Chapter 196: To Hell (III)
The settling dust swirled through the freezing, heavy air of the cavernous hall. Ren Sihue stood perfectly still, his icy blue eyes locked onto the masked man standing amidst the shattered stone. He gripped the hilt of his short sword so tightly his knuckles had turned stark white.
The Joker leaned his weight awkwardly onto his uninjured leg and let out a long, exaggerated sigh. He dramatically pointed a white-gloved finger down at his own mangled knee. "Look at what you did to my leg," the Joker emphasized, almost with a childish pout.
Ren did not say a single word. He didn’t shift his stance, nor did he let a single trace of emotion show on his disciplined, stoic face. Yet, beneath his calm exterior, his mind was spiraling into panic.
How is this bastard still standing? Ren screamed internally, his eyes tracking the unnatural angle of the Joker’s knee. Does he not feel pain at all? And more importantly... how the fuck did he attack me like that?
Ren gritted his teeth, suppressing a violent wince. The kick he had taken to his abdomen had been devastating. He could distinctly feel the warm, coppery taste of blood pooling in the back of his throat, a clear indicator that one or two of his internal organs had taken severe damage from the shockwave. But the pain wasn’t what terrified him.
It was the impossibility of the interception. With his camouflage active, and his speed, his physical body had been moving at a velocity that easily exceeded a bullet train. He was a ghost. Yet, this monster had casually tracked his movement, caught up to him, and delivered a perfectly timed, pinpoint kick to his stomach.
He could absolutely not afford to underestimate this opponent. Yet, the longer he stared at the porcelain mask, the more an unsettling dread clawed at his heart. The Joker had just appeared from a spatial gate. That made absolutely zero sense. Humans couldn’t just open dimensional portals at will. Even after seeing so many impossibilities today—like the age of Commander Maddox—this specific anomaly was something that threatened to drive him completely crazy.
But Ren was the heir of the Sihue Clan. He was an assassin forged in blood and shadow. Forcing his breathing to slow, he cleared his mind, refusing to let the foreign, panicky thoughts take root. He needed an exit.
Keeping his peripheral vision anchored on the Joker, Ren quickly took in his immediate surroundings. The impact of the pillar had thrown him straight out of the Lich’s throne room and into a massive, open-air corridor just outside the main castle. The colossal, obsidian-like walls of the castle rose directly in front of him, stretching up to unknown, dizzying heights before disappearing completely into a suffocating ceiling of dark, bruised storm clouds.
The corridor he was standing in was unfathomably massive—easily wide enough to allow two heavy transport trucks to drive side by side. Glancing quickly, he noted that the stone path ended in a dead end to his right, while a massive, sweeping staircase descended into the shadows on his left.
Directly behind him ran a thick, heavy balcony railing, forged from the exact same dark material that comprised the rest of this hellish domain.
Ren slowly, meticulously began to retreat backward. His boots made absolutely no sound against the masonry. He chanced a look back at his opponent and blinked in bewilderment. The Joker wasn’t advancing. In fact, the masked freak was currently busy talking to the empty air. The Joker was wildly gesturing with his hands, bowing and nodding to an invisible audience in the empty corridor, acting as though they were in the middle of a grand stage play.
Taking advantage of the madman’s distraction, Ren finally reached the railing. He pressed his back against the cold stone and briefly looked over his shoulder at the drop below.
His blue eyes widened.
He was standing almost fifty meters above the ground level. Looking out over the edge, Ren realized that this colossal black castle was built on top of a massive, raised plateau. But it was the landscape stretching out beyond the castle base that truly sent a chill down his spine. Spread out across the massive expanse of the landmass were thousands of normal, mundane houses. It looked like a sprawling human city that had been ripped straight out of the real world and dropped into this dimension.
And at the very edge of the horizon, ending roughly thirty kilometers away from his current vantage point, the dark sky met a towering, blinding white barrier. The massive dome of light completely enclosed the city and the castle, isolating this entire island from world beyond it.
I have to reach that barrier, Ren calculated, his survival instincts screaming. If I can make it there, I can get out of here.
"Are you done checking the scenery?"
Ren’s heart completely stopped. The melodic, cheerful voice didn’t come from across the corridor. It came from directly beside his ear.
Ren snapped his head to the side. The Joker was leaning casually against the railing right next to him, his hands resting on the stone as he looked down at the sprawling city with the exact same curious posture Ren had just held.
Pure reflex took over. Ren violently channeled his mana into his arm, twisting his body and thrusting his short sword in a lethal, horizontal arc aimed directly at the center of the Joker’s chest.
CLANG!
A jarring, metallic screech echoed across the balcony. Ren’s breath hitched. The blade had not pierced the suit. The Joker hadn’t even raised his hands to block. The masked man had simply tilted his head down and caught the razor-sharp, steel blade directly between his teeth.
Ren pushed with all his might, but the blade was locked in an immovable vise. Terror flooded Ren’s veins, and he was forced to violently release the hilt, jumping back several yards to put distance between them.
The Joker casually spat the short sword onto the stone floor. He tried to take a step forward, but his mangled leg finally gave out. He staggered awkwardly, his balance failing, and collapsed heavily onto his backside against the stone floor.
"Ah, well," the Joker sighed, brushing some dust off his lapel with annoyance. "It is a hassle fighting like this."
The masked man lazily raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
Ren gritted his teeth, a profound madness creeping into his vision. The space directly beside the fallen Joker violently warped and tore open. A swirling, pitch-black gate manifested in the air.
Heavy hooves clattered against the stone as a massive, majestic Calamity Beast that looked like a corrupted, towering deer stepped out of the void. Before the dark portal could snap shut, a second blur of motion shot out. It was a short, feral, cat-like beast, and the moment its paws hit the corridor, it let out a rabid screech and launched itself directly at Ren’s throat.
Ren’s eyes flashed cold. He manifested a secondary blade from his spatial ring and swung it in a blinding arc. The dark steel sheared effortlessly through the feral feline, cutting the beast perfectly in half mid-air before its two bloody pieces crashed against the railing.
But Ren couldn’t celebrate the kill. He stood frozen, sweating literal bullets, his icy eyes locked onto the towering deer-beast.
The majestic Calamity Beast hadn’t attacked him. Instead, it slowly lowered its massive, antlered head toward the Joker. The beast extended a long, glowing tongue and began to gently lick the Joker’s broken leg. Ren watched in absolute, paralyzing horror as the shattered bones forcibly realigned themselves, the torn tissues and bruised flesh seamlessly knitting back together under the beast’s healing saliva.
At that exact moment, a cold, undeniable truth washed over Ren Sihue.
He was dead.
There was absolutely no hope of him making it off this island alive.
He was trapped with a teleporting monster who commanded gates and Calamity Beasts like trained dogs.
But as the Joker slowly stood back up on a perfectly healed leg, Ren’s fear evaporated into a chilling, fatalistic calm. He raised his blood-stained sword. If he couldn’t escape, then there was only one thing left to do. He had to stop this monster from reaching the real world, even if it cost him his life