Chapter 219
Neo ignored the conversation between Vey and Gabriel. Whatever deal the two of them struck was their business. He had no interest in stepping into it. He turned away and walked through the quiet corridors of his castle until he reached the throne room.
He sat down on the high seat, resting both hands on the carved armrests. His mind turned over the next steps. Gabriel could no longer lean on her old rank as a general. That left gaps in both the devil and angel sides. He needed fresh threads of connection in each faction before those gaps closed against him.
He let out a short breath. Zod and the knight were gone. Two useful puppets, lost. If that succubus was clever enough to piece together the names she had already heard, she could trace the trail straight here. He needed at least thirty stars of strength before she found him again. Anything less and the next meeting would not end in his favor.
Neo rubbed his forehead. The list of things still waiting for him felt endless. Then a bright system window slammed across his vision and blocked everything else. His eyes widened as he read the words. He sighed once.
"As expected," he muttered. "Great people like me never get time to rest."
The quest text was clear and cold.
An ancient demon of forty stars would break free of its seal soon. Zita and Delta had joined a party sent to strengthen that seal. They were now trapped deep inside the dungeon that held the demon—on the seventy-ninth floor—and the rest of their party had left them there to die.
Save both girls at once. After that, deal with the party members who abandoned them.
Reward: the ability to change size, up to fifty times larger.
Failure: Neo’s death, the girls’ deaths, and the death of the entire forest.
Time limit: hurry. If either girl died the quest would fail even if the demon was sealed again.
𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
Neo’s throat tightened. He opened the system map and locked onto the dungeon’s location. Outer northern outskirts of the Dhalia Kingdom. He frowned. How had Zita and Delta ended up that far from home?
He shook his head. Questions could wait. He could not leave them.
He called for the rest of his girls. One by one they entered the throne room and stood in a quiet line in front of him. Neo told them he was leaving on another quest and would be gone for several days. They nodded without argument.
He left the castle, passed the edge of the Nyx tribe’s territory, and shifted into torch-man mode. Power flooded his legs and lungs. He ran. Trees blurred past. Roads vanished under his feet. He did not slow until the dungeon entrance rose ahead of him like a black mouth cut into the hillside.
He dropped from the air and landed hard on the packed earth. The gate looked like something torn from a demon’s dream—twisted iron and stone that pulsed with a faint red light. Neo stepped through.
The ceiling inside was unnaturally high, lost in darkness far above. He activated torch-man again, lifted off the floor, and flew straight toward the stairwell that led to the second floor. He repeated the same short flight on every level, ignoring the empty corridors and the distant echoes of monsters, until the system marker told him he had reached the seventy-ninth floor.
High above the floor he drifted along the vaulted ceiling, scanning the shadows. A weak light flickered in one far corner. Then he heard the screams.
Neo shot forward.
Delta was on the ground, one hand pressed hard against her side. Blood soaked through her fingers and spread across the stone. Zita stood in front of her, sword moving in tight arcs as a pack of goblins closed in. The green-skinned creatures snarled and lunged. Zita cut one down, then another, but her breathing had grown ragged. Sweat ran down her face. Her swings were starting to slow.
Neo dropped from the ceiling like a hammer. He hit the nearest goblin first. Bone cracked. He moved through the rest without pause—fist, blade, boot—until every goblin around Zita lay still. Silence returned in pieces.
He lowered himself the last few meters and touched the ground.
Zita and Delta both stared. Recognition hit them at the same moment.
"Neo!" they shouted together.
He pulled healing potions from his storage and pressed one into Zita’s hand. Then he handed Delta ten full vials. She drank them one after another without stopping, throat working, eyes squeezed shut against the pain. Color returned to her face. The wound under her palm closed. She stood on steady legs and looked at him.
"Thank you for the gift," she said.
Neo gave a short chuckle. "It isn’t a gift. I’ll collect payment later."
Delta’s cheeks flushed a deep red.
He turned to Zita. "How did the two of you end up in a suicide run against an ancient demon?"
Zita let out a long breath. "It’s a long story. We needed money. There was a poster at the adventurers’ guild. A party looking for two extra members to help seal a demon. They said we only needed to be there in name—no real fighting. It sounded safe. We took it."
She wiped blood from her blade with the edge of her cloak. "The leader was an arrogant priestess. Delta showed her white-mage skill once and proved she was stronger. The priestess didn’t like that. Out of pure envy she ordered her knight to attack Delta. That’s where the wound came from."
Zita’s voice stayed flat. "I wasn’t going to walk away and leave my childhood friend behind."
Neo’s eyes narrowed. "Do you know who that knight was?"
Zita gave a short, humorless laugh. "I know him very well. It was Leo. The old leader of our party. You remember—how you cucked him by fucking both of us."
Neo’s brows rose. "But... how is he still alive? I thought I killed him."
"He isn’t really himself anymore," Zita said. "He’s just a walking corpse that follows the priestess’s orders. She keeps a whole string of dead adventurers like that. Her entire party is full of them."
She bit her lip. "I should never have joined the moment I heard the rumors about her."
Neo nodded once. The pieces lined up in his head faster than he liked.
"All right," he said. "Anyway, let’s keep going and finish this dungeon. For some reason I think this woman isn’t planning to seal the demon at all. I think she’s planning to unseal it—based on everything she’s already done."