fell backward, hurled back into the gap. It flailed its arms desperately, trying to stay, finding nothing to grasp. It vanished instantly into the void. Yet Tasha was hurled out too, along with Victor, whom she clutched in her hands. Both the dungeon core anchored above the magic pool and the heavy droplets within the pool were uprooted and sucked into the passage. The only thing Tasha could do was command the droplets to envelop the dungeon core, preventing it from shattering into countless fragments.
The familiar surroundings of the dungeon vanished in an instant. The next moment, Tasha found herself surrounded by an environment unlike anything she had ever seen.
Darkness reigned all around, yet chaotic beams of light flickered everywhere. Unidentified sources illuminated small patches of space moment by moment. The surroundings were utterly void. This boundless emptiness offered no reference points to gauge one's position. Ten meters away felt as chaotic as a hundred meters—if indeed a "hundred meters" even existed here.
The gravitational pull that had drawn Tasha into it vanished. Though the gap and the dungeon beyond lay only a dozen meters apart, the difference felt like night and day—as if she had entered another world.
Perhaps it wasn't "as if."
Tasha sensed the Abyss.
No second breach was visible nearby, no other gap seemingly leading to the Abyss. Yet its shadow permeated everything. The opening to the Material Plane, to the dungeon, lay within reach. But the Abyss might be even closer.
Its essence seeped through countless beams of light, through wispy currents of air, from every direction. The Abyss was everywhere. Tasha instantly realized: this was the gap between the Material Plane and the Abyss. The Abyss existed on the other side of the passage—not a passage as ordinary people conceived it. Here, space overlapped, separated only by a barrier as thin as a cicada's wing. The Abyss lay directly opposite.
Strangely, Tasha felt neither revulsion nor danger.
Before she could ponder further, a sharp gust of wind slammed into her face.
The Wrath Demon, arriving first, had already stabilized itself. It roared and charged forward like an out-of-control locomotive. Tashar flapped her wings violently, her body suddenly soaring upward in this disorienting space where no directions could be discerned, narrowly evading the demon's claws. Her head passed within a foot of the sharp talons. As she neared the demon lord, she sensed more than just the fierce wind.
It was the scent of the Abyss again—a scent not emanating from the Wrath Demon itself. As Simon moved, the barrier, thin as a cicada's wing, tore further apart. For a fleeting moment, Tasha made direct contact with the Abyss for the first time.
She suddenly understood: what had sickened her while digesting the Wrath Demon's clone was its power, not the Abyss itself. Though chaotic and ignorant, the Abyss was "colorless."
It was strange. The Abyss gave birth to so much evil, yet it itself was not evil—was an earthquake, a tsunami, a hurricane evil? Even as it destroyed countless lives, even as it devoured countless souls, the Abyss itself knew no good or evil. The Abyss's will was consciousness, yet also unconsciousness; the essence of its breath was no different from the breath of nature, though their laws were utterly distinct.
In that fleeting contact, Tasha formed a connection with the Abyss.
The dungeon core, severed from the Abyss for centuries, reconnected with its homeland. This unseen bond was established the instant contact occurred—natural and inevitable. Yet before worry could take hold, Tasha first realized she felt nothing: no higher will had erased her self-awareness.
Tasha felt no danger, no resistance, no urge to submit, no awe. Was it because she wasn't a native of the Abyss? Was it because the Abyss within each soul was different? In any case, nothing happened.
Wait. Something did happen.
The Abyss's essence surged madly into the dungeon core during that brief contact. The demons were right—dungeons were inherently attuned to the Abyss. The fractured dungeon core received its homeland's gift, and in that instant, the dormant Merge and Reorganize process stirred.
[Fractured Dungeon - Tasha]
Merge and Reorganize in progress: 25/100
Attributes: Nature - You have gained the recognition of the Heart of Nature. The will of nature watches over you. / Dragon - You have gained the recognition of the lingering will of a legendary ancient dragon. A dragon from afar casts a glance your way. / Abyss - The wandering child has returned home. The Abyssal Will has noticed you—this great being's attention is easily diverted. In the brief moment you hold its gaze, seek to please it. Beyond the name, progress bar, and attributes, Tashan's card displayed nothing else. Yet these few elements spoke volumes.
A burst of blood rain erupted.
It was not Tashan who was wounded, but the Wrath Demon, Saimon. Distorted space tore through its arm. Upon closer inspection, the spatial turbulence did not dissipate—instead, it clung to Saimon like flesh-eating maggots.
"The space here is incredibly fragile, unable to bear the weight of a Greater Demon!" Victor exclaimed swiftly. "The more forcefully it moves, the greater the damage it sustains!"
Indeed, as Tasha dodged awkwardly, the attacking Saemon also sustained constant injuries. Yet as the wounds appeared, they healed just as rapidly.
Should she wait for it to destroy itself?
Tasha made her decision swiftly.
The dragon-winged woman gripped her blade's hilt. Dodging another deadly strike, she spun, swung, and charged head-on.