Chapter 374

Chapter 374
Chapter 374: The Golden Spirit.

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Clump—

A stout individual clad in a formal suit moved forward, his hands balled into tight fists.

Thud—

With heavy, echoing steps, he advanced through a corridor of roaring flames in total silence.

This was the divine blaze of the Spirit King Agnis.

Even though the heat was intense enough to incinerate the very toxins of the heavens, it failed to harm Alkar, whose physical resistance bordered on absolute immunity.

“I shall reduce all to cinders!”

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

Agnis hurled a javelin composed of pure fire.

The fiery projectile triggered a succession of detonations as it streaked toward Alkar.

“Watch out…!”

A voice cried out in warning.

Yet even that shout was consumed by the heat.

Alkar tilted his chin up, tracking the incandescent spear as it bore down on him.

And then—

Craaaaaack!

Alkar unhinged his jaw.

Simultaneously, a miniature void manifested just above Alkar’s open mouth.

The moment of its birth, this dark rift began to greedily pull in the surrounding energy of the world.

Kwoooooooooom—!

As he let out a breath, a concentrated dark ray erupted, meeting the fire spear in a direct collision.

Ruuuuuumble!

A colossal vibration rattled the foundations of the mountain.

Shortly after, the dark energy and the solar fire neutralized one another, vanishing into nothingness.

“O, flame without end!”

However, Agnis was only beginning his assault.

The crimson fire shifted to a brilliant blue, and soon after, bleached into a blinding white.

“Why is the temperature rising so fast?”

“I—I can’t even get near him…!”

Even while maintaining a safe distance with their defenses raised, the observers felt as though their very flesh was being cooked.

Alkar was no exception.

Agnis’s thermal output was lethal enough to vaporize everything using a mere 0.2% of its maximum capacity.

Sizzzzzzzle!

Predictably, the man’s suit was burned away.

Alkar did not share the same limitless healing factor that his superior possessed.

But.

…… Regardless, he refused to halt his progress.

As his clothing crumbled into soot and his skin turned a raw crimson, blistering and dying under the heat, Alkar continued his silent march.

The closer he drew, the more suffocating the density of the fire became, yet he remained indifferent.

However… something was peculiar.

No flames remained on the ground where Alkar had stepped.

To be more accurate, the fire had been tinted a ‘bottomless black’.

“To think you would dare to corrupt my eternal flame!”

Why was he known as ‘Black-Stained Alkar’?

True to his title, Alkar possessed the power to dye all existence in his own darkness.

He could claim them as his own property.

And everything he had claimed in such a manner.

“Hooooo.”

As Alkar once more parted his lips wide.

Swoooooooosh!

The entirety of the ‘black fire’ he had corrupted began to flow into Alkar’s throat.

Gulp!

Alkar consumed the very essence of the Spirit King.

In that heartbeat.

Crack, creak—

Alkar’s frame, fueled by the consumed black fire, began to expand and warp.

His size was not the only thing that transformed.

“Is that… a tail?”

“A—A draconic hybrid?”

“It’s a Dragon Knight!”

Utilizing the energy he had swallowed, Alkar shifted into a form that was half-man and half-dragon.

By the decree of the Queen, the Blade Dragon God, each of the Blood Fiends was brought into existence with a specific, fixed form.

Whether they were human-shaped or designed as living explosives, they all adhered to the Queen’s blueprint.

Yet, Alkar stood apart.

Among the entire race of Blood Fiends, Alkar alone possessed the ability to reshape his biology based on the power he devoured.

Blood Fiend, Rank 3.

That was his official designation……

In truth, the top two ranks, ‘Isera’ and ‘Lucaria’, were Overlords, which naturally placed them at the peak of the hierarchy.

The ranking system was not a direct comparison of ‘combat effectiveness’.

It was a metric used to gauge the ‘strategic significance’ of each Blood Fiend.

Despite that, he held the 3rd spot.

This indicated that Alkar was the third most vital asset among the Blood Fiends.

The reason he occupied such a prestigious rank, despite not being an Overlord carved from the Dragon God’s core, was quite straightforward.

He was a phenomenal deviation, a biological fluke among his kind.

The solitary Blood Fiend capable of ignoring the Queen’s commands, a creature with an unbreakable spirit that knew no dread.

Alkar, who corrupted and ate all he encountered, was defined by ‘avarice’.

More than any other, he was the Blood Fiend who most closely mirrored their deity.

Consequently, if the hierarchy were determined by raw destructive potential alone.

Alkar’s true power would be……

“Eternal praise to our magnificent god.”

Black-Stained Alkar.

Within the claws of his evolved draconic state, a massive, heavy blade was now gripped.

Facing the titanic spheres of molten rock descending from the firmament.

Swoosh.

Alkar brought the greatsword down in a single arc.

In that instant.

A moon-shaped wave of black energy erupted, cleaving through the falling meteors.

It didn’t end there.

With every meteor the dark crescent sliced, it gathered more mass and momentum.

Soon, the energy wave, now vastly more enormous than its initial state, reached Agnis in the blink of an eye.

[Slash, World-Severer]

Swish!

“No…!”

Thud!

Agnis’s head was lopped off.

“…….”

Iarin gaped at the figure who had appeared without warning.

The dragon-human hybrid had already pushed Agnis to the brink.

But… he was certainly not part of their original group.

They had entered with exactly 500 members; had he managed to slip in undetected?

Still, it felt impossible.

Had he been tailing them, there was no way she would have failed to sense him.

She hadn’t caught even a whisper of his presence, despite possessing the Hidden Trait ‘Great Sage’.

Furthermore, her analytical vision was far more advanced than any standard observational skill could ever reach.

Simply put, the notion that he had followed them in secret was logically soundless.

‘He wasn’t following; he was merged.’

Shortly after, Iarin understood why she hadn’t detected him.

If he had been lurking or stalking them, her eyes would have found him.

But that ‘entity’ had blended into someone else’s aura, much like a silhouette in the dark.

It suggested he was a master of camouflage to an unsettling degree.

Beyond that.

“…… This is nonsensical.”

Gracia spoke a single thought.

Just as he stated, the situation was nothing short of preposterous.

Agnis’s decapitated head began to reform almost immediately.

The chaotic fire spirits across the peak converged, working to rebuild the Spirit King’s physical vessel.

“Is that being… a beast?”

The real issue was the man’s conduct.

He suddenly discarded his greatsword, lunged forward, and sank his teeth into Agnis’s throat.

Then he began to feast on him without restraint.

He even produced wet, crunching noises as if he were enjoying a fine meal.

…… It was sickening to watch.

That display was completely devoid of humanity.

His movements lacked any refined technique, and his primal, feral motions were far outside the bounds of human behavior.

Instead, he was more akin to a wild predator or a nightmare.

A creature of pure, ancient instinct.

‘The 13 Hidden Traits we identified at the gateway, could it be that this man……’

It was a distinct possibility.

Perhaps this individual was the owner of the ‘Primeval Fire’.

Yet it remained confusing.

If he was such a monumental warrior, it was inconceivable that she would have no record of him.

Looking at the suit he had initially worn, he was clearly a person from the current age.

“Who is that person?”

“I’ve never seen his face before……”

“Could it be…… Randolph?”

“Ph—Phantom, you mean?”

The crowd began to whisper.

They couldn’t conceive of anyone else capable of wielding such reality-defying power.

Phantom!

The entity once rumored to be Wilhelm’s player, the one who had dominated every Hall of Fame as Randolph, the one hailed as the pinnacle of human strength.

Even the 10 Strongest of Humanity were considered shadows compared to Phantom.

The general consensus was that even if they all fought together, they couldn’t hope to match Phantom alone.

A story had once spread that ‘Oliver’ was Phantom, but it lacked any evidence.

Iarin also suspected it wasn’t him.

However, nobody knew Phantom’s true identity or any specifics about him.

But if, by some chance, that man was Phantom?

…… What if the ‘Unborn Being’ had retreated specifically because of him?

“…….”

Iarin watched the creature devouring Agnis in silence.

If that were the case, then this man was the very target she, as the Seven Lord Basara, had been hunting.

But……

To claim that man was the player behind Wilhelm.

… Wasn’t his style far too barbaric?

The surgical precision of his blade, the disciplined grace of his stance, a warrior who never wasted a single motion—that was Wilhelm, the embodiment of elegance.

But this thing… calling him crude was too kind; he was a glutton.

However, her internal debate was cut short.

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…… It was more than I expected.

Black-Stained Alkar.

The extent of his power was staggering.

Even though he was officially 3rd, Alkar was a freak of nature who could realistically take the 1st rank in a fight, depending on the circumstances.

This was why the Blade Dragon God had assigned Alkar specifically to me.

While many Blood Fiends had been sent to safeguard Oliver, it meant that Alkar alone was worth more than the rest combined.

Most importantly……

‘… He is a lot like me.’

It felt as though I was looking at my own reflection.

Alkar was driven by an immense greed.

He hungered for power even more naturally than I did.

Had there ever been a creature like this among the Blood Fiends?

No, I was certain there hadn’t been.

Primarily, the Blood Fiends were a race manufactured like components by the Dragon God.

They were a species that existed only to serve the Queen’s desires.

There were set boundaries to their potential and the abilities they were given.

Alkar, however, was a different story.

He had no ceiling.

How did such a mutation even occur?

‘I’ll have to check with Hana about this later.’

If I could produce more units like Alkar, taking over the underworld might not be such a difficult task.

He was just that anomalous.

“Where… am I?”

Just then.

Agnis, who had shrunk down to the size of a human fist, glanced around in confusion.

“Mamon… it appears that scoundrel meddled with things he should have left alone.”

He then spoke with a voice heavy with sorrow.

“By Mamon, do you mean the third lord of the demon realm?”

Iarin inquired.

Agnis gave a solemn nod.

“Precisely. Mamon, the master of the ancient spirits… that traitor waited for us to lower our guard and shattered the foundation of the Spirit Tower. Now, every spirit in existence will lose their tether and spiral into madness…”

“The spirits will go into a frenzy? What does that imply?”

“The Spirit Tower isn’t just a home for us. It functioned to contain spirits that must never be freed, to cleanse the world’s filth, and to maintain the global equilibrium.”

“Spirits that must stay locked away?”

“The Spirits of Chaos. And……”

Agnis paused.

If the Spirits of Chaos began to riot, it would be a catastrophe beyond management.

The mechanisms that kept the world running would fail, and sentient beings would fall into a state of total paranoia.

But there was an even more dire issue.

“The Golden Spirit… will be filled with wrath.”

“If the Spirit Tower isn’t fixed immediately, he will bring about the end of the world!”

The Golden Spirit.

The entity whispered to be capable of waking the Emperor of the Empire.

That legendary name had finally surfaced.

“Mamon has invited disaster. That being must never be woken… he is our deity who must never be permitted to walk the world…!”

It appeared the spirits viewed the Golden Spirit as a god.

Yet, they were terrified.

For a Spirit King to be this frightened of a Spirit God.

What exactly was the Golden Spirit?

“Is there a way to fix the tower?”

“There is. But it is a hopeless task.”

“Just explain it. What is the process?”

“A single individual must bind themselves to all Four Great Spirit Kings simultaneously. But there is no way a mortal body could survive that pressure……”

It was unheard of.

Contracting with just one Spirit King was a monumental feat.

But to contract with all Four Great Spirit Kings at once?

Even if the spirits agreed, no physical body could contain that much power.

A massive energy surge would occur, and they would be shredded from the inside out.

It was in that moment.

“…… Hold on.”

Suddenly, Agnis’s gaze shifted toward me.

Soon, the Spirit King’s eyes and the flames of his body began to vibrate uncontrollably.

“—Y—You are……!”