The interrogation room’s door opened 15 minutes later after the old priest left, startling Macil who was considering his options.

He looked nervously at the newcomer who was a different old man wearing a black cloak. He didn’t look like a priest.

"Master Lime I presume?" Macil asked in a cold tone trying to act tough, his legs were shaking though. He was not ready to be tortured!

"I am not… I sneaked past that guy on my way here, he is probably still snoozing." the old man said as he took a seat and began to rub his back. "I am too old for such things…" he sighed.

"Sneaked?"

"Ah… Yes, yes… I don’t work for the Sun temple, I just came here to retrieve the dragon bone and happened to hear your conversation with that old priest," he said.

"What.?" Macil exclaimed. He didn’t expect this answer.

"I thought that I may offer you my services and help you escape in exchange for some information!" the old man explained.

"Ohh…" Macil frowned. Was this some trap? Yes, this was definitely a trap! "I am not a criminal to begin with! Why would I need to escape?" He decided to play it safe. They might be planning to frame him with something to gain an excuse to finish him off! His sisters were that kind of bitches who plotted like that!

"Oh… Then you want to stay here?" the old man asked with a frown. "Are you a masochist or something? That guy was going to torture you for real you know…. People don’t just leave this place in one piece!"

"No! Not like that! I am just saying that I am innocent… I am sure the temple will find that later and…" Macil explained.

"Suit yourself… I had no idea sun elves had such weird hobbies… My fault…" The old man interrupted as he stood up with difficulty then quickly headed toward the door and opened it, making Macil notice the bloody corpse of the priest who was interrogating him earlier lying on the floor right behind it.

Was this not a trap!? Shit!

"Wait! WAIT!" Macil quickly yelled. "You killed him?" he asked, looking at the corpse. It was real!

"Oh… Yup… This idiot's kind can’t be interrogated… And he had my dragon bone!" the old man said as he left the room and began to close the door.

"Kind…? WAIT!" Macil yelled. This man might just be his last lifeline. If the temple were to find the old priest’s corpse, he would definitely be accused as an accomplice! No one would care about his innocence!

"What now?" the old man seemed annoyed.

"Please help me escape!" Macil said shamelessly.

"..."

"I will give you all the information you want…" Macil added after some hesitation. He decided that it would be safer to bargain later. Once he was safe!

"Fine…" the old man said. He took two steps toward Macil and slashed with a golden dagger that he took out of thin air. Macil flinched but he quickly relaxed as the dagger cut the indestructible magical chain in one swing.

"Let’s go…" the old man said.

Macil nodded as he stood up "How are we going to leave this place?" he asked. "Those bastards took all my stuff!"

"Leave it to me… You can sleep for now…" the old man said.

"What…" Macil wanted to ask, but the next moment he felt the world go dark as something struck him from behind.

…

Looking at the collapsed elf, Victor sighed.

NAME : Macil Q Sola LEVEL: 79 Abnormal Status: POWER LOCKING CURSE, D <1/30 HOURS> CLASS: Shadow Archer, S AUTHORITY: 7 Strength: 220 Agility: 210 Intelligence: 250 Luck: 19 Charm: 35 Order: 0 SKILLS : Bow Art, S Penetrating Arrow, S Shadow Arrow, S Wind Steps, A Shadow Disguise, B Hide Presence, C Knife Arts, D Assassinate, E Sword Arts, F Spear Arts, F Charm, F Bloodline: SUN ELF, AA 100% EQUIPMENT: ROYAL INSIGNIA, S [CURSED CAN NOT BE REMOVED] FATE: FATE’S POWER: A DEFINED FATE: GET KILLED BY AN ELVEN PRINCESS, A

Hopefully, this guy had the info he needed about what happened to his family members and his half-sister.

Putting the unconscious elven prince in the cauldron, Victor gave the interrogation room one last check then left, making sure to put a sealing talisman on the door from the inside before closing it.
Now they would only enter by breaking the wall!

After that, he turned and headed upstairs.

The corpse Macil saw earlier was an illusion as Victor didn’t expect him to be extremely wary. The real priest was alive and locked inside the cauldron where Victor planned to kill him after leaving this place to extract all his points and turn his body into fertilizer for the plants he grew there.

Reaching the top floor the old man was no longer there… Victor didn’t care, this man was probably evil but he was not a demon.

Thinking for a moment, Victor decided to make a trip around this building. It was not every day that he could get a chance to visit such a gloomy place.

Descending the stairs behind the doors one by one, Victor, who appreciated the architecture, didn't find anything of interest, just cells, old archives, interrogation rooms, and guard rooms.

It was after spending 30 minutes, he finally found what he wanted. The hall’s vault which he infiltrated easily walking past the unwary vigilant guards and the locked steel gate.

Although this vault didn’t belong to the main temple and was relatively small. It was meant not for treasures, but for banned and dangerous demonic artifacts!

It had only three items that were sealed on mostly empty shelves.

They were placed in storage boxes that had all kinds of traps around them. Although he doubted they would compare to the things he got in the gorge he felt the need to take them so he quickly grabbed the entire shelves and put them in his storage space, just in case they had some kind of alarm.

Finishing with it, he gave the room one last look preparing to leave, and then paused as his eyes contracted.

Behind the shelves, the wall seemed a little discolored, but he could make out the shape of a bricked-off door.

Raising one eyebrow he began to inspect it.

There was definitely a door here!

Thinking for a moment, he didn’t hesitate and shifted right through the bricks into a new very dark steep stairway… He wasn’t expecting stairs there, so he almost stumbled and fell down rolling, but thanks to his levitation skill that he activated in the nick of time, he was able to hold himself in place.

"Shit…" he cursed as he stabilized himself, then began to move down. Despite the lack of light, he could see perfectly well thanks to his bloodlines.

Finally, after going down more than 30 feet he reached what looked like an old damp cave.

There, Victor was welcomed by piles upon piles of nasty-looking rotting burnt bones.

He knew what those were… He saw such a scene before in his own world in the other timeline.
Those were the bones of the possessed people. Just like what happened with Rita and Iris long ago when a demon possessed her.
Sometimes a demon infiltrates another with his entire body, not just his soul. This allows the demons to go undetected and keep all their original powers at the same time!
Unfortunately for the host, this caused changes to the body that might become permanent if the demon stayed for a long time. It was like the corruption that the Hell world does.

Those bones couldn’t be burnt by any mortal flames, and disposing of them was very costly and dangerous as they might contain fragments of Demonic power or an entire soul.

The only solution was to first burn the bodies for 3 days then gather the bones in a secure location and wait for an opportunity to either use a high purification on them or just dump them in some corrupted land.
But why were they here? Did someone forget them? Most likely not…

Looking around, he noticed that near the top of the tall ceiling, there was what looked like a small shaft going down. This thing must be where they were throwing the bones from, as he could notice freshly made scratches in the mold around it.

So in the end this place was built on purpose… It was where they disposed of the corpses.
But why? Didn’t the temple have a way to purify bones? That was most unlikely…

Victor could smell some kind of scheme, but sadly he had no idea what it was for.

Thinking for a moment that they might be useful someday, he started collecting the bones in his storage space as usual. It became a habit to grab things and then think about them later!

The process took only 4 minutes and a half thanks to his newly acquired expertise in grabbing treasures.

Taking every last rotten bone, he began to look around the cave… Other than the shaft and the tone of rotten mold that he made sure to grab a sample of, It had nothing of…

He paused.

Right in the middle of the cave, under the mold that was left when he removed the bones piles, he noticed a strange-looking magical array.

He had seen such arrays in one of the books in the imperial archive before.

This was demonic magic…

He quickly walked again toward the center of the array. There was nothing…

He took a shovel and started digging. There had to be something here…

10 minutes and 10 feet later he felt it as his demonic blood began to boil.

Frowning, he began to dig faster and three feet later he found it buried in the middle of the rotten dirt.

A small lead box with more than 20 talismans all around it.

Seeing it he couldn't move. It was the same feeling when he saw Lily for the first time.

The need and desire to attain and devour….

His demonic bloodline began to become more and more excited as if he needed to grab and eat this thing with its package, forcing him to quickly activate his chaos dragon bloodline which immediately calmed him down.

He quickly grabbed the box, pasted a sealing talisman on it then threw it in a storage ring that he threw inside another storage ring then into storage space…. Just in case.

He sighed in relief…

What the fuck was that?

He had no idea, but he needed to check it later. This trip was not a waste of time after all…

Flying out of the hole he dug and giving the now-empty cave one last look, he turned and left, beginning to head back up.

Now… He only needed to go grab that shard and intent artifact before leaving this place… No, he might also give their temple vault a visit just in case. Although greed was not a good trait, he felt it would be a waste not to grab a few souvenirs for the girls from each place he visited.

…

Ignoring the banging on the door that didn't stop, Lily looked up looking at the golden door that appeared out of thin air when she moved the books in the vampire’s library in a certain order.

"So it is here!" she said. "You did good…" she turned back and told the vampire boss who was tied like a tortoise and hanged from the chandelier. He was naked with more than a hundred whip marks all over his body and a still-lit burning candle up his butt.

He couldn’t speak as a pair of female stockings were stuffed in his mouth, but he didn't seem to mind them as his ugly face was in blissful ecstasy while his unfocused eyes looked at the ceiling.

Lily sighed. Vampires were the creation of a normal creature who made a deal with a high-level demon to become immortal. And like any deal, it always had a price to be paid depending on the demon.
For this vampire, it was the loss of all his feelings as they were offered to the demon. Replacing them was a demonic desire to kill, devour, and dominate!

Still, not all of the original feelings seemed to have been lost and that’s what he discovered just now!

His masochistic tendencies seemed to have been of no value to the demon that left them like how a snobbish brat would leave all the vegetables in his dish after eating the meat.

Although the vampire had no idea why he was acting like this, Lily believed that his body and soul’s natural desire to feel anything again after so long was the reason.
It was strong enough to drown any reason he had acting on the scars left when the feelings were cut off!

It was just like what happened in the other timeline when this place was discovered by Tulip and her team.

The story came from one of Tulips' friends who got drunk one day and told it to a journalist who went on to publish it in a tabloid before losing his head. He had no idea what Tulip, who always acted in disguise after returning to the family, truly was.

Anyway, according to that guy, They stumbled upon this dungeon after taking a quest concerning reports of many young women getting kidnapped from a nearby village.
After more than a month of investigation, they managed to locate this place that they quickly determined was a broken dungeon!

A broken dungeon was a dungeon that was weakened so much that the gate was no longer capable of containing demons within, allowing them to go out into the world.
Those usually were discovered pretty quickly due to all the chaos that followed. But the boss of this dungeon was smart enough to keep it hidden as a base, only allowing smart followers to go and grab targets and food!

By the time Tulip and her team got into the dark forest, this place was slowly becoming a stronghold for vampires!

Still, such a force didn’t stand a chance against Tulip who had one of the best player teams in the world!

Although it took them more than a few months to finally make their way through the maze-like dungeon castle, they finally reach the boss room where the vampire baron and his lackeys were enjoying an eternal orgy of raping and drinking the blood of tortured women.

The battle was swift and the vampires who lived for years in debauchery neglecting their training were defeated in a matter of minutes… That was the story anyway, but most likely Tulip secretly used some kind of an artifact to weaken them.

Anyway, feeling angry at what she saw, Tulip ordered her team to tie the vampire up and told the victim girls to take their revenge as she sat and watched.

Tulip wanted them to get over the shadow of this incident and grow stronger as they got their revenge! Again that was the official story… No one knew what was in her mind at that time.

Anyway, after one day and night of beating the shit out of the vampires, only the boss who was the strongest was able to survive. Tulip had enough and decided to end it there.

She ordered the girls to stop as she approached him to cut his head.

That’s when he began to beg her to give him more time… He needed the girls to beat him more as some kind of hidden desire seemed to have awakened inside of him.

Feeling disgusted, Tulip began to step on him, making him thank her repeatedly as he began to do obscene things forcing her to step away in shock!

She drew her sword to kill this vile thing, but he quickly told her to wait… Screaming that he had one more secret about a hidden demon in this dungeon and that he would tell her about him if she let him get beaten for another week or so…

Although Tulip didn’t care, her team quickly persuaded her to listen to him and after one week the vampire with his dying breath and a satisfied smile uttered the secret of how to open the secret domain inside the dungeon!

Sadly that exact arrangement of books was never mentioned in the tabloid. It only said that they found the demon and his treasures inside!

This forced the disgusted Lily to act on her own with the help of some soul wine, and that let the vampire confess his entire life's story after only 3 hours!

She sighed looking at the gate… she pushed it open and stepped in without hesitation.

…

Titus woke up… The first thing he felt was that something was missing. He could feel it, but he couldn't tell what. He looked at the familiar white ceiling of the room he was in with a frown. Why was he in the hospital?

He slowly sat up, but the pain from his crotch forced him to lay back down.

"Ahh...what…." He exclaimed.

"So you are awake…" someone sighed, making Titus look to the side. It was his grandfather, Frank, who was sitting beside his bed, leaning on his gilded wind iron cane.

"Grandpa! What… I…." Titus asked as he slowly began to try to sit up again while trying to recall what happened.

"I know…" Frank said, grabbing Titus's shoulder and forcing him to lay on the bed again. "Some bastard attacked you at the auction."

" Ahh yes… they…ahhhhhhh..." remembering what happened Titus hurried to grab his crotch where something was missing and an excruciating pain was the only thing he could find as his hand reached there. "I….. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed in pain and shock.

His grandfather sighed. "The doctors had to cut it all off to save your life… " he said.

"What?… ahhhh.. damn it!" Titus shouted in anger. "It was all that fucking bastard Liam! How dare he attack me… I am… ah!" Titus flared as he sat up then grimaced in pain and collapsed.

"Relax… Cloe already told me what happened. We already investigated the matter! " Frank said. "That Ashflint guy was not the one who hit you, it was someone else who set some kind of a delayed skill activation… A trap for you to fall into!"

"Oh… WHAT? Then Liam that bastard…"

"I already questioned him and he is not entirely innocent... Those guys who fought against you in the auction belonged to some idiot who called himself the emperor and was trying to establish some kind of organization," he said. " Liam was trying to use you to get rid of them, but it seemed like they were the ones using him!"

"What? The Emperor? Who is that?" Titus asked as the pain subsided.

"We still have no idea as the family network seems to be off for some reason, but we will find out once I return to the archipelago!" Frank, who seemed a little absent-minded, said.

"What about that piece of shit Liam?" Titus wanted to vent some anger.

"I castrated him then got him shipped to the newly discovered ruin mines in the Dogmata Desert… He will be working there as a slave for the rest of his life!" Frank said coldly.

"Good!" Titus said hatefully. "Once I am healed I should go check on him myself," he said. Although he felt humiliated, injuries like his were completely curable using the family’s latest technologies in stem cells, let alone using high-ranking healing pills.

"Oh…." His grandfather hesitated.

"Grampa! Is there anything wrong?" Titus frowned.

"Your injury… Healing it might not be easy…"

"What do you mean?" Titus didn’t like his grandfather’s voice tone.

"Well… " his grandfather paused as he heard a knock on the room's door.

"Come in," his grandfather said, allowing a pretty nurse and a middle-aged doctor to enter. They quickly bowed respectfully. This hospital belonged to the family after all!

"Did you discover anything new?" His grandfather asked the doctor as the nurse hurried to check Titus's vitals.

"Sorry, we are not sure!'' the doctor, who seemed troubled, said. "All the cell cultures we took are acting very strange. They are aging very fast no matter what we do to them. We don't even know why, but the stem cells are failing to do anything!"

"Oh… Did you try again with the bottle I gave you?"

"Yes… The results are still the same no matter what concentration we use….. Although the cell aging stopped, its growth fastened, turning it into a cancerous tumor that began to eat itself...!"

"Oh….." his grandfather frowned.

"What does this mean?" Titus pushed the nurse away roughly making her fall to the side as he looked at the doctor and asked.

"We can't help you, young master… even a reconstruction surgery is not an option due to the injury's severity, you can only adapt and live as a… ehm…." The doctor said, gesturing for the aggravated nurse to leave

"NO!" Titus flared. "Grandpa… Can't we use healing pills…."

"Relax …. " His grandfather pushed him back down and said. "I already requested help from experts and they are already here!"

"What……" Before Titus could ask, someone came in through the door just as the nurse left.

It was a white bearded old man in a blue traditional garb followed by a youthful woman in a blue dress.

"Master Irving we have been waiting for you……" Titus's grandfather said, bowing his head slightly to the old man.

"No need for formalities…. Let's get to business, I have a flight to catch!" Irving said "Anna, check the patient's pulse!" he added, making the girl beside him hurry to Titus's side and after bowing slightly, take his hand to check his pulse with her delicate fingers. He didn't stop her.

"Are you a traditional doctor by any chance?" The doctor who didn't leave the room asked with a frown.

"Master Irving Claw from the Medicine Valley at your service," Irving introduced himself arrogantly.

"Medicine valley?" The doctor frowned. " Master Frank…. You can't believe in those crooks!" he said as he turned to face Titus' grandfather.

"Crooks? Master Irving frowned

" Yes! Modern medicine has already advanced enough! Traditional medicine, although not entirely nonsensical, has no place in modern society!" the doctor said. "It can never heal something that modern medicine failed at!"

"You…" Frank, who frowned, seemed to want to say something but Irving stopped him by raising his hand.

"How about a competition?" Irving proposed.

"What?" the doctor asked.

Irving in a flash, struck the doctor's chest with his fist, forcing him to take a step back.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF…" he didn't continue as excruciating pain began to surge through his entire body. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH…."

"I just locked your 43rd meridian point… Try to fix it with modern medicine…. If you can do that, I will personally apologize to you… If you couldn't… Prepare to live the next year in pain!" Master Irving said in a cold voice.

"But…. Master Frank… AH…" The doctor who had to lean on the wall for support looked at Frank for help.

"You heard him… You can leave…."

"Ah…." the doctor, who had no idea what was going on, quickly left, not daring to disobey Frank. He also needed to go check his body.

"Master Irving, that doctor is one of the best in the family… Although he deserves to be taught a lesson, I hope that nothing major will happen to him!" Frank said after the door closed.

"Don't worry…. Anna, do you know how to cure that doctor?" Irving asked, testing his student who finished checking Titus.

"He will naturally heal up in 11 months if he practices sports and follows a healthy diet… 16 months if he is lazy," she said professionally.

"What else?" Irving asked.

"Using Timon Flower and Blue pollen he will heal in one week… If we apply black bee honey locally, he will heal in an hour…" she explained as her master nodded.

"I see… Wait? Black bee honey?" Irving exclaimed. "This might work… Where did you learn that last one?" he asked in surprise. He clearly didn't know about it.

"It was in an old book in the old library's archive in room 41!" she said.

"Really? Wasn't that room for children's stories and myths?" Irving asked. "You read those?" he frowned.

"Yes… A friend once told me that I might find some interesting things in the most neglected places…" Anna said. "Those books are mostly about medical folklore, and they have many things that helped me understand the origin of our valley methods!" she explained.

"I see…" He seemed intrigued.

"Master Irving… About Titus…" Frank interrupted the master and student's conversation.

"Oh. Yes… Yes… Sorry…. " Maser Irving apologized. "What did you find?" he asked Anna.

"His pulse is fine, he seemed to have ingested a healing pill… Other than that, there are no signs of poisons or anomalies!"

"Check his injury…" Irving said, making Anna blush and then look at Titus.

"Excuse me…" she said as she flipped the bed sheet and then began to inspect the 'injury'.

"Master Irving… Why not do it yourself?" Frank frowned and asked.

"Anna here is my newest student! She is very gifted and has a healer class so I have been training her!" Irving said. "Don't worry, I will have a look at it, once she finishes!" he said.

"Oh…." Frank nodded. He didn't mind, and neither did Titus who let her do her job.

"What do you think?" Irving asked Anna after three minutes.

"Strange…" Anna said "Very strange… Master… You should see this! It seems to be some kind of corruption skill, but there is no miasma…" she said, stepping back.

"Oh…" Irving stepped forward and began to inspect the injury like some pervert inspects a girl's boobs. His face was very close to Titus's butt, as he began sniffing.

Titus was fine with Anna as she was a girl but Master Irving was a totally different thing.
This situation made him feel very uncomfortable but noticing his grandfather's stern glare he didn't dare object.

"Most intriguing…" Irving said as he began to activate some kind of anesthesia spell that made Titus feel the pain subside even more as his crotch went numb. "Let me try a few things… This might take a few minutes so bear with it…" he said as he put on some vinyl gloves and began to poke around.

"Please do…" Frank said. Irving was clearly not waiting for his consent though…

"Grandpa…. When this finishes, I want to go to vain city…" Titus who didn't want to think about what the pervert old man was doing to him said.

"Vein city?" Frank asked. "Is this about Victor?" he asked, making Anna who was standing back flinch a little.
"Yes… I want to take revenge on that bastard! I want to cut him to pieces and take everything he has and burn it to ashes!" he said, not caring about the doctor and his frowning student.

"This is not the time for that…" Frank said. "The situation in the family is a little sensitive now! We will talk about this once you are discharged!" he added in a stern tone.

"I understand…" Titus didn't dare to argue. He could only look at the ceiling and plan what he was going to do to Victor and his wives… He was going to rape them in front of him! YES!

"How is it?" Frank, who completely knew what his grandson was thinking about, asked as Master Irving finally stepped back.

"This is some kind of time skill… His cell's internal clock is completely screwed…." Irving who no longer had a playful smile said with a deep frown.

"Time?" Frank frowned.

"What does it mean?" Titus asked.

"Healing will not work as biological processes won't be able to synchronize… And even if we force it, it might lead to malignant tumors forming…" Irving, who was clearly deep in thought, said.

"Is there a solution?" Frank asked.

"..."

"Titus is my only grandson and I am willing to pay whatever it takes!"

"... It will be tricky and not 100% guaranteed…" Irving was hesitant. "The only thing I can think of is to cut everything below the crotch and then use a healing artifact to regrow it back…. This method had only been done three times in the valley's history to deal with troublesome curses and …" he paused.

"What?" Frank asked. He clearly knew but wanted to ask.

"We will need to use the white coffin…"

"Oh! Shit…" Frank frowned.

"What?" Titus asked.

"This is going to cost a lot of money and favors…." Frank sighed ambiguous, not explaining things clearly. "How long would it take?" he asked.

"... If you manage to secure a quote in a month or so… About a year or so for a full recovery," Irving said with a troublesome face.

"Then I will see what I can do…" he said. This was going to cost him an arm and a leg!