*BOOM!*
Amid the enormous sound of explosive destruction, Riezel—his entire body engulfed in raging flames—descended from the collapsed ceiling, falling together with countless fragments of stone and rubble into a stone-made passageway on an even deeper floor.
Compared to the labyrinth-like corridors of the previous floors, this place showed no particularly obvious differences. Only the air had become noticeably more turbid, letting him know that he was indeed continuing to descend deeper into this Man-Made Dungeon.
"Hm?"
Just as Riezel prepared to keep cutting through the floor to head for the next floor, he realized that the situation around him had changed.
On the earlier floors, no matter where he went, his path would immediately be blocked by falling orichalcum doors, after which the surrounding walls, floor, and ceiling would split apart and, like the Dungeon, spew forth countless monsters.
However, this time he found that monsters were no longer pouring out, the orichalcum doors were no longer falling, and the passage ahead was completely unobstructed and open to view, with even a faint divine aura spreading toward him, making his entire body tense instinctively as though he were being drawn toward one or more noble existences somewhere ahead in the corridor.
Noticing this, Riezel stopped what he was doing and narrowed his eyes.
"...Are you inviting me over?"
Riezel saw through the essence of this phenomenon and roughly guessed who awaited him ahead.
"Interesting."
Hence, Riezel did not continue descending further, but instead put away his sword, returned Hermit to the storage space of the Dimensional Magic Cube, and, with Fool still strapped at his waist, walked in the direction from which the divine aura was emanating.
As he walked on, at some point unknown to him, the structure ahead of the passage changed. What entered his view was no longer the monotonous stone-made corridor, but a spacious hall unlike anything found in an underground labyrinth, though there was still no sunlight, nor any moonlight. Only faintly glowing, pale-blue magic-stone lamps illuminated the surroundings, creating a quiet, tranquil atmosphere.
Continuing forward along this serene and spacious hall, Riezel soon entered an even broader hall. It was a hall where several long pillars stood in orderly rows, supporting the entire space.
Looking at this hall, anyone would think of two words at first glance.
One was a temple, while the other was a ruin.
Even though there were no statues of gods here, the surroundings were carved with mural after mural—some painted on crimson stone slabs, others etched into cracked and faded rock walls—and judging from their appearance, they did not seem to have existed here from the beginning, but rather looked like things that had been dismantled from elsewhere and then transported here.
Riezel swept his gaze over the contents of those murals.
Some depicted giant dragons, while others showed monstrous birds, raging bulls, ferocious beasts, lizards, giants, or monsters whose true forms were difficult to discern, making it clear at a glance that they were countless creatures from the Dungeon.
All these monsters were roaring, bellowing, rampaging, and running wild as they relentlessly chased screaming and wailing humans.
Needless to say, this was a calamity scene that humanity in this world had encountered countless times before, the very image of the past, present, and even future of humanity, which had long suffered from the monsters pouring out of the Dungeon.
Nearly all the murals placed here depicted such scenes, and only one mural was different.
Riezel’s vision was instantly drawn to that mural.
In it, a giant dragon of terrifyingly immense size stood at the center, and six maidens in sacred vestments encircled it, forming a six-pointed star. All of the maidens had their eyes closed, their hands clasped together, as though praying, yet also as if singing.
Evidently, this was...
"Gate of Heaven..."
As soon as these words left Riezel’s mouth, a voice filled with surprise suddenly rang out as well.
"You actually know Gate of Heaven?"
Hearing these words, Riezel withdrew his attention from the mural and turned toward the direction from which the sound had come.
Over there, three figures had appeared at some unknown point in time, standing side by side in the deepest part of this temple ruin. A faint divine aura emanated from the three of them, telling Riezel that the ones who had invited him here—no, that the gods—were precisely these three before him.
Riezel also recognized the identities of these three gods—or rather, he had already guessed them long ago.
Standing on the left was the war goddess from Telskyura—Kali.
Standing on the right was the mistress of the Entertainment District and also a goddess of the same nature as Freya, a Goddess of Beauty—Ishtar.
Standing in the middle was a god from Evilus—Thanatos.
Setting aside the first two for the moment, the identity of the latter was precisely one of the primary objectives of the Loki Familia’s expedition.
He was the last surviving god among Evilus’s gods, whom the world called ’evil gods.’
He had led the remaining remnants of Evilus, protected former Evilus members, including Valletta, and over the past five years had recruited countless members willing to become disposable soldiers, allowing Evilus, which had already reached the end of its road five years ago, to barely cling to existence.
It was also he who led the Evilus remnants to join the Corrupted Spirit, accepted the invitation of Enyo, and sank into collusion with them, intending to use the power of the Corrupted Spirit to destroy Orario.
Among the three underground organizations that made up the underground forces, one leader was the god before Riezel, a being like a condensed mass of darkness itself.
In other words, if the Loki Familia wished to protect Orario and eliminate the members of the underground forces, then the god standing before him was an existence they absolutely had to confront.
Facing this evil god—who had very likely allied with the Ishtar Familia and the Kali Familia and was using Knossos to deal with the Loki Familia and with Riezel and the others—Riezel merely narrowed his eyes slightly, his expression remaining exceptionally calm.
"Looks like it really is the Gate of Heaven."
Riezel, almost as if chatting casually, turned his head and looked back at the mural—or rather, at the giant dragon depicted on it.
"Then this dragon must be the legendary Nidhogg, right?"
Hearing this, Thanatos froze slightly at first, then let out a low chuckle.
"You really do know quite a lot, Loki’s pride and joy."
Thanatos even explained things to Riezel in a calm, measured tone.
"The world knows of the Three Great Quests, and of the existence of the land king Behemoth, the sea tyrant Leviathan, and the Black Dragon, now the One-Eyed Black Dragon—those three kings of monsters."
"However, before the targets of the Three Great Quests—that is, before those three kings of monsters appeared—there was actually another monster that could truly be called a king, one that brought unimaginable calamity to the Lower World and plunged its people into a terrifying despair for a long time."
"And that king was Nidhogg."
Thanatos shrugged.
"Unfortunately, it was destroyed by the six great spirits. Otherwise, the One-Eyed Black Dragon might have had to compete with it for the title of king of dragonkind, don’t you think?"
It was a story from an age long past—the era when Nidhogg existed was far earlier than even the ancient times of a thousand years ago, far more ancient than the histories of the current three kings of monsters.
Because of that, very few people in the world still knew of Nidhogg’s existence, and hardly any related records had been left behind.
Of course, the various gods certainly knew, since their lifespans could be measured in hundreds of millions of years. For the gods, the era of Nidhogg might have felt like something that had happened not long ago.
"I’m actually quite curious that you even know about this," Thanatos said as he looked at Riezel with a rather meaningful gaze. "You should know that even for us, if someone doesn’t deliberately bring it up, we might have already forgotten about that time. You know, the murals here were all brought over by little Ein at Enyo’s request. I don’t know why, but that one seems particularly attached to this old matter."
Clearly, this was a probe.
As a god, Thanatos understood very well that a true probe was not achieved by revealing nothing at all and hoping to gain more information—that was merely wishful thinking. Only by first revealing a bit of one’s own information and using it to guide the other party in a limited way could one obtain increasingly detailed intelligence—that was a real probe.
Therefore, Thanatos chose to reveal information about Enyo, the figure most likely to draw the Loki Familia’s interest, ensuring that he himself would not suffer losses while still serving the purpose of probing.
Especially when the target was a mortal, this method of probing would be extremely effective. Because mortals could not lie in front of gods, this was a considerable advantage for the gods.
In fact, within the underground forces, information about Enyo was truly the most important, since that being was the initiator of everything.
It was Enyo who found the Corrupted Spirit and offered up their own servant as a sacrifice, turning that servant into a Creature and thereby establishing contact with the Corrupted Spirit, obtaining her assistance.
It was also Enyo who found Thanatos, contacted the remnants of Evilus, and devised the plan for the destruction of Orario.
It could be said that the reason the three underground organizations had colluded together was entirely because of this city destroyer.
Thanatos believed that as long as he brought up matters concerning the mastermind behind everything, the Loki Familia would take the bait.
Such a line of thinking could not be called wrong, but unfortunately, the person he faced was Riezel.
"You don’t need to probe me like this, God Thanatos," Riezel said calmly, his expression indifferent. "I know far more about Enyo than you imagine, even more than you yourself do. Using that one to probe me won’t have any effect."
Hearing this, Thanatos’s expression stiffened slightly.
In response, Riezel spoke with a faint, knowing smile.
"You don’t actually know that much about Enyo either, do you? I’m not wrong, am I?"
Indeed, Thanatos did not understand Enyo.
He had never even seen Enyo and did not know whether that being was a god or a mortal, since the only one he had met was Ein, that masked Creature loyal to Enyo. All of Enyo’s will and intentions had been conveyed to him through that Creature.
"Gotta say, you’re rather pitiful, Thanatos."
Riezel spoke bluntly, shaking his head with a pitying expression.
"Out of your whole faction, you’re the only one, a god of Evilus, just running around in the open, while the other two haven’t even shown their faces."
"The real body of the Corrupted Spirit is still unknown, hiding on some floor of the Dungeon, and all that has appeared outside are her avatars and lackeys."
"Enyo has also never appeared in person—only their spokesperson has."
"Only you have been personally handling everything, doing all the dirty work yourself."
"Don’t you think you kinda look like a tool they’re using?"
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[A bonus Chapter for every 300 Power Stones.]
[Support me and read next Chapters early at: /VALRRR]