Chapter 17:

  Sez stopped at the threshold of the abandoned temple, where weathered wooden pillars rose like bony fingers pointing toward a suffocating gray sky. The silence was dense— not the kind that brings peace, but the kind that feels like breath held for two centuries. At the heart of the hall stood a massive wooden shrine, dark in color, thick cobwebs hanging from its edges like a neglected curtain concealing an ancient secret.

  Sez studied it with quiet scrutiny, his eyes narrowing slightly as he recalled the words of the old woman who had stopped him at the edge of the village, her trembling hands clinging to her cane as though it were the last thing tethering her to the earth.

  “There is something frightening there, my son… I do not know what it is, but I cannot even enter the temple. It was abandoned two centuries ago because of what happens inside.”

  Sez let out a cold breath between his lips and muttered,

  “A raw demon… huh.”

  He raised his palm before him, spreading his fingers toward the void as though touching an unseen surface, then said in a low voice that tolerated no disobedience:

  “Kneel.”

  The air did not stir. The light did not change—yet in the next instant, a raw demon was kneeling before him. Sez’s chains sprang from nothingness, glossy black links forged from dense emptiness, coiling around the demon’s limbs in living motions, as if they were creatures aware of their task—tightening, binding, asserting their grip with independent will.

  The demon was heavily built, its skin gray veering toward black. Its short horns curved backward with an old fracture. Its eyes flickered with hostility, yet its body was subdued beneath the weight of the command.

  Sez regarded it briefly, his head tilted in cold contemplation, then said,

  “But a demon like you cannot survive two hundred years in one place. Your magical range is poorer than that.”

  He stepped forward, his shadow stretching across the cracked floor.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Did one of the hunting dogs turn on you?”

  A thick growl rumbled from the demon’s throat—a broken gargle closer to a silent confession. At that same moment, Sez’s eyes widened as he sensed something shifting—the chains were loosening. They had not shattered, but they had lost their edge, as though something in this place was swallowing his authority.

  He quickly brought his palms together, forming a perfect circle between his fingers, and whispered:

  “Bubble.”

  In the blink of an eye, he vanished from his position. He reappeared adhered to the temple ceiling, while the floor beneath him had transformed into a sea of blazing magma. Flames surged upward in red waves, licking the pillars and devouring wood that did not burn but remained standing, as though it were part of an illusion that refused to catch fire.

  Sez thought to himself:

  It did not just turn against its master… it swallowed its entire hunting range.

  I cannot even deactivate the Bubble… or it will simply devour me.

  He looked at the demon standing amid the magma, its body burning slowly, its skin charring—yet without a true scream.

  “But how did it reach a level far beyond the demon that used to feed on its scraps?”

  His eyes widened with genuine astonishment as he watched.

  “It is not even resisting!”

  The demon’s bones trembled violently, as though it were caught in an icy storm rather than waves of fire. The trembling was not pain… but fear.

  In that moment, Sez understood the flaw.

  He activated the Reading spell at full power. Faint blue lines of light rose around his pupils, and the scene split before him into layers of meaning. True, its hunting range had been swallowed by the parasitic hunting dog, but it was still, in origin, its range—and a range is like a primitive Bubble, automatically activated wherever the demon resides. It aids the demon in hunting, but it also leaves it exposed to any counterreaction.

  The memory leapt into his mind, clear as though displayed upon the surface of still water:

  A demon four meters tall, corpulent in build, nothing visible of it but darkness—as though light refused to touch it. One of its horns was broken, its legs short and disproportionate to its bulk. It bent slightly, its voice emerging deep and muffled:

  “My mother does not want you to leave this temple… or else… you will regret it.”

  The vision cut off.

  Sez thought to himself, his realization heavier than the magma below:

  It is trembling from fear… it is obeying unto death.

  Who is this demon? And who is its mother?!

  The burning body began to shake more violently—not like ordinary death throes, but like something tearing apart from within. Gelatinous ripples seeped from its skin, a dense translucent substance blending into the air, as though its existence were dissolving into another form.

  At that very moment, Sez canceled the Bubble and vanished outside the temple, leaping into the open air before the silent eruption could swallow him.

  When he turned back, he saw nothing but a still temple… no magma, no demon, no trace.

  He muttered under his breath,

  “It destroyed itself with its life.”

  He ran a hand through his hair in clear irritation, the mystery now weighing heavier on his chest than any direct threat.

  “Damn this…”