The Devil’s Cage

With the bright, dazzling shine, it looked like the dawn when the sun first rose.

The sunlight, as sharp as blades, shone through the materialized darkness, burning like a hot knife cutting through butter; the darkness that was blocking Erbus. K sliced in half when the black and white collided.

Erbus. K, encaged in the darkness, was split in half by the light as well, but it wasn’t the end. Instead, it was just the beginning. The white brilliance didn’t merely seep in through every possible seam and hole, but it was also very tenacious.

The light cut through the darkness again and again.

The big block of darkness was quickly cut into shreds, eventually disappearing into nothing.

The darkness that enveloped the night was vanishing at an exponential speed.

Erbus. K’s body was vanishing along with it. Its body, which was split in half by the light, boiled and melted away as if it were soaked in acid.

Pain! The excruciating pain made Erbus. K growl deeply.

But compared to the pain, it was more concerned about the light before its eyes; not the light itself, but the person that controlled the light.

Erbus. K widened its eyes at Kieran, who was in front of it. It couldn’t comprehend how Kieran was able to set up something that specifically aimed at itself.

It swore that its plan had been flawless and tight after much theorizing and calculation, and after working together with its special ability, no one should be able to find out.

But in fact?

Not just this time, but the several times before this were exposed as well.

It felt like Kieran could foretell things before they really happened, thus gaining a foot ahead of Erbus. K every time.

Could it be…

A sudden thought bloomed in Erbus. K’s mind, but it quickly discarded it because it seemed impossible!

It had mastered everything about that species, so how could there be others?

“Are you curious as to how I seem to know every part of your plan?” Kieran asked plainly.

Erbus. K didn’t ask, but its eyes were glued to Kieran, their meaning obvious enough.

“Because I can foretell things before they happen!”

His blank voice was somehow very convincing.

Erbus. K’s heart couldn’t help but skip a beat when it saw Kieran’s expressionless face again.

The theory that lingered in its mind a moment ago appeared again, but it didn’t want to admit it.

“You lie!” Erbus. K screamed as the light corroded its body.

“Lie? I don’t need to. The moment I knew she was missing, I ‘saw’ everything that you had planned,” Kieran laughed coldly.

It was partially true, but partially false as well.

The true part was that when he had come to know that the ‘lord’ was indeed Wu and that she had been captured without any resistance, Kieran started to suspect everyone in the higher ranks of Eiders’ officials.

After all, trying to erase Wu without any resistance, to begin with, wasn’t an easy task. Additionally, it was attempted under all those layers of precautions at first.

The slightest of movements should have garnered enough attention to expose it.

But in the end, the process remained quiet. Wu wasn’t a coward; as long as there was still a single line of hope, she wouldn’t have given up.

Therefore, there was only one explanation left: when Wu came into the dungeon world, she realized the opponent she was to face far exceeded her expectation, and she also realized that all the so-called ‘allies’ were indeed working for the enemy. So, rather than facing the vicious fangs of the enemies, she chose to temporarily ‘avoid’ confrontation and wait for Kieran.

This particular theory was nailed in when Wu’s imposter came into play.

As for the darkness before Kieran’s eyes?

Kieran had already started suspecting something when he first encountered this darkness, let alone when the imposter kept warning about ‘midnight’.

Was there something at midnight?

In other places, there might be, but here?

The thickest of darkness.

Plus, Kieran did, after all, just experience the ‘Darkness Dodge’.

When all sorts of conditions were placed together, it was enough for Kieran to deduce that not only was this ‘darkness’ not of a natural source, but it was also something beneficial to the mastermind as well.

Since the darkness was beneficial to the enemy, it would not benefit him.

So, Kieran would allow himself to step toward said conditions. He had to turn the tides around in his favour.

Fortunately, he had candidates to help him.

Kozert and Boli; one was a ‘hyacinth’, which was an intel dealer, and the other was a secret agent from the senate. Both of them had fallen under Kieran’s control.

Both of them had quite the capabilities.

Of course, the most important thing was that Kieran had Burning Dawn to support him.

The soldiers of valiant spirits completed a massive version of [Seal of Dawn] by drawing out the essential parts in the shortest amount of time according to Kieran’s will.

Kieran knew all of this, but Erbus. K did not.

It stared at Kieran, hoping to find out something from Kieran’s expression, but unfortunately, all it saw was that cold, expressionless face.

Erbus. K, who was suspecting Kieran, became even more anxious and doubtful as he looked at Kieran, but he, the marquis of the Blood Kin and the leader of the House of K, did not give up.

The darkness that clouded Eiders’ night suddenly started to gush over like a ferocious tide.

It instantly drowned the light from [Seal of Dawn].

“If you can truly foretell things before they happen… Do you know what I am going to do next?”

Erbus. K’s voice came from the new darkness.

Kieran looked straight ahead in silence.

Although the darkness was gushing towards him, Kieran didn’t dodge or move, allowing the darkness to drown him instead.

The easy hit on Kieran stunned Erbus. K for a while; it hadn’t thought its darkness could drown Kieran. But then, it quickly laughed out loud frantically.

“You don’t! You don’t know what is going to happen next! You were lying to me all this time!”

Erbus. K then gave an order to a particular body lying on the ground, which was slightly guarded by one of the Special Affairs Division members after the battle broke out.

The body actually belonged to the imposter of Wu. She was still unconscious, but after the order, in a trance, she climbed up and made a grab for the floating cone. She swiftly ran further away once she got her hands on the item.

Erbus. K got what it had been longing for.

Now, everything would no longer matter anymore.

Whether it was its current body or the goddamned Monster Hunter trapped in its body, nothing mattered.

“DIE! I will prepare the grandest funeral for you, and we will die together! The lord… No, the Lady will still be herself, and she will be even stronger than before! She will continue to rule Eiders and might even give you a heroic retreat, like setting a particular day to remember you. How does that sound? Me? I will be abandoned without question. But, of course, all of that will just be on the surface, as for the real… UGH!”

Erbus. K was getting delighted as it spoke, but when it reached the climax of his words, his words suddenly got stuck in its throat as if its throat were grabbed by a big hand because it saw the imposter of Wu fall to the ground.

The imposter’s body was pierced by a hand.

Kieran was beside the imposter, looking back at Erbus. K coldly.

He curled his lips.

“I’ve said it. I can foretell things.”