CHAPTER 135: A STRANGE PLACE

The body leaned closer to the mirror, inspecting its reflection with casual arrogance.

A low, amused chuckle rolled from its throat, deep and guttural, reverberating in Riley’s chest like it was his own.

"Hmph." The demon’s lips peeled back, revealing the full length of his fangs. His eyes glowed crimson, burning with quiet malice.

Then, with a soft scoff, he pulled away from the mirror.

"...How boring..." the demon muttered under his breath, the voice carrying an odd mixture of contempt and fatigue.

Riley finally glanced around properly, realizing that his borrowed sight was adjusting. The room surrounding him grew clearer.

It was quite small.

The walls were etched with strange, curling designs that pulsed faintly with red light.

Symbols, runes—words written in the harsh, jagged script of the demons’ tongue.

Riley’s eyes narrowed instinctively, trying to parse their meaning, but the language twisted uselessly in his mind. He couldn’t make sense of most of it. Not yet.

Still, the presence of those markings sent a chill through him.

They weren’t decorative. They carried weight—power. Wards, seals, prayers, maybe even records. A language he would eventually have to learn.

The rest of the room was bare, disturbingly so.

Only two pieces of furniture decorated the space: a narrow bed with black sheets, and a small, red wooden chair—the very one Riley had been seated in at the beginning of this memory.

The simplicity of it unsettled him. It felt less like a personal room and more like a cell. A place designed not for comfort, but containment.

Riley’s jaw tightened as he absorbed every detail, every flicker of memory, every sound of the demon’s breath in this confined chamber.

The silence of the strange room was suddenly shattered.

Bang!

The door suddenly slammed open as another figure rushed in, his chest heaving, his claws curled tightly as though ready to defend himself.

Riley’s gaze snapped toward the source of the intrusion, his surprise momentarily slipping through the haze of the demon’s memories.

It was another demon.

This one was smaller—at least a full head shorter than the body Riley currently inhabited.

His skin was the same pale shade, though slightly rougher, with faint cracks like stone running across his forearms.

The most noticeable difference, however, was his horn. Or rather—his one horn.

Only a single curved horn jutted from the left side of his forehead, crooked and darker than the smooth twin horns of the demon Riley was inhabiting.

Riley’s eyes widened slightly, though the body he was inside didn’t show it.

’A one-horned demon...’ he thought.

From his past life, he already knew that the number of horns on a demon’s head was what determined their strength, hierarchy as well as the measure of their power.

One-horned demons were the weakest. The bottom of their kind.

And yet—his lips twitched faintly—weak was only in comparison to other demons.

Even one-horned demons would be more than enough to crush any player alive right now.

Their strength, their speed, their durability—it was all beyond human limits. Any average player wouldn’t even have the chance to resist.

...Any average player except him.

Riley smirked inwardly. He was the anomaly. The one exception.

The smaller demon’s crimson eyes darted nervously around the room before locking onto the figure Riley was inhabiting.

His breath was frantic, his voice sharp as he spoke out.

"Juer’lo!" he blurted, fear laced into every syllable. "The humans... they’re rebelling!"

For a brief moment, the room stilled. Then Juer’lo—the demon whose memories Riley was watching through—tilted his head.

Slowly, a smirk spread across his face, twisting into something dark and amused.

A low chuckle rumbled from his throat, growing deeper, fuller, until it echoed within the small chamber.

His palm rose, pressing lazily against his face as if to hold back his growing amusement.

"Ohh..." he drawled, his voice dripping with cruel delight. "Is that so?"

His crimson eyes glowed brighter.

"Today was already getting boring..." Juer’lo muttered, almost to himself, his smirk widening into something feral. "And now something exciting has happened! Those fucking humans dared to rebel?!!"

He licked his lips slowly, his tongue dragging across his sharp fangs with a predator’s hunger.

The air around him seemed to grow heavier, darker, suffocating the smaller demon who stood frozen in the doorway.

"Take me there," Juer’lo ordered at last, his voice calm, almost playful—but dripping with authority.

The one-horned demon flinched, then quickly bowed his head.

"Y-yes!" he stammered, his tone fearful, submissive. Without another word, he turned sharply and rushed out of the room.

Juer’lo followed, his long strides measured and deliberate, Riley feeling every powerful step as if they were his own.

The two of them broke into a run, their bodies moving at rapid speed to the point they seemed like blurs to those around.

The walls of the structure blurred past as they descended deeper into the halls, the sound of distant echoes and whispers haunting every corner.

When they finally stopped, Riley’s borrowed eyes narrowed.

The world that unfolded before him was unlike anything he had seen in the human realm.

The atmosphere itself felt heavier—tainted. The ground was dark, cracked as though scorched by fire countless times over.

The air reeked faintly of sulfur, smoke, and something metallic—like blood.

And above them...

The sky was a canvas of darkness, but not entirely black. Streaks of deep blue wove faintly through the void, thin lines cutting across like veins of light.

They pulsed faintly, unnaturally, like the heartbeat of a dying star.

Two moons hovered high above, side by side. Massive, ominous, and unnervingly close.

One shone with a pale white glow, cracked like porcelain, while the other bled with a deep crimson hue, its surface marred by jagged scars that looked like claw marks across its surface.

Riley’s chest tightened involuntarily at the sight.

It looked very strange, yet, there was something undeniably captivating about it.

The smaller demon kept running ahead, his shorter strides frantic but fast, leading Juer’lo toward a structure in the distance—a small building, looming quietly against the horizon, glowing faintly with an eerie red shimmer.

And Riley... could only watch, his thoughts racing as the memory unfolded before him.