Chaos Warlord: Reincarnated in Eldrich with the Devil System!

For a brief moment, everything seemed to stand still, and then with a forceful thrust, Val pushed downward, driving the tentacles back into the chasm from whence they came. The gigantic creature below writhed in fury, its body trembling with rage that resonated through the abyss, the land and sky within it trembling as it raged.

Val's sixth sense was blaring alarms, a sensation of immense danger enveloping him. This was a feeling he knew all too well, a premonition that he faced a peril that could engulf him whole. If he were to confront this danger head-on, death awaited him, and following his demise, Eldrich would be plunged into unspeakable peril. Eliana, Oliver, and everyone he had met and come to care about because of selfish purposes would suffer.

'Must not let it cross into our world!' 

The clarity of imminent danger sharpened his resolve, and instinctively, Val knew his next move.

With deliberate speed, he conjured a Black Fireball in the palm of his hand, a swirling mass of destructive energy. 

Without a moment's hesitation, he hurled it into the well.

Boom!

A deafening boom reverberated through the basement. The fireball had exploded after a moment, and the resulting flames engulfed the portal within the well, consuming it with ravenous hunger.

In mere moments, the portal was incinerated, severing the connection between Abyss and Eldrich.

On the other side, the abyssal entity could only look on in thwarted rage as the portal to the Eldritch realm vanished before its eyes, its plan to invade the world cut short by Val's decisive action!

Meanwhile, Val laughed.

A system notification chimed in Val's awareness, a message clear and compelling against the backdrop of his victory:

[Congratulations, Host. You have destroyed an Abyssal Well.]

Reward obtained: Divine Veil of Ebim. 

[This power cloaks your presence, shielding you from the divinations and gazes of lesser beings from other dimensions. Only entities of higher godly realms may perceive your existence.]

Val exhaled a deep breath, relief washing over him.

By destroying the well, he had undoubtedly offended something of the abyss, but with this reward he didn't need to worry about it for the time being.

After all, the Divine Veil of Ebim was a shield like no other, an absolute defense against the gazes from the abyss.

That abyssal creature of insurmountable might wouldn't know what he was up to even if it wanted to because of this divine skill!

'While I may have won this battle, the war against the darkness is far from over.'

Val didn't feel complacent.

There were too many dangers ahead. He had to start preparing. 

'The most urgent danger I need to take care of is naturally the threat of the mastermind behind the charnet rite,' he thought.

Val surveyed the secret basement with a gaze of scrutiny.

His gaze landed on a series of footsteps scattered across the dusty floor, distinctively larger than his own.

Seeing these footsteps, he concluded that the culpirt was a male with very large feet. 

Seeing these footsteps, he also smirked.

The insidious mastermind who had visited the haunted house had evidently been meticulous in erasing his tracks, but maybe because of how dark it was in the badement or maybe because he was in a hurry, he had left behid a few of the footsteps he had left in the basement when he visited it! 

'And I am going to capitalize on this mistake to catch him.'

Now Valentine could track these footsteps to their origin but Val didn't want to get her invovled in this because he had his reasons.

After all, to involve Valentine would be to bring the full weight of the law down upon the mastermind once he was caught. However, that resolution seemed far too lenient for Val's taste. The mastermind deserved not a trial, but retribution, a permanent end at Val's hands to prevent any future threat.

'If I want things to play out as I like, I can only depend on myself.'

Thus, he decided to track the mastermind down himself without getting anyone involved.

Now he didn't have the same skill as Valentine.

But there was still something he could do about it.

A token materialized in Val's palm, glowing with a subtle luminescence.

With this, he accessed the ethereal repository of knowledge unique to the wizard community. 

The arcane library opened, and he started to sift through the list of level-2 shadow type runes.

While Val lacked Valentine's extraordinary skill to trace origins from mere remnants, Eliana's recount of such a skill had expanded his perspective on what was possible within this world, and he believed that in a world where skills like Valentine's existed, there must be runes capable of similar feats. And he might very well find such a rune in the arcane library. 

Val carefully navigated through the level-2 shadow runes, bypassing those of offense and defense, seeking the ones with the subtlety and precision required for tracking.

A rune caught his eye.

It was the Echoes of Shadows Rune. 

With this rune, one could see the echoes left in the shadow realm by strong emotions or actions. The more intense emotion would be shown first, followed by the less intense ones. This wasn't the first time Val was hearing about it. It was mentioned in the description of the shard of darkness too, an item he obtained from destroying Gruul's clone but still wasn't able to gain control of as he needed to prove himself worthy. 

'This rune is good. Considering the mastermind was shocked to find its plan ruined, the activation of this rune will reveal his identity,' Val concluded.

However, there was a problem, and Val wasn't ignorant about it.

It was not selective.

If he were to rely on this rune, he would have a hell to witness before he could see who the culprit is.

The Echoes of Shadows Rune was meant to uncover past events, but Val already knew that the basement was used as a place for charnel rite.