Tasha's position shot upward, narrowly evading the monster's spit as her wings nearly scraped the crystal ceiling. She'd already tested it firsthand—the crystal sarcophagus here was absurdly hard. She'd believe it was diamond.
"They're part of the sub-space. You can't shatter them unless you shatter the space itself," Victor reminded her.
"Any suggestions on how to solve this?" Tasha asked, sidestepping another attack.
Bile-green fluid splattered the adjacent ceiling, its filthiness starkly highlighted against the pristine, transparent crystal coffins. Droplets fell under gravity, yet the sub-space's components showed no reaction to the assault. Still, Tasha had no desire to test whether this stuff would feel pleasant landing on her.
She had no immediate plans to descend.
Within this magic-rich zone, flight required no energy expenditure—Tasha felt almost weightless. Staying on the ground was perilous. The monster's attacks were infrequent but lightning-fast, making it impossible to predict when or where the next strike would land. This thing resembled a Swiss Army knife, concealing unknown weapons within its fleshy mass. Just moments ago, Tasha had endured separate assaults from tentacles, claws, and flying spikes.
She had to focus all her attention on that thing, constantly watching for signs of an impending attack. Not only was its structure completely baffling, but just looking at it made Tasha feel uneasy all over.
This is really tricky...
A patch of skin on the back of her hand had already turned black, and that was merely from grazing the side of the monster's tentacle—it hadn't even bled. Did it have jellyfish-like stinging cells? If so, not only would it be impossible to injure it, but contact itself might be best avoided. Tasha carried two curved blades that could be combined. With the handles assembled, the resulting sword stretched over two meters long—sufficient for both blocking and striking. Unfortunately, her attacks thus far seemed to have no effect on the creature. Cutting into it felt like slicing through a mass of fat; wounds healed almost instantly. While its defense was low, its regenerative ability was terrifyingly strong.
For now, the blood-red eggs embedded in its body seemed the only vulnerable points.
Immune to physical strikes, blades proved useless—Tasha would have to handle them directly. Avoiding contact with the rest of the creature made the entire endeavor far more difficult.
Perhaps the only silver lining was its sheer bulk and inability to fly...
The monster's body began to tremble.
It had been constantly moving, but now it seemed to boil, vast amounts of slime peeling from its torso before slowly coalescing back in. Tasha flew farther, nearly touching the ceiling diagonally opposite the monster—the farthest point within the sub-space. She spun her blade before her, forming a shield to block any further projectiles.
The massive body rose upright, every mouth upon it bellowing—high-pitched screeches mingling with low, guttural growls. Countless jagged voices surged into a tidal wave of sound. Close your eyes and listen, and you might believe you stood at the very entrance to Hell. The creature seemed to be enduring immense agony. The flesh on its back bulged, then erupted in a series of viscous bubble pops.
There was no splattering of blood as expected; only half its spine was blown away. Within the two deep gouges, amidst the cross-section of unspeakable parts, a pair of wings unfolded.
One resembled a bat, the other an insect—a pair of asymmetrical wings. They stood wet and stiff on the creature's back, hardening rapidly with each flap, like butterfly wings fresh from their chrysalis—though comparing these hideous things to butterfly wings would be an insult to butterflies.
"I didn't know fairies could grow this big," Victor chuckled dryly, seemingly attempting to lighten the mood.
"What fairy?" Tasha asked, a sense of foreboding settling over her.
"One dragon wing and one fairy wing," Victor replied. "Though they're degraded versions."
Nothing embodied the word "degenerate" more than this. The thing purported to be a dragon wing was shriveled, broken, and pitted with corrosion. Even if one were to mistake it for a bat wing, it must have spent centuries pickling in brine—a stark contrast to the powerful, robust wings straining against Tasha's back. As for the thing claimed to be a fairy wing... Better left unsaid. It resembled an entomophobic nightmare, shedding not dust but fragments of flesh and blood.
"You've shattered my beautiful fantasy of fairies," Tashan said dryly, diving suddenly.
Hand raised, blade fell.
Foul-smelling blood spattered as the degraded dragon wing and fairy wing were severed cleanly at the root, denied even a single beat of flight. The heavy flesh target had nowhere to evade, only to shriek incessantly once more. Several tentacles as thick as arms coiled upward. Tasha dodged most of them, slicing through the remaining ones. Severed chunks of flesh fell from the monster's body, but as Tasha dove upward again, she heard no sound of flesh hitting the ground.
She turned in mid-air, horrified by what her peripheral vision captured.
The monster still writhed where it lay, yet the severed limbs defied gravity entirely, hurtling toward Tashan in the opposite direction. A pair of wings, three tentacles, fragments of flesh and droplets of fluid—all pursued her as if alive. She turned, dove, then pulled up again, but they relentlessly followed. Tasha lashed out with several rapid thrusts backward, her blade slicing the incoming fragments into even smaller pieces.
A shower of blood erupted from the flesh, yet the fragments didn't alter their trajectory. Instead, Tasha's pause had closed the distance between them. Some blood splattered onto her skin from the blade's impact, sticking viscously.
An odd sensation emanated from that spot.
For anyone else, it might have felt like flesh being corroded—barely a scratch compared to the assault. But this body was the vessel for part of Tasha's soul. She could sense every minute change in each cell completely and utterly. So when a tiny fragment of flesh touched her skin, she felt it melt instantly, take root, and grow into her arm.
The monster's flesh, no larger than a fingernail, fused with Tasha's skin in a fleeting instant, connecting to the capillaries and entering her bloodstream. From that moment on, her body would recognize it as part of itself. If she cut it off, Tasha herself would bleed.
A nerve in Tasha's brain suddenly tightened.
Intense revulsion flooded her mind. She hadn't felt this furious in ages. The rage propelled her to charge the monster, thrusting her long sword in a near-suicidal attack. The tongue fired from the giant mouth nearly snapped Tashan's neck. She ducked low to evade it, driving her blade into the creature's forehead. Her fist came within inches of smashing the blood-red egg—missing by a hair's breadth. The flesh pursuing her seized the moment to slam into her side, instantly melting through her clothing. It oozed and spread across her body. She felt her frame grow heavier, yet the injured limbs became strangely powerful.
"Wait, this thing doesn't seem harmful!" Victor exclaimed. "I get it now—this subspace allows the flesh, acting as a conduit for magic, to flow toward the victor..."
"I know," Tasha growled through clenched teeth. "But I don't want it."
She charged straight into the monster's spikes, which tore off the excess flesh from her body along with her own skin. This time, the detached flesh didn't regrow. It fell away, merging into the monster's body.
This sub-space was like a cauldron for brewing poison.
Trapped magical creatures slaughtered each other, the loser's flesh and magic flowing to the victor. In the end, whoever emerged triumphant would become the monster before them—all beings entering this space would fuse into an artificial hybrid. No one won, no one escaped.
"You could defeat it first, become the victor, then deal with the rest!" Victor urged. "It just looks a bit disgusting."
It was far more than just a matter of appearance. Tasha absolutely refused to merge with such a thing. She was consumed by rage—a searing fury utterly uncharacteristic of her nature. This anger felt as though it had been imprisoned here for centuries, as if she had been tortured, devoured, betrayed, and deceived. She wanted out, but escape was impossible. Where was the exit? Where? Where? How infuriating! —Primitive fury burned her eyes crimson, and this was merely a brief, limited fusion.
Tasha utterly refused to merge with this vile, malevolent taint.
The flesh she rejected returned to the monster, swiftly repairing the gashes left by the blade. The creature, moments ago listless, rose once more, a new pair of wings sprouting from its wounds.
"Victor," Tasha said.
"Even if we lose this dungeon here, it won't be the end of the world!" Sensing the fury emanating from her, Victor responded swiftly, wasting no time feigning ignorance. "Winning this battle is merely icing on the cake—it doesn't determine our survival. According to our contract, you can't tear me apart over this!"
"Can't I?" Tasha countered.
"Devouring demon souls won't solve everything! I can't help you like this now—what good do you think that would bring?" Victor snapped impatiently. "A Greater Demon isn't a cure-all! I bet it'd be worse than merging with this monster..."
The monster lunged forward.
How did this bloated mountain of flesh take flight with those tiny, deformed wings? Utterly incomprehensible—its very existence defied reason. It catapulted upward, smashing into the ceiling like a rotten tomato splattered against the wall. Using the impact's momentum, the flattened mass curled back, transforming into a colossal maw that stretched across the sky. Full retreat might have offered escape, but Tasha charged forward instead.
Like a bullet piercing a curtain, she closed the gap between front and back in less than an arm's length. Diving into the flesh pancake, she hooked her blade upward, cleaving open the creature's cavity. The body twisted in agony, its surface erupting with a mass of useless organs like a malfunctioning display. Fangs snapped at the blade, but Tasha made no effort to wrest it free. She released her grip, discarded the sword, and lashed out with claws.
After Marion's character card evolved from "Half-Blood Werewolf" to "Werewolf," the skill [Full Moon - Call of the Wild] also underwent new development.
[Call of the Full Moon]: The enhancement of the Contract Holder's bloodline made this skill more harmonious and natural. You could temporarily double the strength of your claws, scaled to your own power level. It still lasted only three seconds, but now only crippled one arm instead of your entire body.
The claws pierced the barely-healed layer of flesh and skin, a searing pain biting into Tashan's hand. But before the blackness on her skin could seep inward, she touched the blood-red egg.
The pebble's shell, surprisingly, was as fragile as an eggshell.
Crack.
The artificial core shattered, spewing crimson liquid that drenched Tashan. Along with it came something else—a presence that suddenly burrowed into her body. Blood red filled her vision, then darkness—the monster let out a piercing scream as the pebble broke, but instead of dispersing, it wrapped around Tashan at terrifying speed.
It's fine, the mission is complete, Tasha thought.
Then she realized the magical circuits were still active.
Impossible. A magic cycle without a core couldn't function—it required a suitable medium. Could there be another, unnoticed core that hadn't been destroyed? Tasha struggled, trying to peel back the soft flesh covering her.
She couldn't.
The monster lay utterly still. It didn't resist Tasha, and the weight pressing down on her wasn't heavy. Yet she couldn't escape. Was the flesh too sticky? Had her body lost all function? Or was it something else?
Tasha felt an odd heartbeat.
No, more precisely, it was the sound of pulsing surges—the sound of magic flowing in and being squeezed out. This sound came from within Tasha herself—she realized she could no longer sense the boundaries of her own body. It was incredibly quiet, incredibly still. Even Victor's voice had vanished, leaving only the near-eternal fluctuations of magic. The searing burn from touching the monster vanished without a trace. Her arm, which should have been destroyed, felt no pain. She sensed a tremor as the monster seemed to rise again, unscathed.
Tasha suddenly understood.
The blood-red egg wasn't the magic core. What lay within it was. When Tasha destroyed it, its contents burrowed into her body, spreading, assimilating, transforming her into a new core of magic....
"Hey? Are you there? Answer me!"
"Victor?"
"Abyss!" The Dungeon Book exhaled in relief. "It suddenly stopped responding. I thought..."
"It's me, the original." Tasha, located within the dungeon, said. "The soul within that body suddenly disconnected."
"..."
"And the corruption continues to spread along the soul's source. I tried sacrificing part of my soul to isolate it, but it doesn't seem to work." Tasha said calmly.
"..."
Victor fell silent for several seconds before erupting, unleashing a torrent of curses in demonic tongue. He shouted, "You figured I'd have no choice but to help you, didn't you? You bet on me not wanting to die and forcing me to assist you, no matter the cost! Dammit, do you think a fragment of a Great Demon's soul is something you can just handle? It could be deadly poison!"
"If you can't handle it," Tasha said gravely, attempting to carve out small fragments of soul for preservation while desperately containing the strange corruption spreading to other parts, "then shut up and prepare to die with me."
"You'd better keep winning," Victor said bitterly. "Otherwise, we'll both die in a very, very spectacular way."
...
Tasha walked along a dark path.
She couldn't recall when she'd arrived here, nor where she was headed, yet she felt strangely calm—miraculously free of panic. Darkness filled her vision; she guessed she was surrounded by a reed marsh. The lake water carried a chill, and as the breeze swept through, the reeds swayed, their rustling creating a whispering murmur.
A hissing whisper seemed to ride the wind, and something cold crawled over the top of her foot.
This place was quite nice, but Tasha couldn't stay here. She felt as though she'd just stepped through a muddy pool, her entire body sticky and unpleasant. The intense sense of filth was unbearable; she needed to wash it off immediately.
Someone approached from behind.
On any other night, Tasha would have immediately gone on alert, but not this time. Instinctively, she sensed this was someone deeply familiar, someone she could trust, someone she didn't need to guard against. The person stepped up behind her and sighed deeply.
"Reed Marsh?" he said. "What are you thinking about?"
The voice evoked velvet, hot cocoa, or a cello, its trailing syllables curled with a soft lisp that made Tasha imagine the speaker had a forked tongue. But that was none of her concern; she had business to attend to.
Her wrists were seized.
One hand gripped her left wrist, another her right, a forehead pressed against the crown of her head. She could feel breath at her ear, cold as mist. Tasha found it odd, for she was still moving forward. If someone was pressed so close that their chest touched her back, how did they keep their feet from colliding with hers?
Come to think of it, she hadn't heard footsteps at all.
"For our sake, may you always be victorious." The man behind him forced a bitter smile. "Don't lose to me."
Sharp teeth sank into Tashan's nape.
In an instant, a torrent of information surged in, shattering the pitch-black void. Countless yellow eyes flooded her mind, like reflections in shattered stained glass. Staring into them felt like peering into a kaleidoscope. Tashan remembered everything—everything, and more than everything. Information, knowledge, power, souls... They washed over Tasha's spirit like a high-pressure water jet, bringing excruciating pain and the exhilarating sensation of cleansing away filth.
Within the sub-space overlapping the underground palace, the recovering monster suddenly froze. The flesh on its chest began to writhe, faster and faster, like boiling water in a cauldron.
The woman inside the monster kept her eyes tightly shut.
This was the demon's second gift—a torrent of memories surged forth, knowledge of souls and magic laid bare before her. Yet this time, Tasha did not inhabit the Victor of those recollections. The memories were "empty," lacking their owner. Without a vessel to anchor her, Tasha felt like an abrupt intruder. The shifting of time and space felt like another crossing, leaving her bewildered.
Why was she standing in this prison cell? Why did the priest before her look terrified? Where was the demon who should have been present at this moment?
A pair of hands grasped hers.
A pair of hands held hers, whispers coiling around her ears. The owner of the memories still stood behind her, teaching her step by step how to dissect a soul. This was a hands-on dissection class, a tango in the darkness. In an instant, Tasha witnessed (and personally attempted) countless tortures inflicted upon souls over millennia. In the blink of an eye, she learned to peel away the exquisite, beautiful souls of every race, like the most skilled taxidermist.
Victor did possess a method to purify soul corruption, but this knowledge could not be imparted through mere instruction.
For the Archfiend, dealing with it was pure instinct.
Without experiencing the arrogance of holding all souls in one's palm, it cannot be understood. Without feeling the profound craving for souls, it cannot be grasped. Without possessing the self-awareness of being born as a superior being, it cannot be learned. She raced through the corridors of timelessness, stretched infinitely long and then compressed infinitely short in an instant. She did not know when the teacher had ceased standing behind her, yet she knew the mentor remained with her. His instincts became hers, his power became hers, his craving became hers. The souls of all things were so sweet, the thrill of tearing them apart and devouring them unmatched; the cycle of life and death was nothing more than this, the world merely her playground. She felt... delight.
—Perhaps this time, she truly was possessed by a demon.
It didn't matter. What was so bad about being a demon?
The crystal coffin in the sub-space began to tremble. The monster leapt up, running and crashing madly through the void. The colossal flesh mountain slammed into the crystal walls again and again, the impact shattering every organ and bone within it—let alone whatever might be inside. Countless screaming mouths tore open in its flesh and skin. At the peak of its madness, organs from every magical creature inside the flesh mountain were flung out as if trying to escape on their own. Not one of them could flee.
One hand put an end to the monster's frenzy.
Charred claws extended from within, effortlessly tearing open the creature's abdomen. Where it ripped, flesh withered.
Within the blood-red egg lay the monster's soul—itself forged from the forced fusion of countless magical creatures' spirits. This monstrous soul was the true core of magic, yet also a deadly contaminant. The purer and more steadfast the soul, the more it was suppressed by this entity, the more likely it was to be corrupted and devoured. But this thing had its own nemesis.
To pollute a demon with evil and chaos?
It was like trying to soil a swamp with dust.
Tarsha, temporarily attuned to the Archfiend, devoured the invading soul as nourishment.
Subspace began to quake, and the corpse within the crystal coffin started to rot. The magic cycle grew chaotic, and Tarsha ruthlessly consumed any magical currents that mistakenly treated her as the core. One by one, the magic circuits were devoured dry. The balance painstakingly crafted by the mages shattered and collapsed in this unrestrained gluttony. The warp cracked violently, hurling out the rotting flesh of the former monster and Tashar—who showed no intention of stopping.
She felt hungry.
Like a starving person tossed into a candy house—no, into a candy world. Magic permeated the air, the very fabric of this structure. Above this subterranean palace lay lush gardens and bustling human cities. The world was her playground. The Material Plane offered such abundance, and the Abyss had granted her the right and duty to devour. Why endure restraint?
Tashan's soul opened its gaping maw.
The surrounding magic surged madly into her mouth through the still-fading magic circuits. Drawn with such ferocity, the damage and depletion far exceeded anything seen in centuries past. The magic stones on the dome and the dungeon's core flickered on and off like faulty lamps during the extraction.
The underground palace began to tremble. As the magic stones on the ceiling evaporated one by one, the vast subterranean space, held together by magical arrays, grew unstable. Collapses occurred in some areas, but Tasha remained oblivious, merely swallowing hard at the sight of the fist-sized dungeon core.
Suddenly, everything accelerated. The underground palace collapsed, the capital city was destroyed, and all souls were torn away amidst the screaming and fleeing masses. The empire crumbled, and the world was plunged into chaos. She opened the passage to the Abyss. A slender tongue flickered across her lips, forked fangs quivering in the air, hunting for the scent of magic and souls. She opened her mouth, a fissure splitting from the corners of her lips to her jawline.
"Amusing?"
Someone stood beside her.
How had anyone slipped so close before she noticed? Tasha frowned, licking her itchy teeth. She couldn't make out his features—just a blurred shadow, vaguely discernible as a tall man clad in ornate formal wear. Though his face remained hidden, Tasha knew he was smiling.
"Quite amusing, isn't it?" he said. "This is what it feels like for a demon in the Material Plane. Humanity is the Abyss's hunting ground."
He turned away.
He exposed his back and neck to Tasha—utterly unforgivable, a blatant invitation. If you show your back to a predator, you must be prepared to be attacked, right? Tasha wanted to nod, to strike, to bathe in his blood and devour his soul. Devouring and killing felt so pleasurable. Yet a voice emerged from Tasha's throat. She said, "How pitiful."
Whose voice was this?
A flash of clarity pierced Tasha's murky mind at that moment, like a cool breeze on a scorching summer day, bringing a sliver of lucidity.
Devouring, or killing—is that truly what I crave?
How pitiful. The voice struck her like a thunderclap, rousing Tashan from her icy craving. Did she crave power? Yes. Would she sacrifice her soul for it? Never. Tashan was master of power, not its slave. Even if she conquered the world, she would never treat it as a dull cafeteria.
A sliver of self-awareness returned to Tasha. No one would ever dominate her soul. Yes, she felt not the slightest envy for the demons—those beasts, well-dressed yet insatiable, forever starving, forever empty. How pitiful.
The shadow turned back, seemingly stunned by this response.
"Now I can answer you," Tasha said, clinging to her precarious sanity. "Yes, I will not lose to you."
She reached out, her claws tearing out her own heart.
The illusion shattered.