Max
Few Minutes Earlier
Under the flickering barrier of Tozanshō, Max watched the world burn, literally.
The dragon fire didn't let up. It poured over the inverted pyramid in waves, heating the air inside until each breath felt like inhaling sand. Both dragons maintained their assault—twin streams of molten orange that turned the barrier into a furnace.
They're coordinated, Max noted, sweat running down his back. But they're also burning stamina. I just need to wait for—
The fire stopped.
Max blinked. The sudden absence of heat was almost disorienting. Through the shimmering barrier, he saw both dragons step back, their chests heaving. Smoke curled from their nostrils in thick ribbons.
They're adapting.
Instead of exhausting themselves with a sustained barrage, they'd switched tactics. The larger dragon positioned itself at range, inhaling short, controlled breaths. The smaller one prowled closer to the barrier's edge, circling like a predator testing a fence.
Smart. Keep me pinned with threat while conserving energy.
The physical toll of the last few hours was creeping into his muscles, making his grip on the rapier feel heavier than it should.
I need to break the rhythm before they figure out something worse.
He dropped the barrier, already channeling PoD into his rapier.
The larger dragon reacted instantly—not with a full blast, but with a rapid-fire series of concentrated flame bursts. Fwip-fwip-fwip. Small, controlled attacks that forced Max to dodge rather than charge.
Ping-ping-ping.
Auto-Evade screamed. Max's body jerked left, right, backward—each evasion eating precious stamina and breaking his momentum. He couldn't get close. Couldn't build the charge he needed.
And the smaller dragon? It didn't waste energy on breath attacks. It prowled, closing the distance with terrifying speed, cutting off his escape routes. Its eyes locked onto him with predatory intelligence.
They're boxing me in. One controls space, the other goes for the kill.
Max's mind raced. He couldn't recast Tozanshō—too much mana. Couldn't charge a big attack while dodging. Couldn't retreat with the smaller dragon cutting angles.
Defense won't work. I need to flip the script.
The smaller dragon lunged, jaws wide, seeing an opening as Max dodged another flame burst.
There.
Max didn't dodge away—he dodged in. He slid under the snap of its jaws, driving his PoD-coated rapier upward into the softer scales of its underbelly.
CLANG.
The blade skidded off layered plates, deflecting sideways. Max's eyes widened. Tougher than expected.
The dragon twisted, using its momentum to slam him with its shoulder. Max tumbled backward, rolling to his feet just as the second dragon charged, fire already building in its throat.
Both at once.
Max's mana sat at 21% and dropping—Auto-Evade at 30 feet was a constant drain, and the sustained PoD usage was bleeding him dry. He could throw up another barrier, but that would just delay the inevitable.
I need to end this. Now.
He planted his feet and channeled the last reserves of PoD into both palms, feeling his mana plummet toward 15%. The black-red energy crackled violently, hungry.
"PoD Pulse: Radial Burst!"
He slammed both hands into the ground.
A hemisphere of erasure exploded outward from Max's position, expanding like a shockwave. It didn't need to pierce armor—it simply deleted everything within its ten-meter radius.
The dragon fire cut off as both Infant Dragons screamed, their front legs vaporized mid-charge. They crashed to the ground, thrashing.
Max staggered, breathing hard. His vision swam slightly. 15%. That's cutting it close.
The first dragon tried to rise on its stumps, jaws snapping with feral hatred.
Max drove his rapier through its skull, expanding the erasure from within. The creature convulsed once, then went still.
One down.
The second dragon was crawling toward its hoard, trying to escape. Max leveled his hand, not bothering with the rapier.
"PoD Bullet."
Snap.
The crimson projectile shot forward. The dragon twisted its neck—impressive agility even while crippled—but the bullet clipped its tail, erasing the tip instantly and kept going. The beast roared in pain but kept crawling.
Max prepared to finish it—
OWROOOOOGH!
The scream wasn't draconic. It was canine. High-pitched, gurgling, and filled with agony.
Max froze, his concentration shattering. A dog? Since when do dragons bark?
He spun toward the sound.
On a ledge overlooking the cavern, a large, black Hellhound was thrashing wildly. Half of its face was missing—a clean, smooth void where snout and eye used to be. Bone gleamed white in the firelight.
Max stared at the injury. That's... that's my magic.
The bullet he fired at the dragon must have ricocheted.
Then his eyes shifted past the crying beast.
Standing frozen on the ledge, hand hovering over a glittering pile of loot, was a figure.
Cat ears. Shabby cloak. A face contorted in a mix of greed and terror, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights.
Max's mind stopped.
The features clicked into place instantly, overriding the adrenaline of combat. The sallow skin, the cowardly posture, the greedy eyes that matched every frame from the anime.
Jura.
Jura Halmer.
White-hot rage flooded Max's veins, hotter and more volatile than the dragon fire.
He remembered the anime. He remembered the Juggernaut. He remembered the screams of the Astrea Familia as they were torn apart, betrayed and butchered because of this man. He remembered Ryuu's broken expression, the years of trauma, the scars that never healed.
And here he was. Alive. Breathing. Reaching for treasure he hadn't earned.
One of the architects of the tragedy.
Max's vision tunneled. The dragons were forgotten. The loot was forgotten. There was only the target.
In the corner of his eye, he saw the mutilated Hellhound go berserk, leaping off the ledge to attack the remaining dragon in a frenzy of pain. Kairu, seizing the chaos, slithered past the melee and toward the hoard, vacuuming up the treasure with efficient glee.
Max didn't care.
Shunshin.
He vanished.
There was no sound. No warning. He simply ceased to exist on the cavern floor and reappeared on the ledge, less than a foot from Jura's face.
The Catman spun around, his expression crumbling from greed into abject terror. He threw his hands up, stammering lies, trying to play the victim.
"P-please! I—I'm just a lost adventurer! My party, they—"
Max didn't blink. He didn't speak. He didn't ask why he was here.
He pulled his arm back, every ounce of his Devil strength coiling in his muscles.
This is for Ryuu. This is for Alise. This is for every person you're going to kill.
CRUNCH.
Max's fist connected with the bridge of Jura's nose with the force of a battering ram.
There was no magic. No fancy technique. Just the raw, kinetic hatred of a Devil punching a scumbag in the face.
Cartilage shattered. Jura's vision exploded into white starbursts. His feet left the ground, and he was launched backward, sailing through the air like a ragdoll.
THUD.
Jura's body hit the far wall of the ledge with a sickening crunch, then crumpled to the stone floor in a heap. He didn't move. Didn't groan. Just lay there like a discarded puppet with its strings cut.
Max stood frozen for a moment, fist still extended, breathing hard. The rage that had propelled him forward was still there, simmering beneath his skin, demanding satisfaction. Demanding finality.
But slowly—reluctantly—rationality began to claw its way back through the red haze.
His breathing ragged, chest heaving with exertion and fury, Max forced himself to walk—not charge, not attack—to the crumpled form of the Tamer lying against the far wall.
He knelt down, pressing two fingers against Jura's neck.
Silence. One second. Two.
Then—a pulse. Weak, erratic, but there.
Alive.
Max's jaw clenched. His hand twitched toward his rapier, fingers brushing the hilt. The urge to finish the job screamed in his brain, louder than reason, louder than caution.
One thrust. That's all it would take. No witnesses. No complications. Just justice.
But he held back.
Not yet. He's more valuable as intel. Or a hostage.
He straightened, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. He felt drained—not just magically, but spiritually. The weight of the fight, the discovery of the fallen on Floor 9, the sudden appearance of Jura—it was all compounding into a heavy, crushing fatigue.
Rest. I need to rest. Should go to the corridor to Floor 13.
He turned, intending to signal Kairu to gather the last of the stones—and froze.
The ground vibrated. Not the deep thrum of a dragon, but the rhythmic, synchronized impact of hundreds of feet.
Boom-boom-boom.
Max looked toward the main exit of the cavern.
A horde poured in. It was a veritable tide of dungeon-born hate—Orcs, Imps, Silverbacks, Armadillos, and swarms of Bats circling overhead. They filled the entrance, spilling into the cavern like water bursting a dam.
"You have got to be shitting me," Max whispered, his hand instinctively going to his potion pouch. "Drawn by the noise?"
He checked his reserves. Mana: 12%. Stamina: Redlining.
He could chug a potion. He could fight. But facing that many while babysitting an unconscious villain and a slime loaded with treasure?
It was a bad tactical call.
But before he could even uncork the vial, a guttural snarl ripped through the air below.
The frenzied Hellhounds had finished dismantling the dying dragons. Their muzzles were stained with black ichor, their eyes wild and unfocused. But as the horde entered, the scent of fresh, dungeon-born monster blood hit them.
They didn't hesitate. They didn't calculate odds. They just attacked.
With a collective howl that sounded like damnation, the Hellhound pack abandoned the dragon corpses and threw themselves at the incoming horde.
Max watched, stunned, from the safety of the ledge. He and Kairu were tucked behind a massive stalagmite, completely obscured from the rest of the floor.
The Hellhounds hit the front line of Orcs like a cannonball made of teeth and fire. The lead dog unleashed a torrent of flame far denser and hotter than anything Max had seen from the Dragons—maybe amplified by whatever modifications the Evilus had done to them.
The Orc shield wall vaporized. The Silverbacks behind them roared, charging to meet the threat, only to be torn apart by coordinated pack tactics that had devolved into pure, savage instinct.
It was a slaughter. It was chaotic and most importantly, it was beautiful.
"Well," Max murmured, lowering the potion. "That works."
He watched as the battle unfolded. The Hellhounds were outnumbered twenty to one, but their ferocity was unmatched. They tore through the ranks, fire breath illuminating the cavern in strobing flashes of blue and black.
But numbers eventually told.
A group of Imps, utilizing the distraction of the Bats dive-bombing from above, managed to flank the pack. They swarmed the already-wounded Alpha—the one Max had partially lobotomized—stabbing at its blind side with crude daggers. The beast went down under a pile of writhing bodies, thrashing until it went still.
The rest of the pack, seeing their leader fall, didn't retreat. They just fought harder, breaking through the blockade and surging past the remaining monsters, chasing the retreating stragglers down the corridor leading toward Floor 13.
Within minutes, the cavern was silent again, save for the crackle of dying fires and the soft plink of magic stones settling in the ash.
Max let out a long, slow breath.
"Luck stat: Working as intended," he whispered with satisfaction.
He looked down at Jura, then at Kairu, who was happily jiggling on the stalagmite.
"Alright," Max said, his voice firm. "Pack it up. We're getting out of here."
-◈ -
It took Max ten minutes to reach the end of the cavern, flying with Jura floating behind him restrained by magic. Kairu, perched comfortably on Max's shoulder, jiggled happily, the weight of the loot making the slime feel pleasantly dense.
When they finally reached the threshold of Floor 12, Max felt happier than he had ever felt seeing a dungeon corridor.
"Safety," he breathed, letting his feet touch the ground.
He didn't stop immediately. Paranoia, honed by the last few hours, demanded protocol.
Max moved to the center of the corridor. He knelt and pressed his palm to the stone.
Hum.
A magic circle etched itself into the floor. Then another, ten feet further. And a third.
Infrastructure. Redundancy.
He didn't stop there. He pulled more mana from his dwindling reserves and set two smaller, nearly invisible circles fifty feet from each entrance—surveillance nodes tied to his Magic Sense.
"Perimeter secure," Max murmured, the words heavy on his tongue.
With the defenses set, he let go.
He dropped Auto-Evade.
The release was physical. The constant hum at the base of his skull vanished, replaced by a sudden, crashing silence in his mind. The tension that had held his body together like piano wire snapped.
Max slumped against the cool stone wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. His chest heaved. His limbs felt like they were filled with lead. Every muscle fiber screamed in protest, and his mana core felt hollowed out, almost clean.
He was running on fumes.
"Okay," Max wheezed, his voice rough. "Okay. Break time."
His hands trembled as he fumbled with the clasps of his potion case. It took three tries to get it open. He pulled out a Recovery Potion and downed it in one gulp. The taste was bitter and metallic, but the warmth that spread through his stomach was heavenly. He chased it with a Mind Potion, feeling the cool rush of mana begin to refill the empty void in his chest.
He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the stone.
One minute. Two. Five. Ten.
Slowly, the trembling stopped. His breathing evened out. The ache in his muscles faded into a dull, manageable throb.
He cracked one eye open, checking his internal status.
Mana: 55%. Stamina: Good.
Feeling better overall.
He drank one more vial of each—just to be safe—and felt his natural Devil regeneration kick into high gear. With nothing draining him, his reserves weren't just refilling; they felt... deeper.
Like a muscle after a workout, Max realized, flexing his fingers. The constant strain must have stretched my capacity. I think my max mana just went up.
Satisfied, he let his gaze drift to the other occupant of the corridor.
Jura lay a few feet away, bound and unconscious, his broken nose already swelling into a magnificent shade of purple.
Max stared at him. The rage from earlier had cooled into something sharper, colder. Calculation.
What am I going to do with you?
He went through his options. Release him (idiotic). Kill him (permanent, but intel dies with him). Interrogate him through pain (risky—Evilus trained resistance, and torture was unreliable anyway).
Or...
Max's hand twitched. Mind magic.
He had two spells prepared. Both sat in his mental arsenal like loaded weapons he'd been avoiding looking at directly.
Mind Control. The theory surfaced from his Devil memories with clinical precision: overlay your will onto the target's mental architecture, rewriting their decision-making pathways until compliance became automatic. Not possession—the target retained their personality, memories, sense of self. They just... agreed with you. Completely. Permanently, if you were skilled enough.
The Devils who perfected this technique called it "voluntary subjugation." The target's mind convinced itself that obedience was the logical choice. No chains. No screaming. Just quiet, absolute control.
Max's stomach churned. That's how you make slaves who smile while they serve.
The other option was cleaner. Mind Reading. Direct access to memories and surface thoughts without altering the substrate. Invasive, yes, but non-destructive. His inherited knowledge compared it to reading a book without tearing out pages—you could skim, search, even deep-dive into specific chapters, but the original text remained intact.
The risk? If the target had mental defenses—planted suggestions, magical wards, trauma-induced fragmentation—forcing through could damage both minds. Max's Devil memories contained warnings: practitioners who tried to crack a prepared subject and ended up with migraines, memory bleed, or worse—absorbing the target's personality fragments.
Do Evilus members even have mental defenses?
Max frowned, running through what he knew. From the anime and his own observations, Evilus wasn't a monolithic organization. It was a coalition of rogue Familias, each with their own agendas, their own gods, their own methods. A ragtag alliance held together by mutual hatred of the world, not by centralized training or shared resources.
They're not the Freya Familia. They don't have standardized protocols or elite conditioning programs. Everyone does their own thing.
And even if Rudra Familia did provide some mental defense training to their members—which was a big if—would it be strong enough to counteract Devil-origin magic? Techniques refined over millennia by a supernatural race whose entire existence revolved around domination and manipulation?
Highly unlikely.
The risk wasn't zero, but it was minimal. Jura was a grunt. A tamer who relied on collars and bells because he lacked natural talent. The chances he'd been given advanced mental fortification were near nonexistent.
Max rubbed his temples, feeling the weight of the decision.
He wasn't thrilled about using Jura as his first real test subject for delicate mind magic. The theory was one thing—he'd memorized the magical flow from his inherited knowledge, visualized the mental constructs, even practiced the focusing techniques on himself to understand the sensation. But theory and practice were two very different beasts, especially with magic that could permanently scramble someone's brain if executed poorly.
If I fuck this up...
He looked at Jura again. The broken nose. The cowardly posture even in unconsciousness. The man who would, in the future, help orchestrate the Juggernaut massacre. Who would watch Astrea Familia die screaming and feel nothing but satisfaction at a job well done.
But if something goes wrong...
A dark, pragmatic thought surfaced, and Max didn't push it away.
At least it's Jura.
Not some rookie adventurer who got caught in the wrong place. Not a civilian. Not even a morally gray mercenary just trying to survive. This was Evilus. A man who'd chosen to join an organization dedicated to Orario's destruction. Who'd tried to steal treasure while Max was fighting for his life.
If the spell misfired—if Max accidentally shredded Jura's higher cognition or left him a drooling vegetable—he could live with that. No nightmares. No guilt. Just another monster removed from the board.
Cold. That's a cold way to think.
But Max was tired. Physically, magically, emotionally. And he was done pretending mercy was a luxury he could afford in a world where gods played games with mortal lives.
He glanced at Jura again—still unconscious, still breathing shallowly. It had been over thirty minutes since Max had downed those potions, and his body was finally catching up with the chemical assistance. His mana sat comfortably at 89%, his stamina felt solid, and the ache in his muscles had faded to a dull background hum. Even his Devil regeneration had kicked into overdrive with nothing actively draining him.
Physically, he recovered. Mentally? He was impatient.
Max had given Jura time to wake naturally, hoping to avoid unnecessary magical intervention. But they were on a clock, and his paranoia had limits.
Alright. Decision made.
Mind Reading first. Non-destructive reconnaissance. If Jura had mental defenses, Max would sense them before committing. If the read came back clean, he'd have intel. If it came back scrambled or trapped, he'd know Evilus had prepared him—and then Max could decide whether to risk Mind Control or just... dispose of the problem.
One chance. I'll give him one chance to talk voluntarily.
Max pushed himself to his feet, rolling his shoulders. His transformation was already prepared—the aristocratic face, the indigo hair, the cruel elegance designed to break weak-willed men like Jura before a single spell was cast.
If he lies, if he resists, if he tries to play me...
Max's eyes flared crimson.
Then I'll take everything.
With that hardened resolve, Max walked over to Jura's crumpled form. The tamer was still out cold, breathing shallowly through his broken nose.
Max knelt down, extending his aura deliberately—letting his Demonic Power settle over the unconscious man like a weighted blanket. Then he raised his hand and brought it down in a sharp, deliberate slap.
SMACK.
Jura's head snapped to the side. His cat ears twitched. A low groan escaped his throat, but his eyes remained closed.
Max's expression didn't change. He slapped him again. Harder this time.
SMACK.
"Come on, sleeping beauty," Max said, his voice smooth and cold, resonating with that practiced aristocratic charm. "Rise and shine. We've got important things to discuss."
-◈ -
Jura
The first thing he felt when consciousness returned was pain—a hot throb radiating from the bridge of his nose and cheeks that made his eyes water involuntarily.
The second thing was the cold stone against his back.
He blinked, disoriented. Damp walls. Darkness punctuated by faint dungeon luminescence. The 13th Floor corridor, he realized with a jolt. How did I—?
Memory crashed back. The hoard. The blue-haired mage. The punch.
Panic seized him. His hands flew to his belt, fingers scrabbling for the silver bell. There. Still attached. Relief flooded through him for half a heartbeat.
He yanked it free and rang it frantically.
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding.
The sound was hollow. Flat. It didn't echo like it should. And more importantly—Jura felt nothing.
No ripple. No connection. No faint tugging sensation from the collars responding to the bell's call.
His breath caught.
He rang it again, harder, desperation creeping into the motion.
Ding-ding-ding.
Still nothing.
The bell always made a wave. He always felt the feedback—a soft, rhythmic knock against his senses when a collar detected the call. It was like a heartbeat. Proof his monsters were out there, bound to him, ready to obey.
But now?
Silence.
Jura stared at the bell in his trembling hand, its silver surface gleaming mockingly in the dim light.
They're gone.
The realization didn't land gently. It slammed into him like a Minotaur's fist, crushing the air from his lungs.
His pack. His Alpha. His meatshield. All of them—dead, scattered, or broken beyond the bell's reach.
Without them, he was nothing. Just another expendable grunt. Just—
"Something wrong?"
The voice came from his left, soft and almost conversational.
Jura's head snapped toward the sound.
And he saw it.
At first, his brain refused to process what he was looking at. The figure leaning casually against the dungeon wall looked like a noble from one of the upper districts—aristocratic features, indigo hair that caught the light like silk, clothing that draped with effortless elegance. The posture was relaxed, almost welcoming. The smile was gentle.
But the eyes.
Crimson. Deep, glowing crimson that burned with an intelligence far too ancient, far too cruel for the soft face that framed them.
This wasn't human. This wasn't even monster.
This was something worse.
"I—" Jura's voice cracked. He tried to scramble backward, but his body wouldn't obey. His limbs felt restrained. "I—please—"
The figure didn't move, but the smile widened just a fraction. It wasn't comforting. It was the smile of a predator watching prey realize it had nowhere to run.
"You were looking for treasure," the thing said, its voice smooth as poisoned honey. "I believe you found something else instead."
The implication made Jura's mind explode.
Every survival instinct, every scrap of self-preservation screamed at him to say something, offer something, do ANYTHING to appease the predator in front of him.
"I—I can explain!" Jura stammered, voice cracking. "I wasn't—I didn't mean to—"
"Explain what?" The figure's voice was soft, almost curious. It tilted its head, and those crimson eyes gleamed with something that might have been amusement. "That you were looting a hoard while I fought for my life? Or that you're working with the people who've been searching for me?"
Jura's blood turned to ice. It knows.
"I—no! I wasn't—" His mouth moved faster than his brain. "It wasn't me! It was orders! Rudra—my god—he put a bounty on you! The commanders—they're the ones who planned it! I'm just—I'm nobody! Just a scout!"
The figure didn't move, but its smile widened fractionally. "A scout for whom?"
"Evilus!" The word burst out before Jura could stop it. "I work for Rudra Familia! They—we—we're part of Evilus! But I didn't plan anything! I swear! I only follow orders!"
"Interesting." The figure leaned forward slightly, and Jura felt the weight of its presence intensify, like gravity had doubled. "And what were those orders?"
The pressure was unbearable. It wasn't physical pain—it was something worse. Like his mind was being peeled open layer by layer, and if he didn't speak, didn't offer SOMETHING, it would just take what it wanted.
The words tumbled out in a torrent, slurred and desperate through his broken nose.
"The ambush! It was on Floor 14! A good chunk of my Familia is there! We were—they sent me to track you! To report your position and condition!" His head thrashed weakly. "The bounty—it's because of the desert! You spoiled their experiment! Please! I'm telling the truth! We want to create chaos—make Orario fall! That's all I know about the plans!"
The figure just watched him, expression unreadable.
Jura sobbed harder, the silence more terrifying than any threat. "My party—they're waiting for my report! I was just supposed to tell them where you were! That's it! I swear!"
He held up the silver bell with shaking hands, offering it like a sacrifice. "Rudra gave me this! For the Hellhounds! They have even better equipment at HQ—enchanted gear, cursed items! There's an ability user who makes it all! I never met them, but they're the reason tamers like me can even function!"
Still nothing. Just those burning crimson eyes, boring into his skull.
Jura's voice broke completely. "I know where HQ is! I can take you there! I'll tell you everything! Just—please—don't kill me! Don't take me to your Familia! They'll torture me for information anyway! At least—at least with you, maybe—"
Silence.
Then the figure moved. It straightened, pushing off the wall with deliberate slowness, and walked toward him.
Jura's breath hitched. He pressed himself against the stone, trying to sink into it, trying to disappear.
The figure knelt down, its face now inches from Jura's. Up close, the contrast was even more horrifying—the gentle aristocratic features warring with the predatory gleam in those eyes.
This is it. This is the monster from the reports. The one who erased our desert operation. Level 2 my ass—this thing isn't human.
Jura's mind shattered. Every command from Rudra, every threat from his commanders, every ounce of Evilus loyalty—it all evaporated in the face of raw, primal terror.
Talk. TALK. Give it what it wants or die.
"Let's see what you've got," the thing said flatly.
A hand reached out, palm hovering just above Jura's forehead. The crimson eyes flared brighter, and Jura felt something cold and invasive brush against the edges of his thoughts.
"Mind Reading."
-◈ -
Max
Max didn't close his eyes. He didn't need to.
He dove into Jura's mind, past the babbling surface thoughts, past the terror-soaked memories of the last ten minutes, digging for the raw, unfiltered truth beneath the desperate lies.
The experience was... visceral.
Jura's mental landscape was a mess—fractured, shallow, built on fear and resentment rather than conviction. Memories flickered past like pages torn from a book and scattered in the wind. Max sifted through them methodically, his Devil instincts guiding him toward the relevant fragments.
Faces. Orders. The Rudra Familia insignia burning in torchlight.
A workshop filled with cursed equipment—collars, bells, enchanted blades that pulsed with dark energy. An ability user, face obscured, hands glowing as they worked metal and magic into submission. Jura had never met them directly, only heard whispers. "The Enigma," they called him. Or her. The memory was frustratingly vague.
Maps of Orario's underbelly. Sewer tunnels. Safe houses.
Floor 14. The ambush party. Twenty-plus members of Rudra Familia, spread across the labyrinth's chokepoints, waiting for the blue-haired anomaly to descend. Jura's role had been reconnaissance—track the target, report position, let the heavy hitters handle the kill.
Plans. Timelines. Names.
Rudra's face, sharp and calculating, issuing orders with cold authority. The god didn't care about individual lives. Only results. Chaos in Orario. Destabilization. Create enough fear, enough destruction, and the Guild's authority would crumble. Then Evilus could rise from the ashes.
Max's expression didn't change, but inside, his mind was cataloging every scrap of intel with ruthless efficiency.
Floor 14. Ambush party. HQ location beneath the old district. Equipment supplier—identity unknown but active. Chaos operation—no specific date, but imminent.
Jura was telling the truth. Mostly. The parts he'd left out—whether from ignorance or self-preservation—were scattered through his memories like puzzle pieces. He didn't know the full scope of Evilus's plans, but he knew enough.
Max pulled back slightly, hovering at the edge of Jura's consciousness. The tamer's mind was defenseless. No wards. No conditioning. Just raw, unprotected thought.
Perfect.
Max's lips curved into a cold smile.
One more step.
He shifted his focus, channeling a different technique. Mind Control. The spell surfaced from his Devil memories with surgical precision, and Max began to weave.
It wasn't violent. It didn't need to be. He simply... overlaid his will onto Jura's decision-making pathways, like placing a filter over a lens. The tamer's sense of self remained intact—his memories, his personality, his cowardice—but his priorities shifted. Reordered. Rewritten.
You will forget this interrogation.
The memory of Max's transformation, the terror, the confession—all of it dissolved like smoke. In its place, Max planted something simpler: confusion. Jura had been knocked out during the chaos. He'd woken alone, disoriented, his pack dead. That was all.
You will report my position to your allies.
Not as a command that felt forced. No, Max made it feel logical. The right choice. The smart choice. Jura would return to Floor 14, find his comrades, and tell them the blue-haired mage was resting near the Floor 12-13 threshold. Injured. Low on supplies. An easy target.
You will drink your own potion and go...
Max embedded the compulsions deep, wrapping it in Jura's natural survival instincts. It would feel like his own idea. I need to recover before reporting. I need to heal. Then I'll go.
Max pulled back fully, his hand dropping away from Jura's forehead.
The tamer slumped, gasping, his eyes glazed and unfocused. For a moment, he just sat there, blinking slowly, his mind rebooting.
Max stood, brushing imaginary dust from his coat. His transformation faded, his features returning to their normal blue-haired, amethyst-eyed appearance. No need to maintain the aristocratic facade now.
"Perfect," he said quietly, his voice neutral. "You've been very helpful."
Jura's eyes focused slowly, confusion flickering across his face. He looked around—at the dungeon corridor, at the empty space where his pack should be, at the bell in his hand.
"I... what...?" His voice was hoarse, uncertain.
Max crouched down, picking up a small vial from Jura's belt pouch—a standard healing potion. He pressed it into the tamer's trembling hands.
"You got caught in the fighting," Max said, his tone calm, almost kind. "Your pack's gone. You should drink that and get moving. The Dungeon's not safe right now."
Jura stared at the potion, then at Max. There was no recognition in his eyes. No terror. Just exhausted confusion.
"I... yeah. Yeah, I should—" He fumbled with the cork, hands shaking, and downed the potion in one gulp. The swelling in his nose began to recede, the pain dulling to a manageable throb.
Max stood, stepping back to give him space. "Head back to your party. They're probably worried."
Jura nodded slowly, mechanically. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly, and turned toward the corridor leading back toward Floor 13.
He didn't look back.
Max watched him go, his expression unreadable.
Two hours, maybe three if he gets lost. That's how long it'll take him to reach Floor 14, find his group, and report.
Which meant Max had two to three hours to prepare and set his trap. Enough time to turn Jura's "intel" into bait.
He glanced at Kairu, who had been watching silently from his shoulder. The slime jiggled approvingly, his core pulsing with satisfaction.
To the slime's simple worldview, Max had done exactly what any apex predator should: dominated a threat, extracted useful information, and was now preparing an ambush. Efficient. Logical. Survival.
Max felt a wry smile tug at his lips. "At least you're not judging me."
Kairu jiggled once, as if to say Why would I?
The simplicity of that response settled something in Max's chest. No moral hand-wringing. No philosophical debates about the ethics of mind control. Just pure, uncomplicated survival logic.
Maybe that was the problem—or maybe that was the point. He was thinking like a Devil now, not a human. And in a world where gods played games with mortal lives and organizations like Evilus thrived in the shadows, maybe that ruthlessness was exactly what he needed to survive.
But is this just survival?
Max's hand tightened. He thought about the intel Jura had spilled. Floor 14 ambush. Plans to destabilize Orario. Create chaos. Make the city fall.
Terrorists, Max realized with cold clarity. That's what they are.
Not freedom fighters. Not rebels with a noble cause. They were people dissatisfied with the status quo, willing to push their twisted ideals onto the world no matter the cost. They'd use children as bait for attacks. Ragebait civilians into resenting the very adventurers who protected them day and night, who kept Orario safe from the monsters of the Dungeon.
Max remembered his old world. The news reports of bombings, families torn apart, lives shattered because someone, somewhere decided their ideology mattered more than innocent people's right to exist.
His hands clenched into fists.
I have power here. I have knowledge. I can do something.
Evilus wasn't just a threat to him. They were a threat to everyone. To the rookies diving into the Dungeon to feed their families. To the civilians living their lives above, trusting that the Guild and the Familias would keep them safe. To people like Ryuu, who'd already lost everything to these bastards once.
I'm not going to let them execute their plans. Not if I can stop them.
His resolve hardened like lava plunged into water—shock-cold, dense, and unyielding.
He wouldn't feel guilty about this. Evilus made their choice. They chose chaos. They chose violence. They chose to be enemies of everything decent people were trying to build.
And Max? He was capable. He had the tools. The magic. The tactical mind.
So I'll start here. With this party.
Feeling the weight of his decision settle, Max chided himself. Enough introspection. Time to work.
He turned toward the perimeter circles he'd set up earlier, his mind already racing through tactical possibilities.
Floor 14. Ambush party. Twenty-four members, expecting an easy target.
His smile turned sharp.
Let's give them a surprise.
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Woah, that's an interesting chapter. If you are wondering how the Infant Dragons are that strong/has fire breath, they are partly enhanced as well. As they ate the magic stones of the Silverbacks that attacked their hoard regularly. That's why they may feel stronger than a typical Infant Dragon on the floor and we also get to see what was happening leading to the punch and the possible cause of the ricochet and slaughter that followed with the unintended help of frenzied Hellhounds.
And Max began using his Mind magics for the first time and for a good cause as well. Having a spy in Evilus would be very useful to him now and in future. I hope everything reads well. I had to revise this chapter many times to the extent I was on the verge of giving up, but finally got everything well. Please understand that the compulsion to report is not the only one he gave ;)
In the next chap, we will get to see what happens when you mess with a Devil in the Dungeon.
As always, don't forget to share your thoughts on the story and any suggestions you have on what else Max could try in a review/comment.
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Next update will be on Friday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.