The silence on the journey back to the Ivory Tower felt less like a quiet reprieve and more like a mourning procession. Kyle's chest was still a patchwork of phantom burns and aching muscle, but the physical agony was entirely eclipsed by a heavy, suffocating knot of pure, unadulterated fury in his stomach.
He kept glancing sideways at Azula, who walked with a terrifying, ghost-like stillness. Every time he recalled the sheer scale of what she had endured—the bleeding wounds, the betrayal, the cruel, clinical mockery of Vilthrax—something inside Kyle fractured and hardened into adamantine resolve. Vilthrax. The name tasted like copper and bile. The bastard didn't just deserve to die; he deserved to be systematically dismantled, atom by agonizing atom, until nothing remained of his smug face. Kyle made a silent, binding vow to the ether: Vilthrax's days were officially numbered.
Fortunately, the return trip defied temporal logic. They reached the base of the Ivory Tower in record time, stepping onto the familiar teleportation runes that swallowed them whole and spat them out deep beneath the earth.
The spatial transition slammed them down with a heavy, jarring thud. Instead of the standard subterranean chambers, the teleportation array deposited them deep within a forgotten, subterranean vault whose architecture defied mortal engineering.
The walls were carved from weeping basalt, slick with an eternal, shimmering dew that tasted faintly of ozone and old blood. In the center of the cavern sat a massive, circular basin filled with liquid mercury that mirrored a sky of dead stars, casting long, jittery silver reflections against their faces.
And right there, standing beside the mercurial pool as if he had been waiting for centuries to deliver a disappointment, was Mongrel.
Cutting through the oppressive hum of the vault, Mongrel offered a single, flat, unenthusiastic nod toward Azula. "Good job. You didn't die. Performance adequate."
Then, with the grand theatricality of a street magician pulling a damp handkerchief from an empty hat, Mongrel produced Kyle's long-awaited reward.
Kyle's eyes dilated. His heart did a hopeful little flutter. An artifact? A legendary weapon forged from star-iron? A forbidden spellbook? He had literally sacrificed his own flesh and sanity to put down that wretched Nightmare, bleeding out on a stone altar for this exact moment. He stepped forward, his hand trembling with eager anticipation.
Mongrel dropped a tiny, dull piece of rock into Kyle's outstretched palm.
Kyle stared down at it. A pendant. A stupid, unassuming, pitch-black obsidian pendant dangling from a frayed string of twine.
Disappointed was an insult to disappointments everywhere. Infuriated was getting closer. Kyle's eye twitched so violently a muscle near his temple popped. He turned the pebble over in his hand, his internal monologue instantly devolving into a colorful, multi-layered tirade of profanity. It didn't even glow. It didn't hum with latent destruction. Upon closer inspection, its only functional property seemed to be acting as an oversized, highly inefficient battery to store a meager splash of mana.
Wait. Kyle squinted, leaning closer to the dim mercury light. The texture of the stone... the faint, swirling grain embedded within the black glass—it was eerily, irritatingly identical to the floor tiles of his own soul world.
"Are you joking?" Kyle's voice came out as a strangled, murderous squeak. "I bled half my blood supply, nearly got turned into human sashimi, and fought a creature straight out of a lunatic's fever dream, and you hand me a glorified paperweight? What is this garbage? I deserve a massive payout, not a decorative pebble from a gift shop!"
Mongrel didn't even blink. He just stared at Kyle with the dead, blank expression of a retail worker dealing with an unreasonable customer on a double shift.
"I didn't tell you to follow Azula," Mongrel replied flatly, his voice dripping with absolute indifference. "Your poor life choices are your own problem to worry about."
Kyle's vision turned a distinct shade of violent crimson. Every single survival instinct he possessed screamed at him to lunge forward, grab the masked weirdo by his ridiculous red collar, and punch him until his teeth rattled. He wanted to beat Mongrel into a pulp so badly his knuckles itched. But then logic—cold, bitter, self-preserving logic—slapped him across the face. Right. If I try to hit him, he will turn me into a fine paste and use me as fertilizer.
Swallowing his rage down into a tight, explosive ball of heartburn, Kyle remembered the pressing reality of the calendar. Today was practically the eve of the engagement party. He was battered, broken, and stranded underground.
"Fine," Kyle hissed through clenched, grinding teeth, glaring daggers at the masked man. "Is there a fast way back to the capital? I'm injured, I smell like swamp water, and I have a social obligation to ruin."
Mongrel let out a slow, deeply mocking sigh, as if dealing with a particularly dense toddler.
"You really are too remarkably dense to comprehend the purpose of what you're holding, aren't you?" Mongrel deadpanned, shaking his head. "Project the image of where you want to be into your mind, and channel your mana into the pendant. It's a spatial anchor, ."
Before Kyle could process the insult, Mongrel added a final, casual instruction, gesturing toward the silent girl standing behind him. "And since you're the one who technically slayed the monster, Azula's contract binds her. She has to follow you now."
Azula blinked, her expression blank, though the dormant power of the Dark Lord hummed faintly beneath her skin. Kyle barely had time to nod in agreement, his frustration spiking all over again as he slammed his mana reserves into the obsidian stone.
The pendant flared with a blinding, violent flash of black light.
The cavern dissolved into a chaotic swirl of spatial distortion. The floor vanished from beneath their boots, and the crushing pressure of the void yanked them sideways through the fabric of distance.
When the light finally snapped shut, Kyle tumbled forward, landing face-first in a puddle of muddy rainwater.
Spitting out filth, he pushed himself up, wiping his face as he looked around. The air was thick with the distinct, foul stench of rotting garbage and stale ale. Towering stone walls loomed overhead, choking out the moonlight. They were standing deep within a dark, narrow, and completely abandoned alleyway in the heart of the capital.
Silence hung heavy around them, broken only by the distant, echoing music and laughter drifting from the grand palace miles away—the prelude to the engagement party.
Kyle took a breath to steady his nerves, turning to say something to Azula, when a strange, rhythmic scratching sound echoed from the dark mouth of the alley behind them.
He froze.
From the shadows of the dead-end wall, the bricks began to peel apart like wet paper, parting to reveal a pair of glowing, multi-jointed eyes staring directly at them.