The shaft was a throat, and we were crawling down its gullet while the world choked on smoke.
The heat rising from the Garbhagriha below wasn't just hot; it was predatory. It clawed at the soles of our boots, carrying with it the sickening, sweet stench of burning amniotic jelly and the charred remains of a million unborn nightmares. The metal rungs of the maintenance ladder were slick with condensation and soot, slick enough that every handhold felt like a gamble.
"Keep moving," I rasped, the air searing my lungs. "Don't look down."
Above me, Javed was hauling his bulk up the rusted rungs with a grim, piston-like determination, his bronze armor scraping against the narrow metal walls. Riya followed, her breathing ragged, clutching the hem of Kabir's robe like a lifeline. Vikram was last, directly above me.
He wasn't complaining. The bravado, the jokes about his shoes, the rich-kid entitlement—it had all evaporated in the nursery. All that was left was the high-pitched whistle of air trapped in his throat and the erratic clatter of his crystal bow banging against the ladder. He was a boy who had looked into the abyss and realized, for the first time, that the abyss had teeth.
[ PASSIVE HARVEST... +0.1 STR ]
[ PASSIVE HARVEST... +0.1 INT ]
[ PASSIVE HARVEST... +0.1 AGI ]
The notifications scrolled in the corner of my vision, a relentless ticker-tape of death. Every time a hatchling popped in the fire below, I grew stronger. It should have felt good. It should have felt like power.
Instead, it felt like I was swallowing ash. My veins burned with a cold, necrotic electricity. The humanity I had traded for survival was leaving a hollow space in my chest, a void that demanded to be filled with more entropy. The Smashana—the cremation ground—wasn't just a class; it was a location, and I was slowly becoming it.
Clang.
The ladder shuddered violently.
"What was that?" Vikram whispered, his voice cracking. He froze, his knuckles turning white on the rung.
"Don't stop," I ordered, though the dread had already settled in my stomach like a stone. "Vikram, move your legs."
CLANG.
The vibration traveled up the metal spine of the ladder, nearly shaking my grip loose. It wasn't the heat. Something had struck the ladder from below. Something heavy.
I risked a glance between my boots.
Far down, through the swirling grey smoke and the orange glow of the inferno, a shape was moving. It wasn't climbing; it was launching itself. A massive, charred hand clamped onto a rung, bending the steel like putty. Then another. It moved with a jerky, broken rhythm, defying gravity through sheer, hateful momentum.
General Bakasura.
He was a ruin of a creature. The fire I had unleashed had stripped away his fine red armor, fusing the molten metal to his flesh. His skin was a map of blisters and weeping raw muscle. One of his horns was snapped off. But he was fast. He was ascending the shaft with the desperate, maniacal speed of a predator whose only remaining instinct was revenge.
"He's here," I said, my voice dead calm. The panic had burned away, leaving only cold calculation.
"Who?" Javed called down, his voice echoing in the tight shaft.
"The General. He survived."
Vikram let out a sob, freezing completely on the ladder. "No. No, we killed them. We burned them all."
"You cannot burn hunger, Vikram," Kabir said from above, his voice tight but controlled. "Climb! He is gaining!"
The ladder shook again, violently this time. A screech of tearing metal echoed from below. Bakasura wasn't just climbing; he was destroying the path behind him to ensure we had no retreat. He was ripping the rungs out of the wall as he ascended.
We were fifty meters from the top. The grate that led to the surface—to fresh air—was just a square of dim, grey light above Javed's head.
But Bakasura was twenty meters below me. And he was faster.
[ WARNING: BOSS ENTITY APPROACHING RAPIDLY ]
[ THREAT LEVEL: LETHAL ]
"We won't make it," I realized. The math didn't work. The weight of five people on the ladder slowed us down. Bakasura was climbing solo, fueled by the mana of his own eaten kin. He would catch us ten meters from the exit. He would grab my ankle, then Vikram's, and drag us all back down into the fire.
I looked up at Vikram's trembling boots. I looked at the light above.
"Javed!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the roar of the wind. "Break the grate! Get them out!"
"We're almost there!" Javed yelled back, hammering his mace against the rusted cover. BANG. BANG.
"Vikram," I said. "Move."
"I can't," Vikram wheezed, paralyzed. He was hyperventilating, his body locking up in a physiological reject of the terror. "I can't feel my legs, Dhruv."
I reached up and grabbed Vikram's ankle. I didn't shake him gently. I squeezed, hard enough to bruise. "Go. Or I will throw you past Javed myself."
The pain snapped him out of it. He gasped, scrambling up two rungs.
I stopped climbing.
I wrapped my arm around the ladder rung, anchoring myself. I looked down. The General's face broke through the smoke. His eyes were gone, boiled away by the heat, leaving empty, weeping sockets that stared blindly into the dark. He was tracking us by smell, by sound, by the sheer gravitational pull of his hatred.
"You..." Bakasura roared. His voice was a wet gurgle of ruined vocal cords, sounding like grinding stones. "Little... thief."
He reached up, his claw swiping inches from my boot. The heat radiating off him was intense enough to singe the hair on my legs.
I looked at the rusted bolts holding the ladder section together. Just above my head. If I broke them, the bottom half of the ladder would fall. Bakasura would fall.
And so would I.
"Dhruv!" Riya screamed from above. She had looked down. She saw me unhooking the Black Iron Spear. "What are you doing? Climb!"
"There's too much weight," I said, my voice feeling strangely detached. "The structure is failing."
"No!" Kabir shouted. "Dhruv, do not! The probability of survival is zero! We can fight him together!"
"We can't fight him on a ladder," I interrupted. I looked up at them one last time. My team. The Tank, the Healer, the Mage, the Ranger. They were a party. They needed to survive to clear the game.
I was the Executioner. And executioners walk alone.
"Survive," I said.
I drove the spear tip into the rusted bolt connecting the ladder segments. I didn't use strength. I channeled the Entropy Harvest into the metal.
"Rot," I commanded.
The rust accelerated instantly. The iron turned grey, then white, then dust.
SNAP.
The ladder groaned. Gravity took over.
"DHRUV!"
Riya's scream faded as the metal detached. The bottom fifty meters of the ladder, with me and Bakasura on it, plunged back into the darkness.
The wind roared in my ears. The heat rushed up to meet me like a lover. I didn't scream. I just tightened my grip on the spear, tucked my chin, and angled my body for the impact.
We fell into the throat of the world together.
THE MINE
Javed kicked the grate open. It flew off its hinges, clattering onto stone.
He hauled himself up, muscles screaming, and rolled onto the floor. He turned immediately, reaching back down into the shaft, his arm extended to the limit.
"Grab my hand!" he roared.
Riya scrambled out, tears streaming down her soot-stained face, gasping for air. Then Vikram, coughing and retching, crawling on hands and knees away from the hole.
Then... nothing.
"Kabir!" Javed yelled. "Where is he?"
"I am here," Kabir whispered, pulling himself over the edge. He collapsed on the cold stone, his chest heaving, his white cane rattling against the floor.
"Dhruv," Riya choked out, crawling back to the edge of the hole. She stared down into the black abyss of the ventilation shaft.
There was no sound. No scream. Only the distant, rhythmic thump-thump of the earth and the rising waves of heat that blurred the air.
"He's gone," Vikram whispered. He sat huddled against the wall, hugging his knees. He looked broken. "He just... he just cut the line."
"He bought us time," Kabir said, struggling to his feet. He adjusted his dark glasses, though his hands were shaking violently. "We cannot waste it."
"We can't just leave him!" Javed stood up, his Vajra shield heavy on his arm. "We go back down. We find a rope. We find him."
"Look around you, Javed," Kabir said softly. "There is no going back."
Javed turned. For the first time, he really looked at where they were.
They hadn't emerged into the forest. They hadn't emerged into the starlight.
They were in the Forge.
It was a cavern so vast it had its own weather system—clouds of smog and toxic yellow gas drifted near the jagged ceiling, illuminated by the orange glow of rivers of molten metal that crisscrossed the floor like veins.
But it wasn't the machinery that froze the blood in Javed's veins. It was the workers.
Thousands of them.
Humans. Yakshas. Vanaras. Goblins. Creatures he couldn't name. They were chained to massive bellows. They were hauling carts of ore with raw, bleeding shoulders. They were hammering red-hot steel on anvils the size of cars.
They were gaunt, hollow-eyed, stripped of hope. They moved in perfect, terrified unison, driven by the crack of the whip.
And watching them, perched on catwalks and suspended platforms, were the Overseers. Rakshasas clad in black leather and iron, holding whips made of braided wire that sparked with magical electricity.
"Intruders," a voice hissed.
Javed spun around.
Standing ten meters away, blocking the only path, was a squad of five Overseers. They were distinct from the savage ones in the forest. These were disciplined. Military.
[ ENEMY: IRON-PACT OVERSEER (Level 12) ]
"Formation!" Javed shouted, raising his shield. "Riya, behind me! Vikram, shoot!"
Vikram reached for an arrow, his fingers slippery with sweat and terror. He sobbed, fumbling the nock, but the moment the arrow touched the string, his spine snapped straight with a sickening crack. The Divine Posture took over, ruthlessly overriding his panic. His trembling arms were instantly forced into a statue-perfect aim by the System, his weeping face a stark contrast to the lethal stillness of his body.
"Do not resist," the lead Overseer said. He didn't shout. He sounded bored. He tapped his shock-baton against his palm. "Resistance carries a penalty of amputation. Cooperation carries a reward of water."
"We aren't slaves!" Riya shouted, raising her staff. Her eyes flashed with desperate anger. "Lifroot!"
Vines erupted from the stone floor, lashing out at the Overseers.
The lead Overseer didn't even dodge. He raised a hand, snapping his fingers.
CRACK.
A metal collar around the neck of a human slave working a nearby grindstone detonated. The man's head simply vanished in a spray of red mist. The body slumped over the wheel.
The noise echoed through the cavern. The work stopped. Thousands of eyes turned to look.
Riya froze, the spell dying on her lips. She stared at the headless corpse, her mouth open in a silent scream.
"The collar system is networked," the Overseer explained calmly, stepping over the body. "Violence against an Overseer triggers a random detonation in the workforce. Kill me, and fifty of them die. Wound me, and ten die."
He pointed his baton at Riya.
"Do you want that on your Karma, little healer? How many innocents will you sacrifice to escape?"
Javed lowered his shield. The strength left his arms. This wasn't a fight. This was a hostage situation, and the hostages were innocent people.
"Smart," the Overseer grinned, revealing jagged yellow teeth. "Drop the weapons."
Vikram dropped his bow. It clattered loudly on the stone. Riya lowered her staff, tears of frustration mixing with the soot on her face.
Kabir stood still, his head tilted. "You are violating the Dharma," he whispered. "This suffering... it poisons the earth. It creates a debt you cannot pay."
"The earth doesn't care," the Overseer said, motioning for his guards. "And neither do the shareholders. Shackle them. Put the big one on the crusher. The blind one can turn the wheel. The girl goes to the alchemy labs."
He looked at Vikram, eyeing the glowing quality of his skin.
"And the pretty one... the Pit Master needs a new pet."
As the cold iron cuffs snapped around Javed's wrists, sealing his mana and suppressing his Class, he looked back at the ventilation shaft one last time.
Dhruv, he thought, despair crashing over him. Wherever you are... don't come here. Run.
THE FURNACE (FLOOR B40)
I hit the ground, and the ground bit back.
I landed in a mountain of hot ash and calcified bone. The impact would have shattered a normal human's legs. My Ashen Sovereign physiology absorbed it, distributing the kinetic energy through my skeletal structure, but it still knocked the wind out of me.
[ CRITICAL IMPACT ]
[ HP: 45% ]
I rolled, coughing, coming up into a crouch, spear raised.
I was back in the Garbhagriha. But the nursery was gone. The fire I had started had consumed the biological matter—the sacks, the fluid, the roots. Now, only the stone skeleton remained, glowing cherry-red from the residual heat. The air was filled with swirling grey flakes, a blizzard of entropy.
BOOM.
Ten meters away, a pile of burning debris shifted. A massive hand shoved a slab of concrete aside.
General Bakasura rose from the wreckage.
He was hideous. The fall had broken his legs, but they were already knitting together with sickening wet cracks. The fire had fused his eyelids shut, but he had torn them open again, leaving jagged tears. His lower jaw was exposed bone. His armor was gone, leaving him clad only in his own charred, leathery hide.
He didn't roar. He didn't scream. He simply breathed—a wet, rattling sound like a dying engine.
[ ENEMY: GENERAL BAKASURA (Level 15 - RAID BOSS) ]
[ STATUS: CRIPPLED / ENRAGED / BURNED ]
[ HP: 12% ]
Twelve percent. That was the number. It sounded low. In a game, twelve percent meant one or two good hits.
But this wasn't a game.
Bakasura reached down and picked up a piece of wreckage—a ten-foot-long iron girder, twisted by the heat. He weighed it in his hand like a baseball bat.
"You have... strong bones," Bakasura rasped. He turned his head, his ruined ears twitching to locate me. "To fall so far and stand."
"I am hard to digest," I replied, my voice echoing in the hollow chamber. I circled to the left, keeping the burning pillars between us.
"You burned my children," Bakasura said. It wasn't an accusation. It was a statement of fact. "You burned the future of my clan to save your own miserable skin."
"I burned fuel," I said coldly. "You were eating them anyway. I just cooked them for you."
Bakasura laughed. It was a dry, hacking sound that sprayed black blood onto the ash.
"You speak like a demon," he said. "Good. Then I do not need to show you the mercy of a man."
He moved.
He didn't charge blindly. He pivoted, using the torque of his massive waist to swing the iron girder.
WHOOSH.
The air pressure alone nearly knocked me over. I ducked under the swing, feeling the wind ruffle my hair. The girder smashed into a stone pillar, pulverizing it into gravel.
I lunged. Thrust.
My Black Iron Spear aimed for his exposed ribs.
Clang.
My spear didn't hit flesh. It hit the girder. Bakasura had recovered instantly, bringing the massive weapon back to block with a speed that defied his size. He had anticipated the counterattack.
He didn't stop there. He twisted his wrist, hooking the crossbar of my spear with his girder. He yanked.
My feet left the ground. I was airborne.
"You fight like a child," Bakasura grunted. "Linear. Predictable."
He released the girder with one hand and backhanded me out of the air.
It felt like being hit by a freight train.
CRACK.
I flew backward, skipping off the ash, and slammed into the hot wall of the cavern.
[ CRITICAL HIT ]
[ HP: 28% ]
[ STATUS: RIBS FRACTURED ]
I gasped, tasting copper. Pain exploded in my chest, white-hot and blinding. I tried to stand, but my legs wobbled. I slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood.
Bakasura didn't rush. He walked toward me, dragging the iron girder. Sparks flew where it scraped the stone.
"I have fought in the Blood Pits for two hundred years," Bakasura said softly. "I have killed Nagas, Yakshas, and arrogant humans who thought a 'Level Up' made them gods. Do you think fire frightens me? I was born in the magma."
He stopped five feet away. He towered over me, a silhouette of charred ruin against the glowing background.
"You have a borrowed power," he sneered. "I can smell it. The death on you... it is not yours. You are a thief wearing a king's robe."
He raised the girder for the killing blow.
"Now. Give it back."
I looked up at him. I looked at the 12% remaining on his health bar. It might as well have been a million. I couldn't out-muscle him. I couldn't out-speed him. His technique was flawless, honed by centuries of violence. Even blind and burned, he was a Warlord.
He was right. I was a thief.
So I decided to steal everything.
I dropped my spear.
Bakasura paused, confused. "Surrender? It is too late for—"
I slammed both hands onto the burning floor of the Garbhagriha.
I didn't target a corpse. I didn't target a specific enemy.
I targeted the Room.
[ SKILL: ENTROPY HARVEST (OVERCHARGE) ]
[ TARGET: ENVIRONMENTAL DECAY ]
[ WARNING: UNSAFE LEVELS OF NEGATIVE ENERGY ]
[ WARNING: VESSEL DAMAGE IMMINENT ]
"I'm not surrendering," I whispered, my voice vibrating with a harmonic resonance that hurt my own ears. "I'm feeding."
I pulled.
I pulled the heat from the stones. I pulled the death from the millions of burnt sacks. I pulled the lingering, radioactive malice of the destroyed nursery.
WHOOSH.
The red glow of the cavern dimmed. The heat was sucked out of the air, rushing into my body like water into a drain.
"ARGH!"
I screamed. It wasn't a battle cry. It was agony.
My veins turned from black to a glowing, translucent grey. My skin began to crack, weeping cold smoke. The energy was too much. It was tearing me apart from the inside. It felt like I had injected liquid nitrogen into my heart.
[ HP: 25%... 20%... ]
[ STR +20 (TEMPORARY) ]
[ AGI +20 (TEMPORARY) ]
[ AURA: DEATH'S DOOR ]
Bakasura took a step back, the girder trembling in his hand. For the first time, the arrogance on his face was replaced by something else.
Primal fear.
"What... are you?" he breathed.
I stood up. The pain was distant now, muffled by the roaring torrent of power. The ash on the floor swirled around me, forming a vortex. My eyes were no longer grey discs; they were voids, sucking in the light.
"I am the Cremation Ground," I said. My voice sounded like two stones grinding together. "And you are lingering past your time."
I didn't reach for my spear. I reached for the air. The swirling ash condensed in my hand, forming a long, jagged blade of solid grey entropy.
[ WEAPON MANIFESTED: BLADE OF THE PYRE ]
Bakasura roared, shaking off his fear. He swung the girder with everything he had. "DIE!"
I didn't dodge. I stepped into the swing.
I caught the iron girder with my bare hand.
CRUNCH.
The metal crumpled under my grip like dry paper. The shockwave blew the dust away in a perfect circle.
Bakasura stared at my hand, his one good eye widening. He tried to pull the weapon back, but I held it fast.
"My turn," I said.
I swung the ash-blade.
It didn't cut his flesh. It passed through his chest like smoke.
Bakasura froze. He looked down. There was no wound. No blood.
"You missed," he wheezed, grinning through his broken jaw. "All that theatrics, and you—"
Then, his health bar turned grey.
[ STATUS: ENTROPY ROT ]
[ HP: DECAYING RAPIDLY ]
His chest began to crumble. Not rot—crumble. His skin turned to ash and flaked away, revealing ribs that were turning to dust before his eyes.
"I didn't cut you," I whispered, stepping closer. "I aged you."
Bakasura screamed. He dropped the girder and clawed at his chest, trying to hold himself together. But the grey rot spread. It moved to his shoulder, his neck.
"No!" he shrieked. "I am a General! I am Eternal!"
"Nothing is eternal," I said, raising the blade again.
I drove the blade into his heart.
The scream died instantly. Bakasura fell to his knees. The rot consumed him, turning his massive, charred body into a statue of grey dust.
He crumbled.
The pile of ash that remained was massive. It sat there, silent and still.
The power left me. I fell to my knees, vomiting black bile onto the floor.
[ BOSS DEFEATED: GENERAL BAKASURA ]
[ LEVEL UP! ]
[ LEVEL UP! ]
I gasped for air, clutching my chest. My HP was critical. My body felt like it had been hollowed out.
But I wasn't done.
A blue light pulsed from the pile of ash. A soul. A strong one.
[ RITE OF THE PYRE AVAILABLE ]
[ TARGET: SOUL OF A WARLORD ]
[ OPTION 1: CONSUME (Gain Massive XP) ]
[ OPTION 2: BIND (Create Ash Servant) ]
I stared at the text. Consume meant power. Levels. Stats. It was the smart choice. It was the selfish choice.
But I looked up at the distant light of the shaft. I didn't know exactly what was waiting for me at the top, but I knew the scale of this place. I knew there would be an army standing between me and my team.
I couldn't fight an army alone. I needed a General.
I reached out my hand.
[ WARNING: BINDING A BOSS SOUL REQUIRES A PERMANENT SACRIFICE ]
[ COST: 20% OF MAXIMUM HP (PERMANENT) ]
I froze. Permanent.
If I did this, I would never be as tough as I could be. I would always be fragile. One hit closer to death. It was a mutilation of my potential.
I thought of Javed, Riya, Vikram, Kabir. I thought of them chained.
"Take it," I whispered.
I felt a sharp, tearing sensation in my chest. It wasn't pain; it was loss. It felt like a piece of my soul was being surgically removed. The void in my chest widened.
[ MAX HP REDUCED ]
[ BINDING COMPLETE ]
The pile of ash stirred.
It began to swirl, rising up, condensing. It took shape. Legs. Torso. Broad shoulders. Horns.
It wasn't flesh and blood. It was a silhouette of absolute darkness, wreathed in grey smoke. Two burning red eyes opened in the void of its face.
The Ash General stood before me.
He looked at his hands, then at me. He remembered the fight. He remembered the rot.
He sank to one knee, lowering his head.
"My King," the ash rumbled. The voice was hollow, echoing from a deep grave. "The pyre awaits your command."
I stood up, wiping the black blood from my mouth. I looked up at the ventilation shaft, at the distant, mocking light. I didn't know where the others were. I didn't know what army waited at the top of that shaft. But looking at the massive industrial hellscape around me, I didn't feel fear.
I felt hungry.
"Get up, Bakasura," I said, gripping my spear, my eyes burning with the cold white fire of the Smashana. "Let's turn that place into a graveyard."
CHARACTER STATUS: DHRUV IYER (End of Chapter 9)
[ BASIC INFORMATION ]
[ NAME: Dhruv Iyer ]
[ RACE: Human (Ashen Sovereign Variant) ]
[ CLASS: Ashen Sovereign (Rank: Forbidden) ]
[ LEVEL: 9 ]
[ TITLES: Sage Slayer]
[ ATTRIBUTES ]
[ STRENGTH (STR): 42 (Base: 12 + Harvest: 30) ]
[ AGILITY (AGI): 38 (Base: 10 + Harvest: 28) ]
[ INTELLIGENCE (INT): 45 (Base: 14 + Harvest: 31) ]
[ VITALITY (VIT): 25 (Base: 10 + Harvest: 15) ]
[ HEALTH & MANA ]
[ HP: CURSED (Max Capacity Permanently Reduced by 20% due to Soul Anchor) ]
[ MP: OVERFLOWING (Currently exceeding max capacity due to Environmental Harvest) ]
[ ACTIVE SKILLS ]
[ RITE OF THE PYRE: Consumes corpse -> Summons Ash Soldier (60s) ]
[ ENTROPY HARVEST: Drains life force/entropy -> Restores HP/MP + Stats ]
[ BLADE OF THE PYRE: (New) Entropy Weapon -> Inflicts 'Age/Rot' ]
[ SOUL ANCHOR: (New) Binds Boss Soul -> Eternal Servant (Cost: Max HP) ]
[ PASSIVE SKILLS ]
[ COLD VEINS: Immunity to Fear/Panic ]
[ SMASHANA AFFINITY: Stat boost in death/ash environments ]
[ DEATH'S DOOR: Damage increases as HP decreases ]
[ SOUL ANCHORS]
[ BOUND SOUL: General Bakasura (The Ash General) ]
[ RANK: Warlord ]
[ STATE: Ash Form ]
[ ABILITY: Summonable. Retains Battle IQ. Scaled Stats. ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHOR'S NOTE: THE SEVERED LADDER
1. The Mechanics of Sacrifice
Let's talk about that 20% Max HP Cost.
In most power fantasies, the protagonist gets the "Shadow Army" for free (looking at you, Solo Leveling). I wanted this to hurt. Dhruv is now a Glass Cannon. He has the firepower of a Raid Boss, but the fragility of a Level 1 Mage.
This creates stakes. He cannot get hit. He cannot tank. He must kill fast, or he dies. This forces a hyper-aggressive, high-risk playstyle that fits the "Entropy" theme perfectly.
2. The Concept of "Smashana"
The Smashana (Cremation Ground) is a liminal space in Indian philosophy. It is where social constructs—caste, wealth, beauty—burn away, leaving only the truth of bone and ash.
Dhruv isn't just a Necromancer. A Necromancer plays with puppets. Dhruv is Entropy. He doesn't just raise the dead; he accelerates the timeline of decay. When he aged Bakasura to dust, that wasn't magic; that was Time.
3. Looking Ahead
The team is in chains. Dhruv is unleashed. The reunion will not be a happy one. They are trying to survive slavery; he is coming to burn the plantation down.
The "Heist Movie" is over. The War Arc begins now.
See you in the Mines.
— The Architect