Twenty minutes slipped by.

Taking advantage of his freedom, Revan scoured the giant facility alone. He meticulously scanned every corner of the room, ensuring no hidden routes or crucial clues were missed.

He started with the row of giant transparent cylindrical tanks. One wipe of the dusty glass told him everything—thick blood-red residue had long since dried into dark crusts along the inner surface. The multi-tiered iron cube structures came next, and yielded nothing but empty rooms that carried the specific stillness of a place vacated in a hurry, by people who didn’t look back.

After sweeping the entire area, he arrived at one highly aggravating conclusion: there wasn’t a single important item left in this main hall. Except for the nine colorful iron doors scattered across the surrounding walls.

Revan stood in the middle of the room, staring blankly at the row of colorful doors.

The vein on his temple, which had twitched way too often today, felt like it was about to snap.

’I should have known this given the sheer size of this facility. I am seriously tired of all these games, you know?’ Revan cursed internally.

’Why is my life always so complicated and filled with these damn guessing games? What now, huh? Do I have to check these doors one by one like a complete idiot?!’

A sudden, violent migraine pierced his skull.

"I feel like throwing up," he muttered bitterly to the empty air.

SMACK! SMACK!

Knowing that he was beginning to spiral into despair, Revan slapped both of his own cheeks hard with his palms. The sound of the slaps echoed faintly in the quiet hall.

The numb, burning sensation that instantly spread across his face successfully chased away the fog of frustration in his head.

’Alright, that’s enough. Stop it right now,’ he warned himself, taking a deep breath to regulate his heartbeat back to normal.

’Okay, Revan, let’s think rationally. What is your actual goal in this godforsaken place?’ With a gaze that had returned to being sharp and analytical, Revan crossed his arms over his chest.

’First, I need to find the teleportation relief. Second, I need documents—trade letters or anything that can tell me who else is involved in this operation besides the Vespera family.’

His eyes narrowed as he stared at the massive factory structure surrounding him.

’Should I just blow this entire facility to hell while I’m at it?’ Revan mused darkly.

"Heummm... I don’t know. I haven’t really thought that far ahead. Destroying this place could trigger a whole new set of problems. What I need most right now is to finish this quickly and get back to Sylvia before she completely turns into a monster."

Thinking of the girl, Revan’s chest felt a little heavy.

’Saving her means uncovering every secret she’s kept buried. Once I’ve gathered the intel here, I’ll head back to Elara to dissect the curse further,’ he thought.

He let out a steady breath, shedding the momentary hesitation. His mind was now sharply focused.

’The documents and high-level magic I need won’t be in the production room. My main target is the control room or the core chamber where the higher-ups hide.’

With his objective clear, Revan’s gaze immediately swept across the nine iron doors scattered around the surrounding walls. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, White, and Black.

’This facility is incredibly massive and was definitely built very systematically,’ Revan thought, his brain starting to dissect the color codes at full speed.

’Whatever lunatic designed this place wouldn’t have painted those giant doors just for aesthetics. This is an alchemy-style route classification system.’

He began to mentally eliminate the available options.

’Let’s use the logic of elimination from the perspective of an alchemical factory architect,’ he analyzed.

’The Red door definitely leads to the final storage warehouse for the Crimson of Tears. An area like that is bound to be guarded by the most lethal traps. Black and White symbolize putrefaction and purification—those are definitely the waste disposal area and sterilization room. The rest is just the spectrum of base elements leading into a maze of raw material supply pipes.’

Revan’s lips twitched cynically.

With his current condition, entering any of those doors was tantamount to suicide and a complete waste of time. He instantly crossed all the production route options out of his head.

Until finally, Revan’s gaze locked onto the only remaining door. An iron door painted Violet.

Revan’s eyes widened slightly. A faint smirk slowly formed on his face, and the lingering pain in his head evaporated without a trace.

"Of course," Revan muttered softly.

Just as he had learned in high school physics, violet held the highest energy level in the light spectrum. Combined with the fact that the ward system at the outer gate earlier also radiated violet mana, the conclusion was crystal clear. In a magic facility of this scale, that door was the direct artery to the main control room.

However, the smirk on Revan’s face vanished when another thought crossed his mind. His steps abruptly halted.

"Wait, hold on a second... Isn’t this a little too easy?" he whispered, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

After the continuous string of bad luck and deadly puzzles that had nearly claimed his life, solving a problem this quickly actually set off alarm bells in his head. He stared at the violet door skeptically for a few seconds.

"Heummm... whatever," Revan finally muttered, brushing off the paranoia.

’Logic is logic. This deduction is completely logical reasoning, right? What else is there to argue?’ he convinced himself.

His expression returned to a deadpan flat, radiating the aura of a man utterly exhausted by the absurdity of this world.

"Besides, if my guess turns out to be wrong and the outcome is different from what I expect... oh well, I’ll just blame God and this damned destiny."

Revan spoke casually, completely forgetting that half an hour ago he had nearly suffered a heart attack when that woman insulted the Zenith Primes.

With his "I don’t give a shit" mentality reaching its absolute peak, Revan wasted not a single second more. He took a firm step forward, cutting through the silence as he walked straight toward the violet iron door.

***

Revan stopped right in front of the giant violet iron door. He rolled his shoulders for a moment and stretched his wrists until a satisfying, soft crack was heard.

He pressed both of his palms against the cold iron surface, then exerted all his physical strength to push.

"Nggghhh... damn it," Revan grunted through clenched teeth.

The veins on his neck bulged as the giant door’s hinges finally shifted with a deafening screech of grinding metal.

"Does a place this massive not have an automatic door system, huh?!"

He paused for a moment, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Ah, right. That bitch said the mechanism was jammed," he cursed softly, remembering the mysterious woman’s words outside the gate earlier.

With his remaining strength, he pushed the door until it was wide enough to pass through.

Behind it, a long corridor that dipped sharply downward welcomed him, complete with illumination from a row of lights lined up above.

The moment Revan stepped inside, a cold chill instantly assaulted his skin. He frowned.

The air in this hallway felt vastly different from the main hall earlier. There was a sharp, piercing chemical odor—a thick mix of formaldehyde and antiseptics.

"Jesus Christ, are there corpses being preserved in here? It feels like taking an afternoon stroll in a morgue," Revan sneered.

One of his hands waved gently in front of his nose to swat away the pungent smell.

"This is going to be a highly disturbing trip," he grumbled softly, trying to take the shallowest breaths possible.

He continued stepping down in silence, his eyes locked on the faintly blinking light at the end of the corridor.

Revan immediately slowed his pace. He twisted his body and pressed his back tightly against the cold metal wall surface, then began inching forward along the edge of the hallway, approaching the threshold of light with extreme caution.

’I hope when I step through this door, there won’t be some cheap comedy scene where dozens of armed guards are gathered around, just staring blankly at the idiot who just walked in,’ Revan thought cynically.

After sharpening his hearing and making sure there were no sounds of breathing or footsteps waiting for him on the other side, Revan slipped through.

Without any more hesitation, he crossed the threshold at the end of the hallway.

As soon as he stepped out, Revan’s breath caught in his throat.

The architectural scale behind it truly defied common sense. The expanse of the circular underground ward stretched out so massively, swallowing his figure in a cold void.

The room was so vast that the curved wall on the opposite side nearly faded into the shadows.

Right at the epicenter of the giant ward, a black mountain rock formation towered high up to the ceiling. This insane facility seemed as if it had been built by tearing out the bowels of the earth around it, leaving that giant stone pillar standing arrogantly as a natural monument in the center of the room.

Around the circular wall, as well as clinging to the sides of the giant mountain rock in front of him, there were tiered metal building structures filled with rows of glass observation windows.

The faint glow of red and violet light illuminated from behind those dark windows, creating horrifying long shadows.

’Good lord... the architect of this place must be obsessed with becoming a supervillain,’ Revan thought, his eyes sweeping across the grandeur around him.

A steel-floored observation deck jutted out widely toward the mountain formation.

Although the room seemed dead silent, Revan wasn’t stupid enough to walk openly across such an exposed area. He immediately crouched low, utilizing the thick shadows and rows of large metal shipping containers haphazardly stacked on the deck as cover.

With agile and soundless movements, Revan sneaked around, moving from one crate to another. His eyes continuously scanned every dark corner, staying alert for traps or guards.

Until finally, his gaze locked onto a room at the end of the deck.

Unlike the other areas, right above the threshold of the sliding metal door was a small indicator light glowing brightly, which drew Revan’s interest to go inside.

Revan crept closer, checking his surroundings for a moment to ensure it was safe, before finally opening the door slowly and slipping inside with the highest level of caution.

He arrived in a room with a vastly different layout. Large metal racks and desks were scattered irregularly.

The arrangement inside was completely different from the factory area earlier. Tall metal shelves lined up, crowding the room, while thousands of sheets of paper, parchments, and thick folders seemed to spill and scatter across the floor.

Judging by the sheer amount of documents scattered haphazardly, this place was clearly functioning as an archive room.

"Wow, that was extremely easy? I thought I’d have to tear this place apart for hours, or at least fight some mutated freak cooked up by this damn facility."

Revan’s gaze immediately fell upon a red metal desk in the middle of the room. On top of it, there was a communication crystal that had been shattered to pieces.

Someone had clearly tried to forcefully wipe this place clean before leaving. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Time was limited. With swift and efficient movements, Revan ransacked the drawers and the remaining papers scattered on the desk.

Most of the documents were already burnt or intentionally torn, but beneath a dusty pile of empty folders... his eyes caught something.

His fingers traced the bottom of the drawer, which felt slightly elevated. Using the tip of his nail, Revan pried off the thin iron plate and pulled out a half-burnt piece of parchment intentionally hidden underneath it.

A partial transcript that had escaped destruction.

The thin sheet might have looked trivial, but the moment his eyes swept over the first line of the text, Revan’s breath caught instantly.

His eyes widened dramatically as his mind processed the words.

’Fuck... these bastards have completely lost their minds,’ he cursed internally.

’A reformation?’