Underground Prison (3)

Acedia burned the corpses that were strayed around in the hallway after she killed all the umbral humans.

She didn't like the smell that corpses emitted and chose to burn the corpses to erase the smell before it happened in the first place.

'This is annoying.'

After she got thrown into prison, the only thing that she encountered were problems.

She knew that there were people in the prison, but for some reason, she couldn't find any of them.

Even after reaching the third floor, the last floor of the underground prison, there wasn't a single person.

"That's weird..:" Acedia was sure that she sensed the presence of multiple people just a few hours ago, but after she looked through every floor, no one was there to be found. "They should be here..."

She roamed around the last prison floor one last time, looking for another result, but nothing changed.

Using the mana, she tried to sense the people again.

However, this time, she could not feel any people in the prison, but a strange place near the prison.

A place she couldn't find before.

Although her sensory skills were average at best, it was weird that she couldn't sense such a room before.

The only way to hide such a thing is by putting a presence seal on it, practically erasing the presence and 'existence' of that room.

'There is no reason to do such a thing, though?' At least she couldn't find any. Not in a prison at least.

If they were in a highly guarded area with artifact storage, she would see why they would put a seal on those places, but a prison?

There was nothing to hide in a prison, was there?

Shaking her head, she decided that there was no time to speculate about such things, and just set off to the room.

It was on the third floor, nearby, and felt like some sort of tunnel that lead into another building.

Due to that connected way, she could feel that the connected building was huge.

She guessed that it had to be the castle of this kingdom, as there wasn't anything else there that she could think of taking up so much space.

Arriving at the hidden tunnel, she saw the seals sticking to the two opened doors.

Using her mana, she focused a bit of it in her eyes and looked into the tunnel.

Other than the tunnel being made of metal, there was nothing else to note about it.

As it seemed safe, and she couldn't see nor feel any traps, she stepped in, walking along it.

The sound of her footsteps echoed through the tunnel and disappeared into the darkness.

Without mana in her eyes, it was hard to see anything, but the light that shone at the end of it.

However, she didn't want to strain her eyes too much, so she decided to just settle on not using any mana, as she sensed no threats nearby.

As she reached the end of the tunnel, she was greeted by a beautiful interior that even rivaled that of her family's mansion. "Right. That must be the castle."

The souls of lost ruins were most often located inside the castles.

If she could find the soul, she would steal it and use it as a way to bring the ruin to collapse after she had found Zenith and the other prisoners.

Destroying the soul would create a space distortion in a small area around them and bring everyone back to the Overworld while also collapsing the ruin.

The depths don't listen to the people's wishes inside of a ruin, as the 'wishes' of the ruin overpower ours.

That would mean that destroying the soul was one of the only two ways to escape a lost ruin.

The other was finding a door that brought one back to the Overworld, but that was not only needlessly hard but also didn't destroy the ruins, meaning that they would still keep existing.

'This will be a bit more tricky.' Closing her eyes, Acedia followed her intuition to find the soul.

As it is not a thing that related to mana in any type of way, it was impossible to find it by using sensory techniques.

At least with her proficiency in sensory techniques, it was difficult to find the soul.

And as such, Acedia used the thing that she relied on the most in difficult situations.

Her intuition.

As some devils' senses are generally higher than the average devil's senses in every way, they can pick up information more easily.

However, that information gets processed by their brain passively, which results in them not exactly knowing why they think that way.

They just know.

That is what the devil's society calls a 'devil's intuition'.

However, as that is a rare body constitution, not many people know about it and most people who do have it don't use it actively, as they aren't even aware of their ability.

Acedia was different, though.

Ever since her childhood, she knew about her ability and used that to her advantage to make difficult decisions when she couldn't decide.

She also guessed that her sister had something similar to her, but she wasn't sure about it, as she never used it actively.

Using her intuition, Acedia was led to a large, black gate.

'It looks like it's made of Umbros..." Acedia's fingertips touched the gate, trying to feel what kind of gate it was.

Umbros was a metal that can only be found in the depths.

It's a black metal and is most often used as armor or weapon material due to its durability and ease of enchantment.

'It also has an affinity for mana...' Acedia pumped some mana into the gate, when she realized that the gate wouldn't open, no matter what she did.

Creeeeeak

Immediately, the gate opened itself slowly with a loud creak.

When the door opened, a large grey room revealed itself.

At the end of the room, opposite the gate, a black throne was sitting there, imposingly opposing everyone who entered the room.

Moreover, the soul sat on the throne, as if it just waited for someone to enter.

"There you are, Acedia."

Acedia wasn't alone in the room.

When she opened the gates, she could spot a man standing beside the throne, pouring some strange, black liquid over the soul.

The silky voice of the man echoed through the room and entered her ear as if to bewitch her with his soft voice.

'He's dangerous.' Acedia narrowed her eyes and instinctively stepped back after the man spoke.

The man then turned around, slowly turning his head toward her.

His platinum silver hair followed his head movement before he stopped as their eyes locked.

His crimson-red eyes locked with her purple ones as the corner of his mouth rose, forming an ominous-looking smile.

"Long time no see."