Sadly enough, the being that sat across from him wasn't a taboo creature at all.
Just a man.
A man buried deep in philosophy and tangled in thoughts far too complicated for most.
A seeker, not a devourer. And a lonely one at that. But the kneeling figure couldn't see that.
He sat there, hunched, like a student anticipating a stern teacher's verdict. Tension hung over him like a blade, waiting to drop onto his neck.
And from across the eerie stillness, Liam, hidden within the veil of mystery, decided it was time to bring this little play to an end.
He hadn't come here for this originally.
He had one goal when he set things in motion. But like all things rooted in curiosity, it spiraled. Fractured into pieces.
Now, only one piece remained.
Under the man's wary gaze, the cloaked figure stilled. For several seconds, there was nothing, no movement, no sound. Just oppressive silence.
The air thinned. The room felt like it was holding its breath.
The man's vision blurred. Then, without warning, the long table vanished.
The man blinked rapidly, eyes blurring for a heartbeat. And when the fog in his vision cleared, he realized the world had shifted again.
He was now kneeling, right in front of the figure.
He hadn't moved. But there he was. Head bowed. Sweat pouring down his face, soaking into his collar. His palms pressed against the cold, unfamiliar ground, trying not to tremble.
He didn't know how he got here. He didn't dare to ask.
Then, as if finally acknowledging his presence, the cloaked figure spoke once more.
"I will offer you a chance to be free…"
His lips parted. "A... a chance to be free?" he echoed, voice cracked, as if repeating the words might make them make sense.
But there was no answer. No explanation.
The figure remained utterly indifferent.
With a fluid motion, a single wave of the figure's hand released a wave of strange golden energy.
It spilled through the air like liquid light, drifting lazily… before coiling around him like a noose.
He froze.
Couldn't resist.
The energy crawled across his body, wrapping tight. He twitched involuntarily. His eyes went wide, sheer horror blooming in them.
He tried to speak.
To scream.
To plead.
But all he could do was stare at that unsettling mask, its weeping face blank beneath the hood.
"Hold no grudges against me, but for this world is already cruel on own. And the same horrors you caused to those vulnerable, then so does it can be applicable to you" the voice murmured again.
Before he could even begin to comprehend what that meant.
Swish.
His vision twisted into flickers of color and motion, like pages being ripped from a book too fast to read.
His body felt weightless, suspended in golden haze.
And then.
He dropped.
Darkness. Darkness everywhere.
"W-what…?"
He stumbled forward, disoriented, limbs heavy and unresponsive. He had control of his body again, but the world had changed.
Pitch black surrounded him on every side. A dim glow shimmered faintly in his eyes, letting him see no more than five meters around.
Everything else?
Swallowed by ink.
He turned, slow and cautious. The air felt strange and It made his skin crawl.
"W-what is this place?" he muttered in a trembling voice, trying to steady his breath.
No answer came.
Only silence.
Again.
He turned a slow circle, the eerie blue shimmer of his vision revealing nothing familiar. "W-where is this?"
He swallowed hard, eyes darting through the black, half-expecting something to come lunging out.
Minutes passed.
Nothing moved.
He pinched his hand. Bit down on his tongue.
Pain. Real.
This wasn't a dream.
"It's real…" he murmured, breath shallow. "That… that taboo being sent me here? Why? How?"
The questions piled up. No answers followed.
Panic started creeping back in. He took a few cautious steps forward. Then froze.
The terrain beneath him changed. Oddly. Without warning. One moment flat stone. The next, a bump. A hole. An invisible ledge.
Every step became a risk.
This place was a nightmare stitched together by shadows and whispers. Poor visibility. Shifting terrain. The uncertainty gnawed at him.
Realizing this, his breath grew shaky. "This… this is probably a game. A test. That mutated being… maybe this is how it works. I just… I just have to find a way out…"
But deep down, he knew it wouldn't be that simple.
Not far away, still within the dungeon's walls, Liam stood silently. His gaze fixed, expression unreadable.
He watched and observed.
His mind brushed lightly across the unfolding events, reading the man's panic, his thoughts, his movements.
No system panel, Liam noted. No guidance. No interface.
That confirmed it.
If the man had been granted a personal dungeon interface like him, Liam would've noticed it by now through the reactions. But there was nothing.
Just a scared, broken man tossed into a waking nightmare.
Master Lu, Liam thought, leaning back lazily into his reclined chair in the real world.
'I know your wrong doings in the outer city'
'Human trafficking, mortal exploitation, countless lives fell under your feet throughout the years you reigned outside'
He lifted a finger.
Gave a signal.
The puppet stationed near the Blue Wolf Gang manor responded instantly, slinking toward the underground altar's entrance.
Liam already knew about the place. His puppet's initial sweep had picked up on it the moment they arrived.
'Now, you are even tied to something far worse... How unsurprising'
This place couldn't be hidden under his divine mind. The defensive formation wrapped around the underground structure?
Pathetic.
Enough to stall a mid-stage Foundation Building cultivator, maybe, but against him?
Paper-thin.
His divine sense slipped through without resistance, peeling every layer of the space like wet leaves.
And the burly men? The ones drinking, laughing, tormenting innocents?
They'd serve another purpose now. Tools to lure out something hungrier in the future. Their fate would be far worse than death itself.
Liam's gaze returned to the man staggering through the shadow-soaked trial.
He waited.
Then grew bored.
"Eat him" Liam said flatly, flicking his wrist. "He serves no purpose any longer."
And with that, he vanished from the dungeon, leaving behind only echoes.
Screams tore through the dark. A hysterical, guttural cry twisted with terror.
Then the wet sounds followed, chewing, crunching, tearing.
The feast had begun, and Liam made sure that it would be a slow agonizing process for him to enjoy.
Then, Liam shifted his focus again, eyes narrowing slightly as he synced with the vision of the puppet descending the dim staircase.
Each step landed with a muffled thud, dust rising faintly in its wake.
The stone corridor stretched deep beneath the manor, and at the end of it, the chamber.
The puppet stepped through the final threshold, entering the enormous underground space.
At its center loomed the altar, and seated atop it was a statue cloaked in moss and silence.
The moment Liam saw it, he recognised it right away.
"The Warp Believer…" he whispered.
Through the puppet, he slowly closed the distance. One footstep at a time. Until the figure towered above him.
How fitting.
"I never imagined the Warp Believer would slip into the city like this," Liam murmured, voice thoughtful, "And for a complete fool to build a hidden chamber just to worship it…"
His tone wasn't scornful, just disappointed. Like a teacher watching a student fumble the basics.
The Warp Believer… A title reserved for those who served the beings of the Warp, entities twisted beyond reason.
They'd been around for as long as the region had memory. Carved into the land's nightmares and histories.
And their goal was laughably simple.
Send whispers to the realm. Manipulate the desperate. Be fed human sacrifices through stones, altars, and blind belief… until one day, they descended through the object they were worshiped as.
A classic tale.
But the horrifying part?
They didn't just destroy.
They changed everything. Twisted it. Molded the very nature of reality around them into grotesque reflections of their own form.
Once they arrived upon the piece of land that the "sacrificed" item was brought to. The whole area will turn into a cocoon of horror and darkness.
"Funny," Liam murmured, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "The taboo beings actually prefer Warp flesh over human too when I think about it"
He said it offhandedly, like commenting on an amusing line in a book.
It was, after all, just another strange tidbit from the thick, dust-ridden history books he'd read in the city center's library.
Heaven hated the humans.
The Warp hated the humans.
But Heaven really really hated the Warp.
And the Warp, in turn, hated the heavens even more.
As for humans?
They just… existed. Forever chasing greed, power, immortality. Blind to everything else.
Liam chuckled softly.
Even in the presence of this foul entity's altar, something that could twist the hearts of monks and mortals alike into slavering husks, he felt nothing.
Temptation held no value to someone who had already taken control of his path.
Then, the puppet raised its hand.
It extended forward, reaching toward the statue's veiled head.
As if sensing this intrusion, the air shifted.
A whisper slithered through the chamber. Formless yet somehow visible, like smoke bleeding through glass.
But this wasn't Liam's true body. The formless voice held no weight against him. Its temptation?
Useless!!
"Go back to where you belong! Filth of the warp!!"
Liam's cold voice echoed like a divine judgement within this chamber.
The statue, in return, let out an ear piercing shriek.
"Don't you dare!!!!"
Then, with a flick of his hand, and a haunting shriek that sounded like bone scraping metal, the statue shattered.
"Noooo!!!"
Crimson cracks spidered through it. Then the whole thing crumbled into blood-dimmed dust.
Liam watched silently through the puppet's eyes, then exhaled a faint breath.
"Pity the ones who died chasing such a useless cause."
His voice dropped a note lower.
"…I shouldn't let that guy die too fast either. Let the worm chew on him a little slower. Then toss him a regeneration pill… rinse and repeat until his soul is shattered"
He hummed the idea to himself, eyes scanning the ruined chamber, mind already moving to the next task.
With a flick of his fingers, Liam began sealing the place up.
A low rumble spread through the earth as stone cracked and shifted.
His soil movement technique swept across the underground chamber like a wave, flooding it with compacted dirt and stone until the altar was buried beneath layers of crushed earth.
He crushed the heavy underground gate with a single press of his palm, splinters and metal crumbling.
Then he turned to the rest of the manor.
He didn't waste time.
Spiritual stones.
That was what he needed now.
The burly fools that once laughed and drank here had unknowingly been hoarding wealth for years, serving a mortal gang under the illusion of power, while Liam reaped the rewards.
By the time he finished combing through the manor, he had enough spirit stones to fund several major projects he had in mind.
A slow, dry smile crept across his face.
Being broke?
He hated that feeling.