Kiaria opened his eyes.

The pseudo palace was silent.

Diala, Princess, Azriel, Aizrel, and Mu Long remained deep in spiritual cultivation, completely unaware of what had just unfolded inside the dungeon domain.

Kiaria didn't wake any of them.

He rose soundlessly and stepped into the Ghost Prison domain.

Inside, Ru and Yi were still focused on their research, carefully studying the strange dandelions growth on the beast corpses. Their concentration was absolute. Kiaria watched them for a brief moment, then turned away and exited the domain again.

He remained hovering.

Moving straight toward the outer door as if the spatial isolation didn't exist.

Down below, in the fourth-floor formation room, the Xiuli Tribe's ritualist watched the pseudo palace through his monitoring array. His eyes narrowed. He didn't dare provoke them. Not yet. Without absolute certainty of victory against beings of that level, any hostile move would be suicide.

To avoid conflict, he unsealed the door remotely by manipulating the formation eye.

Kiaria passed through the wall as if it were mist.

The surface rippled silently behind him.

He drifted into the empty marketplace. Stalls stood abandoned. Streets were lifeless. Not a single soul moved. The entire district felt like a city that had forgotten how to breathe.

As he floated toward the slavery market, Kiaria initiated spiritual communication with his beast companion through the Will of Life connection.

Now.

Far away, inside the relic world, the Spiritual Spring Embryo responded.

By now, it had already reached the same realm and cultivation height as Kiaria's main body. Without hesitation, it vanished from the spatial ring and teleported directly into the dungeon domain.

The ritualist never noticed.

–

Inside the dungeon…

The humanized form of the Spiritual Spring Embryo appeared within Roga Roya's spiritual perception.

Roya's eyes widened instantly.

The pressure of that presence crushed what remained of his sanity.

"L-Lord… save me…" Roya sobbed, slamming his forehead against the stone floor again and again. "Save me from the evil beast. I won't do anything anymore. I swear I won't harm anyone. Please… please…"

His voice cracked into hysterical begging.

"Really?" the Spiritual Spring Embryo asked calmly.

"Yes! My Lord, I swear on my life!" Roya cried. "I'll change. I'll repent. I'll do anything–just save me!"

The Spiritual Spring Embryo studied him silently.

Then it snapped its fingers.

The hallucinations vanished.

The screaming stopped.

The shadows dissolved.

Roya's mind cleared as if cold water had been poured over it.

He blinked.

And found himself standing in front of the first dungeon chamber again.

The bars were normal.

The corridor was normal.

The slime was gone.

His chest rose and fell in ragged breaths.

But he wasn't alone.

The boy stood there.

Behind the bars.

Watching him.

Enjoying his collapse.

Roya's lips trembled. "N-No… not you…"

The prison door creaked open by itself.

"Come out," the Spiritual Spring Embryo commanded.

The boy stepped forward slowly, eyes blazing with anger.

"Who are you?" the boy demanded.

"I am the God of this domain," Kiaria said through the Spiritual Spring Embryo's form. "This place exists under my authority. Your life, for now, is in my hands."

"God?" the boy spat. "What god? I don't acknowledge eyeless, heartless gods."

Kiaria didn't react.

"What is your name?" he asked.

The boy hesitated, jaw clenched.

"…Geng."

"Geng," Kiaria said quietly, "I heard your miseries. I saw your cries. Now I'm here to bring you justice."

Geng laughed bitterly.

"Justice?" he said. "Can you bring the dead back to life? Can you return our happiest years? Can you bring back my mother and sister?"

Kiaria met his gaze.

"I can bring them back," he said.

Geng's breath hitched.

His fists trembled.

"Then do it," he whispered. "Bring them back. Please."

Kiaria shook his head slowly.

"If I do," he said, "they won't come back the way you remember them. They won't laugh the same. They won't sleep the same. Every morning they will wake up knowing they already died once. Every night they will wait to die again."

Geng's lips parted.

Tears welled in his eyes.

"That isn't a gift," Kiaria continued gently. "That's a slower punishment. For them."

Silence filled the chamber.

"Justice isn't undoing what happened," Kiaria went on. "Justice is stopping the one who caused it from ever doing it again."

He stepped aside, revealing Roya.

"You will decide his punishment for today."

Geng's breathing quickened.

"But you cannot take his life," Kiaria added. "And I hope you won't turn into him by the end of this."

Geng stared at Roya.

His hands shook.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then his voice broke with rage.

"If I can't kill him…" Geng said hoarsely, "then I want him tortured until he begs for death. I want him to eat his own flesh. Cooked. Raw. Turned to ash. I want him whipped. I want him strangled. I want him fed to the same kind of thing he used on others."

Roya screamed.

Kiaria nodded slowly.

"As you wish. That will be his punishment."

He turned back to Geng.

"Your will to survive is strong," he said. "You are assigned a task. Protect the girl named Mimi. If you do this well, I will take you as a half-disciple and teach you alchemy so you can protect others in every tribe and the mortals here."

The Spiritual Spring Embryo dissolved into light.

"Think about it," Kiaria's voice echoed through the dungeon.

–

Roga Roya collapsed to the floor.

"No… no… NOOOO…" he screamed.

The world twisted.

The nightmare restarted.

This time, Roya was conscious.

He knew exactly what was happening to him.

And that made it far worse.

The last scraps of pride inside his chest finally melted away. His shoulders slumped forward, and his hands trembled as he raised them weakly in front of his face, as if trying to shield himself from something that wasn't there.

"Please… please… let me go…" Roya begged hoarsely.

The air around him stirred.

Whispers slid through the darkness.

Not one.

Not two.

Dozens.

"Save us…"

"Let us go…"

"Why didn't you save us…?"

Roya swiped his hand wildly through the empty air, as if he could brush the voices away. His breath came in broken gasps.

"Shut up! Shut up!" he screamed.

The voices only grew closer.

A sobbing whisper brushed against his ear.

"Let us go…"

Another voice rose from the opposite side.

"You fed us to it…"

From every direction, the dead closed in around him.

Roya clawed at his own hair and collapsed to the stone floor, curling inward. He pressed his forehead between his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his head, as if he could hide from his own mind.

Still, the voices didn't stop.

"Geng… boy… let me go… spare me…" he cried aloud, his voice cracking inside his own spiritual perception.

Something soft landed soundlessly above him.

The small white spiderling dropped from the ceiling and settled onto Geng's shoulder. Its body was glossy and harmless-looking, its many eyes bright and alert.

Geng stiffened.

"A-are you the one controlling him?" he asked in a low voice.

The spiderling tilted its head.

Then slowly swayed it up and down.

Yes.

Geng's fingers curled into fists.

"Then make him beg to die," he said through clenched teeth. "Make him see the ones he killed. Let them haunt him. Let him feel what they felt."

The spiderling swayed its head again.

And the dungeon responded.

The whispers sharpened into screams.

The darkness thickened, pressing inward like a suffocating fog.

Shapes began to form around Roya.

Faces he recognized.

Eyes he remembered.

Mouths that had once begged him for mercy.

They stepped closer.

One by one, Geng whispered his wishes into the silence.

And one by one, those wishes came true.

Roya screamed until his throat tore raw.

He pleaded until his voice broke.

He clawed at the stone floor until his fingers bled.

He begged for forgiveness.

He begged for death.

Finally, his spiritual perception collapsed.

His eyes rolled back.

His body went limp.

He fainted.

Silence returned to the chamber.

Geng stared at him, breathing hard.

"…That's it?" he muttered.

The anger inside his chest still burned fiercely. The vengeance in his heart hadn't settled. Not even close.

He stepped forward and kicked Roya's side.

"Stand up!" Geng shouted.

No response.

Geng crouched down, yanked the whip from Roya's slack hand, and lashed it across his back.

The sound cracked sharply through the chamber.

Roya didn't move.

Didn't groan.

Didn't even flinch.

Geng stepped back, chest heaving. His hands shook as he stared down at Roya's unmoving body.

He began pacing back and forth, teeth clenched, fists tightening and loosening again and again.

The rage inside him still hadn't found an outlet.

Not yet.

–

Meanwhile…

Kiaria drifted into the entrance hall of the fortress.

He was still hovering.

The massive doors stood open.

Inside, the stone floor was covered with bodies.

Diseased.

Fatally injured.

Disabled.

Association members lay scattered across the hall like beggars abandoned on a street.

The air reeked of blood, sweat, and medicine.

When they saw Kiaria at the entrance, a ripple of panic moved through the hall.

The family members caring for them dropped to their knees instantly, foreheads pressed to the floor.

Some of the injured tried to rise as well.

Broken legs dragged uselessly.

Crippled arms trembled.

Several collapsed again in pain, but still tried to bow.

Kiaria didn't stop them.

He didn't tell them to rise.

Not because he enjoyed seeing others kneel–

but because authority, once softened, could never be reclaimed.

And because he needed to see their loyalty.

He let them kneel.

He let the silence stretch.

No one dared to speak.

Not a single cough echoed.

Only the sound of labored breathing filled the hall.

Far above them, on the fourth floor…

The ritualist shivered.

The ritualist suddenly stood up from his seat.

A sharp, cold fear gripped his chest.

He swallowed hard and rushed out of his room, bolting down the stairs from the fourth floor toward the entrance hall.

"Damn these cursed stair setups…" he muttered, panting. "These camouflage formations and hidden passages…"

His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he ran.

–

Below, in the entrance hall…

Kiaria finally moved.

"Rise," he said.

His voice wasn't loud.

But it carried.

The kneeling crowd stiffened.

An elderly woman gripping a wooden staff shook her head and remained bowed.

"We are not worthy to stand before you, my Lord," she said in a trembling voice.

"Yes… we are not worthy," others echoed in unison.

Kiaria's irises brightened, turning into a misty white monochrome.

"Are you defying my order?" he asked.

The word order fell like a blade.

The pressure in the hall doubled instantly.

"F-Forgive us, my Lord! We didn't mean that!" they cried.

Fear rippled through the crowd as they hurriedly forced themselves to their feet.

Some stumbled.

Some nearly collapsed.

Kiaria's gaze swept across the hall.

"Can't you see your disabled kin struggling to stand?" he said coldly.

"Help them back onto their beds."

The families jolted into motion.

They rushed to support the injured, lifting them carefully, guiding trembling bodies back onto their resting mats.

Broken limbs were cradled.

Crippled legs were supported.

Bloodied bandages were adjusted.

Only when everyone had settled did Kiaria speak again.

"Good."

A young man with a twisted leg raised his head slightly.

"My Lord…" he asked respectfully, voice weak. "Are you here to visit us?"

Kiaria's gaze dropped onto him.

"Do I need to inform you?" he replied flatly.

"And are you worthy of my answers?"

The young man froze.

"I–I…" he stammered, unable to finish his sentence.

Kiaria raised one hand.

A dense mist of soft white light poured from his palm.

It spread outward like a silent tide, rolling across the stone floor, climbing over beds, swallowing bodies.

Within seconds, the entire hall vanished into blinding mist.

No screams.

No prayers.

No footsteps.

Only silence.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Nothing emerged from within.

–

At the entrance…

The ritualist arrived.

He stopped dead.

His pupils shrank.

The hall was completely sealed behind a wall of glowing white mist.

He didn't dare step closer.

He stood several paces away, heart pounding violently.

"What happened in there…?" he thought.

"Are they all dead?"

A voice erupted from within the mist.

"What are you doing here?"

The ritualist flinched.

"Or do you want me to judge you right now?" the voice continued calmly.

"Or do you want to try your talisman on me?"

The word talisman pierced straight into his mind.

His thoughts shattered.

His knees nearly buckled.

"H-How does he know…?" the ritualist panicked.

"How does he know I use talismans? How does he know I'm here?"

"This distance… this thick mist… how is he seeing me?"

He tried to swallow.

His throat was numb.

He couldn't gulp.

He couldn't spit.

Cold sweat poured down his back.

Terror finally overwhelmed him.

He turned and ran.

But he slammed straight into something invisible.

A presence.

He slowly lifted his head.

Kiaria was already hovering in front of him.

The ritualist screamed silently and spun around in panic.

The mist was gone.

The hall behind him was completely normal again.

His staff slipped from his trembling fingers and clattered onto the stone.

He collapsed to his knees.

"I–I…" he stammered.

He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for death.

"Three days," Kiaria said quietly.

Then he vanished.

–

The ritualist collapsed flat onto the floor.

His body shook violently.

His chest heaved as he gasped for breath like someone who had just escaped drowning.

He stared at the empty hall with bloodshot eyes.

Three days.

Only those words remained.

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