Confusion. Betrayal. Dread.
He wasn't asking.
He was declaring.
"…Is he robbing us?" someone whispered—thin, brittle, unbelieving.
"He's not one of us…"
Then—footsteps.
Adam stepped forward.
Young. Shaking. Burning with pride and righteous fear.
Each step up the temple stairs was slow, deliberate—like he thought gravity itself owed him respect.
His voice rang out, defiant:
"Who the hell are you to stop us?"
He pointed, chest heaving.
"We're going home—not handing over our hard-earned spells to some lunatic in a mask!"
Murmurs of agreement flickered through the crowd like sparks in dry grass.
"We survived this hell," Adam snarled. "We owe you nothing!"
Elara reached for him.
"Adam, don't—"
But he shook her off, fueled by a cocktail of fear, exhaustion, and raw, stupid bravado.
"You think wearing a mask makes you—"
He never finished.
Kael moved.
A flash of red steel.
A whisper of motion.
The sound: wet, soft, almost courteous.
Adam's head lifted from his shoulders like it had simply decided to leave.
His body lurched forward—one step.
Two. Three.
Then stilled.
The head hit the bottom stair with a dull thunk, mouth frozen mid-accusation.
He seemed to be trying to look back.
But the body no longer listened.
A single, perfect arc of blood traced the air.
Kael stood still, sword low, exhaling through his mask—not in regret.
In completion.
"Promise complete."
And then—
Screaming.
Real.
Raw.
Panicked.
Students scrambled, tripping over one another, hearts crashing faster than reason could catch.
Blood pooled at Kael's feet like spilled ink.
The rift shimmered behind him—wide open.
But now, no one dared move toward it.
Soon, it became a ritual of grief.
One by one, the survivors rose—quietly sobbing, some cursing the gods, others cursing themselves.
Most just stared into the distance, hollowed out by what they'd seen.
They moved like ghosts.
Slow. Detached.
As if their bodies hadn't yet realized they'd made it out alive.
With shaking hands, they began to write.
Scroll after scroll—inscribed with their strongest spells, years of effort now reduced to ink and fear.
A desperate offering.
And they handed them over.
To him.
The devil at the gate.
Kael stood still as stone beside the rift—sword in hand, blood drying across the blade in dull, rust-colored threads.
The divine fire had faded.
But the fear remained.
The red mask gleamed faintly in the shifting riftlight.
Unreadable. Patient. Watching.
He said nothing.
And they obeyed.
Inside the mask, Kael was unraveling—his breath shallow, every nerve on fire, vision threatening to collapse inward.
But none of it showed.
He was too busy trying not to laugh.
"You really fooled them," Yue murmured, floating above like a spirit only he could hear.
Kael didn't move. His shoulders didn't twitch.
But inside the mask?
He grinned.
Another scroll dropped into his palm.
Another spell.
Another prize for a bluff well played.
"They could kill you, you know," Yue said, voice dry.
"If they all came at once."
"Yeah," Kael whispered back, just for her.
A pause.
"But I've made sure they won't."
And he had.
That was the brilliance of it.
Every survivor here—each of them—was Rank 2.
Mages with real power, refined and deadly.
Kael?
Just Rank 1.
Exhausted. Bleeding.
Kept upright by adrenaline and pure nerve.
But they didn't know that.
They couldn't.
The mask—an artifact of Rank 8—concealed everything.
No aura, no mana presence, no visible rank.
For all they knew, he could be anything.
A cursed guardian. A divine executioner. A devil walking in flesh.
And Kael had leaned into that uncertainty like it was armor.
He never flinched.
He never swayed.
He never explained.
He spoke rarely—and when he did, the silence that followed was louder than his words.
And when Adam, one of their own, had stepped out of line?
Kael had cut off his head without blinking.
He didn't offer a warning.
He didn't offer a reason.
He simply acted.
And it worked.
Not just as a threat.
It fractured them.
Shattered whatever resolve they had left.
After everything—the undead, the fire, the darkness, the deaths—
Kael gave them something worse:
Doubt.
The fear not of what they knew, but of what they couldn't know.
What was he?
What else could he do?
What might happen if they said the wrong thing next?
He never answered.
He let their own imagination do the damage.
Now, they stood in line—silent, broken, obedient—offering scrolls like pilgrims at a shrine they didn't dare question.
"You're awful," Yue whispered, grinning.
Eventually, it was Elara.
She approached slowly, steps careful, scroll in hand.
Her gaze never left Kael's mask.
He didn't like that.
She was too calm.
Too composed.
And worse—she knew.
She'd seen Kaelion use magic.
She'd seen just enough to be dangerous.
Kael's fingers curled tighter around Dreamweaver's hilt.
He muttered low,
"Yue. What are my chances of killing this bitch right now?"
Yue appeared beside a broken pillar, arms crossed, her tone breezy.
"Ninety-nine percent."
Kael nodded slightly.
Good.
His grip shifted.
But then Yue added, far too cheerfully:
"Ninety-nine percent chance you lose."
Kael blinked.
"…What?"
"She's not dumb," Yue said, tilting her head toward the blood pooling beneath Adam's corpse.
"Unlike certain brave, headless individuals."
"And she's a princess.
Do you seriously think she came into a death temple without at least two life-saving artifacts strapped under that embroidered coat?"
Kael's hand loosened slightly on Dreamweaver.
He exhaled through the mask.
"Couldn't you have started with that?"
Yue shrugged.
"You looked confident. I didn't want to ruin the mood."
Elara finally reached him.
She held out her scroll, fingers steady.
Her expression was polite—but there was something in her eyes.
Not fear. Not respect.
Something cooler.
Calculated.
"I have a feeling," she said lightly, "that we'll be seeing more of each other."
Kael took the scroll in silence.
She didn't bow.
She didn't smile.
And she didn't look back as she stepped into the rift.
He stared after her for a long moment.
Then finally muttered, "What the hell was that?"
Yue, floating lazily above the altar now, tilted her head.
"I have no idea," she said.
Eventually, Kael noticed there was only one figure left in the temple.
Selene.
She stood near the edge of the crumbled hall, tense, eyes flicking between the rift and the broken altar like she was weighing something heavy.
Kael tilted his head.
"Why aren't you leaving?"
Selene didn't answer right away.
Then she said,
"My master is still inside."
Her voice was calm.
Determined.
"I'm not leaving without him."
Kael went still.
They hadn't spent much time together.
A few words. A few fights.
That was all.
But here she was.
The others had cried, begged, run.
She stayed.
Refusing to leave.
For him.
Even now—after everything.
Kael felt something unfamiliar stir in his chest.
It was warm, uncomfortable, and vaguely irritating.
Emotion, probably.
Selene glanced at the bloodstains.
The scattered scrolls.
Then sighed.
"I don't even know where he is," she muttered.
"He's stupid.
Always mouthing off.
Always doing reckless things without thinking."
She paused.
"…He bullies me constantly."
Another pause.
"But… he's my master."
Yue, floating nearby and watching the scene with half-lidded eyes, finally broke the silence.
"Is she trying to curse him or confess devotion? I can't tell.
Must be exhausting being that guy."
Kael stared at her, blank and unreadable.
It was always strange, watching someone talk about you like you're not there.
Especially when you're bleeding behind a demonic mask and actively lying to them.
He turned back to Selene.
His voice, when it came, was cool.
Controlled.
"…Your master's name is Kaelion?"
She tensed. Just slightly.
"Yeah."
Kael nodded once.
"He already left."
Selene blinked.
She opened her mouth—maybe to ask how he knew, maybe to challenge him—but then stopped.
He'd said the name without hesitation.
His tone wasn't casual.
It didn't sound like a lie.
He'd said the name without hesitation.
His tone wasn't casual.
It didn't sound like a lie.
But still… she hesitated.
Kael casually lowered his sword.
It was a small gesture—but the kind that meant everything when you were standing this close to death.
Selene watched him.
For a moment, her eyes lingered.
Maybe on the blade. Maybe on the man behind the mask.
Then she sighed—softly, like someone letting go of something heavy—and turned away.
She thought he wouldn't let her stay.
She stepped into the rift without another word.
Gone.
Kael exhaled slowly, the sound muffled behind his mask.
He glanced down at the scrolls in his hands—eleven in total.
Eleven powerful spells, wrested from fear and desperation.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
'Worth it.'
His dream of collecting the strongest spells in existence—once a mad ambition—now felt closer than ever.
Yeah, he's not exactly all there mentally right now
With slow, practiced fingers, Kael untied the red demonic mask from his face and clipped it to his belt.
It hung there like a grim memento, still warm from the fear it had caused.
He flipped his coat back to its original side—concealing his silhouette again, reverting to something that almost looked harmless.
Almost.
But the bloodstains stayed.
Smears on the sleeves.
Dried blotches at the hem.
A single red line across his collarbone that didn't even belong to him.
He shivered.
Not from guilt.
Just… bone-deep exhaustion.
I barely made it out alive…
One by one, he slid the scrolls into hidden pockets within the coat's inner lining.
Each one vanished like a stolen secret.
Then he turned toward the exit.
And stopped.
His eyes caught the statue again.
The dark deity loomed—unmoving, terrible, carved from some ancient black stone that didn't reflect light so much as swallow it.
Even now, long after the screams had died, it radiated unease.
Not divine.
Not cursed.
Something else.
Something worse.
Kael narrowed his eyes.
And then… he saw it.
Near the statue's base, tucked behind a slab of collapsed stone—something black.
Something faintly shining.
Subtle. Quiet.
As if it had waited.
Waiting just for him.
Kael's eyes fixed on the black, gleaming object near the statue's base.
He'd missed it earlier...
But now… it gleamed.
Like it was rubbing in the fact he'd overlooked it.
Slowly, he stepped closer, hand outstretched.
Just as his fingers were about to brush it—
"You're dead!"
Yue's voice screamed into his skull, making him flinch back as if she'd shoved a dagger into his chest.
His heart shot up into his throat, making him gasp like a man who had just seen his own funeral.
He stumbled, desperately clutching his chest, heart thudding in his ears.
Yue, of course, was laughing.
"Hahahaha! Damn, you looked like you saw a ghost."
Kael wiped the sweat from his brow, glaring at her like she was the source of all his nightmares.
"You are a ghost."
Yue smirked, leaning against the statue with the casual grace of someone who had perfected the art of tormenting people.
"Well, yeah.
But you really should have seen your face. It was priceless."
Kael's face hardened, voice deadpan as he spoke.
"Yue, if you ever do that again, I'll find a way to haunt you back, and
I swear, I'll be worse than your worst nightmare."
She paused, glancing at him with a moment of genuine awkwardness.
"Uh… yeah, I guess I kinda overdid it."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Kinda? I almost died from a heart attack.
No means no, Yue.
My heart went straight to my throat, and now I'm pretty sure it's stuck there."
A heavy, awkward silence hung between them.
Yue let out a reluctant laugh, her usual smugness slipping just a little.
Kael narrowed his eyes, shifting his focus back to the object.
"Do you have any idea what that is?"
Yue furrowed her brow and studied it, like she was trying to read the fine print on a cursed contract.
"Nope. Looks shiny, though."
Kael reached out cautiously and touched the black object.
The moment his fingers brushed it, a system notification chimed inside his skull, as cold and emotionless as the grave.
[Do you want to use Rank 1: Beast Taming Card?]
He froze.
"What…?"