Chương 389: Chapter 372

After accepting the quest, they took a few minutes to rest, making sure everybody had enough equipment for the coming fight while also waiting for their cooldowns to finish. They talked quietly about the possibilities and what they should expect. Facing a demon was always rolling the dice, as they varied wildly in their specializations. However, based on what they had seen so far and read in the documents, they could make some educated guesses. As they sat around the small camp they had built, Dan spoke up.

"So we're going in and destroying the demon, right?"

"Right," Sam nodded, looking at him curiously.

"Why?"

"Well," he began, awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

"What about the 'sacred presence'?" he asked, making quotation marks with his fingers.

"What about it?"

"Well, what happens if it isn't friendly?" Dan asked, as the rest of the team began to pay attention. Sam shrugged.

"Naturally, we'll try talking first, but if it comes down to it, then we're going to fight it."

"Any idea what it is?" Dan asked after spending a few moments considering what Sam had said. Sam couldn't help but shrug again.

"Probably some kind of magma beast. Thematically, it would make sense. Maybe a Spirit of Fire?" He really had no idea; he was just throwing out ideas that made sense to him. After all, he had seen countless stories where a fire spirit lived in the depths of a volcano. It was practically a trope in itself. Dan immediately perked up.

"Hey, that would be awesome! I wonder what I could learn from it!"

"Calm down, calm down," Sam laughed.

"Don't get the cart ahead of the horse. With my luck, it could also be some old, grumpy dragon that wants to eat us." This time, Katie perked up.

"A dragon? A proper dragon?"

"I mean... at this point, it could be anything..." Sam said carefully, worried by the excited look creeping onto Katie's face. Sadly, it was useless. Katie began rambling excitedly about dragons and how much she wanted to fight one. He just let out a sigh and continued his preparations.

They ascended almost to the top of the volcano, with their mana shielding them from the continuous clouds of poisonous gases, acidic fog, spurts of lava erupting randomly from the ground, tremors that threatened to send them tumbling down the mountainside, and, of course, the endless rain of ash drifting from the sky and settling over everything in a fine gray layer. The re-breathers crafted by Liz personally for them were a godsend. Without them, merely breathing would have been a challenge.

Instead of constantly worrying about what invisible toxins they were inhaling, the team could focus their attention on the many other natural dangers that seemed determined to kill them. Dan simply used his mastery over fire and the other elements to redirect everything around him. Streams of superheated air bent around his body, ash swirled harmlessly away, and even the occasional spray of molten rock changed direction before it could reach him.

Isabella danced between the physical dangers with practiced ease and used carefully chosen, softly hummed songs to disable the less tangible threats. The melody surrounding her seemed to weaken the poisonous gases and disperse pockets of acidic vapor before they could reach the group. Clarissa was enveloped in a spherical shield made of countless interlocking hexagons that protected her from everything as she calmly walked alongside the team.

Ash bounced harmlessly off its surface, while lava and falling debris simply shattered against it before sliding away. Sam was doing something similar with void mana, using it to erase anything that tried to touch him. The space around him occasionally flickered and distorted, causing droplets of magma, falling rocks, and even wisps of poisonous gas to vanish the moment they entered its reach. Katie, meanwhile, simply walked forward and ignored everything as it slammed into her armor.

Occasionally, she used her sword to cleave something in two when it blocked her path. A boulder sent tumbling down the slope was split cleanly apart, and a jagged stone outcropping that forced the group to detour survived only until Katie decided it was inconvenient. More than once, Sam suspected she was cutting things apart simply because she could.

Still, the route was so treacherous that even without monsters, aside from the occasional seagull-like creature that had somehow gotten lost among the volcanic slopes and ash clouds, it was dangerous enough that the unrelenting power of nature would have consumed lesser teams. Every few minutes, the mountain seemed to invent a new way to kill them.

The fact that the group could casually continue their conversation while climbing through such an environment was less a testament to the volcano's weakness and more to just how absurdly powerful they had become. After nearly an hour of climbing, they finally reached a small, flat area on the side of the mountain. It was barely large enough for their team to stand securely, surrounded on all sides by sheer drops that disappeared into clouds of ash and smoke.

Looking over the edge revealed little beyond darkness and the occasional distant glow of molten rock far below. Not that they would need to remain there for long. Set into the side of the volcano, right where they had emerged after climbing the dangerous mountainside, was an opening. It was deep, and seemingly fathomless, wide enough for two people to walk side by side. The walls were uneven and rough, bearing all the signs of a natural formation rather than something carved by intelligent hands.

Layers of ancient stone were visible beneath centuries of volcanic deposits, while long-frozen rivers of magma had left strange patterns across the rock. Judging by its appearance, it had probably been created during one of the volcano's eruptions long ago. They exchanged a glance. Without wasting any more time, they entered, with Katie taking the lead, followed by Isabella, who was already humming a song to buff the party should anything happen or a monster appear.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Dan came next, conjuring a small sphere of light that illuminated the tunnel with a warm glow and cast dancing shadows across the uneven walls. Clarissa followed close behind, still enclosed within her hexagonal bubble, while Sam brought up the rear, occasionally glancing behind them and keeping an eye on their flank as the entrance gradually disappeared from view behind the darkness.

Heading deeper into the depths, the first thing they noticed was that the temperature increased with every step they took, quickly becoming uncomfortable and then steadily progressing beyond that. The air, even through their re-breathers, seemed to become drier and drier the farther they descended. Moisture, whatever existed, vanished in moments, and the walls themselves began to glow with heat, bathing the tunnel in a reddish-orange light that painted dancing shadows across the uneven rock.

Before long, they were forced to continuously reinforce their boots with mana to keep the soles from slowly burning away beneath them. The deeper they went, the quieter the world became. There was no wind, no distant cries of monsters, and no sounds beyond the occasional crack of shifting stone as it expanded due to the heat and the steady footsteps of the party. The first challenge appeared when the corridor abruptly split into several branching tunnels.

It quickly branched into a sprawling labyrinth of twisting geological formations, each corridor looking nearly identical to the last. Sam could easily imagine how someone would die here. A less experienced explorer could wander in circles for days, slowly growing weaker as the oppressive heat drained their energy and the dry air stole every remaining drop of moisture from their body. Eventually, exhaustion, dehydration, or simple bad luck would finish the job.

Unfortunately for the game system, Sam's Mana Sense was so high leveled that finding the correct direction was little more than a minor inconvenience. The deeper heart of the volcano radiated mana and elemental energy like a beacon, making it almost impossible for him to lose track of where they needed to go. Combined with Dan's mastery over fire and earth, which allowed him to identify subtle clues in the surrounding stone and feel the flow of heat through the mountain, navigating the maze became almost trivial.

Whenever they reached an intersection, Sam pointed toward the strongest concentration of energy, Dan confirmed the choice, and the team continued onward without hesitation. What was probably intended to be a deadly underground labyrinth became little more than a lengthy walk. Soon, they saw something other than the glow of the walls. At the far end of the current corridor, a spot of light appeared, far more intense than the ambient glow around them.

With his Mana Sense, Sam could feel elemental mana begin to burn with increasing intensity the closer they walked toward it, the mana within the mountain shifting from ordinary fire mana into something more primordial, as though it were touching the blood of the planet itself as it flowed through the ether. The grip on their weapons tightened as they approached the now-visible opening.

Cautiously stepping through the threshold, the first thing they noticed was the overwhelming light, radiating from somewhere below and filling the massive cavern they had entered until it felt like perpetual midday had been trapped inside the mountain. The second thing was the heat. If they had thought the heat in the maze was severe, then the new temperature made it feel as if they had been struck in the face with a wave of force hot enough to cook an egg instantly.

Clarissa immediately layered defensive spells over the group, reinforcing their protection as the hazy air rolled over them in waves. As their eyes adjusted, they fanned out slightly, allowing Sam to take in the full scope of the chamber. It was a gigantic magma cavern, its entrance opening onto a wide, flat ledge that ended abruptly in a narrow cliff. That cliff extended out over a roiling, boiling sea of magma far below, a sea that seemed far larger than the volcano's external size should have allowed.

And there, at the very edge of the cliff, hovering just above the molten expanse, was a lone fracture portal.

"Check the area," Sam ordered calmly.

"I don't want any surprises." The team spread out and began combing through the small platform. Within minutes, they reconvened.

"It's unstable as fuck," Dan reported in a flat tone.

"I foresee a lot of running in our lives…"

"No other presence detected," Isabella said simply.

"We're alone," Katie added with a shrug. Sam nodded and, with measured steps, walked toward the fracture portal. As he approached, he glanced over the edge of the cliff and down into the sea of magma below, its surface churning like a living thing. He didn't really want to know what kind of creature might be sleeping beneath all of that. Still, he reached forward and touched the portal. [You entered a new fracture!] [Fracture: Sacred Chamber] [The fracture trapping the consciousness of the sacred presence. Enter and aid or destroy it. The choice is up to you.] [Time Limit: No limit] [Charges: 1/1] [Penalty: Death, Curse] They arrived, to nobody's surprise, in a small stone chamber. Only, the entire place was lined with amber crystal, each formation containing the now familiar eye with its slit pupil, and every one of them moved in unison, instantly locking onto the team and tracking their movements with eerie precision.

"WELCOME!" came a shout that reverberated through the chamber.

"TO MY ASCENSION!" Sam and his team looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

"Let's get this over…" Sam muttered, already starting toward the only visible exit. It was another corridor, glowing with heat beneath the layer of amber crystal, the same creeping eyes still following them from every surface.

"GOOOD!" the voice continued to echo through the space.

"FOLLOW MY PATH! EXPERIENCE MY SPLENDOR!"

"A bit full of himself, isn't he?" Isabella grumbled.

"It's a demon, what did you expect?" Clarissa retorted, continuing to layer buff after buff over the team as she prepared for what was clearly about to become a fight.

"Fair…" Once again, after barely a minute of walking, they emerged back onto the platform, once more confronted by the blinding light and oppressive heat. However, this time they were not alone. The cliff was still there, but instead of the fracture portal, an enormous sphere of slightly transparent red energy was hovering above the magma sea, connected to it by a thick column of molten-looking power. Around it, a second, larger sphere of amber energy enclosed it entirely, holding it in place.

The amber energy was projected from several massive crystals affixed to the chamber wall, each one still containing those endlessly unsettling eyes that moved as one and turned toward the team the moment they appeared. At the edge of the cliff stood a demon. Ashen gray skin, a manic grin stretched across his face, dressed in what Sam would have called ceremonial robes, positioned within a small runic circle as he watched them arrive.

"Welcome!" his voice boomed again, though not quite as deafening as before, still echoing across the magma chamber.

"Welcome to my Ascension Ritual! Just in time! Witness as I absorb the Spirit of Fire and ascend beyond the mortal planes!" The temperature was already unbearable, yet even so, Sam could feel sweat forming at his back as the entire team stared at him after that declaration. That was the moment the red energy began to move, an androgynous face forming within it, half human and half something far more bestial, its enormous eyes locking onto the group. Sam could feel something like a wave of mana sweeping over them.

They heard its voice as a whisper, as though speaking itself caused it pain and required immense effort.

"Destroyer of kingdoms…"

"Child of chaos…"

"Mistress of notes…"

"Dealer of life…"

"Shaper of fire…" It lingered on each of them in turn, its attention shifting slowly from one to the next, before finally settling on Dan.

"Aid me…" The demon only laughed.

"Useless! I will usurp your power and then… the world will witness my POWER!" The amber crystals flared brighter, the mana in the air tightening into a suffocating, almost silent pressure, as the demon's eyes ignited with the same light and the runes on his robes followed a heartbeat later, while the entire ritual circle sank into a deeper, swallowing darkness, and the surrounding volcano trembled in response.

"I SAW EVERYTHING!" The crystals pulsed in rhythm, the eyes within them blinking in perfect unison as the mountain continued to shake and tremble.

"I SEE EVERYTHING!" His hands gathered the swirling mana, and with a vicious grin, he unleashed a wave of it directly toward them.

"AND I WILL SEE YOU DESTROYED!"