The crack from the surrounding space plunged Gabul into endless darkness. There appeared the face of a fat man with narrowed eyes and a wild smile.

"A filthy creature like you" he said as he opened his bloodshot eyes to look at Gabul, the tongue in his mouth twisting relentlessly, dripping rows of drool, "how can you store so much magic power?"

Beelzeb, the demon of gluttony, had tracked down the great source of magic power and come here. He now devoured the weak creatures before him with giant tentacles.

"Gabul, who is he? Why does he look like a Cardinal?" Leon broke into a cold sweat and turned to look at Gabul, Yumi standing next to him. Although she still didn't understand what was going on, the feeling of insecurity still made her anxious as she clutched the wand in her hand.

"Lich, hurry up and take that Yumi girl away, he's not a Cardinal. He's..."

"Rumble!"

A huge tentacle lunged towards Gabul, tearing the ground in two. The haze of smoke and dust made Yumi cover her mouth, leaning down and coughing incessantly.

Gabul breathed a sigh of relief when he was lucky enough to escape this terrible attack. But Beelzeb didn't, his eyes wide with annoyance, his face white because Gabul had been the first to dodge his pre-emptive strike.

Yumi's coughing caught the Cardinal's attention, causing him to turn and stare at the girl. His mouth began to drool again.

"Leon, be careful!"

"Huh" Leon pulled Yumi's hand back and luckily dodged a tentacle with the tip of the pointy end that had just arrived. But before he could rejoice, a small tremor sent him and Yumi reeling. Both were then bound by very thin, slimy black vines that had just emerged from large cracks in the ground.

"What is this?" Leon collapsed, trying to remove them but he couldn't. These vines were like a living creature, they immediately filled the parts Leon had peeled off and grew denser and denser.

"Stop, Leon," Gabul rushed over, using his magically reinforced spikes to rip them apart, "These are not things to be touched. They will corrode and rot your arms"

"Rotten?" Leon looked in horror at the hand that had just touched the vines, which had turned black with a slimy liquid and emitted an unpleasant odour.

"Don't come here..." Leon and Gabul were startled and both turned around to see Yumi covered in vines. She sobbed in fear.

"Holy ... Holy realm!" Yumi shouted, holding the staff to her chest.

A source of white light that had just been emitted was immediately extinguished by a huge vine. It grabbed her legs and arms while the rest of the vines clung to her body.

Her staff had broken into pieces and fallen to the ground. The vines appeared more and more, creeping and tightening to form long, bleeding wounds. A strange liquid seeped from them, making Yumi scream in pain.

"Yumi !" Leon shouted in panic and flew towards Yumi, the thick black holes in his rotting arm growing larger and larger.

"So her name is Yumi" The Cardinal's white face had just appeared in front of Leon, causing him to be taken by surprise and fall forward.

"Careful, Leon" Gabul rushed over and picked him up, helping him to avoid his open mouth.

"Damn ! All you can do is run" he shouted angrily, pointing at Leon and commanding the tentacles to catch him.

"Leon, hold on!" Gabul accelerated, he went like lightning and made the tentacles collided with the rocks and made a mess. The absurdity of it all made the Cardinal's eyes flutter with anger. He snarled and let go of the curse words at Gabul.

"Ah, yes. I've got the little girl" He laughed terribly, turned his back and slowly approached Yumi, who was shaking in pain.

"Hey, stupid Lich" He grabbed Yumi's hair and pulled her up.

"What ...what are you going to do?" Leon panicked, kicking Gabul hard and wanting him to plunge down immediately.

"You asked me ? Tear it apart and eat it, of course!" The Cardinal said in a horrified tone.

"Eat?" Leon's face paled.He ignored Gabul's warning and jumped down.

.

"That's right. Come here" he threw Yumi aside and turned towards Leon with his mouth open.

His white face was suddenly filled with a red liquid. His teeth were broken and spurting everywhere.

Thanks to his temporary physical enhancement, Leon kicked his golden teeth that still smelled of blood, which he saw as a springboard to continue charging at Yumi.

"That bastard" The Cardinal held his mouth and turned his head back, rolling his eyes at Leon.

"I'll make you regret this!" he spat out a cloud of blood-stained saliva, ripped off a few tentacles and put them in his mouth to devour.

"Damn Griff, where are you?" he grumbled, the wound in his mouth healed now, but the aftershock of the sudden pain was still with him.

A dark-skinned goblin came up from behind him. He bent quickly, his head raised to hear his command.

"Griff, you took her heart" he muttered, "and that Lich, leave it to me!"

"I'm going to make it hurt to see the girl torn apart"

Having said that, he inserted a strange spell into his body and smeared blood from his own wound onto his arm. The enchanted arm quickly expanded into a huge hunk of flesh with mouths. They moaned incessantly and exuded a terrible invisible pressure.

Leon had just touched Yumi's body when he was immediately knocked away by a powerful force coming from behind.

The hard stone wall from the impact was instantly shattered along with Leon's body. Personally, he was in extreme pain and unable to recover. Partly because most of his bones had been broken, and partly because the black, rotting spots had spread to the mental fire that had gradually emptied his mind.

Gabul was no better. He was surrounded by a huge army of goblins that had appeared from the air, physically strengthened and constantly attacking him with dozens of rudimentary but very sharp stone weapons.

"Leon" Gabul was alarmed to see the Cardinal slowly approaching Leon with a disdainful smile and raise his fat hand to take Leon's head. The scream of pain that followed alarmed Gabul, who was about to jump, but at that moment Griff appeared out of nowhere and swung the pestle at Gabul's head.

Leon's vision went dark, and Gabul lay on the ground, quickly reduced to a pile of broken bones by the goblins.

◇

In a very luxurious conference room, with walls lined with magical glass panels that can continuously change images, people who look like aristocrats are sitting seriously with a beautiful woman in a suit and a white crown on her head.

"Everyone" Queen Dorothea stood up, "you must have guessed the reason for this extraordinary meeting"

"Yes" the heads of the kingdoms said in unison, turning their attention to a beautiful warrior with a rose on her chest. She is Sora Flame Roseblade, captain of the Silvermoon Knights and one of the four Holy Horsemen of the continent.

"Sora, do you have any thoughts about this light source?" The king of the Principality spoke.

"I think the light source was in the Hiller ruins a few days ago," she pointed to a small spot on the old magic map, "It bears something very similar to the magic the gods gave to the Holy Horsemen"

"That's what we heard from Queen Dorothea, and what we want to know is why the light is there and if it's affecting our kingdom"

"That..." The eyes staring at Sora made her look away.

"At the moment, I don't have any new information. But stay calm, Erden-sama is investigating" Sora tried to reassure them, then sighed and looked at a young man sitting very close to the queen.

She moved closer to Dorothea as she met her gaze, leaving the uncomfortable questions behind for the moment.

"Sora, about the investigation, is it going well?" Dorothea asked Sora.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"That..." Sora choked, she didn't seem to want to speak.

"Dorothea-sama, BB have been neglecting his investigative work for a few days now. And Erden-sama... disappear too" said Helios, who was sitting nearby, a young teenager with glasses and sea-colored hair. Helios is the youngest Holy Horsemen, on a peacekeeping mission on the border of the Dragon Kingdom and the Empire, and has only recently been summoned.

"What do you say, Helios? How did I tell you?", Sora reproached.

"Sora, it was I who ordered Helios to tell the truth" the queen said sternly, "BB, I don't have to say, even Erden..."

"Hm, Erden is someone who always completes his job brilliantly" She took the teacup in her hand, blew and took a small sip.

…

“Rrrr..r” (Door opening sound)

"Dorothea-sama, did you just mention me?" A tall man with dark skin just opened the door and entered, walking quickly to the conference table with a pile of heavy papers in his hand.

"There you are, Erden" Dorothea sighed.

The man smiled and handed Sora an old leather notebook with the information that needed to be researched. Then he turned away.

"According to magical researchers, this strange light has caused the reappearance of friendly creatures that we thought were extinct" The man took out of his cloth bag a jar in which a transparent slime was jumping.

"They also discovered a strange magic and some bone meal mixed in with the rays of light. But fortunately, they are not dangerous, on the contrary, they make the soil more fertile...".

"Hey, that's not...not" The Elf representative sitting nearby shouted, standing up as if realising something and approaching in shock.

"Ah. I found this extremely rare slime in a small stream near the ruins of Hiller" Erden carefully handed the jar with the slime to the Elf representative, he smiled, "This slime used to be one of the symbols of the Elven Forest..."

"I hope this herbal slime will multiply and flourish again in your forest”

"Thank you, sir" the agent broke into tears, hugged the jar respectfully, looked at it intently and returned to his seat.

Seeing the extinct slime in the elf-man's arms, a large part of the head there stood up.

"Erden, is what you just said true?" shouted a man with gold and silver around his neck.

"Erden-sama, so creatures like Polarfuchs, Phönix or Feueradler will reappear" The true faces of the perverts began to emerge with loud noises followed.

"This..." Erden tried to dodge the question and sighed.

"Great, these Polarfuchs are very good pets. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll hunt some mutants that can evolve into a great woman" Some of them held their heads, their mouths 'lusting' as they fantasised about hunting little white foxes.

"Huh. Isn't it because you hunted them uncontrollably and destroyed their habitat that they disappeared?" came the words of a slightly swaggering man with black hair and piercings above his ears. He sat cross-legged at the window, looking disdainfully at a bunch of greedy people in front of him.

His nickname is Black Bullet, a horseman who wields two swords and is considered the fastest swordsman on the continent. The speed with which he drew and struck his sword was so terrifying that those who dared to face him were reduced to small grains of sand before they could draw their weapons. He was also the only one of the four holy knights who could use both holy magic and some black magic at the same time.

The leaders didn't listen to BB's words, most of them stood up and huddled around Erden, asking for safe routes into the forest where Hiller's ruins were.

Seeing this scene, the monarch of the empire, the kingdom, the principality was very depressed. After a moment's hesitation, they respectfully bid farewell to the Holy Knights and Queen Dorothea and quietly left.

But no one knows that behind their cold faces and unruffled looks lie ghostly smiles and cruel ambitions to conquer this forest that still holds many secrets...

◇

Thousands of hands rose from the ground and surrounded Gabul's shattered body, sucking out tiny bones and dragging his head into a bottomless abyss with ghostly screams.

The goblins standing nearby were taken aback by this strange thing, most of them turning their heads to look at each other. Others were more daring, walking curiously towards the sinking ground with stone weapons in their hands.

"Réeeee..." the goblins had just stepped into the sinking ground when they cried out miserably. The ground around them suddenly changed shape and the black arms reached out again, clutching their limbs.

"Leon, when you're ready, call my name" Gabul gently pushed Leon from his horse, looking at him sadly. The devastated figure was the same as the one Arthur had seen his daughter and close students killed.

Leon collapsed, cupping his face and clenching his teeth.

Leon's heavy breathing and self-reproachful muttering left Gabul not knowing what else to do, so he left him and looked at Beelzeb.

He wanted to pounce on him immediately, the fire of anger in his eyes.

"Gluttony !" Gabul pressed his front legs together, forming a bright drill that seemed to tear everything apart.

"Rumble"

A huge hole tore through the piece of flesh that had been his left arm. This was followed by a series of nearby tentacles, which were destroyed and fell to the ground.

The sharp pain made him turn his head, still devouring a piece of fresh red flesh that looked horrible. It turned out to be eating Griff alive, the goblin screaming bitterly with half his body covered in blood.

"Stupid horse, I thought you were dead" His foot pressed against Griff's groaning jaw.

"Heretic !" Gabul said aloud, "You're the one who gave that disgusting black spider that black jewel..."

"Hmm. I don't remember very well, but you and that stupid Lich are pretty good. Do you want to be a part of me" He smiled, his leg pressing hard against Griff's head causing the Goblin to bleed.

"My subordinates are too weak" Griff's head cracked. Chunks of flesh and blood splattered at Gabul in disgust.

"I won't make a deal with the devil" Gabul lunged at him with a powerful kick.

Beelzeb's round, white, fat face slowly changed to a murderous look, with a few blue veins rising from either side of his temples. His tongue and drool were uncontrollable and flowed incessantly.

[Absorb]

With their mouths wide open and their long tentacles constantly attacking, they tore through the ground, covering a small area and closely following Gabul's footsteps.

[Accelerate]

[Protection]

Gabul's speed increased in an instant, easily dodging the flying tentacles that flew like arrows, and even his sky-high landings broke some tentacles in half, causing Beelzeb pain and confusion.

"Hm, stand back for me. Filthy horse"

[Hellitis]

[X - Lightning]

Huge fiery red fireballs approached Gabul in the blink of an eye, he dodged one, and high voltage currents appeared next to it. The only magic Gabul could think of at the moment, [Ice Wall], intercepted those sparks completely.

"Let's see how long you can last"

[Bend the Space]

Fireballs appeared, melting Gabul's ice walls, and water collapsed on him. Immediately, several space portals appeared, containing terribly powerful electric beams that were shot directly into the water.

Gabul was shocked and fell.Beelzeb looked at him with contempt.

"Trash are always trash, you can only do that, Arthur must be proud of you"

His black eyes had just entered Gabul's mind to read memories and insult Arthur, much to Gabul's utter disgust. He stood up and unleashed a destructive spell aimed directly at his face.

[Space of the Wind]

Gabul gained momentum and jumped perpendicular to the ground in the direction of the wind.

[Accelerate]

[Dimension Move]

Gabul hovered in the air, trying to dodge the increasingly dense fireballs and tentacles with short teleports. Unfortunately, one of the tentacles touched him and pulled him into Beelzeb's hideously huge mouth. As expected, Gabul glared:

[Flame Slash] A raging flame tore through the thick wall of tentacles.

[Moonlight Boundary]

Despite the thick layers of [Magic Shield] Beelzeb had created, a beam of silvery-white energy flew straight at his wide mouth.

"Roar"

The horribly compressed space knocked Gabul away. He landed with difficulty, his body drenched in sweat and somewhat tired from using too much magic power in such a short time.

The stone dust quickly dissipated and the haunting sound of laughter began again.

Behind the thick dust was still that mouth, not a scratch on it, but the healing of previously ruined wounds.

Gabul took a few steps back, his surprise making Beelzeb laugh:

"You're pretty good. But that's not enough, stupid horse"

"Hah..haa" He grabbed a bunch of tentacles lying around him and started to put them back in his mouth.

"I'll give you back that faint glow you just had" He stopped his devouring chewing.

[Rays Destroy]

Is he someone who can absorb magic to heal and strengthen himself? Immediately, a bolt of green energy was created by him and shot directly at Gabul, who tried to dodge the terrible energy but realised that he could not move. Gabul's shadow was bound by black creatures that emerged from the ground, screaming demonic cries and looking at him with lustful eyes.

[Healing Shield]

[Thorn Shield]

[Apolo's Protection]

Three layers of shields overlapped against the incoming giant energy beam. The first layer was destroyed, then the second. A white light emitted shortly after the energy beam that pierced [Apolo's Protection] burned the small demons below, helping Gabul narrowly escape as the energy beam came within inches of his face. The effect of the [Healing Shield] temporarily increased Gabul's speed as it was destroyed.

"You're trapped !"

Gabul didn't have time to react as the [Iron Coffin] embraced him. It quickly drained his magic and transferred it to Beelzeb. He laughed with delight as he received the enormous amount of magic, mocking Gabul's efforts in an arrogant voice:

"The game is over. Now I'm going to help you get out of pain”

[Iron Maiden]

A huge iron statue emerged from the space, widening the two doors and revealing sharp thorns. Its eyes turned blood red and it grasped the iron coffin that held Gabul, the heavy doors slowly closing against the horse's hopeless resistance.

The sparse slits of light gradually disappeared before Gabul's eyes.

"Rumble"

.....

"Toong.."

“Toong, Toong” (Dripping sound)

The sound of running water wakes Leon in a dark room, his feet full of water. Leon stood up, the water level at his knees, and moved instinctively towards the light source in front of him, no specific thought or direction of action in his mind.

The surface of the water around him began to vibrate violently. Huge shockwaves hit Leon's body instantly, causing him to fall to his knees like an old tree that had just been felled, water splashing across his face.

Leon put his hands on the muddy ground and tried to stand up, but the fluctuating surface of the water quickly calmed down and white faces appeared out of nowhere, opening their mouths to bite his hand and hold it in the water.

"What's that?" Leon was startled when he realised what was happening, he screamed in horror and used all his strength to pull his now severed hands out of the water. He ran forward, towards what he thought was a hopeful light, leaving behind strange little specks of light, slowly coalescing into frighteningly loose shapes. They melted into the water, chasing Leon with terrifying speed.

This source of light was Leon's only concern at the moment, until he realised something was wrong. The distance between him and the light source hadn't changed since he'd started running. Leon was nervous, but his steps didn't slow down.

"Leon, the cursed Lich"

"Leon, you killed Yumi"

"Leon, pay for our life"

Voices that were so familiar to Leon came from behind him that he stopped, even though he didn't understand them. Leon recognises them as old friends from Yumi's party, they have a water-like body with a badly damaged face, two pairs of bulging eyes that make Leon go pale.

In an instant, the creatures approached Leon, surrounding him on four sides and hugging his body tightly. The repeated curses, combined with the violent pull to drown Leon in the water, made him unable to breathe. Leon threw up before realising how close his face was to the water.

Yumi appeared from the other side of the water, she parted her bloody hands and grabbed the sides of Leon's neck, the strong pull making Leon's eyes quickly blur.

Leon gradually lost consciousness as he was completely submerged in the water, the other light also appearing before his eyes. Leon was horrified as he dimly realised it was Beelzeb's face, looking down on his misery with a demon smile on his face.

"Go..od..bye" Beelzeb said, opening his mouth wide with sharp teeth and lunging at Leon, destroying his head before the darkness completely enveloped Leon's mind.

◇