There Is No World For ■■

Deep within the city once called Verkhoyansk, Siberia—

Paseun opened his eyes in a tank filled with a crimson liquid, thick as blood.

“Ugh, urgh—”

The first thing he did upon waking was retch, vomiting out the foul liquid that had flooded his lungs and stomach.

“Urk—ugh!”

He coughed, gagged, and gasped for air, his body convulsing as it struggled to rid itself of the putrid substance.

It took a long moment, but his brain, finally saturated with oxygen, began functioning again.

The sight before him came into focus—

A cavernous concrete chamber, large enough to resemble a dragon’s lair.

One wall was lined with cages filled with living animals and monstrous creatures, while the opposite side was packed with glass tubes brimming with green fluid.

The tank he had emerged from sat at the center of the room, surrounded by several others that housed the submerged bodies of what appeared to be robust humans—lifeless.

“An undead laboratory... Damn it.”

Shivering, Paseun staggered out of the tank.

And the moment his bare feet touched the ground—

—Kyaaaaaah!!!

A skull lying on the floor let out a piercing shriek.

It had to be some kind of magical alarm, but the sound was utterly obnoxious.

“Shut the hell up.”

With a sharp frown, Paseun snapped his fingers.

Crack!

A burst of wind shot out like a bullet, shattering the skull into pieces.

“Whichever bastard owns this place... it’s a damn mess.”

Grumbling under his breath, Paseun began rifling through the area for something to wear.

Wandering around naked wasn’t exactly comfortable—especially with the cold gnawing at his lower half.

He wasn’t about to freeze his balls off over this nonsense.

Finding a ragged cloth, he wrapped it around himself and sat down to wait for the lab’s owner to show up.

Whoever had dared to treat him like an experimental specimen was going to answer for it.

There were plenty of suspects—Worm, Gutsplitter, Poisonfang... and—

Rumble—!

Before Paseun could finish his thought, the wall at the far end of the chamber split open, revealing the one responsible.

—Who dares trespass upon my workshop...?!

A massive skeletal dragon, Kahal Magdu.

Paseun’s lips twisted into a smirk.

So it really was a dragon’s lair? Figures.

Waving lazily, he greeted the towering monster.

“Kahal Magdu?”

The flames flickering within the dragon’s eye sockets narrowed.

—Paseun?

—How... how have you returned to life...?

Before the skeletal creature could finish its question, Paseun had already extended his hand, unleashing a concentrated blast of energy.

The dragon instantly channeled mana to form a translucent barrier.

Crack!

The air trembled as Paseun’s martial arts collided with the shield, scattering particles of mana in every direction.

Kahal Magdu began preparing a counterattack but hesitated, suddenly remembering where they were—his own workshop.

—Paseun, wait! Have you forgotten the rules? We do not attack one another.

The dragon’s voice grated on Paseun’s ears, making him grit his teeth.

“Rules? You bastard, you broke the rules first! Were you trying to turn me into a jiangshi?!”

Paseun jabbed a finger toward the tank he had emerged from, his voice rising.

The skeletal dragon flapped its wings—an eerie mimicry of a shrug.

—Jiangshi? I was making you a Death Knight.

“What’s the damn difference, you boneless lizard?!”

Paseun’s body radiated mana, as if ready to obliterate the dragon’s skull right then and there.

But—

Before the confrontation could escalate, a figure wearing a tiger pelt entered the chamber from behind the dragon.

“...Both of you. Enough.”

The low, raspy voice carried an unsettling charisma, and Paseun instinctively lowered his energy.

“Gutsplitter! You bastard! Care to explain yourself? Instead of reviving me, you handed me over to this skeletal freak?!”

The man, called Gutsplitter, regarded Paseun with murky eyes before responding.

“...Paseun. This is... a misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding? I just crawled out of that damned tank ten minutes ago—what part of this is a misunderstanding? You want to end up misunderstood in pieces?!”

“...I should be asking you. Your soul... it was... gone. How... did you... return?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Gutsplitter’s dull eyes shimmered faintly.

“Not even... the gods of filth... in the cult... could find... your soul.”

“....”

“I assumed... you had been... completely annihilated.”

As Gutsplitter finished speaking, Kahal Magdu let out a puff of air, intrigued.

A soul that had vanished had returned?

Any necromancer would kill to unravel such a mystery.

Paseun, however, didn’t share their curiosity.

“Annihilated, my ass. I’ve just been... trapped.”

“Trapped? Where...?”

Paseun opened his mouth to answer—but no words came out.

His lips moved silently as if something had stolen his voice.

And then—

Blood erupted from his eyes, nose, and mouth.

“...Shit. Cough—damn it!”

Panicking, Paseun focused his mana to stop the bleeding, but no matter how much he sealed his veins or tried to heal, the flow wouldn’t stop.

This wasn’t ordinary bleeding—it was a curse.

Realizing this, Gutsplitter rushed forward, pressing down on Paseun’s mouth.

“Speak not... of mysteries... or face... the curse. Swear silence... now...!”

Unable to speak, Paseun nodded urgently.

The moment he did, the bleeding ceased, and his body returned to normal.

“...You were trapped... in a terrifying... place.”

“....”

“Never... speak of it... again. Break your oath... and next time... it won’t end with bleeding.”

Paseun clenched his jaw and spat blood onto the floor.

“...My life’s a goddamn joke.”

“I understand... Mysteries... are like that.”

***

That was the end of the conversation about souls.

Kahal Magdu, who had been observing the exchange, muttered something about how anticlimactic it was—only for Paseun to flip him off in response.

“Well... I’m alive, so that’s what matters. Now, get to the point. How far has the plan progressed while I was out?”

Gutsplitter nodded at Paseun’s abrupt change of subject.

“Now... it’s time... to find... the Tear... in Chicago....”

Chicago?

Paseun racked his brain, trying to remember, before the image of the dwarves from Chicago came to mind.

The dwarves of Dungan Heavy Industries—those bastards were tied to none other than that one.

“...I don’t think we should mess with Chicago.”

“Why... not...?”

Instead of answering, Paseun mimed zipping his lips shut.

Silence.

The deliberate gesture made Gutsplitter’s eyes darken.

“Hmm... should we... change... direction?”

“Well, that’s my opinion.”

“...Hmm. Hmm...”

Gutsplitter let out a noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a cough before turning toward the cages stacked along the wall.

“We’ll... change direction... Avoiding... mysteries... is wisest....”

He said this as he pulled a lamb from one of the cages.

Perhaps sensing its fate, the lamb let out a frail bleat and kicked desperately, trying to escape Gutsplitter’s grip.

But its struggle didn’t last long.

Just as it tried to bite his hand, Gutsplitter drew a dagger from his robes and slit the lamb’s belly open.

Baaa—!

The lamb’s death cry filled the chamber as its blood and entrails spilled across the floor.

Both Kahal Magdu and Paseun grimaced at the sight.

—In my workshop, of all places....

“Can’t you just read the stars or something instead of gutting animals?”

“It’ll... take six... more hours... for the stars... to rise....”

Ignoring their complaints, Gutsplitter turned his attention back to the lamb’s entrails.

An ancient method of divination—reading animal guts.

Compared to the prophetic visions of a Saint, who only needed mana to glimpse the future, it was a crude and outdated technique.

But sometimes, dry kindling burned better than gasoline.

After a long moment of studying the entrails, Gutsplitter trembled as if he had confirmed something.

He then looked up, meeting Kahal Magdu’s and Paseun’s gazes in turn.

“The dimensional gate... beyond it... the southern... Demon Realm... Dreitheriel... necromancer... fae... we need to... prepare....”

“What Demon Realm? It’s just a wasteland,” Paseun snorted.

As he scoffed, Kahal Magdu leaned in.

—If we need to go to the Demon Realm, I’ll go. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my homeland.

“And how are you planning to get through the gate with that body? Break yourself into pieces and pretend you’re a museum shipment again? I should just—”

Before Paseun could finish, Gutsplitter interrupted.

“Paseun... you can’t... You need... to recover....”

Recover?

Paseun scowled. He opened his mouth to argue, but Gutsplitter shook his head firmly.

“Yekaterina... and Kahal Magdu... the two of them... will go... You... need rest....”

Paseun didn’t argue.

Instead, he stomped down hard on the floor of the workshop.

—This crazy bastard.

Kahal Magdu cursed as cracks spread across the chamber’s foundation, but Paseun had already turned his back.

“...Do whatever the hell you want. I’ll just focus on my training.”

Gutsplitter watched her retreating figure for a moment before clicking his tongue.

“...Fate... has twisted... far too much....”