There was a land of waste where no life could grow. The ground was cracked and dry and painted red but the sun didn't shine in the sky.
No matter which direction one gazed in, they would only see this exact same bland scenery continuing endlessly.
This was the land Damien saw around him at this moment.
'Wasn't I supposed to be in the Primordial Undying Realm?'
For a secret realm that was managed by the so-called "Primordial Spirit of Immortality", it seemed a little too…mortal.
The land was, by all intents and purposes, dead. There were no signs of vitality coming from it at all.
'Is this one of those trials?'
He had heard plenty of times that there'd be trials in the secret realm to judge the worthiness of those entering, but he never really visualized what that'd be like.
Perhaps it would be like the Legacy Tombs he found in the Eternal Secret Realm on Apeiron, or perhaps it would be something else. Either way, when he imagined secret realms, he always thought of expansive worlds filled with treasure.
It was a misconception that was born from experience. Not every secret realm would be like the one on Apeiron, where an entire small world was literally compressed into a realm for future use.
While Damien was questioning his surroundings, the ground began to rumble.
What seemed like an earthquake shook the earth and sunless sky for many moments, but with his abilities, Damien wasn't fazed at all. Instead, he watched with interest.
Suddenly…
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosive sounds thundered from the ground as it was split open and blasted to pieces. Torrents of red liquid shot out from beneath like bloody geysers.
'This is…magma?'
Regular magma wouldn't be able to hurt Damien anymore. This was the benefit of coating his body with the mana of a 3rd class being.
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And this is exactly what he tried to do as he backed away from the torrents of magma that began to fill the land.
"…huh?"
But soon enough, he realized it was impossible. His feet wouldn't budge from their position as if he was glued to the ground and his mana wouldn't respond to his call. Even the space around him seemed to thicken at that moment.
"Not good."
His facial expression became ugly. He could probably survive the magma with his physical body and regeneration if it was only for a small period of time, but the magma filling the area at the moment didn't seem to be the kind that would only last for a moment.
Boom! Boom!
Two more torrents of magma shot out from behind him, flowing into the previous streams and enclosing Damien's location. Now, unless he teleported or flew, there was no way to escape.
But how could he do either with his body trapped and his mana sealed?
Oddly enough, the magma didn't spread outwards, instead forming a cage around Damien. As more and more lava flew from underground, it filled that cage until its height reached an unimaginable point.
And then, it began to flow inwards.
"Fuck!" Damien shouted. He desperately tried to control his muscles and tendons to move, even by a little, but it was futile. Soon enough, the magma reached the center of the cube it had formed and made contact with the soles of Damien's feet.
Tsss!
It was a sound similar to pouring cold water into a heated pan. A low hiss that signified the burning of the shoes on his feet.
Somehow, the second the magma touched him, its flow seemed to rapidly increase. Damien could only watch helplessly in those first few minutes as the cage was formed around him, but now it seemed that he'd be completely enveloped in magma within the next minute.
"Argh!"
Even if his physical body was powerful, even if he'd heal from the wounds he received until his mana was drained, he could still vividly feel the pain of his flesh melting.
It didn't take long for a minute to pass, but it felt like an eternity to Damien. And finally…
Splash!
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The last of the magma had covered his body and the original free-flowing geysers had paused. It was as if time in the outside world had come to a standstill to allow Damien to suffer for as long as possible.
The way things were now, there was no way he'd be able to escape torment any time soon.
"Aggg!"
His body instinctively tried to scream, but all that did was allow the magma into his throat, burning it to cinders.
Luckily, he was regenerating. But Damien, who was still conscious, was sure that this wasn't the work of his own regeneration.
Why? Obviously because if it was his own skill, he would've regenerated much faster. But no. Instead of immediately healing the damages to his body, he was regenerating slow enough to perfectly match the speed at which he burned.
Once again, a mechanism seemed to activate to keep him burning for as long as possible.
His skin melted first, leaving a layer of muscle and skeletal tissue. But those melted soon after. His mana heart and true heart, as well as his rib cage and bones, came into view.
If it wasn't for the strange force that was keeping him alive right now, he'd have undoubtedly died. He was just a normal person who was thrown into lava at this time.
Damien felt like he was going insane. His body was in constant pain even when his pain receptors had been melted into nothingness whenever his muscles bones and skin were burnt to their last shred, they were healed back to peak condition.
But even this healing only brought pain instead of pleasure.
'AHHHH!'
He had learned from his first accident not to scream out loud. His screams reverberated in his brain as he endured the suffering he was put through.
But he couldn't die. He couldn't lose his sanity. He wouldn't allow that to happen.
Within the dark mindscape that he had discovered when he created his Mind Prison, Damien could see two things.
One was the aforementioned Mind Prison, but he felt nothing towards it. After resolving himself to face his problems head-on, he had never used it again.
What his mind focused on was the other object. It was faintly shining with a blue hue and took the shape of a feminine humanoid.
When Damien moved closer to inspect it, he realized why he felt a sense of familiarity towards it.
'Ruyue.'
Before they were separated, he saw a blue light shoot out from her body and into his forehead. It had just happened after all, so it was still extremely vivid in his mind.
The faint blush that flushed her cheeks in a rosy color, the way she softly bit her bottom lip, the emotion in those piercing golden eyes when she looked at him. The utterly embarrassing words that flowed so smoothly from her lips.
'From now on, we are forever connected. If you die, then I shall be crippled near death as well. So don't die! Unless you want me to suffer a fate worse than death!'
Although his eyes were the first thing to be melted after he was submerged in magma, if they were still present, they'd be burning in determination.
'Right. With this small amount of pain, I was going crazy? I've seriously gone soft over the years.'
Remember those days. Those days in the dungeon. When not a single thing mattered besides survival.
Endure. Endure. Endure.
Survive. Survive. Survive.
'Remember. When you stood in front of that wyvern that was so terrifying back then. When you allowed its breath to burn half your body to cinders just for the fun of it. Remember. When you were enveloped in a world of blood, sustaining and surviving in a state of constant injury.'
'Remember. That feeling when fighting the very first wolf. A wolf that could now be erased at a flick of your finger. Back then, remember that burning and insane will to survive. Even if it cost an arm, even if it cost everything, as long as you brought down that wolf, it was worth it.'
When Damien's thoughts flew through his time in the dungeon, when he remembered his insanity back then, the feeling of being burned alive like this…
It was oddly disappointing.
'I was being put into such a miserable situation by just this much?'
How much had he endured so far? How much had he survived? Something like this…
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Something like this wasn't nearly enough to break him.