Percy trailed down the cavern tunnel to close the distance to the mana vein. Something about it was odd, but it was hard to grasp at a distance. However, as he ventured deeper, Percy noticed something in the air.

Impurities clinging onto mana…Demonic Essence, devouring what had been tainted.

Percy licked his lips nervously. He might have grown stronger and more mature over the last few months, but this was still too much for him. The Devil was still too much for him to handle. No matter how confident Percy tried to be before the Demons possessed by the Devil, he couldn’t imagine fighting the Devil head-on.

One step at a time. The Devil is not yet in the mortal realm. He is not powerful enough to descend yet.

Even though Percy tried reassuring himself, it was a brutal fact that the Devil’s influence was everywhere. His power augmented the Demons, his Essence transformed the Gifted, and his presence disrupted the order of the mortal realm. Even though he had yet to descend, the Devil caused chaos across the mortal realm. Percy couldn’t fathom what would happen once the Devil gathered the power needed to reach the mortal realm.

The deeper Percy ventured, the more mana shrouded him. He found himself in another large hall, but this one was empty. Several cavern tunnels from all directions connected to the hall, but one hall attracted his attention. It was a massive ten-meter-tall entrance to the deepest part of the Demon Lair. It connected everyone to the mana vein and some sort of dark, highly compressed mass that clung onto it. The Abomination stirred, but not in excitement.

For the first time since Percy could recall, the Abomination was afraid.

It urged him to retreat at once and run away as far as he could.

Percy swallowed hard. The mana attracted his attention. It urged him to absorb as much as possible…as if trying to seek shelter somewhere else.

Is that dark mass–..

His thoughts were interrupted when the hall began to shake violently. Loose rocks fell to the ground beside Percy, startling him awake. His eyes widened, and he looked to the right, where a rock, larger and wider than his body, had crashed into. He swallowed hard and took a few heavy breaths, but his mind and body wouldn’t calm down.

The tremors continued, but it wasn’t until a thunderous rumbling resounded before Percy made a pirouette. He spun around to see the first of many cavern tunnels collapse. A second tunnel followed suit.

It almost felt like a warning from the Abomination and the Demon Lair. Percy was to avoid the dark mass gathered next to the mana vein.

He swallowed hard as the third tunnel collapsed.

The others should be fine. I’m probably in the worst position down here.

Even though the situation wasn’t in his favor, Percy smiled. He found the mana vein and discovered…something.

The Devil’s plan was about to be unraveled. Unfortunately, the last pieces of the puzzle were still missing, and he couldn’t collect them in time. The tunnels, alongside the cavern hall, were about to collapse. The Demon Lair will be no longer after today.

Hopefully, that’s enough to stop the Devil’s plan. If not…No! Let’s not think about that now! Get your act together and leave quickly!

Percy reminded himself. He looked at the tunnels and would have chosen the same he’d used to reach the deepest part of the Demon Lair if it hadn’t collapsed.

Forced to take another tunnel, Percy followed his gut feeling and vision. He picked the tunnel, which easily withstood the violent rumbling without sustaining any damage.

He circulated mana through his lower body and kicked the ground. Percy reached top speed in no time, reached the tunnel, and dashed up the steep elevation.

The pure mana filling the deepest part of the Demon Lair was soon replaced by tainted mana. Percy groaned again, but this time because the mana around him had been corrupted much worse than the mana in the other cavern hall. That didn’t make sense…except if he’d chosen the tunnel inhabited by a being stronger than Beth, the Succubus.

Or the being was weaker even though it released something more harmful into the surroundings than the Succubus’ Essence. Unfortunately, the latter was unlikely. To release something more potent than the Succubus after she’d been enhanced by the Devil’s power twice was highly unlikely, to say the least.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But that wasn’t the case. Percy discovered something else. Someone else.

He found the culprits responsible for the Demon Lair’s collapse. Percy entered a ginormous hall filled with tainted mana and Demonic Essence, the Beast King, and a massive crimson creature at its center. The crimson creature had the same physique as a Minotaur. However, it was more than four meters tall, had a crimson carapace covering its hulking muscles, and its head was flat as if someone had severed the snout of a bull. It was crimson and emanated crimson Demonic Essence into the surroundings, destroying and tainting the mana around them as they clashed.

The crimson creature was clearly a Demon Lord. The Lord of all Minos.

The Beast King clashed with the Demon Lord and didn’t seem to be at a disadvantage. He was covered in blood and afflicted by various curses or similar afflictions, but the Beast King wasn’t on the losing side. At least, that was what Percy would have guessed, given their bloody exchanges.

Yet, something odd occurred whenever Percy was certain the Beast King discovered an opening in the Demon Lord’s defenses. The Demon Lord released a beam of crimson light, which the Beast King could have evaded easily. It was the opportunity he needed to counter and strike back as long as the iron was hot.

But the Beast King didn’t evade the attack. On the contrary, he took on the full force of the crimson beam without hesitation. The beam struck him square in the chest and burned him alive. Or so Percy had feared until he remembered the Beast King’s Purgatory Fire and his great elemental resistance to fire. Still, he wasn’t immune to the hellfires summoned and augmented by a Demon Lord.

The crimson beam burned through the Beast King’s fur and seared his flesh, inflicting tremendous pain.

But that didn’t make any sense. Why would the Beast King jump into the crimson beam if he could have easily evaded the attack?

The answer came in no time. Percy’s confusion was replaced by horror and anger when he discovered what the Demon Lord would have hit if the Beast King hadn’t blocked the crimson beam.

Chained to the walls far behind the Beast King was what the royal envoy and the Beastmen had been looking for. There they were, the people the Beast King had sworn to protect. Dozens of children, victims of the Demons’ gruesome acts, entered Percy’s views. They were chained to the walls, writhing in pain and hunger.

They were skinny, on the verge of malnourished, their faces were pale, and their movements slow and sluggish. Percy found deep marks of their captive, dried blood and exposed flesh, hidden by the chains around their arms, legs, and necks. Some wounds were old and had already healed, as much as unattended wounds could heal without enough nutrients and mana, but worse were the wounds that never healed.

Their skin, torn into shreds over and over again from countless attempts to escape, appeared before Percy,

They resisted… Obviously, they did.

He swallowed hard. The children were too weak to resist at this point, but they had given their utmost to fight the Demons…to fight the demonification.

But they lost the battle.

The Beastmen children were demonified, and it couldn’t have been for long. They didn’t look like the other Beastmen, who fell victim to Demonic Essence. Their eyes were bloodshot, and their bodies seemed to grow unnaturally fast, with torn skin and barely healed stretch marks indicating their most recent growth spurt, but not much Demonic Essence had nestled within their mana reservoir as far as Percy could tell.

Can they be rescued?

Percy wondered, his attention diverting to the Beast King.

He sure thinks so. He’s protecting the demonified children with his body…with his life on the line. That’s why the Demon Lord is still alive and unscathed. The Lord of the Minos takes advantage of the Beast King’s care for his kind.

The Demon Lord took the demonified Beastmen hostage. He couldn’t care less if the children died or not. Thus, he attacked them with no qualms after realizing how much the Beast King cared.

He was physically weaker than the Beast King, but his opponent's heart was his greatest weakness. That’s what the Demon Lord took advantage of.

They didn’t notice me yet, or did they?

Percy nibbled on his lower lip and used [Silent Reaper]. His eyes trailed across the cavern hall to count the chained children and nodded slowly.

Even if the Demon Lair collapses, the Demon Lord has to die…and the Beast King has to survive. Even if the children cannot be saved anymore…I need to try.

If he didn’t rescue them, the Beast King would die, and the Demon Lord would kill them all. Percy couldn’t afford that.

Thus, he skulked to the Beastmen children, his eyes narrowed to tiny slits as his Abomination stirred at the sight of the highly potent Demonic Essence trying to take root in the children.

Percy tilted his head.

Is it possible? No. The Abomination isn’t strong enough.

He sighed and the Abomination stirred as if in anger.

Yet.

Percy added in his mind, unsure if that was going to make a change.

He hoped so. It would be best for everyone.