Published at 15th of August 2026 6:55 am

Chapter 1929: Life is a Gamble

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As the fourth day of Adam’s gruesome torture drew to a close, he finally caught the attention of a person residing in Adventurers City.

Not someone from the City Hall.

Someone who lived in the city itself.

As the crimson moon rose into the sky, its blood-red rays shining upon the cursed city, a figure emerged on the terrace of a dilapidated building.

He was tall and imposing, with a muscular build. He wore loose trousers and nothing to cover his upper body, aside from the wolf hide that draped across his shoulders.

Short dark hair framed his head, and his piercing grey eyes locked onto the sun temple in the distance.

He raised an arm and took a large bite from the roasted leg of what appeared to be another monster he had recently hunted.

As he chewed on the meat, his gaze remained fixed on the cracked dome of the sun temple.

Just who is it? He wondered.

A man? Or a monster?

Having lived in Adventurers City for over a year, he knew better than to trespass anywhere near the sun temple. He also knew that the Antlered High Priest did not differentiate between man and monster when it came to sacrificial offerings.

And he also knew that no one survived a night of the twisted werewolf’s torture, let alone for four days — five by now.

The man stood at the edge of the terrace, listening intently. Soon, the stone angels had begun singing.

From what he knew, the angels sang when the high priest tortured a victim. It only happened at night. During the daytime, both the high priest and the angels piously prayed to the sun god. Once night fell, the choir resumed, and so did the torture.

The man’s grey eyes flickered with pity. Somewhere beneath the sun temple, someone was enduring the high priest’s torment every night, only to spend the day dreading its return.

He let out a deep sigh.

How unfortunate, he thought.

The man finished eating the roasted meat. Spotting a monster wandering down the street, he casually flicked the sharpened bone in his hand.

The bone shot through the air and pierced the monster’s head. It let out a brief squeal before collapsing dead.

It had been a Rank 1 monster...

More astonishing still, the man himself was only a Templar Paladin.

He bounced lightly on his feet before doing a few stretches.

Time to go hunting!

Just as he was about to leap from the terrace, he sensed something.

His pupils constricted as he turned toward the sun temple. At the same time, the wails and howls of monsters echoing throughout the cursed city grew wild and frenzied.

His brows furrowed.

What’s going on? He wondered.

The monsters were acting strangely. Very strangely.

He hesitated, wondering whether he should still go hunting. But instincts honed through years of battle warned him that tonight was going to be hell.

So he decided to remain at his hideout and observe.

His gaze sharpened as he looked at the sun temple.

Something told him that the source of the unrest was that unholy place.

***

A few minutes earlier.

Inside the dungeon beneath the sun temple, the Antlered High Priest stood silently in front of his victim.

The bowl supposed to collect blood was empty.

Not even a trace of dried blood.

"What... must... I... do... oh, lord?"

The mad creature raised its head and sought answers from a god that didn’t even exist.

He had subjected Adam to every form of torture he could imagine. He drove dozens of spikes into his body, viciously severed the tendons in his hands and legs, impaled his stomach and pulled out his entrails, shattered his bones, and much more.

Every torment was carefully inflicted to maximize suffering while ensuring Adam did not die.

Blood drawn from a body pushed to its absolute limits tasted the sweetest... or so the high priest believed.

Yet no matter how thoroughly he broke the human, Adam’s wounds always healed, and every drop of blood returned to him mysteriously.

Each day, the high priest left the dungeon to devote himself to prayer. During those hours, Adam’s body regenerated. By the time the werewolf returned at nightfall, the human was whole again, ready to endure another night of torture.

However, that did not mean Adam was fine.

No. Far from it.

The Adam who hung pinned to the wall was a shadow of the man who had been captured nearly a week ago.

He had grown gaunt and emaciated. Countless scars covered his body, layer upon layer from wounds that had healed only to be inflicted again. His cheeks had hollowed, and he had lost a considerable amount of weight. His entrails remained spilled out of the gaping wound on his stomach. Even the luster of his raven hair had faded, leaving it dull and lifeless.

If not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, one would think he had already died.

The high priest paced back and forth, clueless as to what he must do now. This had never happened to him before. All his victims died in the first couple of hours of torture.

The fact that Adam had survived so many days further reinforced the idea that he was the perfect sacrificial offering.

That only he could appease the sun god!

"Oh... god... almighty!" the werewolf went down on his knees and desperately prayed.

"Please... give... me... a sign!"

Adam’s eyelids slowly opened, revealing a narrow slit.

Beneath the broken, tortured, and defeated exterior, his tenebrough eyes still gleamed with a sharp light.

All these days, he had not been idle.

Slowly but surely, he had been loosening the spikes pinning his wrists and ankles and shoulders to the wall. Though the enchanted iron had long since numbed those parts of his body, he knew his efforts were working.

Watching as the werewolf had turned his back toward him, Adam gritted his teeth and desperately pulled his arms forward.

Veins bulged across his neck as he strained the spikes.

This time he was going to tear himself free, even if it meant ripping his own hands apart.

The werewolf had sharp senses, so Adam knew his window of opportunity would last only a heartbeat. He could only hope the work he had put in over the past several days would finally pay off.

It did.

With a violent wrench, he tore both hands free.

The iron spikes still transfixed his palms, and strips of flesh ripped away as his hands came loose from the wall.

The werewolf turned around, his glassy eyes locking onto Adam’s bloodied figure.

"It... it... useless," he growled. "You... will... not... escape... until... I’ve... drained... every... last... bit... of blood... from... you!"

The werewolf was already moving toward him, but Adam didn’t care.

With a crazed look in his eyes, he yanked the spike out of his right hand. Then he hurriedly unwound the handwraps around it.

Bam!

The instant the last strip of cloth came loose, the high priest slammed him back against the wall. Seizing the iron spike, he drove it through Adam’s forearm and deep into the stone, pinning him in place once more.

"Useless!" the high priest sneered. "I... told... you!"

"Aye." Adam’s lips slowly turned into a grin, twisting his gaunt face into something feral.

"But life is a gamble!"

Just as he said those words, an ominous change swept across Adventurers City.

Every monster, from the weakest to the strongest, in the vicinity of the sun temple turned toward it. In the next instant, they turned utterly wild and charged toward it in great droves.

The Antlered High Priest was no exception. His gaze snapped toward Adam’s exposed right hand, and an overwhelming hostile intent surged within him.

In that moment, Adam knew that his gamble had paid off.

The Brand of Evil indeed had an effect on these monsters.

Which meant one thing...

These bastards were somehow connected to the devils of Hell!

Now the Antlered High Priest faced a choice.

Either he would give in to his urge to kill Adam, or he would suppress his bloodlust and practice temperance in service to his god.

Either the werewolf would reach Adam first, or the monsters converging on the temple would reach the werewolf first.

The hour of doom had begun.

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