By the time the sun dipped, ren and vaspera reached the dungeon's resting place.
The dungeon gate towered before them like a wound in reality.
Ren swallowed hard.
A bead of sweat slid down his cheek, cold despite the heat rolling from the spiraling green vortex. He'd seen sketches of dungeon gates in books… but the real thing felt alive. As if the air itself bent around it, pulled toward it, devoured by it.
Vaspera's voice cut through the heavy air. "Ren. Are you scared?"
Ren scratched the back of his neck and forced a shaky grin. "A little… I guess."
She didn't reply. Her eyes stayed locked on the gate, sharp and focused, as if she were analyzing every ripple of mana.
A green dungeon.
A thing people whispered about — not seen for decades, maybe centuries.
"Let's go," she said, and stepped forward.
The knights followed, boots crunching the dead grass beneath them. Ren walked close behind, every step heavier as the pressure intensified. By the time they neared the gate, it felt as though invisible hands pressed across his shoulders.
As Vaspera raised her foot to enter, she suddenly stopped.
Her gaze froze in the empty air between her and the gate — as if she were staring at something no one else could see.
"Madam Vaspera?" Ren asked.
No response
"Lady Vaspera!" a knight called from behind.
Still nothing.
"Madam—"
She inhaled sharply and blinked. "Huh? …It's nothing. Let's go."
No one believed that. But no one dared question her either.
Vaspera stepped in.
Everyone followed.
And the world changed.
—
Inside the dungeon, the sky was wrong.
It burned red — a bleeding sunset stretched across endless clouds. They stood in what looked like the remnants of a village: collapsed huts, charred beams, streets buried under ash. The air smelled of smoke, old and bitter, like a fire that had burned until nothing was left alive.
"What… what is this?" Ren whispered.
"Don't be shocked," Vaspera said, though her voice carried a note even she couldn't hide. "Dungeons are like this sometimes. They recreate places."
"But this looks like people actually lived here."
"That's possible."
Ren's heart kicked against his ribs
He stared at the empty houses, imagining laughter once filling them, now replaced by the eerie whisper of the red sky. His green eyes glowed faintly in the reflected light, wide with fear and awe mingled together.
A place where someone once lived
A place someone burned.
"Let's go, Ren."
"Ah—um. Yeah."
They walked deeper into the dungeon, past scorched fences and the blackened bones of structures long dead. Along the way, they passed the bodies of goblins — dozens — twisted and crumpled as if crushed under invisible weight.
"This wasn't done by knights," one of the soldiers muttered.
"No," Vaspera answered quietly. "Something else killed them."
Silence followed.
The village faded behind them. They entered a forest next — or what remained of one. Bare trunks reached toward the blood-colored sky like skeletal fingers, stripped of leaves, stripped of life.
Then—
Vaspera stopped.
A faint pulse rippled through the air.
Her eyes sharpened.
Another pulse — stronger — rolling beneath their boots like a heartbeat awakening.
The ground trembled.
"Something's coming," she whispered.
Before anyone could ask what she meant, the tremble intensified. Dust rose. The earth quaked. The knights reached for their weapons out of instinct.
Vaspera spun around, her voice erupting like a whip crack.
Everyone froze — just for a moment, but a fatal one.
A roar ignited — a tidal wave of flame surging from deeper within the forest, swallowing everything in its path. It wasn't fire. It was annihilation given form.
Vaspera's eyes flared. She lunged forward, arms sweeping upward.
Crimson energy burst from her palms like twin storms, swirling and condensing, her hands blazing with a furious pink glow. Ren had seen her use mana — but never like this.
The orange inferno met her crimson light.
And everything exploded.
A shockwave tore through the air, cracking the ground, ripping trees from the earth like weeds. Heat washed over them in a violent wave. Even standing behind Vaspera, ren was thrown off his feet, crashing onto his back with a cry.
He rolled, coughed, and blinked through smoke and dust.
"M–Madam Vaspera!" he rasped.
Through the haze, her silhouette stood unmoving.
Her clothes were torn. Her breathing was rapid, sweat tracing down her cheek — but she stood firm, bracing herself against the lingering burn of the clash.
The smoke slowly cleared…
And everyone's breath stopped.
From the smoke's edge, a massive shape emerged — scales gleaming faintly under the bleeding sky, each one the color of old gold mixed with the sheen of moonlit green. Wings half-unfurled, cracked with veins of glowing mana. Eyes like molten jade cut through the haze.
A low growl rumbled through the air, making the earth tremble again.
Ren's heartbeat fell silent.
A dragon.
A creature from myths.
A beast spoken of only in ancient scripture and forgotten tales.
His voice came out as a whisper swallowed by fear.
"…wha… what is that?"
Vaspera didn't answer.
Her eyes, for once, were not cold.
They were calculating. Wary.
And tight with the smallest flicker of something Ren had never seen in her before—
Concern.
The dragon lifted its head, slow and deliberate, scanning them with eyes that held something older than the dungeon, older than the forest, older than the world they knew.
Vaspera whispered under her breath, barely audible.
"This… isn't a normal dungeon monster."
Vaspera's jaw tightened.
The dragon's gaze locked onto her.
The green gate… the corrupted village… the dead goblins…
All warnings.
All leading to this.
As the dragon drew a deep breath, everything vibrated under its chest—
Vaspera raised her hand.
The knights braced themselves.
Ren felt his pulse hammer against his ribs, breath caught halfway in his throat.
The dragon's throat glowed— and the sky began to burn.
---