Rio brought out the scroll from his space ring and opened it. A complex magic circle was printed on the magic scroll. He put the scroll on the ground and put his hand in the central area of the scroll.
When Rio put mana in it, the magic circle shined brightly, the scroll suddenly burned away and a huge magic circle appeared under Rio's feet. Rio felt a strong suction force and he was teleported away by the magic circle.
…
An unknown place.
When Rio opened his eyes he found himself standing in front of a huge gate. The gate looked majestic and ancient. Several weird monster figures were engraved on the gate.
[Here lies the sinful, Aidel]
[Those who dare to disturb his sleep shall face his wrath too.]
Rio read the warning written above the gate and shook his head. He didn't care about this at all, because he knew what was lying inside in wait.
Rio brought out the necklace and put some of his mana in the necklace. The necklace glowed with purple light after being embedded with mana. As if a certain mechanism was triggered, Rio heard several sounds of chains and gears rolling from the gate.
The ancient-looking gate opened slowly. Just when the gate opened dense killing intent leaked out and tried to make Rio fearful of what was inside. But Rio was unfazed by this all.
All he thought was:
'Ugh, this horrible smell, it's the smell of rotten meat…' (Rio)
Ignoring the horrible smell and the dense killing intent, Rio walked in unfazed. His face stayed expressionless from the start to the end.
[Ding! You have entered an area contaminated with dense demonic energy!]
[Ding! The chance of getting contaminated and corrupted by demonic energy increases tremendously!]
[Error!... 'True Immunity' has been activated...]
[Ding! You are immune to the demonic energy!]
'Just like I expected… sometimes your plans work so well that, you can't help but smile in happiness… alas this emotionless body of mine, can't even laugh… tch…' (Rio)
Rio already expected that this place would have dense amounts of demonic energy here. But he didn't need to worry about it, he had 'True Immunity' with him after all.
When Fade came here in the original novel, he already had this overpowered skill 'True immunity' thus he was unaffected by the dense demonic energy lingering around in this place. Similarly, now that Rio also had this skill, he too was unaffected.
'This is also one of the reasons why I didn't bring Lia or Link with me here, they don't have this ability afterall…' (Rio)
While thinking all this, Rio walked inside and looked around. He found himself standing in a huge hallway. Giant pillars were supporting the ceiling on both sides of the hallway.
'This place is so huge that even an adult wyvern can fly here freely…' (Rio)
Rio slowly walked towards the end of the hallway. He noticed that the pillared had various monster figures engraved on them, just like the door outside.
'The aesthetics of the people who made this place is kind of weird…' (Rio)
As Rio continued to walk closer and closer to the end of the hallway, the killing intent became even heavier. The density of demonic energy continued to rise until Rio reached the end of the hallway.
At the end of the hallway, a giant throne was placed in the middle, and a corpse was sitting on the throne. The upper body of the corpse was humanoid and the lower body was like an octopus.
All the tentacles seemed mutilated and their tips had a sharp pointed protruding out of them. The whole corpse was rotting in various places, maggots crawled around everywhere. If a faint-hearted person saw this horrible scene they would faint from shock and disgust.
'It smells horrible…' (Rio)
Rio looked at the corpse with his expressionless face.
"Hey, will you stop playing dead, let's fight and get it done with early, you smell horrible… " (Rio)
"What was your name again? Aipel? Aimel? Ah! Aidel I challenge you to get up!" (Rio)
After Rio's continuous taunting, the corpse finally showed signs of activity, Aidel trembled a little bit as if he had sensed the arrival of Rio only just now.
Aidel opened his eyes and one of his eyeballs fell out, moreover due to years of rotting the other eye socket was already empty and maggots were squirming around in it. Which means this creature is blind.
Aidel opened his mouth and said in a horse and beastly tone:
"N-nicolas? N-nicol-as is that y-you?" (Aidel)
"Yes, it's me, Nicolas…" (Rio)
"Y-you finally ca-came back, forgive m-me N-nico-las, i-I don't have m-much t-time left-" (Aidel)
Before Aidel could finish his sentence, his tentacles started to wriggle around like snakes. They became restless. The tentacles twitched and squired uncontrollably. The pointed bones on their tips scratched the ground and made scratches on the golden floor.
Rio looked at all of this happening, patiently, if he intervened now, then he wouldn't be able to get what he was looking for.
"F-for-give….m-me…" (Aidel)
Suddenly, all of the demonic energy that was spread everywhere in this huge place started to gather and enter Aidel's body forcibly. His body started to mutate and transform even further.
The huge amount of demonic energy made Aidel's body bloat and increase in height and size. Aidel now looked more like a weird chimera-type creature.
'He looks like an experiment subject created by some mad scientist in his search for knowledge…' (Rio)
'This is what happens when your body is not compatible with the demonic energy…' (Rio)
When an individual tries to become a demon using some forbidden methods and their body is not compatible with the demonic energy, then that person fails in demonification and gets stuck in a half-human demon body, which is horribly mutilated and weird to look at.
Aidel's current state is the perfect example of a failed demonification. If his body was compatible with demonic energy he could have become a true demon and could have retained his human form, just like Durik was able to do so.
But since he failed he ended up like this.
The reason why Aidel tried to become a demon was very simple actually. He wanted strength. His sole motivation to become a demon was to become stronger. Although Aidel was already an A-ranker before undergoing demonification, he was not satisfied with just that.
He wanted to reach higher, he wanted the same strength that his Childhood friend Nicolas possessed.
Nicolas was a talented individual, but Aidel was not. He had already reached his maximum potential by entering rank A, he couldn't move further no matter what he tried. He was not blessed. He was jealous of Nicolas and wanted to obtain strength at any cost.
His obsession with becoming strong causes him to become so delusional that he even forgets about the existence of his most precious person.
Indeed, the necklace was given by that woman to Aidel, and they both fell in love during their many years of fighting and struggling together. Nicolas was the leader of their battalion and a great friend to the two of them.
Aidel eventually ended up losing himself in jealousy and defected from the army. He used a forbidden method and tried to undergo demonification. When Nicolas and the woman arrived it was already too late.
Aidel had already turned into a mutilated monster and his will, soul, mind everything was already corrupted by demonic energy beyond saving. There was no way to save Aidel from that state.
Nicolas remembered their friendship and couldn't kill Aidel. In the end, they decided to seal Aidel away until the war ended. They wanted to hide this matter from the army and didn't want to cause Aidel's name to get tarnished.
But Destiny played tricks on them, both Nicolas and the woman died in the final battle against the Orc Empire and thus Aidel remained here sealed for around 50 years.
Thankfully, all the items that were needed to reach this place were already arranged properly by Nicolas before he went for the final battle. Otherwise, no one would have been able to come here.
…
After a few minutes, Aidel's body finally transformed completely.
Except for his head and neck, his whole body has now turned into a monster. His arms turned into snake heads, his chest and stomach now had a turtle-like shell covering it, and his tentacles have now regenerated fully.
"Are you finally ready now?" (Rio)
Aidel didn't answer but looked up and roared at the ceiling like a mad beast, his snake hands wriggled around and spit poison everywhere, corroding the floor and producing foul smells.
*rrrrrrrroooooooooaaarrrggggggghhhhh*
'Ugh, it's even more horrible now…' (Rio)
After Aidel finished roaring, he faced Rio.
"F-ffff—fffffor----ffforgi---ve" (Aidel)
"Yeah, yeah, I forgive you for becoming a monstrosity like that…" (Rio)
Rio shrugged his shoulders. He knew that Aidel must have deeply regretted his decisions at the last moments when his sanity was fading away.
Aidel must have wanted to get forgiveness from Nicolas for breaking their trust and comradeship, but now that Nicolas was long dead, there's no point in asking for forgiveness.
'Instead, you can ask for forgiveness when you meet Nicolas in the afterlife…' (Rio)
…
…
Author's Notes.
Question of the day.
What are your thoughts on Aidel?
(Tell me in the comments.)
By the way, don't forget to use those power stones and also leave a review if you like the story. Comment your opinion about the chapter. Your support is my motivation.
New Novel is Here!