The moment they landed, everyone except Cyr felt their shoes melt from the intense heat.
With the soles of their feet now bare, it was like stepping directly onto magma. Their skin reddened instantly, and the faint smell of roasted flesh began to rise.
The three Chimera Ants immediately took flight, and Sora scooped Maro into the air with his jaws.
"…" Cyr, who had been running Limitless the entire time—giving the illusion he was walking on the ground when he wasn't—glanced at the panicked group, bent down, and picked up a handful of sand before disabling Limitless.
The next second, scalding heat surged into his palm—like clutching a handful of fire. His hand instantly turned red and shed a layer of skin.
"…Creatures that can survive here must have pretty thick skin," Cyr muttered, releasing the sand and letting it fall back to the ground. He reactivated Limitless and healed his hand using Reverse Cursed Technique.
If your skin wasn't thick enough, you'd probably die just from touching the sand.
Strangely, it had been broad daylight when they left the ship, but upon reaching this land, it seemed as if night had fallen instantly.
No sun.
No moon.
Even with Six Eyes, all Cyr could see ahead was thick violet-red mist, growing deeper and denser the farther one looked.
Like a pitch-black zone incapable of holding any light.
Even more alarming—flying above a certain height was restricted.
It was as if something… had laid down a rule forbidding high-altitude flight.
When Cyr tried ascending beyond a set height, an immense pressure suddenly pressed down on him, forcing him back into the allowed zone.
Beneath the sand, he could sense lifeforms—beings that should only be found in desert ecosystems.
After healing everyone's feet, the group carefully maintained a low-altitude hover as they moved deeper into the continent.
Just to be safe, Cyr deployed a curtain to conceal their presence—especially to keep Maro and the others hidden from potential predators.
After covering some ground, they came upon a massive creature—around a hundred meters tall—walking on two legs, with a long thick tail and comically small forelimbs.
"Wow… a dinosaur," Cyr said in awe.
In his world, dinosaurs had been extinct for ages. The most one could hope to see were fossils in museums.
But now, here he was—staring at a real, living dinosaur.
If he were a dino-nerd, he'd probably be crying tears of joy right now.
But he wasn't.
Still, the dinosaurs here on the Dark Continent were different from Earth's. For starters… they were huge.
Why was everything here hundreds of meters tall?
Was it because this was a superpowered world and even size had evolved?
Boom—boom— The dinosaur broke into a run, each thunderous step leaving massive footprints and sending tremors through the ground.
Then they spotted turtles with spiked shells, moving in herds—surprisingly fast for their size.
Birds 20 to 30 meters tall that resembled ostriches…
Tentacled creatures with hundreds of legs…
Green caterpillars taller than trees…
In the distance, a sudden flash of red lightning silently cut through the deep purple sky.
The creatures around them didn't react in the slightest.
As if it were just part of everyday life here.
Further ahead was a forest of fungi, all cloaked in purple mist.
Within the fog, Six Eyes lost its functionality.
Towering mushrooms—taller than people—stood silently on all sides, unmoving, seemingly harmless.
They looked just like food.
But if they were only food… how had this forest remained so perfectly untouched?
Besides… those dark purple-black mushrooms didn't look remotely edible.
The mushroom forest wasn't large. The group soon made it out without incident.
But after walking a little farther, everyone except Cyr suddenly froze.
"Cough… cough, cough…"
Whether it was Maro, the three Chimera Ants, or Sora, all of them began coughing violently.
The coughing grew worse by the second—until they began to cough up blood.
In the blood, faint strands of white, threadlike spores could be seen.
White hairs—thin, yet stiff and needle-sharp—began growing out of their skin.
They burrowed in deep. Pulling one out left behind a bloody hole.
"What the hell is this?"
"Something to do with those mushrooms?"
Maro muttered between coughs, still yanking out the invasive hairs from his body.
But they couldn't keep up. The white hairs grew faster than they could remove them. The more wounds opened up, the more blood spilled—and the faster the growth accelerated.
In the blink of an eye, half their bodies were covered in white fuzz.
Then the fuzz rapidly expanded and transformed—into small mushrooms.
Their bodies were being used as incubators, their blood and flesh converted into nutrients.
Once their bodies were completely overrun with mushrooms… that would be the end.
"Looks like you're all pretty much done for," Cyr commented casually, as if completely unconcerned.
Even though the ones "done for" included his lackey Mari and his pet, Sora.
"Milord…" Morrow stared, eyes wide.
Was this really how it ended?
"So… bitter…"
His previous gloomy look vanished, and suddenly, tears welled up.
"I'd only just started this journey with you…" he choked out, biting his lip.
If only he'd been a little more cautious…
If only—
It just wasn't fair.
"Stop wasting time with sentimental nonsense. Dead is dead—whether early or late. Better to die by my hand," Cyr said, drawing Inverted Spear from his robes.
It just so happened—he had something he wanted to test.
"Domain Expansion — Malevolent Shrine."
"Make a vow with me. Hand over your soul. What do you say?"
"…My soul has always belonged to you, Milord," the blond youth replied. Half his face was covered in fungal growth, leaving only one vivid green eye exposed. Even as he spoke, white fuzz grew from his mouth.
No more words came.
"Vow sealed."
With those words, Inverted Spear pierced straight through his heart.
A clean kill.
The light faded from his green eyes as his body hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Cyr dispatched Sora the same way, quickly and efficiently.
As for the three Chimera Ants—
Watching the silver-haired boy so calmly kill his own, they could hardly believe their eyes.
Weren't they on the same side?
"Die now or give me your soul. Your choice," Cyr said with a shrug. "And hey, if you die by my hand, there's a chance I can bring you back."
"Keep going like this though… and you're definitely going to die."
He wasn't hell-bent on testing this on them—he just figured, the more subjects, the better.
"If we die here… the King…" Shaiapouf ground his teeth.
For the King—
They had to live.
Even if they were to die, it had to be after they saved him.
"…We agree," the three finally bowed their heads.
And just like that, Cyr dispatched them all with the spear.
As soon as their lives ended, the fungal growths inside them withered and turned to ash.
The spores lived and died with their hosts—if the "vessel" died before they fully matured, the spores perished as well.
But once they matured, the body would be nothing but a dry husk, sucked clean.
Now lifeless, the group's souls separated from their bodies and hovered nearby, watching the aftermath in a daze.
"Ah… so it is possible to pull your souls into my domain," Cyr said, tone unsurprised.
Using the binding vow as a bridge, he had drawn their souls into his domain.
Sukuna had done something similar—so there was no reason he couldn't.
And sure enough, it worked.
"Reverse Cursed Technique." Cyr reached out and activated the ability.
Their bodies began to regenerate—but there was no heartbeat.
"Alright. Time to go back," he muttered as he kicked each soul back into its respective body and dissolved the domain.
A second later, several distinct heartbeats rang out.
The experiment was a success.
"If everything's done right, I really can bring people back from the dead…" Cyr murmured to himself, deep in thought.
The domain, Reverse Cursed Technique, and the binding vow as the bridge—
All three were essential.
Without the domain, he couldn't do it at all.
°°°
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