Vashno sensed the sudden change within the emperor. He glanced down toward the palace and saw that all the undead were dissolving into dark, oily liquid.

"What is happening...?" he muttered. His expression darkened.

His experience in this secret realm had always been dangerous, but never this strange. There were battles before, but nothing as twisted as what he was witnessing now. No undead outbreaks. No random surges of corrupted power. No inexplicable phenomena unfolding at the same time.

Yet now, everything felt wrong—unnaturally wrong.

...

Meanwhile, Doranjan, Eztein, and Esriel descended once more into the depths. The underground chamber greeted them with a cold draft and the faint thrum of dormant power. Runes carved into the stone floor flickered like dying embers around the circular platform, exactly where the teleportation array lay in silent anticipation.

Esriel’s gaze lingered on the unstable glow. "We’re actually going to use this...?"

"Yeah," Eztein replied, his voice steady despite the eerie stillness. He shifted his eyes to Doranjan.

Doranjan crossed his arms and gave a firm nod. "We need to find our friend. And if this realm hides something valuable... we’re not leaving it behind."

Esriel let out a long breath, a mix of exhaustion and resignation.

Only moments ago, they had returned from securing two legendary-grade fruits. The journey had been brutal—ambushes, traps, unexpected guardians—but they had survived. The fruits had been split between her and Doranjan, and after consuming them, she could feel the raw power simmering beneath her skin.

But even that newfound strength didn’t chase away the unease creeping along her spine.

Her eyes drifted toward Eztein again. Something bulged beneath the bandages strapped across his back—heavy, rigid, and ominously shaped.

"...I’ve been wanting to ask," she finally said. "What exactly are you carrying back there?"

"Oh, this?" Eztein touched the wrapped object lightly, almost reverently. "A weapon."

"A weapon?" Esriel frowned. "Then why didn’t you use it earlier?"

Eztein’s lips curled into a faint, unsettling smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes.

"They weren’t enough to make me use it."

The air vibrated faintly, as though the array had heard his words.

Esriel shook her head, letting the matter drop. Whatever Eztein carried on his back, it was wrapped in too much danger and too much mystery for her to pry further. Curiosity nagged at her, but instinct told her to leave it untouched.

She stepped toward the platform, boots echoing softly in the cavernous chamber. The runes etched along the circular stone began to stir, faint glimmers crawling like awakening fireflies. Esriel raised her hand and pressed her palm against the central glyph.

A deep hum reverberated through the chamber.

"Ohm..."

Threads of mana slithered across the symbols as the array awakened from its ancient slumber.

"This formation belonged to the former Ruler of Gluttony," she warned, her voice low. "Whatever’s waiting on the other side won’t be kind."

Eztein cracked his knuckles, purple sparks flickering across his skin. "Don’t worry. We’re ready to run if we have to."

The platform blazed to life.

Light erupted upward like a column of condensed starlight. Mana surged in all directions, whipping their clothes and hair as the space around them warped and tightened.

There was no need for further words.

The three exchanged a final glance, silent resolve passing between them, and stepped into the heart of the teleportation array.

Whoosh!!

The chamber vanished, swallowed in a storm of blinding brilliance.

A heartbeat later, the light collapsed inward.

The platform dimmed.

The hum died.

Doranjan, Eztein, and Esriel were gone.

Behind them, the statues that watched over the chamber stirred.

Their stone eyes flickered—thin, chilling streaks of bluish light—like something realizing it had been waiting for this moment.

Then, as if their purpose had finally been fulfilled, the statues crumbled into dust.

...

The world reformed around Eztein in a smear of fading light.

His vision steadied, only to reveal darkness.

A cold, cavernous darkness.

The air was damp and heavy, each breath clawing at his lungs with the stench of rot and blood. A thick, tar-like liquid coated the ground, glossy and black, rippling sluggishly around his boots. Faint candle flames burned in the distant corners, trembling like dying souls and painting the cavern walls in sickly orange pulses.

Eztein’s grip tightened on instinct.

"What... is this place?" he muttered.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Doranjan rumbled beside him, his deep voice echoing through the cavern.

Eztein turned and then froze.

Someone was missing.

"Where’s Esriel?"

Doranjan immediately scanned the gloom, aura flaring for detection. Eztein spread his perception across the cavern, tracing every flicker of mana, every breath, every pulse.

Nothing.

No faint heartbeat.

No mana signature.

No trace of her teleportation landing nearby.

"Did she trick us?" Eztein asked, but even as he spoke, doubt colored his tone. "No... I doubt that she’s that kind of person."

"Which means she never arrived with us," Doranjan said grimly. "Either the array split us... or it took her somewhere else entirely."

He knelt, dipping a finger into the dark liquid coating the ground. It clung to his skin like blood mixed with tar.

"My instincts are screaming," he said quietly. "This place is wrong. Very wrong."

"The former Ruler of Gluttony..." Eztein murmured, narrowing his eyes. "This could be a trap. Or a treasure. Or both."

He scanned the chamber more carefully.

The cavern was enormous with its ceiling stretched nearly five hundred meters overhead, vanishing into shadow. The passage ahead was wide enough to march an army through, carved in rough stone that pulsed faintly as if alive. The gloom carried a quiet murmur, a whispering that seemed to crawl behind their ears.

Eztein and Doranjan exchanged a look.

Then they began to walk.

Each step stirred the dark liquid, sending ripples toward the countless corpses littered across the passage, bodies bloated and half-rotted, their flesh sagging, their faces melted into unrecognizable horror. Some looked as if they had clawed at their own throats before dying.

A cold draft slithered past them, and the candles flickered as if the cavern itself exhaled.

And somewhere deeper in the darkness...

something moved.

"Just... what is this place?" Eztein whispered, though the cavern seemed eager to swallow his voice whole.

Doranjan said nothing. He simply walked beside him, every step slow and heavy, eyes narrowing at the oppressive energy saturating the air. It crawled across their skin like greasy fingers—malice so thick it felt almost alive. Familiar... and yet warped in a way that set their instincts on edge.

The dim candles mounted on the walls flickered weakly. Their flames barely survived a few inches before the darkness devoured them, the black liquid on the ground swallowing light like a starving beast.

Minutes dragged by.

Then, they saw them.

Figures clustered ahead, their silhouettes framed by a ring of candles placed with ritualistic precision. Each one wore a heavy black robe, the fabric stitched with a symbol they both recognized instantly:

A ravenous maw lined with jagged teeth.

The Army of Gluttony.

Eztein and Doranjan’s faces darkened.

’Gluttony Army...?!’

Even if they expected something related to Gluttony’s former Ruler, seeing these cultists here—inside a sealed secret realm—made no sense. The realm should have barred outsiders, yet these madmen had somehow slipped into its bowels.

But the true horror lay in the center of the ritual circle.

A cluster of bodies—still warm—knelt neatly in a pile.

Headless.

Decapitated with grotesque precision.

Their necks spouted slow, pulsing streams of blood that pooled into the black liquid beneath them, making it churn as if something beneath was drinking it.

The stench hit them next.

Thick. Metallic. Overwhelming.

Doranjan clenched his jaw.

Eztein felt his stomach twist, not from fear, but dread.

The Army of Gluttony had always been infamous for their madness. Their devotion turned men into beasts, into zealots willing to perform any atrocity in the name of their accursed god.

And now those zealots were here, in this nightmare cavern, performing a ritual that felt wrong even by their standards.

The robed figures swayed rhythmically, chanting in guttural voices that scraped against the cavern walls like claws.

The candles trembled.

The blood pooled.

And something beneath the dark liquid... stirred.

Doranjan and Eztein had dealt with far too many members of the Gluttony Army over the past four months. Enough to understand deeply just how terrifying this organization truly was.

They had learned its hierarchy.

Its madness.

Its unwavering devotion to the most ravenous of the Deadly Sins.

Beyond the Seven Gods themselves, the greatest threats were the Eight-Circle Officers—monsters in mortal form. Each Sin could have anywhere from one to five such officers, and every single one was a calamity capable of razing cities alone. Even now, after crossing blades with countless zealots and soldiers of Gluttony, Eztein and Doranjan had yet to meet an Eight-Circle Officer.

And that was a small mercy.

But there was something far more unsettling than the officers: the difference between a Deadly Sin officer... and a fanatic believer of the Ruler of Gluttony.

Deadly Sin officers followed all seven Sins as a collective. Their allegiance wasn’t bound to Gluttony alone, and thus Gluttony couldn’t simply command the entire hierarchy to move at his whim.

Fanatics, however—

The believers who carved Gluttony’s sigil into their flesh, who whispered his name like a prayer and a curse—

They served only him.

They threw away their minds, their bodies, and their humanity for the privilege of being devoured by their god’s ambition.

A fanatic believer was not merely loyal.

A fanatic believer... hungered.

And seeing them here, in this abyssal cavern, performing rituals soaked in blood and madness.