Chapter 180

After that day’s decision, Taewoon set a clear direction.

First, he returned to the group and made it clear that he would be acting alone. In exchange, he left Biryeong with the party of Solvers to fill the void left by his absence.

‘Mary, Frederick, and Katia are quite skilled individuals, but…’

To bother coordinating with them, the power Taewoon already possessed was far too diverse and vast.

However, the starting point hadn’t been set from the perspective of a First-Class Solver for no reason; therefore, if he left them entirely on their own, he might unintentionally miss out on a great deal.

That was the reason he put Biryeong forward.

‘I have a rough estimate. Enemies on the level of the Demon of Wishes or the forest monsters are no longer a match for me.’

Even if he spent a hundred days hunting enemies of that level, it would be a distant dream for Taewoon to grow further from his current stage.

‘Is it… right here?’

The well leading to hell.

One of the most prominent anomalies Taewoon had observed while touring the Tehesa region.

‘I can feel an eerie energy penetrating deep beneath my skin… but I don’t feel like it’s an overwhelmingly dominant existence.’

Compared to the one who had been the master of the Headless Prisoner, the well of hell was several levels lower.

In other words, Taewoon’s honest thought was that a creature of that level was the most powerful entity he could target at his current stage.

‘The Red Man’s power is fluctuating… Does he like my recent movements?’

He didn’t know what the man wanted from him, but ultimately, this too was one of the tasks Taewoon had to carry.

As he waited before the well with the correct conditions fulfilled, moonlight soon cast over it, and the well, which had looked ordinary at first glance, began to transform into a passage emanating a bizarre energy.

‘In the worst-case scenario, I might have to consume my first Ticket here, but…’

If he pursued a higher stage, he inevitably had to take this level of risk.

Finally, having steeled his heart, Taewoon stepped into the entrance of the well with a desperate resolve.

A sticky darkness, and as he descended further into the well, whispers like the faint screams of unknown beings grated on Taewoon’s nerves.

The bottom beyond the well was slippery, covered in unknown, bizarre substances, but Taewoon’s steps remained steady.

Summoning Keshatus into his right hand, Taewoon kept a close watch on his surroundings, taking in the overall view of the well’s interior.

‘Truly… grotesque.’

The moment he entered the interior of the well, light died and sound became muffled.

It was a sticky, primitive darkness that seemed to suck in everything existing here and constantly gnaw away at the warmth of life.

The floor he stepped on was damp and sticky. An unpleasant sensation, as if walking atop the rotting entrails of a living creature, crawled from his toes through his entire body.

Occasionally, what he stepped on were crushed bone fragments or bizarre chunks of flesh that hung limp while emitting a faint gas.

‘It’s an environment that feels as if it’s been eroded by some unknown something.’

The ceiling and walls were a tangle of wet mud and unknown substances, with a blood-red liquid flowing irregularly between them.

Wherever the liquid pooled, bubbles bloomed, and as the bubbles burst, they made a low noise like the lamentations of souls.

‘I think… I get it.’

This well was a living entity.

A giant organism that expanded and transformed endlessly by absorbing dead souls. The remnants of Aberrations scattered everywhere were the evidence.

Their bodies were melted and their forms crushed, but those bizarre traces bore witness to the atrocities that had occurred here.

With a sharp sound that tore through the silence, a figure emerged from the darkness ahead. A couple of black shadows crawled down from the ceiling like spiders.

Their bodies were covered in a bizarre, faintly glowing liquid, and their skeletal limbs had turned into sharp claws.

‘They aren’t much.’

Leaping from the ground, Taewoon charged at the Aberrations in an instant and fired Barata from his left hand like a flash of light.

With a dull sound of piercing bone, one of the Aberrations was slammed into the wall, and soon it let out a grotesque scream and melted into the darkness, vanishing.

‘Next!’

Taewoon spun his body in mid-air, using Keshatus to unleash a flash of dark blue lightning, momentarily freezing the Aberrations’ movements.

De-summoning Keshatus, Taewoon swung Barata again, repeatedly piercing the hearts of the Aberrations.

‘…Is this it for now?’

In the narrow, damp passage leading deeper, a faint light emanated from the bizarre mucus flowing along the walls.

It was intricately entwined like a neural network inside the well; the mucus clumped together, fell from the wall, and molded into a grotesque shape like living clay.

‘This is…’

Remnants of souls deformed by the well’s Magical Power. They let out a specific frequency of sound, creating a terrible rupturing noise, and Taewoon’s brow furrowed slightly at the sound that felt like it was piercing his brain.

Originally, it seemed they possessed the ability to disturb the opponent’s mind and paralyze the body, but the power was not sufficient to affect Taewoon.

‘Keshatus!’

The tip of the spear pointed toward the heart of the slime monsters. Having perceived the core where their Magical Power was concentrated, Taewoon drove the Lightning of Destruction straight down, piercing through their bodies.

“…It’s a bit ambiguous.”

In Taewoon’s opinion, the enemies he had met so far seemed to be mere by-products born within the bizarre phenomenon of the well of hell.

In other words, no matter how many of them he killed, nothing would change, and it was certain that the entity serving as the core of the well was located somewhere here.

‘There’s no need to spend energy on minor Aberrations; I should just ignore them and move on.’

Finally, the deepest part.

Taewoon’s feet touched the floor, which was filled with dark mud and sticky substances. The surroundings were complete darkness without a single point of light, but Taewoon’s senses clearly detected the throbbing of something existing within it.

The sound of countless thin legs moving, a terrible friction sound as if thousands of insects were crawling, echoed from all directions.

Grotesque figures poured out from the walls and even the ceiling. They were as fast as shadows and as numerous as insects.

Faced with a plausible Formidable Foe at last, Taewoon without hesitation took out the Red Wax Mask and put it on his face.

【Condition Fulfilled】

【Cinema Skill: The Red Man】

A characteristic rough and powerful strength flowed through Taewoon’s body. The surrounding darkness distorted, and red tattoos seemed to bloom upon his skin.

‘I can feel the existence beyond the mask continuing to watch me… Is the power of the skill becoming even stronger?’

The swarm of insects approached Taewoon in an instant via their shadow-like wings and legs, but as Taewoon swung his spear, red Magical Power erupted like a whirlwind, instantly tearing their bodies apart.

‘My condition is much better than usual. It’s as if my body is gradually adapting to the world inside this Theater.’

The shadows caught in Taewoon’s attack vanished within the red flashes and lightning before they could even form their main bodies.

However, given these countless numbers, Taewoon also needed to find a proper breakthrough if he intended to handle them all.

‘If I exert maximum firepower and engage in a war of attrition… I will surely win eventually.’

But those insects were not the true masters of the world inside this well either.

If he spent too much power on them, he might lose his life without even being able to resist the existence beyond them.

First, he will use the first Apostle Transformation here.

As Taewoon finally made his decision, a crimson mist like blood began to flow from his body, and a power far greater than usual filled his entire being.

It was a power he hadn’t used for a while, but originally, the Red Man possessed the ability to collapse an opponent’s mind and threaten their soul with a mere glance.

These insects were numerous, but each individual was even lower-grade than the Aberrations he had encountered in the cave previously.

In other words, for the current Taewoon.

Taewoon’s gaze stared at the insects through the gaps of the Wax Mask, and crushed by the weight of that gaze, the insects all began to lose their form and collapse into the mud.

It took less than a minute for the insects, which had been numerous enough to fill his vision, to all disappear.

In the space littered with corpses, Taewoon walked on regardless, constantly pushing through the darkness where not an inch ahead was visible.

Breaking the silence, whispers like faint screams bloomed from all directions. A formless pressure weighed heavily upon Taewoon’s entire body.

‘Has it appeared?’

Soon, the space itself distorted, and a giant shadow wavered in the darkness.

An existence whose form could not be defined, where only an overwhelming weight of the soul could be felt. He was likely the master of the world inside this well.

There was no voice, but the creature’s will struck Taewoon’s consciousness directly like a wave.

A sensation of a chilly shiver seeping into his heart—a sensation the usual Taewoon would not have felt.

‘…Terrifying.’

What the creature exerted was not simply a physical threat. It was a massive power that shook the very root of the soul, the existence itself.

He had already vaguely guessed that overwhelming Authority, but facing it in person was on a different dimension.

Taewoon thought that most physical strikes would likely not even leave a scratch on the ghost’s existence.

If he were to be properly hit by its power, even the current Taewoon could lose his life in an instant.

Amidst the intense sense of crisis penetrating his entire body, Taewoon’s Wax Mask began to emit an ominous light once again.