‘Why did this happen? All these undead suddenly got up without Aziro being around… Did they get out of his control? Or was he secretly attacking me on purpose? The most important thing, though, is the body of Ezekie and he should be trying to seize it at all costs…’

  Illyan couldn’t understand how that man could die off so easily. In the first pce, the body in itself seemed to be suspicious.

  With great speed, Illyan ran away from the danger as he hoped to find an exit from this accursed pce.

  The walls were wet and dark, the ground was sometimes hard and sometimes soft.

  Navigating through this dark pce was very difficult, especially since he ran at almost full speed.

  However, he could hear that the undead didn’t give up on him as they made guttural noises behind him.

  Being pursued, Illyan had kept his fast pace and only used senses other than sight to feel the area around.

  The path had sharp turns sometimes, but Illyan didn’t slow as if he knew the path beforehand.

  At some parts of the tunnel, damages could be seen.

  The ground was depressed or filled with cracks; sometimes, it was even blocked because the ceiling colpsed.

  Without any surprise on his face, he met several times other groups of undead on his way that were lying down on the ground around these pces as if they were killed and then rose to fight, only to be abandoned by their master, making them wait in silence until someone came closer.

  Illyan had to get around every time and had to push his body through some unfavorable environments, as some pces were even flooded or some passages were too narrow for a normal person to pass.

  However, Illyan managed to do so smoothly.

  Obviously, undead creatures didn’t have a way to follow him and were left behind.

  However, Illyan’s problems didn’t end there.

  After a few hours of walking randomly around, he felt a chill in his bones.

  It was not just a feeling, as the temperature of the surroundings was actually rapidly plummeting.

  This made Illyan wary as he finally slowed down.

  ‘What now?’

  The damp air made his exhaled breath foggy as he slowly changed his posture while unsheathing his longsword.

  If the drop in temperature was gradual, he wouldn’t find it weird. Unless close to some of the underground magma sources or something simir, these dark pces far from the light of the sun tended to be cold and chilling.

  But this time, it felt as if he suddenly plunged into freezing water after sunbathing on a warm day.

  The shock was so great that even his body froze for a moment because of thermal shock.

  Fortunately, he shook it off soon after as his body adapted.

  With careful steps, he continued on his way.

  Finally, after a while, he found something new.

  “Reinforcement of the tunnel and railings…” Illyan muttered.

  The main tunnel he was walking through the entire time was without lighting or any other human tools, but now at the end of it, it finally got annexed to an even bigger tunnel.

  It was several times higher and wider than the one Illyan came from, and several lines of rails were going down the road.

  There were reinforcements made from steel and hardwood holding the entire pce even after years of abandonment.

  However, the most surprising thing to Illyan, who came here, was another batch of corpses.

  This time, these bodies were fresh, and they didn’t rise as the ones before.

  Illyan crouched on the ground and inspected some of the traces before he noticed the trails leading towards one side of the tunnel.

  ‘I shouldn’t waste time like this but…’ Illyan remembered the words that became the result of his divination.

  ‘Intangible Misfortune.’

  Illyan narrowed his eyes as he took out the phanges again and divined which side of the tunnel was better for him.

  When he turned towards the one where the trails were heading, the result was the same: ‘Intangible Misfortune.’

  This made Illyan smile as he turned to the other side.

  And then, he threw the phanges into the air again.

  Once they fell back to his hand, they revealed a new formation.

  When Illyan opened his palm to look at what it told him, he frowned.

  ‘Loss of opportunity.’

  ‘What does that mean? That the other side is dangerous but with high rewards?’ Illyan hesitated.

  He didn’t want to risk his life for a vague opportunity.

  At the same time, he was tempted to find the end of the trails not only for the sake of reward but also to find what happened.

  Both to Ezekiel and Aziro.

  Ezekiel was the one who created the Wendigos that attacked the vilge and was also trying to kill him personally.

  On the other hand, Aziro was the one who redirected that pack of Wendigos years ago.

  It was only written in Arwen’s diary, so he wasn’t sure if that was true or if these Wendigos were the ones who attacked his vilge on their own, but his intuition told him that it was him.

  Only Aziro could have forced Ezekiel to abandon his creations to survive at that time.

  This was the conclusion that Illyan came to.

  Of course, there were still some things that Illyan didn’t know about, but if he managed to find what was at the end of this passage, maybe he could finally get closure to this painful part of his life.

  With strength in his legs, he took the first step inside the dark passage.

  Without risks, there would be no rewards. He had already made a conclusion a long time ago.

  As such, he didn’t hesitate anymore as he sped up with the sword in his hands…

  ……..

  As he dived deeper into that passage, the temperature got even colder. It was at that time that Illyan realized there had to be some source of this chill at the end for this to be happening.

  ‘But what is it? Cold Energy? No, there is no way for it to be this… How would it get from the Cold Sea to this pce? Underwater tunnels?’

  As Illyan pondered this, his senses caught a scent of blood.

  There was no rotten smell this time, as the temperature was too low for the corpses to decompose.

  Sensing this, Illyan made haste.

  And soon he got to the end of the passage.

  It was a dead end with only a big rocky wall in front of him.

  However, that wasn’t what Illyan focused on…

  There were dozens of bodies.

  They were not just some bodies but that of Wendigos.

  They y there covered in wounds, especially burn wounds.

  Some of them had turned into just charcoal, vaguely reminding Illyan of humanoid figures with only the antlers being untouched.

  The interesting part was that while the bodies were burnt to a crisp, they were still covered in a thin yer of ice because of the extreme cold radiating around them.

  Illyan looked around in hopes of finding the source of this cold, but instead, he found one Wendigo’s corpse covering something.

  Seeing this, Illyan frowned as he reached out and turned the body over to see what it was.

  “What in the world…” Shock was pstered on his face.

  Under the Wendigo’s body was another body.

  This time, it was not the body of the evil spirit.

  No, it was a body that was familiar to Illyan.

  “Ezekiel? How…?”

  It was also Ezekiel's body.

  The body wasn’t burnt as heavily as the other body, so Illyan could easily recognize him.

  ‘Did I mistake that first body for Ezekiel? After all, the face was covered in burns too…’ Illyan considered that he was wrong but shook his head soon after.

  ‘Impossible. With my Eyes of Truth, there is no way I wouldn’t recognize him… Not to mention… This body is suspicious too.’

  With that thought, Illyan checked if the body had something interesting on it.

  But nothing was found, same as the st body.

  ‘Tch…’ Illyan clicked his tongue in disappointment and continued looking around since watching this body any longer was just a waste of time at this moment.

  Instead, he wanted to look around to find something interesting.

  And he did so when he looked closely at one of the Wendigo’s maws.

  When he came closer, he realized that its jaw was half-open as if gnawing at something.

  His intuition told him to look at it, so he used his hands to forcibly open the clenched mouth.

  Crack

  The jaw cracked after this violent approach, but Illyan didn’t care as he pulled the thing covered in saliva out of its mouth.

  It was another human body.

  It was visibly chewed and some parts were missing, but Illyan could feel the same rotten aura that the undeads were giving off.

  However, the body didn’t belong to the undead.

  So there was only one option left.

  “This should be Aziro’s body… Or is it also fake?” He was almost disappointed. He wanted to take care of the man himself. However, realizing that Aziro didn’t have an easy way out, he was somewhat appeased.

  Illyan looked at the body remains that were hanging from his hand.

  Most of the limbs were torn apart while the organs spilled from the stomach. It had signs of burns, frostbite, and even necrosis on some parts, with his face being almost melted.

  Surprisingly, the body itself was still warm. Or rather…

  ‘Hot!’ Illyan hissed as he let go of the body and looked at his hand in bewilderment.

  His entire hand was white and devoid of warmth as it turned hard to the touch.

  ‘It is devouring the heat!’ Illyan realized the crux of the matter as he retreated as fast as possible.

  He did right so as Aziro’s orifices suddenly engulfed in dark green fme before consuming the entire body as it started to levitate in the air.

  These fmes were so hot that the body immediately turned into ash as the rock started to melt.

  But Illyan only felt chill as the warmth from his body was stolen.

  “Aargh! You b-bastards..! How dare you! I knew that you wouldn’t let my body off! Die! Die! Die!”

  The only thing left of Aziro’s body were his now green haunting eyes as the entire body disappeared, leaving only the outline of a humanoid body made out of the green fme.

  Only his robe was left unscathed while his entire body warped into that of a monstrous appearance.

  “A ghost?” Illyan looked on in surprise. He didn’t expect to find this here…

  ‘Wait… Intangible Danger? Fuck…!’ Illyan suddenly realized what the runes’ prediction was about.

  It was a danger he couldn’t do anything against since it was intangible…

  Aziro, who was breathing heavily with the fmes jumping around in excitement, finally looked at the man who disrupted him.

  “Huh…? You are not Ezekiel? Are you… No, I recognize you… You are the one who caused this. If it wasn’t for youuu! I wouldn’t have had to travel to this shitty pce!”

  Without waiting anymore, Aziro waved his hand as a pilr of green fme rained upon Illyan.

  “Die!”

  Illyan’s face turned expressionless as he calmed down.

  ‘There is no time to wonder what it is. I just need to survive. Either by escaping or sying it…’

  With that thought in his mind, Illyan rolled over to one of the beast Wendigos and used the body as a shield.

  Boom

  Explosions rang out as the body turned into ash while Illyan was thrown heavily away.

  There was a crater on the ground with a puddle of molten rock at the bottom.

  “Eh? Eh? Eh? Where are you? I can feel you! You are not dead! Bastard!” As if having a mental breakdown, the thing started howling as its body began to morph even more.

  Its cws elongated while its fangs became sharper.

  ‘I remember that malevolent ghosts were called… Wraiths? I wouldn’t be surprised if the remains of Aziro turned into that if he held this much resentment in his heart,’ Illyan thought as he brandished his sword.

  “Hahahahah!? Swords are useless! I am a new me! That bastard thought that killing me would be easy, but he didn’t expect me to turn into undead myself! That’s the cost of ignorance, you wretches!” Aziro screeched in an inhuman way as he flew towards Illyan.

  Now that he was in wraith form, he didn’t walk on his legs and instead flew at high speed towards him while sending the green fmes everywhere.

  Illyan frowned as he sidestepped and retreated from the charging creature. He was aware that using a sword against a wraith was a useless endeavor, but there were still things he could try.

  Ssh!

  Without hesitation, he infused his sword with flow and tried to bisect the enemy.

  However, before the tip of the sword even touched the tongues of the wraith’s fmes, Illyan felt his flow inside the sword being rapidly consumed.

  Illyan had the feeling that once his flow was consumed, it would be the sword that melted instead.

  It was only after getting so close to the fire that he finally felt the horrifying heat coming off it. Any farther and the immense chill would assault him. It was as if all the heat from the surroundings was sucked inside the close area around the fire to sustain it.

  That made Illyan horrified as he jumped backward.

  “Hahaha! Useless! Useless!” Aziro ughed as he made circur motions with his hands.

  Balls of fmes were left in the wake of the hand movements as they burned intensively.

  There were nine of these balls as the wraith’s face distorted with sadism.

  “Burn!” The balls, once motionless, suddenly sprang into action as they flew at Illyan at high speed.

  Illyan, who had just retreated, saw this and frowned. He could dodge some but not all of them.

  ‘Flow is too low-ranked energy to fend this off… Is there no other action other than taking these fireballs on?’

  Illyan wasn’t confident he could endure.

  Especially since he felt some of his memories fshing up in his mind. He knew how it felt to be burnt until the bones were charred bck. It was a heavy feeling to be threatened by the same pain again.

  ‘If close combat doesn’t work, then ranged will do so!’ Gritting his teeth, Illyan aligned his sword to swing it in the most efficient way and performed his self-created move [Air Ssh].

  The way the sword moved was so fluid that it drifted through the air with almost no resistance while only a small amount of wind rode on the edge of his sword.

  The moment the wind and the edge of the sword separated, the air was split into two as the ssh traveled at high speed.

  Illyan swung the sword in a way to hit as many of the green orbs as possible.

  The diagonal ssh actually managed to hit up to four of these orbs.

  Unfortunately, what did the normal ssh have that flow didn’t?

  Illyan didn’t keep his hopes up as he continued backing up.

  However, something peculiar happened.

  While the ssh couldn’t split the fire orb, it looked like it interfered with the orbs’ trajectories as they swerved to the side where they exploded.

  “How?” The wraith’s eyes spewed fire as he looked at Illyan’s attack in anger and bewilderment.

  Illyan was also surprised for a moment.

  ‘It was just air. How could it deflect these magical fmes…’ Illyan looked at the other orbs in confusion as he sent another air ssh at them, and the same thing happened.

  However, this time, Illyan could see the crux of the matter.

  ‘Spirit Particles! Oh right, the air itself is abundant with Spiritual Energy!’ “Hahaha,” Illyan couldn't help but ugh at this ridiculousness.

  ‘Ghosts… Spirit… I see, I see…’

  Baring his teeth while still ughing, Illyan looked like a monster prepared to hunt.

  “So that’s how it is. Maybe my spiritual path isn’t completely cut off,” Illyan said to himself as he stared at the wraith with a greedy and lustful expression, his face showing a rge grin.

  The stare was so intense that even Aziro, who was turning crazy, felt a strand of crity in his mind as he sensed extreme danger.

  ‘W-who is that bastard?’