His magical senses finally picked up something! At last, he got a response.
Off to his left, roughly a dozen kilometers away along this seemingly endless main corridor, there was a branching passage. The side passage didn't extend very far, ending at a massive stone door carved from a single block of dark, heavy stone.
From the blurry images sent back by the Kamaitachi, the patterns engraved on the door were unlike any he had seen before. They were more concrete, yet somehow even more disturbing, countless eyes and tentacles twisted together into a spiraling vortex that turned endlessly inward, as if it could devour a person's soul.
Just receiving the image through the Kamaitachi made Ian's mind sting with pain and instinctive revulsion.
"So it's there..."
Ian suddenly opened his eyes, a sharp glint flashing across them. Whether there was an exit beyond that door or an even greater danger, at least it was a concrete variable. Anything was better than wandering this endless corridor blindly.
"Even if it's a dragon's den, I've got to check it out."
Without further hesitation, he cast a spell. A flying cloak sparkling with starlight appeared behind him, billowing as it lifted him off the ground. Like a bat cutting through the darkness, he shot toward the branching passage the Kamaitachi had discovered. A distance of over ten kilometers vanished in moments under the boost of his flying magic.
"Another door. Yet another door. How many doors have I run into these past few days? Did I offend the God of Doors this year or something? Damn it."
Ian approached cautiously, spreading his magical senses to their limit. To his surprise, the door wasn't radiating any particularly powerful magical fluctuations, nor was it protected by complicated alchemical runes. It simply felt ancient, ancient beyond measure, and unimaginably heavy.
"No restrictions? Just a normal stone door?"
Ian was surprised, but he didn't lower his guard. Raising his wand toward the narrow seam of the seemingly seamless door, he cast a heavily modified unlocking charm, one refined countless times, powerful enough to open even Gringotts' most advanced vault locks. Though technically, it was still just an Unlocking Charm.
"Alohomora Maxima!"
A concentrated beam of magic shot precisely into the gap. A series of heavy clanking sounds echoed from within the door, like enormous mechanisms being forced into motion, and dust rained down from above.
Then…
Rumble...
A deep, grinding roar filled the corridor. The impossibly heavy stone door slowly swung inward with a force capable of crushing anything in its path.
Beyond it lay only darkness, darkness so dense that even the light of a Lumos spell couldn't penetrate it. Nothing attacked him. Nothing unusual happened. The space beyond remained shrouded in blackness.
Holding his breath and gripping his wand tightly, Ian stepped forward and peered inside. He crossed the threshold, gaining a better view of what lay beyond.
Then, something happened that he had never expected. His eyes widened, contracted, then widened again. The color drained from his face in an instant, as though he had just witnessed the most horrifying and unbelievable sight imaginable. For a brief moment, the shock was so overwhelming that his entire body froze.
"Fuck! That's disgusting! So disgusting!"
In the flickering glow of his Lumos, his pupils shrank and expanded violently, as if trying to force the sight out of existence. A low groan escaped his throat. "My god... an actual indescribable horror..."
The space beyond the door wasn't another corridor, nor was it a burial chamber or a grand hall. It was something far harder to describe: chaos.
The first thing that assaulted his senses was a horrifying aura of corruption. It shared the same source as the Fallen God he had encountered before, but it was hundreds of thousands of times stronger.
This wasn't mere decay and madness anymore; mixed into it was something more primal, more fundamental, pure malice and distortion, as though a festering sore from the darkest side of the universe had manifested here.
Then he saw the source of the light. Not his Lumos, the chaotic space itself emitted a sickly, dark-purple glow. The light pulsed unevenly, like breathing, originating from the enormous, constantly shifting thing at the center of the chamber.
Could that still be called a "thing"?
Ian could barely recognize it as the Fallen God he had fought not long ago, the one that had even shown a faint possibility of purification. Its barely maintained human form was completely gone.
In its place stood a gigantic, bloated mountain of flesh, as if countless masses of rotting meat, twisted limbs, and frenzied, glowing eyeballs had been stitched together at random. Its enormous body filled most of the chamber, nearly reaching the invisible ceiling overhead.
Countless tentacles of varying sizes extended from its mass. Covered in suckers and gnashing mouths, they lashed about aimlessly, slamming into the walls and floor with nauseating, wet sounds.
"So this is the Happy Elf Girl House I saw in those cursed, black-cover Bibles when I was a kid before transmigrating?" Even at a moment like this, Ian couldn't stop himself from cracking a joke.
The creature constantly secreted thick black slime that stank of rot. The liquid dripped onto the floor and wriggled as if alive, corroding the already bizarre ground beneath it.
At the very top of the mountain of flesh, Ian could still make out half of a human face, twisted and deformed beyond recognition. It was the last trace of the Fallen God. Its mouth opened and closed as though trying to speak. Within its crimson eyes, the final spark of clarity struggled desperately against the madness and agony consuming it.
The moment Ian pushed open the door and light entered the chamber, the half-face jerked toward him. Gathering the last of its strength, it forced a hoarse, broken warning from deep within its throat.
"RUN, !!!"
That single word seemed to consume the last remnants of its humanity. Before the echo had faded, the face melted like wax, swallowed by the writhing flesh surrounding it.
The final light of reason went out. In its place, countless new eyes opened, every one of them filled with pure destruction and madness. They all locked onto Ian, who was standing frozen in the doorway.
"ROOOAAARRRR…!!!"
A deafening, inhuman roar erupted from deep within the flesh mountain. It was no longer speech, only the primal howl of insanity. The massive, twisted monster had lost all intelligence and divinity, becoming a true eldritch horror that knew only destruction and consumption.
Its countless tentacles surged toward Ian like predators spotting fresh prey, slicing through the air with piercing shrieks. Before they even reached him, the overwhelming malice and spiritual corruption rolling off them crashed down like a tidal wave, enough to rot away a person's soul.
"Fuck! But I'm not an elf girl! This isn't my kind of happiness!"
Snapping out of his shock, Ian reacted almost entirely on instinct as the overwhelming sense of danger hit him.
"Protego Sanctus Barrier!"
His wand whipped through the air. A brilliant shield of pure white-gold light instantly unfolded before him, sacred runes flowing across its surface. This wasn't an ordinary Protego; it was a specialized defensive spell born from Ian's understanding of positive energy and order, designed specifically to oppose corruption and chaos.
Crack! Bang!
Several massive tentacles slammed into and wrapped around the holy barrier. Dark-purple corruption energy clashed violently against the barrier's white-gold sacred light, producing hissing sounds like acid burning through metal, mixed with heavy impacts. The barrier's light flickered wildly, the runes on its surface flashing on and off as it endured tremendous pressure.
Even worse was the mental corruption carried by the tentacles. Like invisible, poisoned needles, it constantly tried to pierce the barrier and invade Ian's mind.
As expected... it's completely lost its sanity and divine power. All that's left is raw corruption and physical strength.
While maintaining the barrier, Ian calmly analyzed the situation. The creature's appearance was horrifying and its presence terrifying, but its attacks had become simple and direct. His eyes sharpened; it was time to take the initiative.
"Blade of Paradox, Existence Denial!"
Channeling the Authority of Paradox, Ian extended a gray-white blade of contradictory energy from the tip of his wand. He swung it down at a thick tentacle wrapped tightly around the barrier.
There was no spray of blood, no sound of flesh tearing. The blade passed through, and that section of the tentacle simply vanished, as though it had never existed in the first place. The cut was perfectly smooth, leaving no trace behind.
It worked!
But before Ian could relax, something scalp-numbingly horrifying happened. The severed root of the tentacle began writhing violently, as if the flesh were boiling. In the blink of an eye, a brand-new tentacle grew out, even thicker than before, and covered with even more disgusting mouths. Then it lashed at the barrier again.
At the same time, the dark-purple glow and corruption filling the air dimmed slightly, as if growing the new tentacle had consumed some of the surrounding energy.
"Hiss..." Ian sucked in a breath. He realized this thing regenerated even faster than the evil god he'd encountered in ancient Egypt. The strange space they were in was probably the reason.
"Join... us..."
"Become... part... of us..."
The flesh mountain let out a slurred roar filled with strange temptation, as if this was the only obsession left in its shattered consciousness.
Ian's heart sank. Physical attacks were useless. Even the existence-erasure effect of the Authority of Paradox had been overcome by this monstrous regeneration. No, not overcome. Covered over.
The creature was using a new existence to replace the existence that had been erased. Its essence seemed completely fused with this unique, chaotic space. As long as the corruption energy filling this place didn't run dry, it could keep regenerating forever.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
The petrification spell sank into the monster like a stone dropped into the ocean. Not even a ripple appeared.
"Reducto!"
The powerful Blasting Curse blew a huge hole through its body, but a moment later, fresh, even more twisted flesh surged out and filled the gap.
"Fiendfyre!"
Ian summoned blue Fiendfyre, powerful enough to burn down an entire city. The flames did make the creature howl in pain as flesh blackened, charred, and peeled away, but even more flesh poured out from within, endless and unstoppable. The dense corruption in the air even seemed to be suppressing the Fiendfyre itself.
Ian cycled through spell after spell, elemental attacks, soul curses, spatial cuts, and time-slowing magic. He used nearly every offensive technique a Legendary Wizard could possess. Every attack caused noticeable damage, yet the creature was like the deepest nightmare; no matter what wounds it suffered, it regenerated almost instantly.
Worse, every recovery left it even more grotesque and less bound by reason. The madness radiating from it grew stronger and stronger.
"Join... us..."
"Become one..."
"Forever..."
The seductive whispers hammered against Ian's mental defenses. He even tried banishment magic, attempting to exile the creature into another dimension or a temporal rift.
"Exilio in Vacuum!"
A massive spatial crack opened beside the monster, and a powerful suction tried to drag it inside. The creature roared in fury, countless tentacles digging into the walls and floor as it resisted.
Just as Ian thought he was about to succeed, dark-purple light suddenly spread around the rift. The crack became unstable, twisted, and distorted, then it was smoothed over as if an invisible hand had erased it. Gone. The monster remained exactly where it was, not a scratch on it. If anything, it looked even angrier.
"Even spatial banishment can be interfered with by this area's rules?!"
Ian's heart finally sank to the bottom. He understood now. Within this bizarre realm of chaos, the monster born from the Fallen God's mutation was practically immortal. It had become part of the space's rules, or perhaps, it was a tumor grown from those rules.
The battle had fallen into a deadlock that felt utterly hopeless. Thanks to his superior magical skill, immense reserves of magic power, and the unique nature of the Authority of Paradox, Ian could repeatedly defend against the monster's attacks and even destroy parts of its body over and over.
But the creature's nearly infinite regeneration, fueled by its connection to the entire space, combined with its constantly adapting mutations, kept it clinging to him like a curse that refused to let go.
To be fair, without its divine magic and power, it wasn't putting overwhelming pressure on Ian. But it was far more disgusting, absolutely revolting, and every time it regenerated, it seemed to grow stronger.
"Another brutal fight. Why has today been nothing but brutal fights?"
Ian's magic power was steadily draining away, and his mind was growing exhausted from resisting the endless whispers of madness. Meanwhile, the monster seemed tireless, each wave of attacks fiercer than the last. Its form continued mutating into increasingly incomprehensible shapes.
Sometimes it sprouted scythe-like bone limbs; sometimes it spat acid capable of corroding magical energy; sometimes dozens of mouths lined with razor-sharp teeth split open across its body, unleashing shrieks that shook the soul itself.
This can't go on...
Ian dodged a giant, serpent-like tentacle lunging at him and erased it with another swing of the Blade of Paradox. At the same time, his mind raced. I have to find its core. Or find a flaw in this place's rules. Otherwise, it'll eventually wear me down and kill me here.
But in a domain overflowing with chaos and madness, finding patterns and weaknesses was easier said than done.
"ROOOAAARRRRR, !!!"
"Join us."
Fresh tentacles lashed out with even greater force. Ian could only raise his defenses again, swing his wand, and throw himself back into what felt like an endless struggle of attrition, a battle that was draining both body and mind.
The scales of victory had yet to tip in either direction. But every second that passed worked against Ian, and trapped here, time itself was becoming his enemy.
(End of Chapter)
You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395