NOVEL NEXT Chapter 182: Laugh
Blackie was quiet for a long moment, her eyes flickering with uncertainty. Finally, she spoke.
"There is… one more," she said softly. "Not far from here."
Damien turned to her immediately. "Another inheritance?"
She nodded slowly, almost reluctantly. "Yes. But this one is different."
She looked away for a moment before continuing.
"It belongs to an ancient powerhouse," Blackie said softly. "He commanded shadow and death so completely that even light avoided his presence, and memory unraveled in his wake. His name is lost, but his trial remains, buried beneath the ruins of a city no one remembers. We call him… Gravewalker."
Damien's brow furrowed. "Do we know who claimed it?"
"No," she said quietly. "The core inheritance vanished thousands of years ago. Someone took it. But no one knows who… or what became of them."
Damien's eyes narrowed. "So what remains?"
"The site," Blackie said. "The structure still stands. A temple. Small. Inconspicuous. Hidden in plain sight west of here. You could walk past it a hundred times and never feel a thing. No mana signature. No protective aura. Just... silence."
She hesitated, her voice lowering further.
"There are side inheritances within. Not discarded relics from the one who claimed the core, but prepared offerings left behind by the Gravewalker himself. Pieces of knowledge. Incomplete philosophies. Techniques forged in voidlight. Each one sealed in its own trial. They're real… but they're not without risk."
Damien watched her carefully. "You've been there."
She nodded. "Many times. I've tried to reach one of the side inheritances. It changes. Adapts. It chooses who may approach. And the deeper you go, the more the temple tries to… unmake you."
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It doesn't defend with force. It tests your existence. Your reason. Your right to be."
A heavy silence hung between them.
"I didn't want to bring it up," she finally admitted. "Not because I thought you couldn't do it… but because it is extremely dangerous."
Damien's eyes softened for a breath. Then the glint of certainty returned.
"I need to grow. The world's burning, and I'm standing in the middle of it with a title that's dragging the attention of gods."
He looked out toward the horizon.
"If there's even a chance of gaining something that pushes me closer to their level, I'll take it."
He turned back to her with a faint, determined smile.
"Let's go."
The journey westward was quiet, the kind of silence that felt less like peace and more like the air holding its breath.
Dry wind scraped across stone, dragging heat and dust across the landscape.
And yet, despite the tension that hung behind their purpose, the three of them walked not as warriors preparing for war but like old friends wandering into a riddle.
After an hour of walking in silence, with nothing but the sound of wind scraping against cracked stone and ancient air humming with faint disuse, one particular monkey could take it no longer.
"Alright," Rage Monkey growled, arms folded behind his head, tail swaying irritably behind him. "Enough of this graveyard stroll. Someone define life for me. One sentence. No philosophical dance-offs. Just say it."
Damien, walking ahead with hands in his coat pockets, tilted his head slightly. "Seriously? A philosophical discussion about life? I didn't peg you for the reflective type."
"I always assumed you were just a dumb brute," Blackie added without looking back. "Like your father. Bananas, rage, repeat."
"Excuse you," Rage Monkey sniffed. "I am a deeply layered individual. I've read entire scrolls. I've meditated. I once tried to write a haiku, but it ended in a brawl. That counts."
He waved a hand between them. "Come on. We've got a reanimated death dragon zombie with control issues, a walking mana anomaly that smells like incense and bad decisions, and me, an interdimensional monkey with questionable lineage. If anyone's equipped to answer the big questions, it's us."
Blackie gave him a withering look. "Call me a zombie again and I'll sever your banana and feed it to a wandering troop of low-IQ forest apes."
"I only said what it really is." Rage Monkey grinned, baring his teeth.
There was a short silence. Damien said nothing. And when Damien said nothing, it meant permission.
Blackie launched forward in a blur of black and violet energy, slamming into Rage Monkey with the force of a falling mountain.
"What the… HEY!" he shouted, staggering backward as a scaled fist crashed into his face.
He tumbled across the dusty terrain, bounced once, and skidded to a stop in a wide trench of scorched soil.
Blackie didn't wait. She blurred again, appearing mid-air, fists raining down like cannonballs. Each blow hit with a deep, meaty thud that echoed off the canyon walls.
"I WAS ASKING A PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION!" Rage Monkey screamed, blocking desperately as dust and debris exploded around them.
Damien watched from a boulder, arms folded, expression perfectly calm.
Then, with a strangled, high-pitched yelp, Rage Monkey leapt out of the crater, clutching his crotch.
"NOOOO! NOT THE BANANA! BLACKIE! THAT WAS SACRED TERRITORY!"
He landed hard, rolled, then stumbled upright, his tail lashing erratically, eyes wild.
He looked at Damien, expression filled with betrayal and mortal panic.
"SHE DESTROYED MY BANANA! DO SOMETHING! GROW IT BACK! YOU'RE THE DEATH GUY!"
Damien raised a single brow. "And you wanted to understand the meaning of death?"
"YES! IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT!"
Damien shrugged slowly. "Your banana just died. What do you think death means now?"
Rage Monkey fell to his knees in the sand, hands raised toward the sky in dramatic despair as he howled mournfully.
Blackie, standing a few paces behind him, burst into laughter. Not the polite, restrained kind.
No, this was a deep, full-throated roar of mirth that echoed through the canyon like thunder. She leaned forward, one hand on her knee, the other wiping a nonexistent tear from the corner of her eye.
"I haven't laughed like this in centuries," she said between breaths. "Maybe ever."