The Author's POV

The internal structure of the underground cavern was massive. Ryan couldn't count the handful of times he had taken the wrong path and headed toward a dead end.

It was starting to get to him.

"Not this one either."

Staring at probably what seemed to be like the tenth dead end, Ryan sighed in frustration and glanced at his phone.

There was a single red dot displayed on the screen, and that was where Ryan was currently headed to.

That was where Leopold was being held, and while he knew the exact direction of where he was, finding him was starting to prove to be a more difficult task than he had anticipated.

In a maze, just knowing where someone was, wasn't enough.

'If only he was somewhere more open.'

The fact that he was inside a massive underground network made it hard for Ryan to find the correct path, but he wasn't completely hopeless.

When he reached a new one, his phone would trace his steps so that he could see exactly where he was going and the places he had been in the past. Although he did run into a lot of dead ends, this helped him stay on track and stopped him from going to the same places twice.

He was steadily making progress, but still...

"Ugh."

Ryan groaned out loud.

'This is so frustrating.'

Time was of the essence, and he was wasting a lot of time finding the right path.

When he looked at his body, the demonic energy that had been encircling him had practically disappeared, and he no longer felt like a demon.

If he were to meet a demon, he'd instantly be found out.

'How annoying.'

The situation was anything but pleasant.

Despite that, Ryan could only grit his teeth and take out another demon core. This one belonged to the second demon he killed.

Crack!

Crushing it in the palm of his hand, he repeated the process from before and once again trekked on.

'No point in complaining… If I don't hurry up, things might turn for the worst. I need to hurry up.'

*

'Bingo.'

Ryan didn't know for how long he had walked, but after a couple more dead ends, he finally found the correct route, and he was shortly exposed to a large opening that was filled with thousands of metallic doors.

He was still quite a distance away from it, but he was able to see everything properly with the aid of a certain device.

'Well… shit…'

moment

far more secure, with thousands of different demons patrolling the area.

to be

only shudder at

It's fine…

was seeing was within his calculations. Scanning around, his eyes paused on a

time was ripe yet and remained where he was for

hours. During that time, he made a concerted effort to eavesdrop on the conversations

to get a better idea of how the system over here worked, and what exactly was going

them were going to be kept there for long as he'd see demons routinely approaching the cell doors and taking out

he heard was rather useless, but that didn't

prepared to make

energy covering me, so I should

that surrounded his body was still stable, he nodded his head with

He was ready.

Tap.

his foot stepped into the area, he felt countless eyes fall on him, and his

stoic face, he continued to move toward where Leopold

seems to

for

turned his head, he almost fell to

Ryan had a hard time keeping himself from passing out under

any regular

"Y,yes?"

asked, his composure

you doing over

direct question. One which Ryan already had an

from another sector, and I need to meet

one of the terminologies that Ryan picked up while listening in on

sure of what they meant, he knew that the term referred to those

"Which one?"

demon, Ryan could only lower his head and point toward Leopold's

…Hm, last I recall, that's where a human resides. Is that the

his

exactly where I

"Hmm, okay then."

the demon was quick to agree and stepped to

you any further. When you go there, you can just tell them

"Thank you."

rather relieved that things went so smoothly. Things would've been troublesome if the demon had noticed

Thankfully, he didn't.

'Okay, this is good.'

gaze over the door where Leopold resided, Ryan took a deep

touched

***

an eye on him; don't make a

The commander said expressionlessly.

his gaze fixed

he knew that he didn't belong in this

we ignore the fact that demons of its rank wouldn't show up in such a location, the fact that the demonic energy that covered its

reason the commander hadn't stopped the demon right then and there was because he wanted to see what he wanted

Their goal.