The Mysterious Giant Underground Palace

The fallen god's roar, filled with despair and unwillingness, seemed to still echo faintly through the depths of the ruins.

Yet its utterly chaotic, filthy aura had vanished completely into that absolute darkness where even light could not escape, as though erased by an eraser.

"Oh, my bloody Dumbledore..."

Ian stood where he was, every muscle in his body taut, fine cold sweat beading in the palm gripping his wand. It was not as though he had never faced powerful beings before, but the force that had appeared from nowhere, forcibly intervened, and taken away the fallen god was entirely beyond his understanding in both level and nature.

It was not magic, not divine power, and did not even resemble any known form of energy. It was more like... the enforcement of rules themselves.

Cold, absolute, indisputable.

"What the hell was that..." A storm raged in Ian's heart, and a chill shot up his spine to the top of his head. He had originally thought his opponent was merely a fallen god imprisoned by corruption. Now, however, it seemed that whatever lay hidden beneath this abyss was far more terrifying than the god itself.

At that moment.

Ian truly wanted nothing more than to retreat.

To go back.

To stop meddling.

However.

He suddenly turned and looked toward the path he had taken to get here.

The spatial portal that had passed through the shattered barrier and connected to the prison area above had, at some unknown time, silently vanished from this space.

Where was the door behind him? The place that should have been a gap in the barrier had now been replaced by a seamless rock wall covered in ancient weathering marks.

The rock wall blended perfectly with the surrounding ruins. There were no seams, no magical fluctuations,