Chapter 729 - Primordial Knight Morwag

Morwag towers over me, standing uncomfortably close. His expression keeps shifting in confusion as we stand outside the Megacity, deep enough into one of the countless canyons of the fourth floor of Beyond for it to have vanished from sight.

“But I have been given this mission alone,” he repeats, this time with a harsher voice. I have a feeling he’s been waiting for us to be alone. I heard the vice guild master scolded him not long ago, so maybe he didn’t want to risk possibly splattering me against the wall while I was still within the vice guild master’s reach.

“They told me to join you for support, mainly to keep watch so no one escapes, or to get into shielded rooms,” I say.

“I can just break the walls myself.”

“Look, I’m doing it for a better future contract, not because I like it. You can kill everyone in there, honestly, I don’t even want to level up.”

“Is that it?” His eyes narrow, and the pressure on me increases.

In a flash, I remember what he did to one of the triplets and how he traumatized the remaining two.

“It is,” I answer, thinking that as beatable as some S ranks might look, they really aren’t. Most of them are probably future Absolutes of their planets. And since I didn’t get an S rank even after what I did with the black orb, that says a lot about their strength for them to deserve that rank.

One of these days, I should really fight a few of them. Sooner rather than later. It’s also a shame that around this time, Hela should already be leaving the tutorial.

“Is that it?” he asks again and takes another step closer.

I take a step back, look around, and seeing no one else who could listen, I say honestly, “Look, they want me to retrieve any valuable items we find there, especially that pristine one their guild master was using and fueling with demon hearts or something. One of the vice guild master's assistants made me agree to that before even giving me the location. I agreed only because they promised me very good rewards, and I likely wouldn't find the hideout on my own.”

“Oh,” Morwag sighs, disappointed, “how pathetic.”

“Man’s gotta eat. And I already made a deal that I’ll be allowed to study any items we get, maybe take some as my cut instead of other stuff. If I decide to, they also aren’t even allowed to sell them until my tutorial ends, in case I want to study them until then.”

“How boring.”

“Your fucking face is boring,” I snap.

“Huh? What are you going to do about that? Throw your arm at me?” His teeth flash in a daring smile. “Go on, I want to see you do it again, just like a damn gray lizard.”

“No, I won’t throw my arm at you. I’ll take yours and stick it up your ass.”

Morwag laughs out loud at that, then turns to walk again, and I follow behind him while he says, “Nyssa told me to erase what’s left of them, and that is what I will do. If you take away my prey, I will kill you.”

He says it in the same way he told the triplet he would kill her. I don’t doubt for a moment that he would do it if it came to that, even with me being a guild member and all. I learned a bit about him during my stay in the guild. Some from the rumors, others as first hand information from guild members.

In a way, the threats Morwag says out loud are cruel because of the sheer certainty he would actually follow through on them. But from another point of view, they’re a warning and a mercy, him drawing a clear line after which he knows he’ll snap.

As much as it irks me at times, I also realize I’ll probably never find an easy person to cooperate with, not this deep in Beyond, which is filled with lunatics considered the strongest inside Hell difficulty. And in a way, I prefer this kind of warning over some backstabbing asshole.

I follow in his steps while constantly checking for enemies or traps laid by the Eternal Clowns. We aren’t that far from Megacity, so I don’t expect monsters in the area, but I don’t let that make me too relaxed.

Meanwhile, with my free mental capacity, I constantly keep replaying what happened during the Beyond quest. Especially the moment when I accumulated all that mana, the feeling of the black orb, the way the orb so weirdly reacted to me, and lastly, the way the Hornless Demon cycled thermal energy through my body. He did it with the full output of Ignition Heart by using a technique not dissimilar to Mana Cycling.

Where Mana Cycling, which I even now call the cyclist destroyer, feels complex and layered, the thermal cycling technique he used felt more straightforward and simple, as expected from a demon. It moved through the smallest number of pathways possible, letting it frizzle on the edges and spill through the body. The way it moved felt like a rope of flame through which a whirlpool kept going up and down, set for a certain amount of inefficiency and spillage.

I’m sure someone could describe it in fancy mana-science terms. Even I could if I wanted. I’ve picked up dozens, maybe hundreds, of such terms while studying the many mana stones that have been in my possession from the bunker on the fifth floor or the Academy through Min-Jae.

But I won’t. Fuck these pretentious guys.

Instead, as always, I try to remember the feeling itself, because even as my body burned alive, I made sure to observe it all as any other normal person would.

For a moment, I refocus on Morwag, who stops and sniffs. The entire time, he’s been checking the mana stone he holds, likely using it as a map. Now that he’s in hunting mode, he’s quieter, less approachable, and even more dangerous than usual. Combined with his massive build, like Jean’s, his long white hair, and thick horns, it makes for an intimidating sight.

“They have traps to trigger warnings,” I tell him, referring to what I noticed a moment ago with my eye trait, already knowing what he likely senses.

Morwag nods. “Of course they do.” Then, without thinking much, he snaps his eyes toward the ground with a wild expression.

His primordial energy swirls around him and gathers on his palm, the raw force of binding primordial energy turned now to unbind the connections. It cuts off the near-imperceptible lines of the teleportation arrays below, turning them useless, and doing it all without triggering any of the alarms.

Then he waves his hand and the stone under him cracks open, widening into a tunnel heading deep below the ground, and I watch as light shines from the bottom as it pierces into one of the light tunnels underneath.

Morwag jumps down there, and I follow right behind him.

***

POV Eternal Court

“Can’t you feel it as well? I swear I felt a draft of wind,” I tell the man next to me. That asshole pisses me off since he managed to get a few nice things from the Ancient Armory, but for now, he’s too strong for me to do anything about it. He’s a decent A rank after all.

He answers with an annoying smirk, gesturing toward the hallway lit by mana stones. “We are underground, how the hell would there be wind? Maybe Shyla did some experimenting with her new item?”

“It could make wind? I thought it had ice-based powers,” I muse.

Before he can answer, another voice cuts in, cold and calm. “There are two ahead of us, and three more further down the hallway to the right.”

I don’t recognize that voice, but hearing the steps, I wait. Something about those words, and the tone they were said with, feels wrong, so deeply wrong.

Then they appear from behind the corner, the huge demon smiling widely at me, his red eyes glowing brighter than the tunnel lights, and next to him a young man with golden circles in his eyes, his emotionless expression soaked in arrogance.

“Morwag... It’s fucking Morwag!” the asshole next to me shouts and turns to run, but it’s too late.

The huge, muscular demon moves faster than I expect, reaching us in an instant, and I feel his hand grab my head. The last thing I see is that asshole’s head coming close to mine until they crash together. I hear a crack and the sound of a ripe fruit exploding, and then there is only dark.

***

POV Eternal Court

“N-no, no, no, no, no, please, go away. GO FUCKING AWAY!” My throat hurts as I shout from behind the enchanted crystal glass with a dozen or so barrier layers around it.

I’m locked inside the contamination testing room that was designed to endure large-scale explosions. It’s still contaminated, but I’d rather be trapped here than in the room on the other side. I even destroyed the control panel so they can’t get to me.

The room behind the glass is an all-white clean room, filtered and ventilated, but now full of dead people. Ten or so bodies are scattered around. Some are torn in half, others entirely exploded, what used to be their bodies splattered across the white walls.

In the middle of it all stands Primordial Knight Morwag, dressed in white and pale blue uniform-like clothes, holding the head scientist by the skull, high in the air.

The man twitches, still trying to fight back. He throws lightning at the demon, fires light projectiles, even pulls out a dagger and stabs at him dozens of times.

None of it matters. No attack hurts the demon, who stands there looking at him curiously. His body is covered in blood, and there are even droplets of it that stain his face. Only his long white hair stays untouched by it, still so pure white. His red eyes look as if they’ve absorbed the blood itself to gain that color.

Looking at me, the demon squeezes. The head of the scientist bursts in his hand, and the body falls motionless to the ground. The demon then swings his arm, flinging brain matter on his fingers across the walls.

“I can break it, but I don’t want to trigger alarms and scare the vermin away. Can you do it?” His words sound almost like a challenge as he turns to the other man in the room. The way he looks at him feels the same way he looked at the people he just killed. It almost makes me feel hope that he might attack him too, even though they both seem to be from Primordial Knights.

“I DID NOTHING, I SWEAR! I joined them only a few weeks ago, I swear, I promise! Fucking please!” I keep shouting until my voice cracks, but no one hears me. The room’s sealed tight, soundproof, closed off from within. My screams only echo back at me.

In desperation, I start hitting the crystal glass. The other man only glances my way for a moment and says, “I already cut the alarm they tried to trigger, so I can get through the barriers too.”

For some reason, his voice is just as terrifying as the demon’s. Calm, collected, confident.

He turns toward me, a faint shimmer rippling around him. The gold in his eyes burns deeper, pulling me in as the world around him fades to black and white. For a moment, he’s the center of everything, that gold the last color alive.

Then, with a shock, I watch the barriers shatter one after another in quick succession until none remain.

Seeing that, the demon steps forward and doesn’t even bother breaking the now-unenchanted crystal glass. That glass is still as thick as my arm, stronger than most metals, yet it means nothing to him.

He walks straight through it. The surface ripples like liquid for a split second as his face and body press against it before the glass cracks open, causing shards of glass that slide off his skin without leaving a mark. Every movement sends more cracks through until the entire wall collapses and bursts apart in a cascade of shining shards.

The demon doesn’t pause or flinch. By the time the last fragments hit the floor, his hand is already on my head, lifting me off the ground with ease, leaving me hanging in the air.

“Nyssa Volare sends her greetings to the Eternal Court,” he smiles.

His fingers tighten. I hear a wet pop before pain floods everything. My body jerks once, then nothing.

The last thing I see is that golden light of the other man´s eyes reflecting off the shards of glass on the floor.