The Second Capital
The Mendelssohn Grand Territory. It was the largest domain within the Ellemental Kingdom, encompassing the capital city of Raymond, and was commonly known as the "Second Capital."
"So you've gathered all the team members?"
Deep beneath the Mendelssohn territory, two figures strolled through an underground tunnel that stretched endlessly like a mine shaft, its end nowhere in sight.
"Send me the list later. I'll make sure they're granted eligibility for the competition in time for the awards ceremony."
Under the faint glow of light bulbs lining both walls, the man's figure came into view. He stood around 160 centimeters tall—a small man of unremarkable stature.
"Thank you for granting my request."
The woman following him, Julia Evergreen, looked down at the top of his head and gave a slight bow.
"It's nothing. Compared to all the trouble you've gone through, this is barely a favor."
The man waved his hand dismissively at Julia's thanks and let out a soft chuckle. Then, with a playful smile, he turned to face her.
"By the way, he must be quite the promising talent, huh? For you to pay this much attention to him."
I'm really looking forward to this, you know? Don't tell me he'll fall short of my expectations.
"No matter how much you like him, if he doesn't meet my standards, I have no intention of adding him to my team."
"I'm certain the team leader will approve of him as well."
At Julia Evergreen's words, the man's smile—the smile of Agni, leader of Violent Crime Team 1 in the Special Investigation Unit—deepened even further.
The great Julia showing this much confidence in a boy? He hadn't even seen the kid's face yet, but he was already excited. After all, he knew her personality well—she was notoriously stingy with her praise.
"Alright. Let's talk about that more seriously later."
Despite walking for what felt like ages, the end of the passage was still nowhere in sight. Just how deep had they dug this thing in only a few days? No matter how many times he saw it, the underworld's capabilities never failed to amaze him.
They created something like this using nothing but raw manpower, not even advanced technology?
Did the Seven Deadly Sins just snap their fingers and these hideouts popped into existence?
While he mostly handled cases involving the underworld, direct entanglements with the Seven Deadly Sins were extremely rare. This occasion had reminded him once again.
What made the Seven Deadly Sins truly terrifying wasn't just their superhuman strength—it was their overwhelming dominance and leadership, the kind that let them casually pull off feats like this.
The one and only system of order in a world drowning in chaos.
If we ever end up opposing them, this aspect will definitely make things complicated.
For now, they were allies. But Agni didn't believe this relationship would last forever. At best, it would hold until the continental conflict was resolved. The underworld could never be a permanent friend, and there was no guarantee the Seven Deadly Sins wouldn't turn into enemies someday.
That was why he always had to think about it—what he would do if he ever had to fight beings like these.
Of course, unless the Seven Deadly Sins are complete idiots, they wouldn't be waiting for us in a place this deep underground.
A secret hideout built far beneath the earth. It was the kind of place villains used in movies, but in reality, such locations came with far too many limitations. The biggest issue was escape routes. Unless a teleportation magic circle was installed inside, simply blocking the entrance made escape impossible. And even if a circle existed, tracing the coordinates to track them down was simple enough.
In any other country it might be different, but within the Ellemental Kingdom, this was among the worst possible choices. In other words, this tunnel wasn't built as a hideout—it was meant to function as a prison to contain something.
"We've finally arrived."
And what the underworld was keeping locked away here was now painfully obvious.
Unlike the dimly lit corridor, blindingly bright lights stabbed at their retinas. Julia frowned as an overwhelming stench of blood flooded her nostrils. The entire space was so saturated with it that even she—who prided herself on being used to the sight of blood—felt nauseous.
"You're already here?"
It was an incredibly bright space, yet the man within it made the atmosphere darker than anything else in the world. Agni clicked his tongue at the sight of Pride, who turned his blood-soaked head toward them, and walked over.
"As I thought, I just can't get along with you underworld types."
He openly displayed his disgust and rejection. Agni, now standing beside him, looked down at the rag-like figure sprawled on the floor.
"Is this what used to be Eun Ma-hyun?"
His appearance was horrific. Every inch of skin from head to toe had been stripped away. Muscles had been torn out fiber by fiber, and both eyeballs had been completely removed. His skull was split wide open, leaking brain matter, while the exposed brain displayed its every wrinkle in real time.
He was no longer recognizable as a person—barely even as a corpse. Just a tattered rag. The fact that he was still alive in this state only highlighted the terror of what Pride had done to him.
"Hmph. You people are far too soft."
Pride snorted as he wiped the blood from his face with a towel, clearly amused by Agni's look of pity and sympathy toward Eun Ma-hyun.
"Criminals who have been captured have no need for human rights. There's zero reason to grant any privileges to those who dared oppose us. With that kind of weak mindset, you'll never achieve the justice you claim to pursue."
Unlike Eun Ma-hyun, who had been reduced to this state, he had heard that Yoo Ha-ryang, who had been taken into police custody, was living relatively comfortably.
"We don't need to argue about our differing values right now, do we?"
Agni could not accept Pride. Pride could not understand Agni. Having lived completely different lives, their values were bound to differ. And as superhumans who had built their worlds upon those values, neither would be swayed by the other's arguments. Arguing about it now would only be a waste of energy.
"Any new information?"
"None. Only what we already know."
"So turning him into this was really just simple venting?"
"I merely gave a fitting price to an enemy who dared target us."
"Like I said before, that's enough. Why did you call us here?"
"It seems you didn't hear me properly. I said we give our enemies a fitting price, didn't I?"
The punishment for this incident was not yet over. While favors might be forgotten, even the smallest grudge had to be repaid. This had been a direct attack aimed at them. They could not simply let it slide. Repaying more than what was received—that was the way of the Death King Dark Heaven, and the law of the underworld.
"This time, I'll set the board myself."
With those words, Pride began to roughly explain his plan with a mocking smile.
"Have you lost your mind?"
Agni's face twisted in a frown. Hot magical power surged around him like a volcano, fueled by genuine fury at Pride's words.
"You want me to send my subordinates to their deaths with my own hands?"
If they followed Pride's plan, his men would inevitably die. Did he really think Agni would accept that? No matter how strong their alliance was, there were lines that could not be crossed.
"It seems there was room for misunderstanding in my words."
Pride readily admitted his mistake and offered a sincere apology.
"You simply need to temporarily assign my subordinates to the Special Investigation Unit. The ones who will die are mine, so your men won't have to make any sacrifices."
"......"
Agni fell silent at his following words. In other words, Pride was saying the underworld's people would be used as disposable pawns, so Agni had nothing to worry about.
"You just need to give them orders when I instruct you to. Announce that Eun Ma-hyun here will be transferred to the Raymond prison in the capital. If you can arrange for information to leak during the process, that would be even better."
"......You've gone mad."
The earlier question had now become a firm confirmation. He really was insane.
"For the leader of a Special Investigation Unit team, your realization comes rather late."
Pride didn't deny it. Instead, he flashed a wide grin—the kind of smile that lived up to his name, more arrogant than anyone else in the world.
Beyond the Cayenne County, which guarded the border with the Fan Empire.
Between the two nations lay a vast plain. It was a barren wasteland that couldn't even grow a single blade of grass, having endured countless large and small conflicts between the countries. The yellowish dead soil was cracked and desolate, and the stones scattered across the ground were all shattered into fragments too small to be of any use.
It was a completely open space with nowhere to hide.
The mages of Cayenne Territory stood shoulder to shoulder atop the castle walls, constantly watching for any possible surprise attacks.
"......"
A man walked casually through their vigilant perimeter. He revealed himself without the slightest concealment beneath the blazing sunlight and strode boldly between the watchful mages.
Yet none of the mages on guard turned their eyes toward him. It was as if they couldn't see him at all.
The human eye is surprisingly inaccurate. It is the sensory organ that delivers the most information to the brain. Because of this, the brain places excessive trust in the eyes and sometimes feeds it inaccurate data. It can make one believe they saw something that wasn't there, or fail to properly perceive an object right in front of them.
The technique commonly known as misdirection exploits exactly this kind of visual error.
And this man had reached the pinnacle of such techniques that a human body could achieve.
Hiding in everyone's blind spots was the absolute basics. If he swung a sword right in front of them, they probably wouldn't notice until their heads were already rolling.
If that were the case, it was an enormous relief that the man's steps were heading in the opposite direction from the castle walls.
"Did you enjoy your outing?"
Dry sand scattered like mist along with the blowing wind. A voice emerged from beyond the hazy shimmer.
At that voice, the man's—the Tugwi's—indifferent eyes turned in its direction. Simply meeting that gaze felt like it could sever one's neck. The other party clearly held no particular thoughts while looking at him, yet staring into those apathetic eyes would make anyone instinctively feel fear.
It was different from the Death King's eyes, which contained death itself. This felt more like the sensation of an ordinary person suddenly thrown alone and unarmed into a pride of lions. The instinctive terror of prey was constantly stimulated by the presence of a monster that had climbed to the top of the food chain using nothing but a human body.
"Ah, it's you."
After staring intently at the shimmering form for a long while, Tugwi finally let out a small exclamation as if he had remembered who it was.
Hadn't he been told this was the dark mage who followed the Undying King or something? He seemed to recall that this was the leader of Immortal, a force different from the church controlled by the Undying King, the one the underworld was openly impersonating.
The King of Victims. More precisely, those who willingly sacrificed themselves for the Undying King's goals. They dressed it up among themselves as noble sacrifice for a greater cause, but to Tugwi, it was nothing more than a dog's death—being used and discarded.
That was why Tugwi hadn't remembered him right away. He was too insignificant to bother keeping in his memory.
"Perfect timing. I was planning to visit soon to collect my due."
A sneer appeared on Tugwi's previously indifferent face.
"One of my subordinates was captured. How exactly do you plan to take responsibility?"
Tugwi demanded accountability even though he didn't truly consider Eun Ma-hyun a subordinate.
"Don't give me that nonsense about why you should be held responsible. I know you people lured him in."
"I won't deny it."
The Seven Deadly Sins hunt by the underworld. The reason Tugwi had blocked the Death King during that process was because of Eun Ma-hyun's request, but behind it all had been this man's manipulation first. It was also why Kindness, one of the church's seven cardinals, had participated in the fight.
"Don't worry. We also find it a waste to expend a piece like Eun Ma-hyun so carelessly."
They wouldn't kill Eun Ma-hyun. From what he'd seen so far, the underworld's second-in-command Pride had that kind of personality. At the man's tone—which seemed to show more affection for Eun Ma-hyun than Tugwi himself ever had toward his own cold-hearted subordinates—Tugwi snorted.
Well, he hadn't been serious about demanding real accountability anyway. He had simply wanted to give a small warning.
"Don't make me wait too long."
His body was still burning hot from the encounter with the Death King. Whether it was resurrecting the Undying King quickly or preparing the best stage to fight the Death King, he wanted them to move on something—anything—soon. Under that silent pressure, the man within the shimmer broke into a cold sweat and bowed his head.
"I will do my utmost."
"I don't put much faith in words. Prove it with results."
With those words, Tugwi walked straight past him toward the Fan Empire. When the shimmering man looked back, Tugwi had already moved far beyond the horizon.
As expected, absolute beings are never easy to handle.
It was absurd from the start for humans to try manipulating those who had taken even one step into the realm of the gods. Thinking this, the man also vanished along with the blowing sandstorm, heading in the exact opposite direction from where Tugwi had gone—toward the castle walls of the Ellemental Kingdom.