Chapter 103: ¹⁰³Cave Behind The Waterfall
The red glow behind the frozen ice waterfall blinked brightly. A soundless signal. The inhabitants within had already smelled their arrival.
Atop the frozen steep cliff, Ethan Valen wasted no time.
He slowly unclasped his black cloak, soaked from the snow. He let the heavy fabric slide down onto the frozen earth. Under extreme temperatures capable of killing an ordinary human in minutes, Ethan was left wearing only his long-sleeved black shirt.
Valera’s focus was stolen.
Two dense hot spots ignited from behind Ethan’s shoulder blades. Without the sound of an explosion, the air suddenly distorted terrifyingly. A pair of giant wings spread wide, cleaving through the night.
Azhyrael.
The base of the wings was pitch-black like a bottomless abyss, while the tips blazed bright crimson.
Valera’s mouth parted slightly. Her golden eyes widened, radiating a mixture of vigilance and awe.
"You’re... a winged monster," she muttered unconsciously.
The gust from those wings repelled the snow around them. Ethan turned around. Without permission, he pulled Valera’s waist tightly toward him.
His right arm wrapped casually yet securely around the knight’s neck—his fingers accidentally pressing right over the black spiral rose Lust Brand tattoo.
Valera’s body tensed instantly. Her ice-cold cheeks suddenly flushed hot. To cover up her crumbling defenses, she responded sarcastically.
"Tch. What a polite grip, My Lord," Valera mocked cynically.
Ethan’s brown eyes stared at her coldly. Then Azhyrael flapped with full force.
BWOOSH!
A blast of wind slammed into the cliff, sweeping the snow clean down to the bedrock. Ethan and Valera’s bodies shot out like a bullet, cleaving through the dead valley’s thick fog and nosediving directly toward the giant waterfall below.
For Valera, this flight was extraordinarily brutal. The extreme air pierced her body like thousands of ice needles. The night wind slapped her face mercilessly. Her ears rang.
However, amidst that elemental torture, one thing surpassed it all.
Ethan’s fingers on the left side of her neck triggered a chain reaction on her Lust Brand. An extraordinarily dense and intoxicating heat surged from deep within her own veins. Valera had to bite her lower lip hard. She fought desperately so that agonizing moan of pleasure wouldn’t escape her throat.
At the same time, Ethan appeared entirely focused. He ignored the freezing weather, while deliberately paying no mind to Valera’s trembling body in his embrace.
"Brace yourself. We’ve arrived," Ethan said flatly.
They nosedived sharply. Right before slamming into the ice floor, Azhyrael flapped hard in reverse to dampen their landing momentum.
CRASH!
The ice floor vibrated. Snow and small rock fragments scattered.
Once stabilized, Ethan immediately released his embrace. Valera hastily stepped back, lowering her face, regulating her rapid breathing. The left side of her neck still felt as if it were on fire.
Now, they stood purely at the bottom of the Dead Valley.
The atmosphere was far more terrifying. Thick gray fog hung waist-high, concealing the lethal, slippery black ice floor. Sharp frozen rocks jutted out like the fangs of an ancient monster. Every breath taken here felt like it scratched their lungs.
From up ahead, a repeating low rustle echoed. The resonance of the giant frozen waterfall.
Valera took a long breath and ignited her Golden Beast Aura. A faint golden glow coated her skin. Her senses sharpened drastically, piercing through the fog.
"Footprints ahead," Valera reported, her eyes scanning the ice floor. "Not ordinary human tracks. The weight of their steps is far too heavy."
Beside her, Ethan unlocked the [Eye of Desire]. His eyes caught dirty fluctuations of mana leading straight to the base of the waterfall.
"Avoid the center area. There’s a giant cavity right beneath this ice," Ethan warned calmly. "We’ll take the left edge path."
They hurried. Valera leaped nimbly from one stone footing to another, while Ethan traversed the edge of the ice almost soundlessly.
However, nature had its own traps.
When the tip of Valera’s boot landed on a black ice slab, the sound of a subtle crack shattered the silence.
CRACK!
The crack spread like lightning right beneath the knight’s feet.
"Run!" Ethan ordered sharply.
Both shot forward at the exact same second. The giant ice slab behind them collapsed completely, swallowed into a bottomless black chasm. Its roaring sound bounced horrifyingly off the valley walls.
Valera glanced over her shoulder, clicking her tongue in annoyance. "That was close."
"Next time cut down on your meat portions, Valera. Your load is too heavy," Ethan commented in an extraordinarily flat tone.
Valera snorted loudly. "Huh? This is pure muscle, just so you know! And this steel sword of mine weighs as much as a tree trunk!"
They continued to close the distance until they finally arrived in front of the giant frozen waterfall.
At the lower portion of that sky-high ice wall rested a gaping dark fissure. A red glow pulsed slowly from within, as if inviting them into the jaws of death.
Valera sniffed the air deeply.
"Five humans. And two feral monsters," Valera reported precisely.
Ethan didn’t answer. He immediately stepped inside through the dark ice fissure without a shred of hesitation.
The fissure led to a small stone platform. At its far end stood a giant basalt gate engraved with a single eye featuring a cracked pupil in the center.
True to Valera’s scent, the welcoming committee was already waiting.
Four humans in shabby black uniforms drew daggers coated in corrosive poison. Behind them, a fat, bald-headed man gripped two thick iron chains.
The chains bound the necks of two chest-high feral monsters. Their form resembled deformed wolves with dirty gray fur, randomly jutting fangs, and a pair of pale yellow, starving eyes.
"Hah! Look who came to deliver their lives," the foremost guard mocked while spitting to the side. "Just two pieces of trash meat."
The second guard narrowed his eyes, then laughed out loud. "Wait... I know that face! That’s the Northern Dog! Looks like Duke Rosenberg sent his pet dog until she got lost all the way out here!"
Hearing that insult, Valera displayed a feral smirk that made the air around them plummet.
"You’ll realize just how sharp this dog’s bite is when my fangs rip out your throats later," Valera hissed.
The fat tamer wasted no time. He unclasped the chains. "Slaughter them!"
Both deformed wolves howled and lunged simultaneously.
The first monster leaped high, aiming for Ethan’s throat.
The young man didn’t even blink. Velcrasia was summoned from the void. The dark red demon whip shot through the air with a lethal lash.
CRACK!
The tip of Velcrasia struck squarely on the monster’s forehead. Its skull exploded into fragments like glass. The lifeless body crashed down at Ethan’s feet, dirtying the snow with black blood.
At the same time, the second monster lunged at Valera from below.
The knight didn’t dodge. She drew her Zweihander. With a single vertical slash from bottom to top coated in Golden Beast Aura, she cleaved the creature apart.
SLASH!
The blade tore through the monster’s jaw, neck, and collarbone. Cleaved in two almost symmetrically. Hot blood and entrails spilled, flooding the platform.
Seeing their two primary monsters killed in a single breath, the four guards’ eyes bulged in panic. Driven by despair, they lunged together.
Their final mistake.
Valera twisted her waist. A horizontal slash swept through the air. The two guards on her right side were severed cleanly at the neck. Two heads rolled with bulging eyes.
Ethan handled the rest. Velcrasia coiled around the third guard’s neck, and with one precise snap, a loud crunch echoed. The last guard almost stabbed his dagger into Ethan’s chest, but the demon whip struck his ribs first, crushing his lungs.
In less than twenty seconds, six corpses lay scattered.
The fat tamer lost all his sanity. He fell to his knees, crying hysterically, begging for mercy.
"S-Spare me...! Please, I’m just a lowly monster handler! I was forced to serve The Hollow—!"
Valera stepped closer. Without changing her expression, her sword swung once. The tamer’s head detached from his shoulders, hushing his crying forever.
"A good servant wouldn’t survive in a demon’s nest," Valera said coldly as she flicked the remaining blood off her sword.
Ethan offered no comment whatsoever. He strolled casually past the pile of corpses toward the single-eyed stone gate.
His right palm was pressed against the cold stone surface. Sin Mana was funneled in thinly, letting the pure dark energy seep into the pores of the gate.
Responding to the intake of dark mana, the eye engraving blinked bright red. The crack in its pupil expanded, splitting the basalt stone from top to bottom.
With the heavy grinding sound of stone, the giant gate swung open.
Ethan and Valera stepped inside. The moment their boots touched the corridor floor, blood-red torches ignited automatically on the stone walls, spreading light along the path ahead.
The walls had been modified with demonic magic. Thousands of contract symbols glowed dimly and shifted. Skulls with green flames in their eye sockets filled the niches of the hallway. The suffocating smell of dried blood and sulfur wafted up.
"Don’t touch the walls," Ethan warned softly. "Every engraving is a curse seal."
Clearly, this was a pathway specially designed for intruders.
Having walked barely a dozen steps, the stone beneath Valera’s feet suddenly cracked without any mechanical warning. The floor caved in.
Before gravity could swallow Valera, Ethan’s left hand shot out like lightning. He grabbed the back collar of Valera’s armor, then pulled and hurled the knight across the death pit with pure physical strength.
Valera landed on one knee. She looked down into the hole. At the bottom, hundreds of rusted steel spikes coated in green poison were ready to impale anyone who fell.
"It seems your eyes are serving as display ornaments today?" Ethan taunted casually as he leaped over the hole.
Valera bit her lip, holding back her embarrassment. "Tch. I trusted this flat stone footing too much. Damn it."
They resumed moving. However, the next trap offered no respite.
As they passed a gargoyle statue, dozens of poisoned arrows shot soundlessly from the crevices of the walls. A rain of death from two directions.
Valera responded quickly. She raised her Zweihander and precisely parried two arrows aiming for her chest. The clinking of metal echoed.
Beside her, Ethan merely tilted his neck and shifted his shoulder a few millimeters. Three arrows shot through the empty space around his body without nicking a single thread.
"Cheap trap," Valera grumbled annoyedly, kicking an arrow near her feet.
The corridor finally came to an end. They stood on the threshold of a giant chamber resembling the stomach cavity of a mountain.
Pitch-black stone pillars towered high. Red fires burned from the cracks in the floor, casting wild shadows. In the center of the room, a black obsidian altar stood firmly atop a circle of blood runes.
And in front of that altar stood the host.
He wore a thick black robe. An iron chain was driven directly into the skin of his neck—the sign of an absolute demon contract. His face was covered by a plain white ceramic mask that was severely cracked at the left jaw, revealing skin as pale as a corpse.
The Hollow turned around slowly. His eyes, entirely pitch-black without any white, stared down Ethan and Valera eerily.
"Lowly brat who killed Orel the foolish mage," The Hollow’s voice echoed, bouncing off the cave walls. His gaze shifted. "And you... Northern Dog. How unusual for Alaric to send you out this far... has he run out of other dogs that he had to sacrifice you?"
Valera returned that gaze coldly. Her jaw clenched, but she held herself back, waiting for her master’s command.
The Hollow snorted softly, staring intently at Ethan. His gesture was condescending.
"Orel was truly an idiot for allowing himself to be killed by a human like you," The Hollow mocked arrogantly. "I’ve scanned you ever since you entered. No contract demon aura. No pungent smell of mana. You’re just a lowly mortal lucky enough to breathe your way in here. Did you think you could touch me?"
Ethan looked at the masked man who was drunk on his illusionary arrogance. His expression was dead.
"Are you done talking?" Ethan asked extraordinarily flatly, completely cutting off the enemy’s monologue.
Hearing that indifferent response, The Hollow’s laughter broke into a furious growl. He spread both his arms.
A suffocating aura of contract demons exploded. The torches vibrated violently. Shadows on the walls writhed wildly.
"Let me show you... the absolute power of darkness!" The Hollow growled.
From behind the shadows of the altar pillars, three humanoid figures stepped out. Their footsteps crushed stone.
Hollow Thralls.
Their height was nearly two and a half meters. Their dark gray skin was torn to shreds, exposing terrifyingly twitching black muscle tissue. Their eyes burned bright red without pupils. Their nails elongated into obsidian claws.
"The best results of my magical experiments," The Hollow praised proudly. "Select humans I transformed perfectly. Tireless, and... unkillable."
Seeing those monsters, Valera actually rested her Zweihander against her shoulder. Her feral smirk expanded wide.
"In that case, they just need to be killed in an extraordinary way," Valera commented cynically, popping her neck with a crack.
Ethan took one step forward. Velcrasia fell and pulsed on the stone floor. His brown eyes slowly flared crimson, ready to harvest souls.
"Don’t die here, Valera," Ethan said without looking back, cold yet absolute.
Valera tightened her grip, locking her target onto the largest monster in the center.
"Those should be the words meant for them, My Lord," Valera replied defiantly.
In the next second, the first Hollow Thrall roared loudly and charged like a lethal bullet, officially beginning the true show of blood.