Building The First Adventurer Guild In Another World

Sage and the others stood frozen, not by choice but as if something unseen had locked their bodies in place. The weight pressing down on them was overwhelming, ancient, unnatural, like a colossal mountain had suddenly descended from the sky to rest upon their shoulders.

This pressure wasn’t the kind that came from a mighty Warrior or a powerful Mage; it felt wrong, as if it belonged to something not alive at all. It reminded Sage of the Abyssal Mana Leviathan, a suffocating presence that instilled fear before his mind could even process it.

His fingers twitched slightly, yet he couldn’t move his hand. Even his Mana stirred sluggishly within him, as though submerged in mud.

Valeria stood closest to the old man, her crimson sword still gripped tightly in her hand. Her gaze remained fixed ahead, yet she too was immobilized. Though her expression was cold, there was an alertness Sage rarely witnessed on her face.

Every muscle in her body was tensed and ready for action, but the oppressive atmosphere made even the simplest movement feel like dragging chains through deep water.

For someone like Valeria, who had just decisively defeated Riven, to be so still only intensified the fear gripping everyone’s hearts.

Riven lay sprawled before her, face down in a pool of blood with his chest gruesomely torn open from behind. His body collapsed awkwardly; one arm reached out toward Valeria as if he still sought to curse her or pull her back into the nightmare he called a Clan even in death.

His eyes were wide open, frozen in disbelief, still fixed on Valeria’s direction even though the spark of life had vanished from them. Beside his hand lay the cracked black sword that had accompanied him throughout the battle, dull and useless now, its edge stained with dust and blood.

Standing over his lifeless body was the creature that had taken his life.

It resembled an old man in shape, but everything about it defied that simple description. Its back was hunched to such a degree that its body bent forward like a broken branch.

The figure was so thin it appeared almost hollow; skin stretched tightly over bone formed long, dry fingers resembling twisted roots. Sparse hair clung to its scalp in dirty grey strands, falling in thin patches like rotten thread.

Deep hollows marked its cheeks, making its cheekbones sharp and grotesque. Its eyes sat deep within dark sockets, pitch black and wet as if light had long since abandoned them. The skin was pale, wrinkled, and marred by strange dark marks, giving it the appearance of a corpse unearthed after a millennium and forced to walk again.

Its right hand reached forward, clutching the crushed remains of Riven’s heart.

Blood dripped slowly from his fingers.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Each drop echoed louder than it should have. Sage swallowed hard, his gaze locked on the old man’s hand, where bits of flesh and a broken heart still twitched weakly between those bony fingers. His stomach twisted in knots.

This wasn’t like witnessing someone die in battle; it was different from seeing enemies fall to sword or spell. There was something profoundly sickening about this scene that made his skin crawl and chilled him to the bone.

Then, he noticed the blood beneath Riven beginning to move.

At first, it was subtle, a faint ripple spreading across the pool of blood surrounding his body. Gradually, the pool began to shrink as thin red streams rose from the ground like delicate threads, twisting gently through the air before flowing toward the old man’s feet and into his body. The movement was slow at first but soon quickened.

The blood-soaked earth dried up as if it were being drained by some unseen force.

Riven’s corpse twitched once, his skin fading in color, tightening, and then shrinking against his bones. Sage’s pupils trembled at the sight.

The others watched in horror as Riven’s body began to wither right before their eyes. His face sank inward; his cheeks collapsed, his lips shriveled, and his skin wrinkled rapidly, drying and tightening until he resembled an ancient mummy pulled from a forgotten tomb.

The blood remaining in his wounds vanished, as if sucked dry by the old man standing above him. In less than a minute, Riven, who had once towered before them as a formidable enemy, had been reduced to nothing more than an empty husk.

A dry thing. A shell. Nothing more.

Mina, weakly clinging to Sage, witnessed the transformation. Her little golden eyes widened with terror, her lips quivering as if she wanted to speak, but words failed her. Then, her eyes rolled back, and her small body went limp.

"Mina," Sage whispered, but the word barely escaped his lips.

Gregor caught her just in time, though his own face had turned as pale as paper. His hands trembled as he held her. Brutus stood rigid beside him, gripping his massive hammer so tightly that the handle creaked under his fingers.

Caelis was breathing shallowly, and several Adventurers behind them looked like they might collapse at any moment. Some had tears in their eyes, unbidden; others were biting their lips until blood oozed. This wasn’t just ordinary fear; this was the body struggling to survive what the soul had already accepted as death.

The old man slowly lifted his head, his black eyes locking onto Valeria. A sinister grin stretched across his face, revealing teeth that were almost completely black, broken, and uneven, like rotting stones in his mouth. As he smiled, the wrinkles on his face folded in grotesque layers, making him appear even less human.

"Blood..." he rasped, his voice like metal grinding against metal, rough and sharp enough to make everyone’s ears ache.

"Blood..." He inhaled slowly through his nose, his grin widening. "Your blood..."

Valeria’s eyes narrowed, but the old man’s gaze remained fixed on her, filled with a hunger so raw and repulsive that even Sage felt anger swelling beneath his fear.

"Potent..." The old man’s tongue scraped across his blackened teeth. "Delicious..."

Sage felt a chill grip him. This creature wasn’t regarding Valeria as an enemy; it looked at her as if she were a meal.

Valeria tightened her grip on her sword. A faint crimson glow threatened to rise from her body, but the oppressive atmosphere around them thickened, crushing it down before it could fully manifest. The slight shift sent Sage’s heart plummeting.

The old man took a small step forward. It was just a step, a slow, crooked movement. But the moment his foot touched the ground, the entire crater seemed to sink. Cracks spread beneath him, not from force but from something darker, as if life itself was being drained from the stone. Sage’s heart pounded against his ribs.

One thought echoed in his mind: they were dead. Not maybe, not possibly, dead.

His Mana surged instinctively, but before he could act, the old man’s gaze shifted slightly toward him. That small glance made Sage’s Mana almost freeze. His chest tightened; for a brief moment, it felt like something cold had wrapped around his heart.

The old man’s grin widened again.

"Another... strange one..."

Sage’s expression hardened. "Shit..." he muttered under his breath.

The old man took another step. Valeria moved her sword half an inch; that tiny motion felt like the beginning of a disaster.

Then it happened, a blinding beam of light erupted across the ruined city, so bright and sudden that everyone instinctively closed their eyes.

It wasn’t fire or lightning; it was pure white light, clean and intense, cutting through the darkness and pressure like a blade through rotten cloth. The old man’s grinding voice fell silent. For a brief moment, the oppressive weight pressing down on them lifted, and Sage gasped as air finally filled his lungs properly again.

The light consumed everything. For a few seconds, there was only white, no ruins, no crater, no old man, no corpse, just white.

Gradually, the brightness faded away.

Sage forced his eyes open, blinking hard as his vision struggled to adjust. His head still rang with echoes; his body felt heavy. He could hear others coughing and shifting weakly around him.

The pressure hadn’t completely vanished but had weakened enough for them to move again. Sage quickly turned his gaze to where the old man had been standing, but thick remnants of light still lingered in the air, obscuring his view.

Then he heard it, a voice, a familiar and desperate voice filled with relief so strong it nearly cracked.

"Boss..."

Sage froze, eyes widening slightly as he recognized it.

The voice came again, closer this time and shaking with pure joy: "Boss! I’ve finally found you."

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