Standing inside the monster's mouth, Michael held its mouth open with the doom bringer and his other hand. Slowly, Michael moved the hand that was holding the doom bringer down. The monster almost snapped its mouth close, but Michael was strong enough to keep it open with one hand. He then raised the doom bringer as a bone-chilling frost beam shot straight down the monster's throat. Vedora heard the monster roar in agonizing pain. The monster went crazy. It swings its entire body left and right to throw out Michael. No matter how hard the monster tried to lose Michael and shoot him with a poison blob, it simply couldn't. Unlike the monster's outer body, its inside was soft tissue and flesh. The frost from the doom bringer crystalised the monster from within. If Michael wanted, he could send a stream of dark flames into the monster's throat and burn it from the inside. However, Michael had other plans for the monster. Instead of killing the monster, he froze the monster to the point it stopped struggling. He turned around before hitting the monster's palate with the doom bringer. The pointy end of the doom bringer hooked into the skin. Michael moved the doom bringer slightly forward as the monster crawled forward like a remotely controlled toy. Vedora was utterly speechless. They thought Michael would kill the monster when he had the chance. Instead, he was driving the monster toward the volcanic mountain in the distance. No one would have dared to make such a daring move. But making such uncanny moves was what made Michael the Dark Lord.

The monster was already half dead. Its poison glands and organs were frozen. Vedora followed behind the monster while keeping a safe distance from it. Only while following the monster did they notice several others, like the monster Michael was riding from its mouth. Some of the Salamandepedes were bigger and stronger than the monster before them. Even if Michael had killed one, he would have faced several on his way to the mountain. As much as Michael liked to hunt these monsters down and earn experience points, he valued his life and everything he had achieved till now more. Until the system reached level 10, where he could construct a body for himself in case he was killed, he had to keep himself safe.

The meadows were littered with hundreds of Salamadepedes. Coupled with weird gravity that prevented one from flying, even a group of Immortals would be slain in the area. The more time they spent in the demons grave, the more Vedora learned the dangers lurking in the realm. This was why even the seasoned Immortals dared not to venture into the demons grave despite the rare and priceless treasures within. A few weeks ago, Noah prepared himself to venture into the demons grave, hoping the place would temper him and enhance his battle prowess. However, Andreas outright stopped him without giving Noah a choice. Andreas didn't think Noah was ready for the dangers in the demons grave. To be honest, Andreas was right. Noah would have lost his life in a few hours if he had chosen to enter the realm.

God or no god, one must be at least at the Immortal stage to survive the demons grave. The past Dark Lord made sure of that. Although the demons grave was one of the past Dark Lord's regrets, only Michael could survive and close the realm. For some reason, the monsters in the demons grave didn't attack Vedora. Some of the monsters dug into the ground the moment they saw Vedora. Looking at this weird behavior of the monsters, dark lines appeared on Ayag's forehead. She turned her gaze toward Cain since he was the smartest among the three of them.

"Hey Cain. Did you see how they went inside the ground when they saw us? It's weird, right?" said Ayag.

After hearing Ayag's remarks, Sarba shared his thoughts with Cain.

"I also have this strange feeling that we and this place have some kind of connection,"

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They weren't wrong to have these feelings. But the truth was far more than they could even dream of. Almost four thousand years ago, before the Dark Lord reset the universe, a brutal world-ending war happened between two otherworldly races. The war had two sides. One side had thousands of demons, and the other side had only one fighter, the three-headed hydra, Vedora.

"If so, we will get some answers before we leave this place," said Cain. He didn't let Sarba and Ayag know what he felt about this place. Unlike him, they were influenced by emotions rather than their brain. Until Ghost figured out what had really happened in this realm, Cain didn't want to come to any conclusions. Eventually, Michael reached the volcanic mountain base. Dark smoke and ash littered the ground as well as the air. The smell of fire nauseated them. As soon as they reached the mountain base, the high temperature caused the ice layer on the monster to crack. After the ice shattered, Michael was afraid of the monster healing back to its full strength. Therefore, Michael cast the ring of fire and Ignitia at the same time. Black lightning bolts crackled around Michael's hand before hitting the monster's throat. Following the black lightning bolt, a stream of dark flames rushed into the monster's mouth, burning its flesh to well done. The monster roared and squirmed as Vedora's senses were overwhelmed by the burning flesh. Soon, the monster lost its strength to squirm and collapsed down. Its body shrunk as green slimy blood oozed out of its skin.

[Ding! Congratulations to the host for killing a Half Immortal level 7 monster. The reward is 1,000,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]

[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully being a badass. The reward is 15000 Badass points]

Michael heard the system in his mind. Not even a second passed as Michael felt warmth throughout his body. This was a familiar feeling. He had leveled up.

[Congratulations to host 'Michael' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal Level 5]

Vedora flew around the monster's lifeless body as Michael stepped out of its mouth. Without even looking around the mountain, Michael squatted down the monster's body and ran his fingers through its scales. After the explosion and fire plus ice attack, the monster lost most of its scales. He fired the dark beams out of his eyes, cutting out the few scales on its body. Vedora saw Michael peeling out the scales with a sickening screeching sound. He seemed unbothered by the blood and gore. On the contrary, he was whistling a strange tune and enjoying collecting the scales.

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It took him almost an hour to collect all the scales. At that moment, he sat before a pile of scales. Cain counted thirty-four scales in total. Each of them was diamond shaped in the size of a grown man's palm. They wondered what Michael could do with so few scales. But after seeing the sorry state of his current armor, their first guess was new armor. After stripping the scales from the monster's body, Michael raised his hand, firing streams of dark flames from his hands. Without the scales, the monster's body couldn't withstand the dark flames. It slowly burned down to a hot pile of ashes and bones. Michael slightly bowed, paying his respect to the monster.

When Michael turned around, he saw Vedora staring at him with bewildered looks on their faces.

"You have something in mind?" Michael asked, tilting his head.

"We are wondering what kind of connection we have with this place," said Ayag.

Her words reminded Michael of the green glow in Cain's mouth that resembled the realm tear earlier. Just like Cain, Michael didn't want to say anything before he learned more about the demons grave. Since the mysterious woman said the demons grave was one of his mistakes, he had a feeling it might be related to Vedora somehow. But for the time being, Michael decided to stay silent on the matter.

"I'd say let's explore the place more before making any assumptions," said Michael.

Ayag heaved a heavy sigh and nodded. Finally, Michael turned his focus to the giant mountain before him. It looked bigger and mightier in close. Once again, Michael tried to ascend into the air but ultimately failed due to gravity.

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[The required items needed to forge the dark swords are inside the mountain. It seems like the host has to climb the mountain. I hope you are good at it] The system said. Weirdly, the system sounded amused by his conundrum. The volcanic mountain was none like Michael had ever seen in his life. Its ashen cone would grow hot and, with a great surging and throbbing, pour forth rivers of molten rock from chasms in its sides. Some flowed blazing down great channels; some winded their way into the stony plain until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon shapes vomited from the tormented earth. The heat emanated from the molten lava was enough to burn a Core Formation warrior to dust.

Vedora lifted their heavy heads as the mountain filled all their sight, looming vast before them. The growling mountain sounded like a hungry beast waiting to devour everything with its molten lava. Its cone-shaped top reached for the sky, shrouded in a huge mass of ash and sparks of fire. Just looking at the mountain hurt Michael's neck. He sighed, thinking of climbing the mountain through the oozing lava and uneven terrain. He was a hitman, not a mountain climber. Although he had training climbing walls and mountains, this fuming chimney of a mountain was not an ordinary one that anyone could climb. At Least he had mark three grappling hook to help him climb.

After taking a long deep breath, Michael walked toward the mountain. He grabbed the edges and started to climb up.

"Are you sure about this?" Cain asked Michael.

"Don't look down. It might help," said Sarba with a worried face.

"Relax. I got this," said Michael.

While Michael was climbing up, a sense of deja vu hit him. He felt like he had climbed the mountain before. But he ignored all the doubts and focused on the task at hand.

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