I instinctively took a few steps back as the voice echoed through my soul.
It didn't just sound in my ears.
It reverberated inside me.
I staggered—
But the sound of approaching footsteps cut through the haze.
Slow.
Controlled.
Measured.
I forced myself to focus.
I looked around the chamber. There were multiple exits—too many. Every one of them carried the same suffocating scent of death.
Footsteps approached from the right.
I darted left.
I slipped into the hallway and pressed my sticky body tight against the wall, clinging to the stone as I watched.
The Virelochs returned.
No wagon this time.
They moved into the chamber, grunting and groaning toward one another—low sounds, rhythmic.
Communicating.
They tapped the walls again. Paused. Listened.
Then they turned and walked down the corridor I had originally entered from, disappearing into darkness.
I waited.
Counted my breaths.
Then peeked out.
The chamber was empty again—aside from a few remaining corpses from the earlier surge.
My eyes drifted over them—
And I froze.
They weren't all monsters.
Most were.
But some…
Some were human.
I swallowed and steadied myself.
System… was that the dungeon core speaking to me?
There was a brief pause.
I'm unsure.
Another pause.
But I believe it was something far more powerful than a dungeon core.
My throat tightened.
Is this dungeon connected to something darker than I thought?
I forced myself to examine the exits again.
Each one felt like death.
But one…
One was stronger than the others.
Sharper.
More dangerous.
I breathed in slowly.
This was a decision I couldn't undo.
My thoughts flickered to the Bramblehart.
Its need for a mana crystal.
Its dependence on power to survive.
My eyes hardened.
If something like this keeps growing, it won't just be this dungeon that suffers.
It will spread.
I stepped forward.
Cautious.
Focused.
The deeper I walked, the heavier the dread became. It grew so thick that I almost forgot what normal felt like.
Purple veins in the ground became clearer.
Brighter.
Stronger.
The flow beneath the cracks intensified.
I knelt and touched one.
Power pulsed beneath my hand.
It felt like multiple types of energy converging into one stream.
Unnatural.
Even for this world.
Something unstable.
Something that could spiral into consequences no one could control.
As the lord of this region…
I couldn't allow it to continue unchecked.
Resolve settled inside me.
If this was spreading beyond the dungeon, it would become my responsibility.
The corridor opened ahead.
A faint blue light flickered in the distance.
As I stepped closer, the blue slowly bled into purple.
I entered the chamber—
And stopped.
A man was suspended high above the ground.
Strung up.
His limbs were embedded into the dungeon walls like roots. Veins of energy ran through him, merging with the stone as if he were part of it.
Blue light radiated from him—
But it was fading.
Turning purple.
What is this?
His eyes were closed.
Then a voice rang out.
"You made it."
I shuddered.
"Who?" I shouted, shifting into a fighting stance.
"This is a surprise," the voice rasped. It sounded like it was barely holding onto life. "I didn't think you would make it this far."
His gaze dragged over my warped body, slow and deliberate.
"I have never seen a Mimic Larva like you before."
A faint smile touched his lips—thin, intrigued.
"How… fascinating."
The silence afterward was suffocating.
I instinctively shuffled back.
"Why are you afraid?" the voice snapped.
"I thought I was what you were looking for."
A weak laugh escaped him before it twisted into a cough.
"Who are you?" I asked carefully.
"Who am I…" he muttered, as if trying to remember.
His head began to twitch unnaturally.
"I… I… I… I don—"
It cut off.
His eyes snapped open.
They stared directly into me.
Bright blue—
Then faint streaks of purple bled into them.
"You're here to kill me, aren't you?" he said coldly, his tone completely different now.
"I don't—"
"LIES!"
The chamber trembled.
He went quiet again.
"I have to live," he muttered to himself.
I took a careful step forward.
"I can help you."
His eyes, which had been pointed downward, snapped up toward me.
The purple in them deepened.
"Help me?"
He shook his head violently.
"No. No. No."
"The Lord sent you, didn't he?"
"I knew it."
"This is a test of my loyalty."
He began laughing.
Too loud.
Too broken.
"I won't be fooled by him again," he hissed.
The purple light around him intensified.
The dungeon responded.
Stone groaned.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
"To live… all I have to do is kill you," he chuckled.
"Of course."
"How simple."
He laughed again.
He's insane
The rumbling deepened.
Then—
Footsteps.
Many.
I scanned the room.
Virelochs emerged from the darkness.
Not from one direction.
From all of them.
One corridor after another filled with shifting shapes and igniting purple eyes—every exit in the chamber spilling them forward.
Every exit—
Except one.
That path remained empty.
More Virelochs than I had ever seen gathered in one place stepped into the chamber, surrounding the space in a tightening ring.
Their purple glow flickered in waves as they spread outward.
For a brief second, I thought I heard a different kind of shuffling beneath their movement—
But a heavier sound cut through it.
One step.
The entire chamber shook.
Another.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Massive.
Something stepped into the room—
From the only corridor that had remained empty.
The one I had instinctively marked as escape.
Stone fractured beneath its weight as it emerged.
A towering construct of layered mountain rock. Its body was formed from stacked slabs of cliff stone fused into a hulking humanoid shape. Jagged ridgelines ran down its back like a shattered skyline, deep cracks splitting its surface where faint mineral veins glowed dimly within.
Each step sank slightly into the ground.
Not rushed.
Not strained.
Just heavy.
Then its head shifted.
I noticed the eyes.
Two narrow fissures in the stone—
Glowing red from within.
They fixed on me.
A moving mountain.
I activated Sovereign's Sight.
Stonewrought Coloss – Level 23
Level twenty-three.
Not higher than me.
But it looked impenetrable.
I scanned its form for weaknesses.
Nothing obvious.
Only thick stone layered upon stone.
Then I looked back at the suspended man.
For a moment, I thought he was still unconscious.
But his body twitched.
Not weakly.
Tightly.
Like something invisible was constricting around him.
His jaw clenched. Muscles in his neck strained. The veins along his temples stood out sharply beneath pale skin.
He was in pain.
A constant, grinding kind of pain—like something was digging into him from the inside.
Yet he didn't cry out.
Didn't beg.
Didn't tremble.
He endured it.
No—
He was forcing himself to endure it.
Then his purple eyes snapped up.
Locked onto mine.
And he spoke again.
His voice steady now.
Confident.
Cold.
"I can see it in your eyes."
"You want to kill me, don't you?"
His lips curled into a smirk.
It angled wrong.
Too wide.
Too unnatural.
"It's okay," he said softly.
"I won't kill you."
The smirk deepened.
"I'll make you see the light."
"Everyone does."
"They always do."
His eyes pulsed purple.
In an instant—
The Virelochs shifted into formation.
The Stonewrought Coloss lowered its massive stance.
And the dungeon itself seemed to hold its breath.
I stepped forward anyway.