Chapter 50: The Altar of Blood
“Damn it!”
A split-second decision determined life or death.
The oppressive figure of the massive Mimic blocked the pathway leading to the new area.
It was enormous.
Should I turn and run?
‘No, that’s a death sentence.’
My instincts screamed at me to flee, but doing so would only lead to my death. In this narrow corridor, how long could I possibly hold out against that thing?
“In the end, the only option is to break through head-on.”
I had to get past the monster.
The Mimic stood still with its back toward me, unmoving.
Crunch—
I heard the disgusting sound of it chewing, as if savoring the chunk of flesh it had ripped from my shoulder.
Without hesitation, I infused my dagger with enchantments and threw it.
Its massive size made accuracy irrelevant.
Kaang—!
The dagger bounced off with absurd ease, as if it had struck solid metal.
Its body looked tougher than a solid block of steel.
Still, the impact seemed to irritate it, and the Mimic began to twist its massive frame. That was my chance.
Gritting my teeth, I slid forward, aiming for the gap leading to the space beyond.
This was my only shot.
“...Ugh!”
I barely scraped past the edge of the wall, squeezing through the narrow gap and slipping past the Mimic. The floor I left behind was slick with blood from my torn shoulder.
Dizziness from the blood loss hit me like a wave, but I forced myself forward, springing up like a coiled spring and sprinting with every ounce of strength I had.
This narrow corridor was the Mimic’s hunting ground. I needed a wider space.
‘Just a little farther!’
As I caught sight of a new area beyond the corridor,
Thud—!
“...Shit!”
A chilling noise, followed by a tremor that rippled through the ground. It was coming again!
I turned in a panic, extending my hand.
I had poured all my remaining mana into movement, leaving me dangerously low.
Flash—!
“...!”
Golden light burst forth just as the foul stench of its breath grazed past my hair.
It was horrifying. Damn it.
‘How is it this fast?!’
Five steps ahead, the Mimic stopped dead, its mouth gaping wide open right in front of me.
There was no time to dodge.
It barreled toward me like a bulldozer, its sheer speed leaving me in awe.
The sight of that cursed mouth, filling the entire corridor, sent chills down my spine.
Graaaaaahh—!
Once again, the glowing glyph saved my life.
The moment it was exposed to the light, its tongue lashed out but quickly recoiled as it withdrew.
Shhlrp!
“Shut your damn mouth, you bastard!”
The Mimic, having retreated briefly, opened its jaws again, dragging its long, slimy tongue along the floor like a slide.
I was gasping for air, my mana dangerously low, but I couldn’t afford to stop maintaining the glyph.
I had already experienced how it would leap forward the moment the light was gone, using that tongue as propulsion. Last time, I had gotten lucky with just losing some flesh. I couldn’t count on that luck a second time.
My trembling limbs felt like those of a junkie going through withdrawal. The side effects of pushing my mana beyond its limits were starting to show.
Though my glyph’s power had grown after I reached the third rank, its mana consumption was far from efficient.
Cold sweat trickled down my chin.
Step by step, I slowly backed toward the exit.
“...Ugh!”
Just as my body was about to give out from mana exhaustion, I stumbled out of the corridor.
A wide-open space greeted me.
I threw myself to the right of the entrance and collapsed. The moment the Mimic, flicking its tongue, disappeared from my sight,
Thud—!
The Mimic moved!
Scrambling to my feet, I bolted once more.
Where had it gone? I couldn’t afford to waste time observing. Timing my movements to its attacks would be too late—I had to move preemptively...
But when I glanced behind me, my steps faltered.
“...What?”
The Mimic was nowhere to be seen.
I had definitely heard it moving.
Wasn’t it chasing me?
When the Mimic didn’t appear for a while, I cautiously peered back into the corridor where I had first encountered it.
It was empty.
It seemed to have retreated to the opposite side.
‘Why did it back off?’
I felt puzzled by the Mimic’s behavior, but my thoughts didn’t linger long.
My strength gave out, and I slumped against the wall.
My body was completely drained.
I didn’t know why, but for now, it seemed the danger had passed.
“Damn…”
Pain flared as my wound scraped against the rough surface of the wall. When I inspected the injury, I found my shoulder deeply torn, with the bone visible.
It was worse than I thought.
In the rush of the moment, I hadn’t even realized the extent of the damage.
‘At least it ended with this.’
Just brushing against its teeth had done this much. If I had been bitten properly, my entire arm would have been gone.
I remembered the potion Karl had packed for me and quickly pulled it from my bag, pouring it over my shoulder.
The stinging pain made me wince, but I had no other choice. As I sat there, a loud rumble from my stomach reminded me how exhausted I was.
“Damn it, I shouldn’t have given Fenry the jerky pouch.”
That damned woman, Fenry.
She had clung to me like insurance for her life, but when I actually needed her, she was nowhere to be found.
After cursing her a few more times under my breath, I sat there panting, completely spent both mentally and physically.
As the remaining potion began to work, I slowly felt my strength return.
Finally, I could catch my breath.
I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and sleep right then and there.
Thud—!
“...”
But the ominous sound rang out again, somewhere in the distance.
Groaning, I staggered to my feet.
By now, I knew exactly what that sound meant.
Even while wandering in the corridors, that thud had never stopped.
It was a signal that the Mimic was constantly moving, hunting for prey.
In other words, this space wasn’t entirely safe either.
That thing could easily circle back and devour me in an instant.
The only comfort was that this was an open space, not a narrow corridor.
I began to carefully examine my surroundings.
It was an ancient cave, massive enough to remind me of a football field.
Dozens of tunnels branched out from the cave, all the same size as the corridor I had escaped from. There were about ten of them, radiating outward like a spider’s web with this space as the center.
‘Could this be the place?’
A thought crossed my mind, and I started moving.
Beyond the tunnels, something else caught my eye—a pool in the center of the cave.
‘A pool.’
I quickly approached it. The closer I got, the more certain I became.
The grotesque walls of the cave were entirely crimson, and the pool reflected that color, appearing red as well.
Normally, finding a pool would trigger a deep thirst after days without a drop of water. But as I neared it, my thirst vanished completely.
“This is the altar...”
It was exactly as I had imagined.
The altar’s appearance was nothing short of grotesque.
Up close, the pool was an even deeper, more vivid red than it had seemed from afar.
A metallic stench wafted up.
It was a pool of blood.
The entire thing, as large as a playground, was filled with blood.
And within the pool, I saw small piles of stones scattered like miniature graves.
The stones radiated a darker, bloodier hue than the rest of the space, exuding an eerie atmosphere.
I recognized them immediately.
They were what Dominic referred to as the altar’s symbols.
‘Bio mana stones.’
These were the power sources of the chimeras and the very core of Dominic’s strength.
Hundreds of them were piled here.
No—possibly even more.
“Ugh…”
As I stared at the heaps of stones, a sudden sharp pain shot through my head.
At first, I thought it was just an aftereffect of mana depletion, but I was wrong.
My heart began to race wildly, blood dripped from my nose, and nausea churned in my stomach despite it being empty. I ended up retching on the floor.
‘This pain… it’s familiar.’
I had spent six days inside a chimera’s stomach, absorbing mana stone powder. The symptoms that tormented me every day during that time returned.
The onset of madness.
My body remembered the pain.
Fortunately, I also knew how to deal with it.
Voom—
The glyph on the back of my hand faintly activated.
By focusing the glyph’s power exclusively on myself, I was able to calm the symptoms. It was a technique I had naturally mastered after reaching the third rank by absorbing the mana stone powder.
As the pain subsided completely, my suspicions turned into certainty.
‘It’s the side effects of the mana stones.’
But I hadn’t consumed any. Why was I suddenly affected?
The only explanation was right before my eyes—the massive piles of mana stones.
‘Could being near such a large concentration of mana stones cause this?’
Fenry once mentioned that mana stones emanate an energy that goes against the laws of nature. If there were only a few, the energy might be faint, but with this many gathered in one place, the energy was undoubtedly overwhelming.
That would mean no living creature could easily approach this area.
‘Could that be why the Mimic retreated?’
Perhaps it sensed this and decided to focus on other prey. Was that the reason? Or was there something else? Regardless, this had to be connected somehow.
I turned my attention back to the pool of blood.
This was the place where Dominic had birthed a hundred hearts.
The altar where the madman Dominic had emerged from his twisted research.
Two things stood out as I surveyed the scene.
First, scattered within the pool, among the piles of red mana stones, were small numbers of violet-colored mana stones.
They were far fewer in number compared to the red ones, but their presence was overwhelming—so much so that they seemed to devour the attention from the red stones entirely.
At first, I wasn’t sure what these violet stones were. But seeing them here, lying amongst the red mana stones, I started to get a sense.
‘Were these the temporary power sources for Arena?’
These violet mana stones were likely the energy source that Dominic had occasionally fed to Arena.
The second thing I noticed was the bodies scattered near the pool.
At least ten corpses were immediately visible. Unlike the mutilated remains scattered throughout the corridors, these bodies were remarkably intact. Carefully, I stepped into the pool to investigate further.
The pool wasn’t deep, only reaching my ankles.
Splash, splash.
I carefully waded through the blood and began turning over the bodies submerged within.
White, rolled-back eyes.
Faces twisted in agony, like those of vengeful spirits.
Not a single one of them was human.
They were all from different races—dwarves, elves, lionfolk, and wolfmen.
‘They haven’t been dead for long.’
Judging by the state of the corpses, it didn’t seem like the Mimic had killed them. Why, then, were they all left here like this?
Frowning in puzzlement, I stood up. As I did, something about a dead dwarf’s clawed hands caught my eye.
‘Red?’
His fingernails were stained red.
The red nails were a sign of the mana stone’s side effects—the madness syndrome.
I inspected the other corpses more carefully. Sure enough, their bodies bore numerous small wounds, as if they had clawed and bitten each other to death.
Every single one of them had the same red fingernails.
It seemed that merely stepping into this area had caused them to become corrupted by the mana stones’ energy, transforming them into madmen.
One mystery solved, but another immediately arose.
‘Why didn’t the Mimic eat them?’
The Mimic wasn’t the type to leave corpses lying around. Up until now, it had been difficult to find even a single intact body—the corridors were littered with nothing but scattered bones. Yet the dead here in the pool were completely untouched.
‘There are at least thirty corpses in this area alone, but none of them show any signs of being attacked by the Mimic.’
A strange feeling crawled over me, as if I was on the verge of uncovering something important.
I forgot the stench and focused entirely on the mystery. Then, my gaze shifted back to the massive piles of mana stones.
“…Could it be!?”
That’s when it happened.
Thud—!
“...Hah!”
The ominous sound rang out again—closer than ever. So close, in fact, that I could feel the vibration on my skin.
I turned my head slowly.
The pool of blood before me darkened, as though something was casting a shadow over it.
‘Sh-Shit!’
Without thinking, I threw myself down beside one of the corpses, pressing my face into the pool.
The disgusting, metallic stench of blood filled my nostrils, and the slimy texture clung to my skin. Every nerve in my body screamed in protest, but I didn’t dare move.
Thud—!
The Crystal Mimic dropped down onto the pile of mana stones.