I Died and Received an SSS-Rank Unique Ability-Chapter 46: A Familiar Structure

Vale stood frozen, staring at the empty spot on the wall where the final painting was supposed to hang.

The images he had seen raced through his mind.

The dark flame lingering in the abyss.

The Demon who had seized it.

Then—that same Demon, wielding the flame to strike down the Gods, only to be betrayed and stabbed in the back by his own kind.

He also remembered the Demon’s desperate escape—his final moments as he fled to Earth, where he had used his remaining power for... something. But what? Vale had no idea.

"Dammit," he growled, a fierce hunger for answers igniting in his chest.

"Who could’ve taken it?" he muttered under his breath, not expecting a reply.

But someone heard him.

"Maybe the Demons that killed him?" Ayla suggested, her eyes locked onto Vale.

"But why take just one?" Klein replied, a deep frown settling on his face. "Why leave the rest?"

He voiced exactly what Vale had been thinking, as if he read his mind.

Another thought stirred in Vale’s mind—a memory of something the Tower Keeper had said when he first entered the Dark Tower.

"Slay all who enter."

That had been the final command given to the Tower Keeper.

Vale doubted that the same knight who had attacked him so ruthlessly would have allowed someone to simply walk in and steal a painting without a fight.

How?

How had someone taken the painting without facing the Tower Keeper?

And why did they take only one?

Questions stormed through Vale’s mind, each one more frustrating than the last.

"There’s a large entrance a few floors down. Maybe we can check it out," Dain said, his voice booming through the tense silence, snapping everyone’s attention toward him.

"Entrance?" Vale repeated, confusion flashing across his face. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

In his frantic rush to uncover the truth, he had completely missed it. Glancing at his companions, he saw the same realisation dawning on their faces—none of them had noticed it either.

Without wasting another moment, the group made their way down several floors. The descent stretched on longer than they remembered. Only now did they realise just how far they had travelled, drawn onward by the paintings and oblivious to the distance they covered.

But at last, they arrived.

A set of double doors loomed before them—massive slabs of dark wood at least three meters tall. Black metal adorned their surface, twisting into sinister patterns that made the entrance seem almost alive, as if daring them to enter.

The group hesitated, staring at the doors they had somehow missed.

Then, Dain stepped forward.

Without a word, he pressed his arm against one of the doors and pushed.

A deafening screech tore through the tower as the door inched inward, dragging against the stone floor like a wounded beast.

The sound was unbearable, and the door seemed to resist with every fibre of its being.

One by one, the others joined in, pushing their weight against the ancient wood. Still, the door moved sluggishly, as if the very laws of physics were trying to hold it shut.

Finally, with a thunderous thud, the door swung open.

Darkness spilled out from the chamber beyond. The room was small, almost claustrophobic, and there was nearly nothing special about it... nearly.

A massive structure towered in the center of the room—a colossal oval shape of obsidian stone, smooth yet jagged along its edges, as if carved by something not entirely human-like. Its surface was covered in intricate engravings—twisting, ancient symbols that wove together into patterns too complex for the eye to follow.

A faint light pulsed through the carvings, breathing in slow, steady rhythms, giving the illusion that the stone itself was almost alive.

The group approached it hesitantly.

The glow wasn’t warm, nor was it cold—it simply existed, an eerie heartbeat in the otherwise suffocating darkness.

At times, the light would brighten just enough to reveal hidden details—grooves, runes and fractures—before dimming again, as if the structure was deliberately hiding its secrets from their curious eyes.

Though it stood silent and unmoving, there was a weight to its presence, a strange distortion in the air itself. A subtle pull, almost magnetic, seemed to hum at the edge of perception, drawing the eye, the mind, and perhaps even the body toward it.

"This..." Vale muttered, his eyes wide as he stared at the massive structure.

"A teleport!" Klein exclaimed, excitement clear in his voice.

Teleports were ancient constructs that allowed beings to travel instantly between two distant places, connected by nothing but mana essence. The knowledge of teleports goes back to the earliest of the Awakened, but even now, their engineering remains alien. Despite unlimited funding and countless attempts, humans had never been able to recreate the teleports that they had found scattered across the Demon Realm—all their attempts ending in failure.

Vale, like most, had read about them in countless books. Recognising one was simple.

What he found himself pondering was... how in the world were they supposed to activate it?

The group stood frozen, staring at the dormant structure.

"Anyone knows how to activate a teleport?" Vale asked, half-joking—but he was met only with heavy silence.

"It can’t be that hard," Dain said, striding closer to the structure with typical bravado.

He narrowed his eyes, studying the intricate engravings spiraling around the frame.

"That fool," Vale thought. "Does he really think he can just read the instructions off—"

Before he could finish his thought, something shifted.

The massive student had pressed his palm against the frame, and the moment he did, mana essence surged from his body into the structure.

Dain stumbled back as a deep humming sound filled the room.

Particles of mana swirled wildly within the oval structure, twinkling like stars trapped in an endless void.

Then, in an instant, all the mana snapped inward, stretching tight across the frame.

A paper-thin sheet of shimmering essence now filled the center of the structure, covering it completely like a glowing veil.

Vale’s eyes widened at the sight.

To his surprise, Dain had actually done it.

Before them now stood a fully working teleport.