Following the warped taint that only demonkin carried, Enid tracked “Howard” to a stretch of ruins near the edge of campus.

  The wrecked stone building sat almost against the academy’s outer wall.

  From here, she could even see the colossal barrier dome rising inside the wall, the one sealing the entire academy shut.

  It was so out of the way that there was nothing to look at except the rubble itself.

  Enid had never come this far before, she preferred the gardens and the little groves.

  For some reason, the ruins had never been fully torn down.

  Maybe they were kept for sentimental reasons.

  Whatever history it used to have, it had become a shelter for demonkin and cultists, a quiet breeding ground for rot and conspiracy.

  Enid was sure of that because the warped stench was strongest here.

  The only problem was the entrance, she still had not found it.

  She searched around the ruins for a while and came up empty.

  No doorway, no hatch, not even a hidden spell circle.

  She had to admit it, these rats were good at covering their tracks.

  No wonder patrols could not find the missing students, and the cursed suspects could die before they ever spilled anything useful.

  Still, Enid did not believe she was in the wrong place.

  If you wanted to hide a large base where there was barely even a decent structure left, where would you put it?

  Underground, obviously.

  Chasing “Howard” into an underground passage earlier had taught her that the target was almost certainly right beneath her feet.

  But the interference here was vicious.

  It was so thick she could not use earth-sense to pinpoint an opening.

  She also did not love the idea of flipping the whole area over with heavy earth magic.

  Her curse flared whenever she pushed mana too hard, and the backlash was brutal.

  She did not know how many more high-tier spells she could force out, three, five, not many.

  If the backlash crossed a certain line, pain and exhaustion would crush her flat.

  After that, she would fall into a sleep that could last days, and waking up again would be anyone’s guess.

  “A bunch of idiots hiding underground like rats,” she muttered. “What a hassle.”

  After a short search turned up nothing, she ran out of patience.

  She decided to tear the ground open and find the entrance the fast way.

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  Rosalie and other students were still in demon hands.

  Right now, speed mattered more than elegance.

  Enid pressed her hand to the soil and cast a high-tier earth spell, Quake.

  Power rolled outward like a tidal wave, shredding the terrain.

  The ruins and everything around them buckled and collapsed under the surge.

  And there it was, a downward stairway that looked exactly like an entry point.

  She went down the steps and found a heavy metal door buried deeper in the earth.

  A two-horned skull emblem was carved into it, the mark of the Demon God Cult.

  She was in the right place.

  When she moved closer, the eyes of two gargoyle statues beside the door lit up red.

  Their heads turned toward her, like they expected a passphrase.

  Enid thought about it for half a heartbeat, then stopped.

  Why bother, when she could just break the door.

  She erased both gargoyles and the door with a mid-tier fire spell.

  That was her idea of stealth.

  Deeper inside, Enid found the underground complex was far larger than she expected.

  Tangled corridors and sharp turns stacked into a maze.

  Traps popped up now and then, they could not threaten her, but they did test her patience.

  The maze did not hold her for long.

  She used low-tier wood magic to summon vines and leave markers wherever she had been.

  Before long, she had the route mapped.

  She cleared the maze and kept going.

  Then she reached a massive chamber.

  A “main door” stood ahead, half-buried in rubble and covered with spellwork, and four towering demon statues watched over it.

  It was the classic puzzle-room setup.

  Enid had no interest in puzzles.

  She believed in one simple rule, force solved most problems.

  The door did not survive her mid-tier water magic.

  In the face of overwhelming power, tricks and schemes tended to fold.

  Before moving on, Enid flicked a lightning bolt into the dark.

  It hit an “eye” hidden out of sight, dead center.

  She recognized the demon gimmick, a concealed remote watcher.

  It was useless on her.

  Maybe the demonkin and cultists had realized she was advancing too quickly, and decided they needed eyes on her.

  If so, that only meant she was getting close.

  They were starting to panic.

  What was strange was that she still had not met a single cultist or demon.

  Were they so wary of her that they refused to fight head-on.

  Soon, Enid reached a circular hall that looked like a meeting chamber.

  It seemed to be a junction, three passages led deeper from here.

  This time she sent a Light Breeze spell down each tunnel to scout.

  After checking all three, she sensed stairs at the far end of the middle corridor, descending even deeper.

  She chose the middle path without hesitation.

  As she walked, the corridor felt longer than what her earlier scan suggested.

  When she stepped out, she was not at the stair room.

  She was back in the circular hall.

  “Fine,” she said quietly. “Another puzzle, and this one isn’t something I can punch through.”

  She tried several more times.

  Every attempt dumped her back into the hall, and the corridor itself showed nothing obvious.

  So she had to spend more magic.

  It felt like the designer of this place cared less about testing adventurers, and more about draining them.

  Enid had already burned too many spells that had nothing to do with fighting, and the curse pain was climbing.

  She doubted the demonkin knew about her curse.

  So was this aimed at her, or just rotten luck.

  Either way, it left a bad taste.

  With that unease crawling under her skin, Enid finally figured it out.

  The corridor was wrapped in a sensory-warp spell.

  Anyone entering would unconsciously turn around and walk back out, an old trick, but a reliable one.

  As for the solution, Enid simply blasted the corridor with mid-tier water magic.

  By sheer luck and brute force, she washed out the device sustaining the distortion.

  In the end, force won again.

  At last, she reached the deepest hidden door.

  Compared to the crude gate at the entrance, this one was lavish, almost ceremonial.

  Whatever lay behind it was probably the real shelter, the true heart of the den.

  From beyond the door, Enid caught a faint whiff of “monsters.”

  Even with the interference still thick, demon taint stood out from ordinary distortion, and it smelled worse.

  The creatures waiting behind the door were probably hoping to ambush her the moment she opened it.

  Reckless, but effective.

  It might have worked on someone else.

  They had underestimated Enid.

  Her senses could track nearby movement with unfair clarity, and react in time.

  Whoever waited on the other side had no idea they were already exposed.

  And Enid had her own way of dealing with pranksters who loved “surprises.”

  She gave them a surprise they would never forget.

  A massive fireball swelled into being above her palm.

  Of course, for it to become a lasting memory, they would need to survive the moment it arrived.