Chapter 352: A Trap
Chapter 352: A Trap
"Don’t waste my time. Get up," Rhain commanded, his voice completely devoid of any sympathy as he looked down at the battered mercenaries. "Lead us directly toward the Scorched Umbral Zone."
The mercenaries scrambled to their feet, their bodies still trembling uncontrollably from the sheer, overwhelming pressure Rhain had casually released.
The lingering terror of the deep basin still gripped their hearts, but the fear of the monstrous youth standing before them was infinitely greater.
The scarred leader swallowed hard, wiping the mud and blood from his swollen jaw.
Looking into Rhain’s cold eyes, he knew that refusing was not an option.
""Y-Yes, my lord," he stammered respectfully, the tone of his voice taking a full three sixty degree turn. "My name is Karsten. And these men... we are the last surviving remnants of the Golden Arrow Sect."
Sensing the immense disparity in power and fully aware that their lives rested entirely on Rhain’s whims, Karsten felt the need to explain their background, hoping to garner even a sliver of sympathy.
Karsten let out a bitter, self-deprecating sigh. "Years ago, our sect was completely destroyed by a rival faction in the Inner Province. Hunted and with nowhere left to run, we were forced to flee into the Sunless Umbral Basin."
He gestured toward the oppressive area around them. "To survive, we became scavengers. We usually stick to the mid-zones of the basin to harvest beast materials and venom sacs. The inner zones are notoriously lethal. Not only are the beasts there monstrous, but the terrain constantly shifts. It is a death trap."
Rhain’s expression did not change in the slightest.
"I am not paying you to scare me with your warnings," Rhain replied indifferently. "Lead."
Karsten gritted his teeth, not daring to utter another word of protest.
He signaled his men, and the group began their march into the deepest depths of the Sunless Umbral Basin.
As they ventured further, the environment grew exponentially more hostile.
Rhain and Lyra were fine, but Karsten and his men were forced to push their Core Formation essence to the limit just to maintain their protective barriers.
Suddenly—
RUMBLE—!!!
The blackened earth beneath their feet began to tremble violently.
"AMBUSH!" Karsten roared, his face turning deathly pale. "Draw your weapons!"
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
The ground burst open, and a massive horde of terrifying creatures erupted from the subterranean depths.
They were heavily armored, multi-legged beasts, their grotesque mandibles dripping with a glowing purple venom.
"Corpse-Eater Centipedes!" one of the mercenaries shrieked in panic. "And they are all at the late-stage of the Core Formation Realm!"
The sheer number of the beasts was staggering.
There were easily over fifty of them, swarming out of the earth to completely encircle the group.
HISSSS—!
Drops of the glowing purple venom splattered onto the ground, instantly melting the solid stone into a bubbling puddle of foul-smelling sludge.
"Don’t let that venom touch you!" Karsten bellowed with terror. "It can effortlessly melt through a Domain Master’s protective essence!"
The mercenaries backed up against each other, their hands shaking wildly. They were exhausted, and facing fifty late-stage, burrowing beasts with highly lethal venom was a guaranteed death sentence.
But before a single beast could lunge—
Rhain simply stepped forward.
"Step back," Rhain commanded calmly.
Fwoosh—!
A majestic blood-red fire ignited at his fingertips.
"Empyrean Purgatory Bloom. First Form."
Rhain casually raised his hand.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of exquisitely beautiful, blood-red lotuses bloomed in the dark surrounding, drifting gracefully toward the roaring horde of Corpse-Eater Centipedes.
The moment the first petal touched a beast.
BOOM—!!!
A cataclysmic explosion of blood-red fire swallowed the entire horde.
"SKREEEE—!"
The horrifying shrieks of the beasts were instantly cut short.
The heat of the Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame effortlessly incinerated their heavily armored shells.
In less than two seconds, the entire horde was wiped out.
Only dozens of scorched, lifeless carcasses remained on the steaming earth.
Karsten and his mercenaries stood completely frozen.
To annihilate a horde of late-stage Core Formation beasts instantly, without even using a weapon?
This man perhaps hadn’t used even a single percent of his strength while facing them.
They could not understand that if they all were at the Core Formation Realm, them why was such a disparity?
But as the shock faded, naked greed quickly took over.
The corpses of these rare beasts were incredibly valuable in the outside world!
"The beast cores! And their venom sacs!" Karsten yelled, "Quickly, harvest them!"
They expected the dark-robed youth to take all the spoils.
But Rhain didn’t even spare a single glance at the loot.
So, the mercenaries frantically scrambled forward, digging their daggers into the scorched carcasses to extract the glowing cores and intact venom glands.
The fearful reverence in their hearts for the mysterious youth deepened into profound awe.
To casually discard such massive wealth meant this youth existed on a plane of power they could not even fathom.
"Let’s move," Rhain said, resuming the march.
-----------------
The journey continued for over a day.
By the middle of the second day—a day and a half into their grueling march—the atmosphere remained as cold as ever.
The oppressive, blistering heat that supposedly defined the Scorched Umbral Zone was absolutely nowhere to be felt.
Lyra’s patience finally snapped.
Swoosh—!
She drew her star-forged rapier, her crimson eyes flashing with a fierce rage.
"You useless trash!" Lyra snapped,"We have been walking in circles for an entire day! There is no heat! There is no Scorched Zone! Are you deliberately leading us into a trap?!"
Karsten’s knees weakened with fear. He dropped to the ground, trembling uncontrollably.
"P-Please! Spare me!" Karsten cried out, "I swear we are not leading you into a trap!"
"Then why have we not arrived yet? The journey was supposed to take only one day!" " Lyra demanded furiously.
Karsten dropped his head, knowing that he didn’t have any other choice.
"Because... because we don’t actually remember the exact path!" Karsten confessed, "We only came close to the Scorched Zone once, many years ago! We were led by a senior who had reached the early stages of the Domain Master Realm!"
Hearing this, Lyra’s face twisted in outrage. "You dared to lie to us?!"
She raised her rapier, fully intending to end his miserable life.
"Stop."
Rhain’s chillingly calm voice cut through the air.
Lyra halted her blade, turning to glare at him. "He lied to us, Rhain! He doesn’t know the way!"
Rhain completely ignored Karsten’s pathetic trembling.
His footsteps abruptly halted, and his dark grey eyes narrowed sharply as he stared into the dense, looping fog ahead.
"It is not his fault," Rhain stated, his tone incredibly solemn as he looked at his surroundings.
Rhain could sense it.
A profound, highly unnatural distortion in the fundamental spatial laws around them.
It was as if the space was folding around them.
Rhain pushed his vast, ocean-like Soul Power to its absolute limit.
His dark grey eyes instantly ignited with a golden light.
He directed the full might of his golden gaze straight into the path ahead.
Even the supreme penetrating power of the Eyes of Truth struggled momentarily.
The bizarre spatial distortion violently resisted his gaze, rippling like a disturbed lake.
RUMBLE—!!!
As if responding to his realization, the earth shook violently.
The thick, dark fog ahead of them parted like a curtain.
Karsten and his men screamed, falling backward onto the dirt.
Materializing out of the space, towering hundreds of feet into the gloomy sky, was a colossal, ancient gate covered with runes.
It seamlessly blocked their entire path forward.
"W-What is that?!" Lyra gasped, her haughty demeanor vanishing in an instant.
Rhain turned his head around.
Where the petrified forest and their footprints should have been... there was nothing.
The path behind them had been completely erased, replaced by a swirling void of pure darkness.
It seamlessly blocked their entire path forward.
Karsten stared at the towering structure, his eyes wide with terror.
"I-I swear!" Karsten shrieked frantically, "I swear to the gods, I had absolutely nothing to do with this! We have never seen this gate in our entire lives!"
He looked at Rhain, terrified that the demonic youth would instantly execute him for leading them into a trap.
"Please believe me! This is not my doing!" Karsten begged, his forehead pressed against the blackened earth.
RUMBLE—!!!
Suddenly, the earth shook even more violently.
The ancient runes carved into the towering stone began to glow with a blinding brilliance.
CREAAAK—!!!
With a deafening sound, the massive gates slowly began to part.
A blinding white light spilled out from the opening, instantly piercing through the perpetual gloom of the Sunless Umbral Basin.
The light was so intense that Karsten and his men had to shield their eyes.
Just as everyone was confused, an ancient voice clearly echoed in their minds.
"The path behind is severed. The void consumes all who turn back. If you wish to leave this domain with your lives intact... you must enter."
The mercenaries were shivering uncontrollably.
"Enter... enter that thing?" one of the mercenaries stammered, his teeth chattering. "Are we going to die?"
"We can’t go in there! It has to be a death trap! We have to go back!" another mercenary cried out, completely losing his mind to fear.
But when they turned their heads to look back, their hearts plummeted into a pit of despair.
There was no path back.
Lyra gripped the hilt of her star-forged rapier so tightly her knuckles turned bone-white.
"What do we do..." Lyra looked at Rhain with an anxious look, "We don’t know what is waiting for us inside. If we step through, what happens to us? We might never come out alive."
Rhain stared into the glowing crimson rift, his dark grey eyes narrowing.
"We have no other choice," Rhain stated coldly, "We are trapped."