No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Noticing that the people behind him had followed, Logan's expression relaxed slightly. These people weren't that hopeless after all.

If Evan, the Dragonman from earlier, and the rock clansman he had questioned had failed to follow him, he would have truly flown into a rage.

But now, it seemed that Riss's death had indeed been a little too absurd.

When he had first been awakened, he had thought he had merely encountered some blind fool.

He had met that elf Kolun before.

Back then, Kolun had treated him with utmost courtesy. Not only had her words been filled with respect, but even Xilos, who had only just begun to make a name for herself at her side, had treated her with great courtesy. There had been none of the excessive disrespect or even outright fighting those people had just described.

Killing Riss over something as trivial as wanting to enter the elves' hidden sanctuary—such things did not exist in the Shadow World, and they absolutely could not happen among the Dragon race!

A moment later.

After crossing the scorching river of molten rock, the group saw a complex formation. Powers of every kind clustered around a single point of crimson light at its center, trembling without end.

Beneath the formation.

Countless streams of hazy darkness battered the seal. As an eerie aura spread, that power continued to rise and gnaw away at the seal. Fine black threads seeped into the molten rock, vanishing without a trace in an instant.

Logan frowned deeply at the sight.

He could sense that the power sustaining the seal beneath the formation had already weakened considerably. It would not be able to hold on for much longer.

"How much longer did Kolun say that seal could last?"

His expression unchanged, Logan noticed Evan standing beside