The Devourer (1)
Deep beneath the ancient Magic Tower, inside the ritual chamber, Ronin slowly walked in and laid Perlin down at its center.
A small box was clutched in his hands. A dark, ominous light leaked from the seams of the black wooden chest.
The Demon King's Heart Fragment.
A core fragment containing immense power, even among other shards. It was a fragment that no ordinary human could ever hope to absorb.
If an unqualified host attempted to take in a fragment of this size, their vessel would instantly collapse or detonate. For that reason, the Magic Tower Master had been forced to content himself with smaller fragments for a very long time.
The fragments absorbed by Hailyn and himself were merely minor shards. But Perlin Claire possessed the perfect compatibility from the very beginning.
It was as if she had been born solely to receive the Demon King's fragments. Even if she absorbed a piece of this magnitude, her vessel would never break.
"Are you ready, Perlin?" Ronin asked softly.
Perlin looked up at him. Though her face was pale, her expression was remarkably calm. It seemed she, too, had resolved to accept this moment.
"...Is it starting?"
"Yes. Let's begin."
Ronin knelt before Perlin. He slowly opened the box, and a torrent of dark light burst forth all at once.
Inside lay a pitch-black shard. It pulsed slowly, as if it were a living, breathing thing.
"You will take this inside you," Ronin said, gently pinching the fragment between his fingers.
"There will be pain. But only for a moment. Endure that brief second, and everything will change."
Perlin nodded from where she lay. Her hands trembled once more, but she did not move from her spot.
Ronin brought the fragment to her chest.
"Welcome, Perlin," he whispered in a low voice, pressing the shard deep into her body. The dark light vanished into her chest.
Instantly, her body convulsed. Her shoulders arched upward, and her breath hitched.
"Ngh...!"
After a moment, Perlin's body settled, and she let out a long, ragged breath. Ronin carefully inspected her condition.
The assimilation process was proceeding smoothly. The fragment began to fuse with her soul at the center of her chest. Dark demonic energy flowed slowly through her veins. It was a standard fusion.
Except for one anomaly.
The speed of the fusion was far too rapid.
"...?"
Ronin tilted his head.
Normally, a fragment of this size required at least a full day to bind with a soul. The fusion had to progress gradually to prevent damage to the vessel. If it happened too quickly, the fragment could run rampant, or the vessel itself could collapse.
Yet the fusion occurring inside Perlin was blindingly fast. Not even a minute had passed since he implanted the shard, and it had already been completely absorbed. He had never witnessed such a fusion speed in any vessel he had ever experimented on.
Ronin's smile faltered slightly.
He placed his hand on Perlin's chest once more, scanning her condition with his demonic energy. Then, his inner vision peered deeply into her soul.
"...What?"
Ronin could not believe what his eyes were showing him.
Perlin's soul was devouring the fragment. She wasn't merely assimilating it; she was actively consuming it.
Ordinarily, a Demon King's fragment functioned by engraving its essence onto the host. The vessel would accept it and gradually mutate according to the fragment's will. But right now, Perlin's soul was devouring the fragment of its own accord. The active agent of the absorption was Perlin's soul itself.
This was an absolute impossibility.
"...Perlin?"
Ronin called out to her.
Perlin's gaze slowly drifted toward him.
Something was shifting deep within her eyes. Traces of Perlin remained, but at the same time, something else was awakening from the abyss of her consciousness. Even Perlin herself did not seem to understand what was happening. Fear crept onto her face.
"What..."
Perlin squeezed the words out with great difficulty.
"What is happening to me...?"
Her voice echoed through the ritual chamber. It was unmistakably Perlin's voice, yet it was layered with an alien, discordant undertone.
Ronin took a step back from her.
"...Who on earth are you?"
It was the very first time his smile had completely vanished.
Resting in the Demon Realm was no true rest. Without even a chance to properly recover from the fatigue of battle, we had to push forward on a forced march.
"We're moving out," I said.
The longer we lingered in the Demon Realm, the more the exhaustion would pile up. A relentless march was our only option.
"Understood," Robento replied with a nod. Hailyn followed silently by his side.
Time remained a blurry concept in the Demon Realm. However, it wasn't long before a massive silhouette slowly materialized beyond the black mist.
"Is that it?"
A colossal tower.
Constructed from dark stone, the tower pierced high into the heavens, its peak lost in the clouds. It was impossible to even guess its height. Was that the Magic Tower Master's stronghold?
"Hailyn. Confirm if the Magic Tower Master is located there."
"Understood... Wait, what?"
Hailyn let out a sharp gasp.
"What is it?"
Her brow furrowed deeply as she channeled her Authority.
"This is strange..." she muttered, her voice laced with confusion. "The Magic Tower Master... is gone."
A brief silence fell over us.
"What do you mean by gone?"
"The signal is dead. He suddenly vanished from the location I was tracking with my Authority. The Magic Tower Master is no longer there."
What nonsense was this? For the Magic Tower Master to vanish now of all times.
"Did he teleport?"
"No, if he had, a new location would have registered. But there's nothing. His presence can't be detected anywhere in this world."
That meant he hadn't used the Wanderer's Authority either.
"Could it be a magical barrier blocking your tracking?"
"It's not that. It's not blocked; he's just... gone. It's as if the very existence of the Magic Tower Master has slipped entirely out of my Authority's perception."
Then what could it possibly be? Though we were plagued by questions, we had no other choice.
"For now, we head to the tower," I said, pointing toward the distant structure. If the Magic Tower Master had vanished, we would have to see what remained with our own eyes.
We continued our march toward the tower.
"The flow of demonic energy is incredibly violent," Robento noted.
The closer we drew to our destination, the faster the demonic energy surged. The dark mana of the entire Demon Realm was being sucked toward the tower. Whether this was the Magic Tower Master's design or something else entirely was something we would have to discover upon arrival.
Before long, the entrance of the tower came into view. The massive gates of black stone already stood wide open.
"We're going in," I said, taking the lead as we crossed the threshold.
The interior was pitch-black. I cast a spell to illuminate our surroundings. The light revealed an immense space constructed entirely of dark stone.
The demonic energy was flowing deep into the tower's basement. We decided to follow its path.
"The space is distorted. Watch your step."
The interior of the tower was warped.
The stairs did not descend in a straight line; instead, the space itself was bent and refracted, with the demonic energy flowing along those twisted contours. We slowly made our way down, following the current.
After descending for what felt like an eternity, we finally emerged into a massive chamber.
The floor was a perfect circle of black stone. On one side of the circular room lay the shattered remains of a glass capsule.
There was no sign of the Magic Tower Master. No clothes, no weapons, no corpse. Not a single trace remained to prove he had ever been there.
Instead, a massive entity loomed in the center of the room.
At first, I couldn't even tell what it was. It possessed a human silhouette, yet it was distinctly non-human.
The rushing torrents of demonic energy were being absorbed into its form. The dark mana drawn from the entire Demon Realm was concentrating solely within this single entity.
One side of its body was grotesquely swollen.
One of its arms was two to three times larger than the other, and from the tip of that bloated limb, yet another arm sprouted. Swollen, raw flesh was exposed across various parts of its body, with thick black veins pulsing visibly beneath the surface.
Something was protruding from its back. Whether they were additional arms or some other anatomical anomaly, they defied any human comprehension.
Its face was completely shrouded by long, tangled locks of reddish-brown hair.
No, it couldn't be.
"...Roben...to?"
A familiar voice croaked.
A single eye peered through the gaps of the reddish-brown hair. It was stained completely black, yet a lingering trace of someone familiar remained within that dark sclera.
"Ro...ben...to? Is... that... you?" the entity rasped in a trembling voice. "Save... me..."
One of its massive arms twitched. Its movements were no longer remotely human.
"My... body... is... strange..."
The creature took a step toward us.
"I want... to live... Robento..."
The black eye behind the tangled hair stared intently at the Hero. Robento seemed to have already realized the creature's identity, judging by the way he stood utterly frozen.
"General... could that be..."
"Your suspicion is correct."
At my confirmation, the Hero's knees buckled. He barely managed to support his weight by leaning on his sword. Tears began to stream down his face.
"Get a grip," I snapped, drawing my sword. "One slip-up and you're dead."
Even a glance was enough to tell that this was no ordinary demon.
Had she absorbed at least five fragments? I had no idea how her fragile body had managed to retain even a semblance of form after taking in that much power. Then again, that didn't matter in the slightest.
"I'm going in first. Pull yourself together and follow me."
The only thing that mattered was whether I could cut that thing down.
"Ar...sen... Ber...hart...?" the massive entity rasped, uttering my name.
"Yes, I'm glad you remember."
If so, it was only fair that I addressed her by name as well.
"Perlin Claire. Or rather..."
Perhaps she would prefer this name instead.
"Lee Haneul."