I Became the Martial God's Youngest Disciple

Episode 288

The huge eye was bizarrely shaped. It wasn't just a pupil; around it, disgusting flesh and veins stretched outward and clung to the wall. To me, it looked like a spider in the center of a tightly stretched web, looking down.

However, the eye that gave off such an overwhelming presence left as suddenly as it appeared. Immediately after that, the crushing Dark Qi, the ringing in my ears, and the pain scratching at my mind all vanished. Nevertheless, we couldn't move for a while. I didn't know how much time had passed.

The moment my hearing returned to normal, I could hear the faint sound of duels in the distance; it was the sound of metal clashing, screams, and howls. They were still fighting like slaves despite the appearance of a legion commander.

Or maybe it was the opposite. They were fighting more desperately because they'd confirmed the manifestation of that being.

"It was a successful descent." It was Verita who spoke first. Her voice didn't waver even at this time, which was a bit surprising.

Of course, Verita was a church member. It wasn't exactly strange for her to remain calm even in the presence of a legion commander. Still, I knew that the church members didn't necessarily know everything about demons. Juan, a priest, had suffered all kinds of deaths from the two demon kings he worshiped.

Maybe that was why she felt different to me now. It made me think that perhaps Verita herself was especially strong.

"It was successful? Does that mean the legion commander has been summoned at full strength?" I asked.

"Not really. Usually, the success of a demon's descent is determined by how much power they bring with them. It is considered a success if the demon descends with more than half of its true power. Anything less is a failure."

"Half, huh."

So the overwhelming presence just now was only half of its true strength. I wondered if that could really be considered good news. Just imagining it made my head throb.

On second thought, maybe it was obvious. The legion commander Khajitta I'd seen in the Otherworld had only brought over a small fraction of his strength, but I had to risk my life in that fight.

"How much is half the strength of a legion commander?" I asked.

Verita thought for a moment before raising one finger and pressing it downward. "It can crush a B-class hero as simply as pressing down a finger, like this."

Araxad suddenly spoke up from where he had been listening silently. "Ramon."

"Yes," Ramon answered.

"You should go back to the stone door right now."

Ramon said nothing.

"The situation has rapidly changed. I thought you would have plenty of work to do, but I think I was wrong. A demon of this scale has already been summoned and the top priority is combat power. You rely on a relic and have the weakest anti-demon aptitude."

In short, Ramon had to leave if he didn't want to be a burden.

Ramon thought about it before nodding. "I understand. Then I'll go back and wait for you."

He was about to stand up on trembling legs when Verita shook her head and said, "Unfortunately, that is impossible. We are already marked."

"Marked?" I asked.

"Everyone, look at the back of your hand," Verita said.

I looked down and saw a strange burn mark on the back of my hand. No, it was more like the image of a demon than a burn.

"This is a cursed mark that only high-ranking demons can leave. If you move too far away from the demon who engraved this mark, you will die. Didn't you say that the stone gate contains the power to transcend space?"

I didn't know the exact distance, but we had definitely moved a long way. I wondered, "Does that mean that if we return to our original location after crossing the stone door, we'll die?"

"Yes."

Damn. If so, this explained why they hadn't deployed anyone near the stone door. We were already rats in a trap from the moment we first stepped in here.

"What is the solution?" I asked.

"Defeat the demon who marked us. That is the only way."

***

We returned to a spot a short distance away from the church members.

Verita continued her explanation there. "The legion commander hasn't pinpointed our location. The mark is a kind of branding applied across a certain space. It is an indiscriminate poison, so even the person who scattered the poison can't tell how many rats are caught in the trap.

"That eye isn't the legion commander's true form. It is probably one of the legion commander's powers. Judging by its shape, it likely acts as surveillance while scattering the miasma and the marks."

Verita was talking in a serious tone when a grumbling sound came from someone's stomach. Needless to say, that stomach was screaming for food. Our eyes naturally turned toward the source.

Mir lowered her head with red cheeks. "I-I'm sorry..."

"In a situation like this, maintaining energy is crucial. Now that you mention it, I'm a bit hungry too." Araxad defended Mir. He was surprisingly warm-hearted.

We each opened an energy bar and started eating.

Crunch.

Any hero with bad teeth would probably break a tooth eating this. If so, one of the qualities of a hero might be good teeth. That completely pointless thought crossed my mind. Maybe I was losing it.

We roughly filled our stomachs and resumed our conversation.

Growl.

Once again, we heard a stomach grumbling. Mir was stunned and waved her hand in denial. "I-it isn't me this time!"

"It's me." I raised my hand. "Strangely, I'm hungry. Should I open another energy bar?"

"I told you to eat them sparingly before we came here," Ramon said.

"That might be the case, but I'm still not satisfied."

"Wait." Araxad interrupted us. "Something is wrong."

"What?" I asked.

"I'm already hungry."

Araxad's words made me chuckle. I remarked, "That is true. Even if you don't feel hungry, when you see someone else eating..."

"That isn't what I mean. I can survive at least three months with only water."

"Isn't that the same for all people? However, three months might be pushing it."

Actually, an ordinary person without any chronic illness could easily survive a month drinking only water.

"That's true. But in my case, I can last up to one year."

"Ah."

"I don't get very stressed due to hunger, and the drop in my physical ability isn't that drastic. Besides that, I usually eat around one meal every three or four days. That is already a lot compared to others in my race."

"Wow."

Come to think of it, I had rarely seen him eating. I wondered if Araxad was similar to crocodiles or lizards, who could survive for years without food.

"Yet just now, I also felt hungry. Of course, I ate quite a bit before entering the stone door today."

Then I couldn't say it was due to his condition. Araxad was sharp enough to notice things like this. I believed in his hero's spirit and his wild instincts. If such a being felt uncomfortable, then it was true that something was wrong.

"Is one of the effects of this mark hunger?" I wondered.

"That isn't the case," Verita answered.

"Right. I didn't think so."

Sometimes, just letting out my thoughts was helpful, so I just said anything that crossed my mind. "What if it isn't actual hunger, but an illusion making us feel hungry? Or maybe our senses are numbed. Perhaps after crossing through the stone door, more time has passed than we realized."

"That..." Verita trailed off.

I said, "I know. That sounded like nonsense, right?"

"No. Time. That might be the right answer."

"What do you mean?"

"You might not know this, but there are places in the world where time flows completely differently."

At this moment, a memory flashed through my mind. It was an ominous city with no signs of life. There was the ominous bouncing of a ball, and the evil god with a green, bloated body.

I wondered, "Do you mean hell? Could this place be hell?"

"More precisely, it is a connection to hell. This is also one of the church's secret magics. If it succeeds, the space-time in the area becomes distorted. In other words, within this accelerated time, our consciousness might be the only thing that remains clear. This is just a guess, however."

"No. I think you are right," Ramon said, then showed us the watch he was wearing around his neck. "Look at this."

I got goosebumps the moment I saw it. As if the clock was broken, the second hand was spinning at a tremendous speed.

"If that is the case, you can think of it as time passing around ten times faster than normal," Ramon said.

"Then what? Do you mean that one second here is equivalent to ten seconds in the original world?" I wondered.

"That's right."

"Why did they create such an environment?"

"Isn't it advantageous for them that time passes quickly?"

"Why would they want time to pass quickly? I don't think they want to grow old quickly."

"The demon king's descent," Verita responded. "There is always a time-consuming part of the ritual. So isn't it because they want to pass that part as quickly as possible? I had thought it was strange. The Hero Society's response wasn't late. Even considering that this is the north, the ritual should've been disrupted before summoning a legion commander, let alone a demon king."

I felt that it made sense and got goosebumps again. Then how much time had the church actually invested in the demon king's descent ceremony?

"And If the flow of time is like this, I have one more piece of bad news to share," Verita added.

"What?"

"It is about the power of the cursed mark. Those who bear this mark start racing toward death the moment they receive it."

"Does that mean that everyone is on a deadline?"

"Yes."

As everyone was silent, I brought up an uncomfortable question. "How much time do we have left?"

"Everyone is different. Just like resistance to miasma, those with higher anti-demon aptitude can endure longer. Based on the intensity of the mark, Brother Luan and I have around a month. Brother Araxad and Sister Mir have around twenty days. Brother Ramon..." Verita's voice briefly trailed off. Then she stared Ramon straight in the eye and said, "It will be difficult for you to survive a week."

One week. It wasn't a short amount of time. If we could truly use that time fully, maybe we'd be able to analyze the enemy more thoroughly, formulate a plan, and wait for Lanfero and Feed to join us.

But time passed around ten times faster in this ice cave than outside. One second here became ten seconds. One minute became ten minutes. That meant one hour was only six minutes, and one day was only one hundred and forty-four minutes.

The remaining time for me and Verita was around three days. Araxad had a day and a half.

"I have around seventeen hours," Ramon muttered in a low voice before laughing silently. "I have more time than I thought."