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On one side, Vance was facing his opponent Gorgathar outside the palace. On the other, Lucifer had already infiltrated deep inside using his concealment and invisibility magic.
The Risen Kingdom's palace was enormous. Its pitch-black gothic walls paired with golden pillars and borders made the structure look even more menacing.
To a human, it appeared terrifying. But this was the Risen Kingdom — a realm of monsters and demons — and for its inhabitants, the palace felt like home.
Thanks to the navigation feature of the Risen Kingdom map he had purchased from the [Depraved System], Lucifer already knew that Valdren was imprisoned in an underground dungeon beneath the palace. The only path leading there passed through the royal courtroom.
Keeping his focus on the map, Lucifer moved straight toward the royal courtroom without wasting time on his surroundings.
The royal courtroom was massive. Several female demon and monster ministers were present, some discussing current events while others casually engaged in sex.
Two obsidian thrones dominated the room. One sat highest, the second positioned to its left and slightly lower, though they appeared level at a glance.
The main throne was empty. On the adjacent one sat a stunning demoness. Twisted black horns crowned her head, her long hair cascading to her waist. Her molten red eyes, dark lips, and pale skin gave her an alluring yet dangerous beauty. She wore nothing.
A small demon child rested in her lap, suckling at her breast as she gently caressed his head. Her movements were full of maternal warmth. Yet the contrast was chilling — she would smile tenderly at her child one moment, then glance toward the exit with a cold, sadistic grin the next.
While Lucifer observed invisibly, a humanoid werewolf guard entered the courtroom. She knelt before the demoness and reported:
"Your Highness… His Majesty King Gorgathar is engaged in one-on-one combat with the human. He is no ordinary foe — they are currently fighting on equal footing. However, His Majesty is gaining the upper hand. He will likely defeat the human soon."
A sadistic smile curved the demoness's lips. "Go and prepare all the equipment in my playground. I want everything perfect for my new toy."
The werewolf guard — Flegris — nodded, rose, and headed toward the underground prison.
After overhearing the exchange, Lucifer grew concerned for Vance. He abandoned his watch on the courtroom and silently followed Flegris.
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With quick, purposeful steps, Flegris hurried toward the underground prison. Soon she reached a colossal gate guarded by two hundred royal Malakar demon warriors, all from Malakar's royal family.
Among them, only four resembled King Gorgathar — smaller in build, without his glowing runes, but sharing the same black twisted horns, fanged faces, leathery bat-like wings, and leather armor. These four were males. The remaining 196 were females of the same tribe.
As Flegris approached, one of the demoness guards stepped forward and blocked her path.
"Stop," said Decresta Malakar. "This is a restricted zone. You know the rules — no one passes without permission from the King or queens."
Flegris met her gaze evenly. "I'm well aware, Decresta. But Queen Syrakara herself ordered me to prepare and clean her playground for a new arrival. If you wish to stop me, go ahead. When she asks why her orders weren't carried out, I'll simply tell her you refused me entry."
She wrinkled her nose slightly. "Honestly, I'd even thank you. I don't understand how Her Majesty calls this place her playground. The stench of rot and death is already unbearable from here. Must be nice not having a werewolf's nose."
Decresta narrowed her eyes, intrigued. "The Queen never asks for this place to be cleaned. What happened?"
"Something significant," Flegris replied. "A powerful human named Vance stormed into the capital. He destroyed the Ardem Market, slaughtered citizens and soldiers, and openly mocked the King. The Queen has taken a strong interest in him. She demanded Vance as her personal toy. Right now, His Majesty is dueling him just outside the palace gates."
Arcliss Malakar sighed wearily and glanced at Decresta. "Let her pass. She is one of the Queen's personal maids. If she says the Queen ordered her, then it must be true. And even if she is lying, the one who will bear the punishment will be her alone."
Decresta considered the words for a moment before stepping aside and granting Flegris permission to enter the Queen's playground.
Once cleared, Flegris moved forward while the stationed guards heaved open the colossal iron gate using heavy chains.
The moment the gate swung open, an overwhelmingly foul and putrid stench slammed into everyone's senses. Even Lucifer, standing invisibly right beside Flegris, found it difficult to breathe. He had never encountered such a nauseating odor before. It made him imagine the horrors awaiting deeper inside — especially in the core area where Valdren was held.
Flegris quickly cast a wind barrier around herself and stepped through the gateway. Lucifer followed by creating a cleanse barrier around his body, moving stealthily beside her so that neither she nor anyone else noticed him. As soon as Flegris passed through, the guards sealed the massive gate shut behind them.
On the other side of the gate, Lucifer noticed another force of nearly two hundred guards, though these were not Malakar royal demons. He had no idea which monstrous species they belonged to.
Among the two hundred, only two figures stood out from the rest. They were males of the same species — towering at nearly seven feet with imposing, muscular builds. Their skin was a pale slate-white, their eyes completely pupilless and white, and long, thick silver-white hair cascaded over their shoulders and back. Massive, twisted bone-textured horns protruded from their heads. Their sharp, hardened facial features, black crack-like markings across their arms, chest, and legs, and completely naked bodies completed their terrifying presence. A small cock hung between their thighs, and each gripped a massive scythe. An aura of cold death clung to them, as if they were merchants of mortality itself.
The remaining female guards shared many traits but appeared distinctly different. Most stood between five and six feet tall with mature, slim, and seductive humanoid bodies. Like the males, they wore no clothing. Their skin was the same pale slate-white, their eyes pupilless, and they carried scythes while radiating the same cold aura. Dark shadow-like mask patterns covered their faces, but they lacked horns.
All these monsters stood casually, completely unaffected by the overwhelming stench rising from the prison.
After following Flegris for some time, Lucifer finally reached the underground prison. The sight before him was so horrifying that he could barely believe his eyes.
Demon Queen Syrakara's playground — essentially a torture prison — was not very large. It contained only nine cells, but each was massive, easily able to hold ten to fifteen people. At that moment, around one hundred prisoners filled the space, though it was nearly impossible to tell if they were still alive.
If not for the mission issued by his [Depraved System] confirming Valdren was still alive, Lucifer would have assumed he was already dead.
All one hundred prisoners were males belonging to human, elf, and dwarf species. Their conditions were beyond horrific.
Trailing behind Flegris toward Valdren's cell, Lucifer witnessed scenes of excessive brutality. In the first two cells lay piles of severed organs — hearts, livers, intestines, and kidneys — rotting and emitting a sickening stench. The walls were caked with layers of congealed bodily fats, dried blood, and chunks of flesh. Severed hands, feet, lungs, and heads were scattered everywhere, some still twitching faintly. It looked less like a prison and more like an industrial slaughterhouse where humans, elves, and dwarfs were butchered like livestock.
Moving deeper, the third through fifth rooms displayed even worse mutilation. Human males had been hacked into tiny fragments, their bodies reduced to bloody paste mixed with shattered bones and pulped meat. Maggots swarmed over the lifeless corpses, feasting on rotting flesh that had begun to liquefy. Limbs were torn off and nailed to walls, entrails strung across the ceilings like grotesque decorations, and faces peeled away to expose skulls.
The sixth room held nine elves. Seven had been decapitated, their severed heads mounted like monuments atop their mutilated torsos. The remaining two were barely alive. One had his intestines pulled out and stretched across the floor like a rope, still weakly gasping his final breaths as blood bubbled from his mouth. The other had been reduced to a torso — head, neck, chest, stomach, and dick remaining, but all limbs brutally amputated at the shoulders and crotch. His blood had long since clotted, suggesting he had endured this torment for at least a month as Queen Syrakara's previous "toy."
The seventh room was dedicated to dwarfs — seventeen of them. These were not simply tortured but grotesquely "dolled up." Their bodies had been savagely dismembered and then crudely stitched back together in nightmarish configurations — heads sewn onto groins, arms attached where legs should be, legs sprouting from shoulders. Their dead eyes stared blankly, mouths frozen in eternal screams, with stitches bursting open and leaking pus and maggots.
Lucifer felt nothing but pure hatred for these demons and monsters from the very first glance.
The eighth room stood in stark contrast to the others. No mutilated or rotting bodies lay here, nor pools of blood, pus, urine, or feces. Though the stench remained overpowering, this chamber was relatively clean. Instead of corpses, it housed arrays of torture equipment stained with fresh and dried blood — racks, hooks, branding irons, bone-breaking devices, and flaying tables still glistening with gore.
The ninth and final room was the worst. Mutilated bodies covered the floor, swarming with thick layers of maggots. Pus and foul fluids oozed from gaping wounds while a lethal, ever-present stench hung heavy in the air. In one corner lay a half-dead man, counting what little remained of his painful days.
His hair was greyish-white, all teeth shattered, tongue half-severed. His body bore countless deep bruises, sunken eyes, and no fingers — only bloody stumps. He was completely naked, his once-muscular and healthy frame now frail and skeletal, skin stretched so thin that bones visibly protruded. His swollen cock showed signs of repeated abuse.
This man was none other than Demon Queen Syrakara's current "toy" — Valdren Eldoresia, the former king of the destroyed island nation and father of Crotivia who was Lucifer's friend.
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