Translator: Pai_

In the distant ancient times, the Enril Plains, once abundant, were ruled by giants. These enormous beings devoured everything, eventually turning the plains into a desert.

The giants, who needed to drink an immense amount of water daily, couldn't quench their thirst and enslaved humans, extracting their blood for sustenance. Thousands of people died every single day.

However, on a pitch-black night without even the moonlight, the Night Hunter of the Preah God Tribe appeared and shot down all the giants, saving the humans.

The liberated humans offered the three most beautiful maidens of the land as brides to the Night Hunter. The three children born from them inherited unique powers: the ability to conceal oneself, the power to control shadows, and the ability to create poison.

After the Night Hunter ascended, the three brothers fought over who would inherit their father's rule over the desert.

The eldest, who could conceal himself, did not wish to fight his siblings and left. The second, who controlled shadows, and the youngest, who created poison, engaged in a fierce battle, plunging the desert into chaos and leaving many in despair.

Eventually, the eldest returned, defeated his two younger brothers, and took control of the desert's dominion. He became the ancestor of House Zahar…

[You]

[Are not]

[The Night Hunter]

Hearing these faint voice from far away, Turan recalled the content of a religious text he had purchased from a bookstore in Komad.

Why was that god's name suddenly being mentioned?

‘Could it be related to the nobles of House Zahar who are already here?’

Come to think of it, Turan himself was also a distant descendant of the Night Hunter. However, considering that his bloodline had fused with other bloodlines, it would be hard to call him a pure Zahar.

While pondering this, Turan advanced further into the pitch-black space for several minutes until his senses picked up on an unusual lifeform.

From his previous use of the Sacred Relic, he had observed that ordinary creatures had a small flame glowing within their hearts, while wizards or magical beasts felt as though the flame spread throughout their entire body.

And though it was just a single case, when he encountered the mermaid Armania, he speculated that non-human races had flames attached to parts of their bodies that differed from humans.

However, the entity he felt now resembled none of those.

Inside a large shell-like exterior, its interior was hollow, and the flame seemed to flow like water, moving the body.

It was as if a blue flame was controlling a puppet from within.

As Turan cautiously approached the entity, the lifeform buried in the darkness was revealed before his eyes.

[□□□-]

The first thing that stood out was its asymmetrical eyes.

One eye was excessively large, while the other was small like two glass marbles rolling in different directions, scanning all around.

Its nose was merely two hollowed-out holes, and its oval-shaped mouth gaped open, filled with jagged, saw-like teeth. Its arms and legs were unnaturally long, each with an additional joint, creaking unsettlingly as it moved.

The mucus flowing over its peeled skin looked thick and sticky, the kind that seemed nearly impossible to wipe off once touched.

A twisted, grotesque appearance that made one feel disgusted just by looking at it.

The moment Turan took a step closer to examine it in detail, the creature suddenly snapped its head towards him, as if sensing his presence, and let out a piercing roar.

[■□■□■□!]

With that single roar, as though signaling all others, three or four monsters approached with bizarre motions, quickly closing the distance and swinging their massive hands, or what could be called front paws, at him.

Their speed and force were enough to overwhelm even an average noble.

"Kuk!"

Accelerating his thoughts in an instant, Turan noticed the creatures had hands similar to humans, with five fingers each. At the tips of those fingers were hooked claws.

As one of them approached slowly, Turan leaned his body back to dodge, then rubbed his hands together to generate sparks, unleashing them forward without forming a concrete shape.

Living in the dark as they did, they seemed unused to light and heat, shrieking in terror as they retreated from the fire.

‘How did they detect me?’

At this moment, Turan was maintaining complete concealment magic, a signature ability of the Zahar bloodline.

Using concealment magic in such darkness was as simple as breathing for him.

In other words, these monsters had the ability to pierce through Zahar’s concealment.

The only fortunate thing was that their detection range did not appear to be very wide.

As Turan moved about twenty meters away, beyond visibility but still within sensory range, the monsters seemed to lose track of him. They glanced around aimlessly before dispersing.

‘Good. At least I have the initiative here.’

In the pitch-black darkness, Turan observed the faint trails of the blue flame flowing erratically and loaded a stone into his slingshot.

With ample preparation time, he spun the stone several times, infusing it with magic power as much as he could.

Though infusing excessive magic power beyond a certain point caused diminishing returns in efficiency compared to the effort exerted, it was still a viable method when precision and lethality were required to silence a target in one shot.

‘Take this!’

Smack! The slingshot, charged with roughly ten percent of his magic power, launched the stone with incredible force, instantly caving in the monster’s head.

After confirming that the other monsters nearby didn’t react to the attack, Turan cautiously approached the downed creature.

‘Good, it’s dead.’

The stone had pierced cleanly through the mucus-covered face and exited the back of the head.

After retrieving the stone that had fallen on the ground behind it, Turan returned to the corpse and began attempting magic power absorption.

Soon, he felt the strength seeping into his body.

‘It’s clear now, this is a magical creature….’

Non-human races lacked magic power, much like ordinary humans or animals, so no magic could be absorbed from their corpses.

The same applied to beings like the Dark Elf necromancers.

This meant that these creatures must be categorized as either magical beasts or wizards.

What was odd, however, was that the amount of magic power absorbed from this grotesque creature was surprisingly low.

Based on his experience of absorbing power from magical beasts he had defeated before, a creature with this level of speed and durability should have provided much more magic.

Additionally, for reasons he couldn’t quite figure out, the Sacred Relic didn’t seem to absorb any magic power from this creature.

‘What exactly are these things?’

It wasn’t clear what these creatures were based on biologically to qualify as magical beasts. More puzzling was the sheer number of identical-looking creatures.

Expanding his senses, Turan detected over fifty or sixty of them within just a few hundred meters.

[You are not the Night Hunter-]

That irritating voice echoed again.

Letting out a sigh, Turan quickly shifted his position, sensing something approaching from behind.

It was the nobles he had seen earlier.

*

“Stop.”

Ferga Zahar frowned as he gave the command, his eyes fixed on the scene before him.

In front of him and the dozen nobles accompanying him lay the corpse of one of the grotesque creatures that had been roaming this area.

“What’s this? Did we come through this way already?”

“No idea. How long has it been since we lost our sense of direction?”

Ignoring his companions’ murmuring, Ferga touched the slimy, mucus-covered skin without hesitation, inspecting the creature’s wound.

The injury was located between the eyes, and the weapon appeared to be something about the size of an egg.

Ferga was convinced that this injury was the source of the faint earthy smell that had led him to this place.

“Everyone, show me your weapons.”

After inspecting the weapons of each of his companions, Ferga’s expression grew grim.

Chakrams, bows, daggers, axes.

None of the weapons his group carried could have created such a wound.

It was also unlikely that the creatures had killed one of their own, as the injury didn’t resemble marks from teeth or claws.

“What’s wrong, Ferga?”

“There’s someone else here. Inside this place.”

“Huh? Could it be a rescue team?”

“If it were, we would’ve noticed them a long time ago. Moving around this place so conspicuously would’ve drawn attention immediately.”

Ferga’s group had learned that lesson the hard way during their first day of confinement.

Separated from each other in the darkness, they had called out to reunite, only to attract over a hundred of these grotesque creatures and endure an agonizing ordeal.

“From now on, let’s move in a large circle.”

“Why?”

“If someone is eavesdropping on our conversation from nearby, moving in this pattern will make it difficult for them to maintain a consistent distance.”

Following Ferga’s command, the group began to move in a wide circular path, keeping the corpse of the creature on their right as a reference point.

As they moved, Ferga called over a small-framed man standing nearby.

“Galten.”

“Yes, Lord Ferga. What are your orders?”

The head of the House Rosmun, Galten Rosmun, who ruled over Vanipel, bowed deeply at Ferga's summons.

Normally, a vassal family’s head did not need to show such subservience unless they were addressing their liege lord, the head of the main house.

However, Galten and Ferga’s relationship was different. Despite Galten’s relatively lacking abilities, he had ascended to the position of family head by marrying Ferga’s sister, which explained his overly deferential attitude.

“We’ll need to set some traps nearby to catch the rat hiding in here.”

"By rat, you mean?"

“It’s almost certain to be someone sent by Rahman or Alma. This is their chance to bury me in this place.”

“But my brothers should be guarding the outside….”

“They wouldn’t stand a chance against a noble from House Zahar without being prepared?"

True to the nature of a family whose ancestor had seized power by eliminating all his brothers, the power struggles within House Zahar were always steeped in blood.

While everything was monitored by the god-like head of the main house, such power plays were entirely possible in isolated places like this, away from prying eyes.

“Understood. Please wait a moment.”

House Rosmun was a family of Barrier Master Bloodline, skilled at embedding magic into spaces.

They could exercise their power in simple ways like causing noise when someone passes through a specific area, or creating flames and making the ground collapse.

Of course, since the labyrinth itself was a structure created by the gods, manipulating the terrain was impossible. However, even sudden bursts of flame would be enough to deter intruders.

“Imelda, keep illuminating the surroundings.”

“Even with my bloodline ability, this isn’t exactly easy on my magic reserves.”

“You’ll have to endure it. Better that than having your throat slit while you sleep, isn’t it?”

"Well, that's true..."

Imelda, a noble from the Illusionist Bloodline who specialized in controlling light, obeyed Ferga’s command and spread bright light throughout the area.

Due to the labyrinth’s unique darkness, the light didn’t extend beyond twenty meters, but that was sufficient. After all, whoever the assassin was, they wouldn’t be able to detect the group from outside that range.

And should the assassin enter the illuminated range, they wouldn’t be able to maintain their concealment for long in the overwhelming white light.

“Remember, if one of us is attacked, immediately create and direct light toward their surroundings."

Everyone nodded at Ferga's instruction.

However, one person standing behind them silently shook his head in disapproval, it was none other than Turan.

‘They’re going all out to prepare for an attack, aren’t they?’

While Ferga passionately issued orders, Turan stood concealed just beyond the twenty-meter radius, overhearing everything.

Thanks to the power of the Sacred Relic, Turan could clearly observe their movements and maintain the perfect distance.

He assessed their strength by the size of their flames.

The magic power of the nine individuals, whether they were friends or vassals, was similar to or much weaker than Turan’s own. However, Ferga possessed more than twice Turan’s strength.

Ferga’s power was likely on par with the elite nobles in the upper ranks of great houses.

‘I’ll need to keep a reasonable distance and look for a way to escape.’

Leaving behind the group that was busy setting traps and scattering light in to search, Turan quietly disappeared into the darkness.

*

Three days passed.

Turan and Ferga’s group had been living a strange coexistence within the dark labyrinth.

Fortunately, the traps set by the Barrier Master Bloodline from House Rosmun weren’t much of an obstacle for Turan.

Since the Sacred Relic could detect the magic power embedded in the traps, their locations were clearly visible to him.

Ironically, the same couldn’t be said for Ferga’s group, who struggled to keep track of their movements in the pitch-black darkness and sometimes stepped on their own traps, causing them considerable trouble.

Moreover, with the noble from the Illusionist Bloodline constantly illuminating the area, one of their party members was essentially removed from combat readiness.

As a result, Turan unintentionally ended up wearing down their strength just by existing in proximity.

The one inconvenience Turan had to endure was his inability to get proper sleep.

Since Ferga’s group could take turns keeping watch, they managed to maintain some semblance of rest. In contrast, Turan, being alone, was as good as dead if a creature or another noble found him while he was in a deep sleep.

Fortunately, he was used to camping out and sleeping lightly, so it wasn’t too difficult to adapt.

Unlike Ferga’s group, who were completely disoriented and couldn’t even grasp their bearings in the darkness, Turan used the power of the Sacred Relic to mark several locations as bases and gradually expand his exploration range.

Occasionally, he would find certain paths blocked by an overwhelming number of grotesque creatures, making it nearly impossible to break through by killing them one by one. In such cases, he would borrow Ferga’s group's strength.

“They’re coming again!”

“Damn it, why are they attacking more frequently?”

“It’s because we keep using light.”

Turan would throw a fireball to draw the attention of the monsters, then release his concealment and sprint away. When he got close to Ferga’s group, he would narrowly veer off to the side, leading the creatures straight to them.

Although the magic power from the creatures ended up being taken by Ferga’s group, Turan didn’t mind. These creatures didn’t provide much magic power anyway, so it wasn’t a significant loss.

By repeating this cycle, exploring open spaces, retreating to rest in suitable areas, and observing Ferga’s group, Turan eventually noticed vagrants entering the ruins with food and water.

The group tracked the scavengers using their scent and, without hesitation, took their lives, seizing their food and water.

“They keep sending people in, so we’re starting to have a surplus now, aren’t we? Even this.”

“They probably assumed the knights were still alive and sent enough for them as well.”

“In hindsight, maybe we shouldn’t have let them die. We could’ve kept one or two alive to do the menial tasks. It’s annoying to have no one to serve us.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

From their conversation, it was clear that the knights who had entered with them had been left to the mercy of the monsters.

Turan recalled how nobles from House Baltas used their knights as disposable shields in the past.

The nobles standing before him now, laughing and mocking their dead knights, were even more despicable than those two nobles he had despised back then.

If nothing else, it made him feel less guilty about luring monsters toward them.

Two more days passed in this uneasy coexistence, during which Turan continued his exploration. Eventually, a massive door appeared before him.

The door was about four meters wide and seven meters tall, something that would better suit giants.

As he approached, a large eyeball appeared in the center of the door, looking down at him. It spoke.

[You, Hunter, Tracker.]

[Conditions not satisfied.]

After saying this, the eye shifted its gaze slightly downward from Turan’s face.

[Wave Rider, Mimic.]

[Conditions satisfied.]

[Do you wish to enter?]