Venedikt understood that he could not simply stumble upon a great treasure by luck, so that left him with only one option.
Yet instead of asking the Ruler directly where such a treasure could be found, Venedikt chose to gamble.
He used his last remaining wish to request the creation of a Champion's Conquest, a game with a strict two-week time limit, one that promised a reward valuable enough to satisfy even the higher echelons of the Tharokarn Clan.
It was a desperate move, but not without reason. If he had asked the Realm Ruler to reveal the location of a valuable treasure, the wish would have been granted.
However, retrieving it would likely have been nearly impossible, since such a treasure would be hidden within a death land or another equally inaccessible place.
The gamble was still dangerous, since the greater the reward, the harder the challenge would be. But even so, it would be easier than searching for an artifact buried in some abyss beyond reach.
By setting both a high-grade prize and a short time limit, Venedikt had pushed the difficulty to its peak, and that also meant that every participant drawn into the game would be an elite among elites.
Still, desperation left him little choice.
If there was even the slightest chance of success, he would take it, and it wasn't as if he was weak. With the Codex in his possession, he stood among the top immortal adventurers of the Ancestral Realm.
To his surprise and delight, the Realm Ruler not only accepted his request but also compensated for the extreme difficulty.
Since the challenge was so heavily stacked against him, the ruler made so that the item he wanted would not be locked behind victory conditions.
The prize was an item called the Golden Skeleton. But instead of being the reward for winning, it was placed directly within the game's domain, meaning that one did not have to win the conquest outright to claim it.
There was, however, one major problem.
The Golden Skeleton was no lifeless relic waiting to be picked up. It was alive, a core part of the trial itself.
The game's format was city defense. An Arch Lich was the enemy, and acting as its general, a Dullahan was the Golden Skeleton, who led the vast undead army.
Its strength reached the peak of the Seventh Rank, and worse still, it was semi-immortal.
Killing the Dullahan was not required to complete the game. The objectives were simple: the participants either had to slay the Arch Lich or hold the city walls for fourteen days against an unending tide of undead.
The Realm Ruler had also not hidden the truth. Every participant was told through the game details that the Golden Skeleton was special. In fact, it was a prize even greater than the game's final victor's reward.
Which meant that all two hundred and ninety-nine other participants had their eyes on the same relic.
Venedikt understood that his odds of claiming the Golden Skeleton were no better than he was expecting, if not slightly worse.
The game was already brutal enough. Players were forced to cooperate to survive the endless waves of undead, but beneath the surface, every one of them was ready to betray the others, prepared to plunge a knife into an ally's back if it meant being the sole victor. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭·𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦·𝘯𝘦𝘵
Securing victory was hard enough, and claiming the Golden Skeleton on top of that? That was something no sane participant even considered possible.
Yet, not only did Venedikt seize the Golden Skeleton, but he also cut down the Arch Lich itself, becoming the sole beneficiary of the Apex Conquest.
"Now, in the present time"
After spending two relentless weeks in the meat grinder that was the City of Sun, Venedikt was exhausted. Sleep had been a rare luxury, so before making a deal with the Umbryssan Clan, he decided to recover completely.
He looked up at the onyx serpent, blood still drying on his face, and spoke in a gentle tone. "T'mirnaya, you made me proud. Now go and rest."
'Times ahead are only going to get tougher,' he thought to himself.
Seeing the leviathan gave him a look of uncertainty, so he reassured her with a faint smile. "Don't worry. I am going to rest as well. I can't show up before one of the mightiest figures of the Ancestral Realm."
A second later, a massive crack tore through space beside the leviathan. Her vast serpentine body slipped into the void, vanishing into its dark embrace.
'It's unlikely I will get to meet the 'Benevolent Father' directly,' Venedikt mused silently as his own figure blurred into the folds of space. 'Though it would be nice meeting someone who stands beyond the Night Rank, a Hegemon, as people like to call them.'
Six hours later, Venedikt was following a towering giant clad in silver armor across a blackened-red walkway. The path stretched tens of meters wide, but it did little to distract from the horror beneath it.
An endless ocean of boiling magma rolled and churned below, within which countless colossal behemoths swam. Their massive forms were like nothing Venedikt had ever seen.
Yet it wasn't the magma nor the monsters that made his blood run cold. The heat should have been unbearable, yet he could feel his body shiver because he couldn't get the truth of this place out of his mind.
This wasn't a volcano, nor an ocean of flame.
He was walking across the corpse of a dead giant. A colossal behemoth stretched nearly a dozen kilometers long. The magma was its blood. The walkway is the central bridge of its ribcage.
In the distance, a massive demonic skull loomed, crowned by three empty eyes. Life had long since fled it, yet just looking upon it made Venedikt's head burn, his thoughts clouded with visions of fire.
And within that skull waited the one known as The Benevolent Father. The Hegemon of Flames and the master of the Tharokarn clan.
Just hours ago, Venedikt had wished for such a meeting, but now that the thought had become reality, he wanted nothing to do with it.
But now he had no choice.
Venedikt had asked the Realm Ruler for something that could please the higher echelon of the Umbryssan Clan, but he never expected the golden skeleton to be something that was of interest to the clan leader himself, one of the strongest figures in the realm.
After making a full recovery, Venedikt had used a bronze-grade wish to deliver a message to a person who was of high authority in the clan and would be interested in the skeleton.
Minutes later, Venedikt reached the end of the walkway. Before him stretched a staircase of obsidian-black stone, each step vast enough to have been carved for giants.
The silver-clad giant made a simple gesture, urging him onward. Venedikt gave a silent nod, then began his ascent, neither rushing nor lingering, but moving at a steady, deliberate pace.
A few heartbeats later, he stood upon a crimson platform that reached into the open maw of the dead behemoth. Venedikt closed his eyes for a breath, then calmly stepped into the chamber carved within the skull.
The interior felt like a temple. Towering silver pillars lined both sides, supporting a dome of obsidian-black overhead. The floor, same as the outside, burned with a blackened crimson hue.
At the chamber's center sat a man in quiet meditation, cross-legged upon the stone. His face bore the features of a mature man in his forties. Dark crimson hair flowed down his shoulders, matched by a large, rough beard that seemed to ripple like burning flames.
He wore a red robe embroidered with golden patterns, ancient symbols whose meanings were lost to Venedikt. At first glance, the man looked no different from any ordinary human.
Venedikt stared intently, confusion flickering in his eyes, but in the next breath, it was gone, replaced by vigilance.
The man finally opened his eyes, golden and radiant as the blinding sun, and in that instant, his presence changed, turning oppressive and suffocating.
Yet just as swiftly, Venedikt felt warmth wash over him. His anxiety melted, and the burning tension in his nerves dissolved into silence.
A warm and gentle voice brought him back to his senses. "Young one, come sit with me."
Venedikt looked over and saw the man showing a calm smile and pointing toward a cushion placed before him.
Drawing a breath, he walked forward. His steps were steady, though his heart still carried the echo of unease, but seeing the man neither haughty nor domineering, his guard eased.
"Let's start by introducing ourselves," the man said, his voice carrying both gravity and calm. "Vulmir Atar Tharokarn. The realm also remembers me as the Benevolent Father."
He chuckled lightly. "Strange title, I know, but what can I do?" He said with a shrug, "My granddaughter gave it to me and made me promise to keep it. So, I can't change it."
His golden eyes softened. "Over time, I have grown fond of it myself. At least it keeps me from sounding like some fire-headed demon."
The smile lingered, then shifted into a gruff note. "Though, of course, those old fogies like to use it as a taunt from time to time."
"I go by Architect," Venedikt replied evenly. "But my real name is Venedikt Makarov."
Silence followed for a moment, and Vulmir's gaze lingered, bright and searching, before he spoke again.
"I was told that you have the remains of my brother with you," He said at last.