Chapter 357 - 357: The Thick Of It
Author's Note: Do Not Unlock Yet. Chapter Is Still Under Construction.
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"But something else was born from that ritual. Something twisted. Something vengeful. A remnant of the sacrificed lives—a malformed echo of suffering and agony."
Victor's eyes widened. "…the corrupt entity."
"Yes. That abomination is the collective resentment of the sacrificed mothers and unborn children, twisted by forbidden magic. It arrived on Earth alongside us. And from the moment it first opened its eyes—it hunted us."
Rhozan's voice cracked.
"It hunts us still."
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Victor's Reaction — A Line Crossed
Silence fell.
Victor felt his heartbeat hammering in his chest. For a moment, he couldn't speak. Couldn't think. All he could picture…
…was his mother back home.
Pregnant.
Vulnerable.
Human.
He imagined her dragged to an altar.
Begging.
Screaming.
No one helping.
His vision blurred with rage.
He spoke, voice low and cold.
"So all this time… the corrupted entity wasn't lying."
Rhozan flinched as though struck.
Victor laughed—but it wasn't humorous. It was bitter, sharp, furious.
"You sacrificed pregnant women," he said slowly. "For what? Some twisted idea of survival? And now you're shocked the consequences came back to haunt you?"
Rhozan whispered, "It was forty years ago… none of us here were involved…"
"Doesn't matter," Victor snapped. "Your civilization did it. And you hid it. You lied to me."
Rhozan lowered his head, shame flooding his eyes.
Victor took a step back, exhaling hard through his nose.
"I have a pregnant mom back home," he said quietly. "I have a baby sibling probably born by now. Do you think I'd ever forgive anybody who tried to sacrifice them?"
The chamber fell dead silent.
Rhozan's voice came out barely audible.
"I… understand your disgust, Great Iruhun."
Victor turned away, expression dark.
"I'm not your savior. Not after hearing this."
----sss
A cold wind whispered through the vast crystalline chamber as Rhozan's final words faded. Victor stood there, jaw clenched, fury simmering beneath his skin like molten ore. The truth he had just heard—the sacrifice, the cruelty, the birth of the corrupted entity—was a poison that stung deeper with every breath.
Ten pregnant women.
Ten lives.
Ten unborn children.
All slaughtered, forced into death "for the survival of their kind."
Victor didn't know whether he wanted to scream, punch something, or let out a bitter laugh at the absurdity of it all. He simply turned his back and took a step away, unable to look at Rhozan or anything in this chamber haunted by the weight of old sins.
But Rhozan's voice halted him.
"Iruhun… the story is not yet finished."
Victor didn't turn—not at first. His shoulders rose and fell once, twice, as he forced himself to swallow his anger enough to remain calm. Calm enough not to crater the ground with telekinesis or split the air with a qi-infused roar.
Then he pivoted slowly.
Rhozan's gaze was steady—resigned—but steady.
"You must hear the rest," he continued. "Only then will you understand the meaning of our desperation."
Victor exhaled sharply, then gestured toward the center of the chamber.
"Fine. Then start with him."
Suspended in the heart of the room, encased in a pillar of luminous crystalline radiance, was the stranger Victor had briefly noticed earlier—a man frozen in light. The beam pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat made of stars and fractured ice.
Victor approached, boots echoing on the engraved froststone floor. The closer he came, the clearer the figure became—tall, muscular, young. His clothes were foreign, not Kahr'uun-made. His face was serene but unmistakably human.
Human.
The word slammed into Victor's mind.
Rhozan spoke solemnly behind him.
"That is the last Iruhun before you."
Victor stared. "Before me? But you all call me Iruhun. You said the prophecy—"
"Yes," Rhozan cut in quietly, "but before you arrived, he did. Five years ago."
Victor blinked, genuinely taken aback. "That makes no sense. I thought I was—"
"The first? So did we," Rhozan replied. "Until he came."
Victor's brows drew low. "Explain."
Rhozan inhaled deeply, gathering resolve like a cloak around him. "I will start from when he arrived and why he fell."
He motioned toward the glowing figure.
"He came from nowhere. A tear in space and time opened in the middle of our old scouting tunnels. One moment there was empty air, the next—he stepped through. Just like you. And like you, there was no mana within him."
Victor stiffened.
No mana.
Exactly like him.
His mind raced—but Rhozan wasn't done.
"No one here had ever witnessed such a thing. A living being without mana is impossible in this world. Even a newborn contains at least a spark of elemental resonance. But he—just like you—had none."
Victor's heartbeat slowed.
This wasn't something he could ignore or rationalize.
There were only two explanations:
1. The man was like him and had cultivated without mana.
Impossible. Victor knew the rules of the game—Ascendant Realms didn't even exist five years ago.
2. The man had power from another world, entirely unrelated to the game.
Also impossible… wasn't it?
He folded his arms, eyes fixed on the suspended figure. "So what happened to him? Why is he locked in… whatever this glowing cage is?"
Rhozan's expression tightened with old regret.
"He learned the truth—just as you did. The sacrifice of the pregnant Kahr'uun, the birth of the corrupted entity. And he reacted the same way you are reacting now… with disgust."
Victor snorted. Of course he would.
Rhozan continued.
"But unlike you, he was… sentimental. Too sentimental. He believed the corrupted entity could be saved. He insisted that it was not its fault—that it had no choice. That if someone reached out with compassion, it might change."
"That's stupid," Victor muttered under his breath.
He knew firsthand what compassion got you in a world full of monsters: death.
"He tried to approach it."
Rhozan's voice lowered.
"Tried to speak to it. Tried to undo the corruption. He attempted to purge its essence, to change its nature."
Victor turned sharply. "With what ability? If he wasn't using mana, what power did he use?"
Rhozan shook his head. "We do not know. It was unlike anything we had ever felt. Even now, I cannot describe it. It was… unnatural. Like existence itself bent around him when he raised his hand."
Victor felt a chill run through him.
Qi.
It had to be qi.
What else bent the physical world?
But that wasn't possible. Five years ago, he wasn't even a cultivator. Ascendant Realms didn't exist. The Great Surge of Mana hadn't even happened yet.
So who the hell was this guy?
"And the corrupted entity?" Victor asked, forcing his voice steady.
"It became enraged," Rhozan murmured. "Not at us. At him. As if his very existence defied it. As if he was the opposite of what it was born from."
Victor frowned. "Meaning?"
Rhozan looked pain-stricken.
"The abomination attacked him with everything it had. And though he fought with impossible strength… he was injured beyond anything I had ever witnessed. His body was breaking apart before my eyes."
Victor finally tore his gaze from the glowing figure. "So you froze him here?"
"I sealed him in the crystalline stasis of our ancestors," Rhozan replied. "It halts the flow of time for the wounded inside. His injuries will not worsen—but they also cannot heal."
"How long has he been like this?"
"Five years."
Victor stared again at the stranger—his still form, the faint rise and fall of his chest preserved unnaturally by the light.
"Five years…" Victor muttered. "So then—since he failed—you assumed someone else would show up? Another Iruhun?"
Rhozan nodded.
"The prophecy said the Iruhun would come from beyond the veil—through space and time—and would possess a power no Kahr'uun could comprehend. It never said there would only be one."
Victor tensed at the phrasing.
From beyond the veil…
Through space and time…
That was exactly how he entered this underground city the first time—through spatial displacement. It wasn't teleportation. It wasn't mana. It wasn't a spell.
It was qi-based spatial movement from Ascendant Realms.
But this guy… he came years before that ever existed.
Rhozan looked at Victor, eyes heavy.
"You see the truth now. The previous Iruhun was powerful. Perhaps even stronger than you are now. But his compassion was his downfall. He believed the corrupted entity deserved redemption."
Victor scoffed. "Some things can't be redeemed."
"Exactly." Rhozan's voice cracked. "He learned that too late."
Victor stepped closer to the crystalline light. He placed his palm against it. The surface rippled with a soft luminescent pulse. A sense of cold—no, timelessness—washed over him.
Who was this guy?
How did he come here?
Why did he have no mana?
Why did he feel so familiar in a way Victor couldn't place?
He stared at the unconscious face, then muttered, "What the hell were you…?"
Rhozan's voice echoed gently behind him.
"Now you understand why we need you, Iruhun. Why we lied. Why we begged. Why we are desperate. You are not the first… but you may be the last hope we will ever have."
Victor didn't respond.
His thoughts were too wild, too tangled.
Another human cultivator?
A time traveler?
A dimension hopper?
A survivor from a different reality like Ascendant Realms?
Or something else entirely?
Only one thing was certain:
Everything Victor thought he understood about this world…
was about to collapse.
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