Not since waking from his slumber had Cassius felt so threatened. Even that newborn balor had been little more than a troublesome nuisance in his eyes.
Yet now, this summons echoing from the void filled him with an immense sense of dread.
*It's time to see what truth lies behind all of this,*
Cassius thought after a moment of quiet reflection.
If the entity behind the voice truly had the power to eliminate him, it could have struck during the battle just now. There would have been no need to lure him inside.
With the red dragon's current strength, the only entities capable of preventing his escape were those quasi-deity demon lords residing in the Abyss. Yet such beings were rejected by the physical realm, making it nearly impossible for their true bodies to manifest on the Material Plane.
Furthermore, whoever was behind this clearly had an agenda involving the red dragon. Otherwise, they wouldn't have groomed him into a world boss in his past life. Perhaps he could exploit this to snatch the prize straight from the tiger's jaws, seizing the power that was originally destined for "Cassius" from that very entity.
With that in mind, Cassius folded his wings tightly against his torso, lowered his head slightly, and carefully squeezed into the passage.
The corridor was spacious enough for ordinary demons and fallen giants, but for Cassius, it was uncomfortably narrow. Still, it was the only way into the depths of the lair.
Fortunately, his Darkvision allowed him to see everything clearly, his pale-gold pupils gleaming faintly in the darkness.
At last, he reached the innermost cavern.
The cavern floor was slick with profane, dark-red filth, writhing worms, and acid capable of corroding anything it touched.
Yet that was not all.
"What is this...?"
A rare look of astonishment flickered in the red dragon's eyes.
Hovering in the center of the cavern was a twenty-sided prism. Chaotic runes were engraved on every facet, radiating countless shafts of dim, yellowish light.
A shroud of chaotic black mist drifted around it, its fine particles shifting in erratic patterns and letting out piercing shrieks. It resembled nothing less than a miniature Abyss.
"An Astral Prism," Cassius murmured.
In his eyes, this twenty-sided prism was a portal to the Astral Plane, merely tainted for now by the leaking demonic power.
The Astral Plane.
A familiar name.
It was a purely mental realm, the silver void between all the true planes.
It was boundless, deeply mysterious, and perilously dangerous. The warships of the githyanki—the "astral pirates"—frequently drifted across its silver currents to raid other planes, yet they were merely an insignificant fraction of what dwelt there.
There were larger, uglier things in that expanse: astral dreadnoughts, astral whales, and floating islands formed from the corpses of dead, ancient deities.
Even powerful, enigmatic planeswalkers viewed that plane as a transit station best departed as quickly as possible.
They often skipped exploring it on foot, preferring to rely on magical devices instead. The most direct method was traveling through astral conduits or color pools, which could sweep a traveler straight from the Material Plane into any of the Outer Planes.
*The Astral Plane, huh...*
Unless absolutely necessary, Cassius had no desire to set foot in the Astral Plane at this stage. His current power was enough to secure a foothold there, but it was far from enough to handle the unknown perils lurking in the deep.
"Come... this is your inevitable destiny..."
"Do not fear, do not hesitate, embrace it all..."
The low summons echoed once more from the Astral Prism. This time, the voice was far more intense, surging like tidal waves that relentlessly battered the red dragon's mind.
"No..."
"I cannot let this voice sway me."
The red dragon shook his head, his pupils flaring.
Even in his greed for power, he could not afford to be reckless.
After a moment's contemplation, he summoned the Cataclysmic Dragon Eye and exhaled a torrent of blazing fire, shaping a dragon-like avatar made entirely of flame.
The dragon sorcerer's formidable will bent reality to his command.
The phantasmal dragon eye embedded itself into the avatar's eye socket, serving both as its window to the outside world and as a conduit for the red dragon to control these magical flames.
"Open."
With merely a nudge of Cassius's will, the runes on every face of the prism flared with starlight, and the astral gate slowly opened before him.
Under his control, the fire elemental avatar unleashed a roar laced with scorching gales, then plunged straight into the passage.
Through the Cataclysmic Dragon Eye, Cassius saw a tunnel of rainbow-hued light beyond the gate. After traveling an unfathomable distance, until his surrounding vision blurred into streaks, the avatar finally crossed the final threshold and arrived in the profound void—the Astral Plane.
"So this is the Astral Plane..."
Cassius's fiery avatar stood atop a black rock and murmured to itself.
In his past life, he had been nothing more than a mercenary roaming the Material Plane, never having taken on high-tier interplanar commissions. Only now did he truly behold this magnificent expanse.
All around was an infinite void, with silver currents drifting through the darkness, dotted by countless twinkling stars. These were not merely sources of light; they could be portals leading to other planes, or projections cast from some outer space.
Enormous islands drifted through the void, perhaps the remnants of astral dreadnoughts, or even the corpses of forgotten ancient gods whose origins had long been lost to the dust of history.
The familiar voice echoed again, far clearer this time.
"The fires of vengeance burn bright..."
"Embrace the Abyss..."
"Come..."
Cassius's avatar floated forward, following the sound.
Weaving between one floating island after another, he finally located the source of the voice.
There, atop a floating island nearly ten thousand meters across, a humanoid creature three meters tall was bound fast. Its unfurled wings, hideous horns, and exposed red flesh left no doubt as to its identity—a balor from the Abyss.
This demon possessed three full pairs of wings upon its back, yet each was asymmetrical. Its twisted body was wrapped in heavy chains, its hands and feet pinned to the stone, surrounded by intricate, arcane runes.
The entire floating island seemed to exist as a massive prison, built solely to incarcerate this demon. Drifting shards of broken rock and immense fissures spanning thousands of meters scarred the island's periphery, bearing witness to a past cataclysmic battle.
The demon before him was not as massive as ordinary balors. In fact, it was somewhat gaunt, yet every breath it drew exuded an aura of supreme danger. The moment the seal loosened even slightly, chaotic abyssal mist would leak out, dense enough to verge on solidifying.
The demon hung suspended in midair, its head drooping.
Suddenly, as if sensing Cassius's arrival, the balor lifted its head. The fires of vengeance burned fiercely in its deep-set eyes, and an eerie smile curled upon its lips.
"The trajectory of fate may shift, but the destination of the journey was anchored long ago; it cannot be easily altered."
"This is both ordained by the laws of the world and the ultimate choice of the Abyssal Will."
"Cassius, my most perfect, destined contractor... you came after all."
"A pleasure to meet you. I am the Lord of Vengeance—Jezralslak, an ancient balor, a former demon lord of the Abyss, and your future collaborator."
Chapter 260