“If you got anyone to worry about, then it should be me not my general here,” I couldn’t help but add, “I can kill you all with a whim of thought. Don’t mistake my generosity and kindness for weakness. I can kill you anytime I want.”

My words managed to return their focus again to me. “Tell me now, where is such a world? Where is such a place?”

“Well… If the lord is asking about a scary place where no one of us dared to enter after our ancestors tried, then it’s all under the central zone.”

Oliver pointed at the direction of my gloriously shining lady of the supreme life shrine.

And his words just matched what I initially heard from the leaders of the twenty zones up there on the surface world from before.

This… Looked quite familiar, weirdly familiar, making me grin evilly.

Would I find more beasts there? More bones and flesh? More precious materials? Damn! This world was filled with misery and fortunes at the same time.

“Where is the way? Show me,” I didn’t hesitate to ask for directions.

And that seemed to get them all startled and surprised.

“Lord…” Oliver hesitated, looked at the others, “this place… even the strongest of our ancestors fell there, and all they sent was a warning message to never touch that place. It’s just like what we got about the path leading towards the upper world you are speaking about.”

“Dude, just let me see it… I killed tons of beasts already, and it’s not an issue to kill more.”

“Beasts?” they muttered in shock, but I knew it was hard for them to understand this.

“Just show me the way,” I didn’t give them any option to argue, as I led my chariot towards the central zone.

The beasts on the surface all had the ability to negate the time and space abilities of my universe’s supreme races. They also got the power to seal my system and anything related to it.

Would these beasts be the same? I didn’t believe that. The only possibility was for the beasts to have the ability to devour and negate these races’ abilities.

As my chariot moved fast, I gave the order for the other races at the ground to follow me. I had to do it in front of all of them, so such deep hatred would be cured.

Of course I didn’t aim to clear it all, I aimed to redirect it towards the right enemies, those motherf*ckers who did all this to all of us and remained in the shadows, hiding themselves from everyone’s eyes.

During the journey back to the central zone, I started to ask many questions and get lots of mysteries resolved.

They came here the same way my universe races at the surface world did. They lived here, under the fear of going out through the path leading to the surface world, or trying to venture deeper into the central zone.

They lived under the curse of getting many of their people abducted, tortured in front of their eyes while watching in helplessness their flesh and bones got separated in brutal way before dying.

Their bodies vanished alongside everything else, and they didn’t get any explanation about where they went.

But I did know.

I told them what was missing from their side of the story. I spoke about the mysterious enemies who kept all of them trapped here. The surface world had the curse of turning their people into souls to fuel the weapon, while their people’s bodies acted as the back structure of this world and weapon.

My people were oil, and their people were the materials that made the engine. It was such a genius plan, a hideous one that was devised by such twisted dirty souls.

What were they? Demons? Or devils? Or what?

Of course I knew whatever I said wasn’t accepted or believed by them. They got all the right to feel so. After all, they lived on stories telling them we were the ones behind all this.

How could they possibly believe me like this?

It took roughly five days to cross the distance that took almost a month before. Once I arrived at the central zone, I started to follow the instructions and lead of Oliver.

He led me towards the direction of the opening I came from. “Lord, the opening lies down there,” he pointed and I managed to see a great amount of rocks gathered here.

If not for him pointing it out towards it, I wouldn’t take note of this.

“Why all these rocks?” I felt puzzled. The gates at the surface world weren’t closed by anything. And yet, I could see rocks only here, gathered up to cover a huge circle on the ground.

“We… Had to close it up so no one would be lured inside,” Oliver seemed to be their official speaker with me.

“You did this?” I pointed at the rocks and couldn’t help but sigh when he nodded.

Fear… Would cause even the mightiest people to do such a pathetic move.

“Fine… You blocked it, and you will clear it,” I shrugged. If they did this, then they should be the ones to clear it.

“But… Lord…” Oliver looked at others in fear and doubt, “once we cleared it, a pillar will appear, connecting the two openings together. And… Our ancestors said…”

“I don’t care,” I stopped him before repeating his useless warning, “just open the damn thing and leave everything else for me to solve.”

I got a glimpse about what was waiting for me down there. Why were they seeing us as the main enemy here? The bad guys?

It was simple. Whoever went into the underground level through this opening was met with a scary beast, or more. And all of them had the power of a system backing them up.

Unbelievable, right? The system who was on my side and my universe’s people’s side was on the side of such monsters. It was unexpected, but it was the only thing that explained all this.