There was no light.
No sky.
No ground.
Just… pressure.
Something heavy pressed from every side. Cold. Still. Endless.
…Sound?
A distant rumble brushed against the edge of awareness. Like a growl heard through water. Angry.
BREAK… YOU WRETCHED… I WILL—
The awareness flinched away without knowing why.
Then everything went quiet again.
…
The next time it surfaced, the heat had faded.
The rage was still there, but weaker—no longer a storm, just constant, bitter muttering somewhere far below thought.
Vicious. Words, maybe—but too far, too muffled.
Then heat.
Raw mana, wild and violent, scraped past. It burned and froze at the same time, crashing like a storm before fading into a slow, steady flow.
The pressure tightened, then loosened, as if something massive struggled against bindings that would not break.
A roar cut through the dark.
For a heartbeat, awareness sharpened—confusion, fear, instinct all flaring at once.
Then everything sank back into silence.
And the darkness swallowed it whole.
…
The next time it woke, it felt… different than before.
The dark wasn't as absolute. A faint hum threaded through it. A slow, steady rhythm.
Mana.
It flowed through metal lines and harsh angles, pulsing through carved patterns.
The bound thing followed the flow instinctively—where it moved, where it gathered, where it escaped.
Something struggled nearby.
A presence—massive, hateful, but fading—twisted and writhed at the edges of awareness.
It pushed. It dragged. It screamed without sound.
The bindings drank it all.
Pulse by pulse, the rage grew quieter.
The metal remembered hunger.
Without knowing why, it began to pull.
Mana seeped in more eagerly now—not just from the thing pinned beneath it, but from every channel and carved line.
The flow thickened. Strengthened.
The darkness thinned.
And in that forming awareness—
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A long table of polished darkwood stretched down the center of the room, lit by a single line of mana lamps overhead. Maps, crystal devices, and neatly stacked documents occupied the surface.
Near the far end, a man in a plain but finely cut coat slid a folder forward.
"Your Majesty," he said. "The latest readings from the old capital."
The man at the head of the table—a king in simple black and silver, crown resting lightly upon his brow—opened the folder and scanned the rows of numbers.
"A mana surge," he murmured. "From the dungeon?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," the man replied. "The observation outpost reports a sharp increase in deep-layer mana density centered around the core area."
A woman in blue robes leaned forward, eyes narrowing. Silver-threaded sigils traced her sleeves—court mage, by rank and bearing.
"How high?" she asked.
The man tapped a particular line. "Baseline levels have been stable for decades. Yesterday's reading spiked to nearly double the usual value. It's still climbing, though slowly."
"Any signs of overflow?" asked another voice to the right.
A broad-shouldered knight with greying hair—armor replaced by a dark-blue uniform—watched with steady eyes.
"None at the surface," the messenger said. "The outskirts report no anomalies. However—"
He turned the page.
"—several adventurer parties from shallow and mid floors reported irregular monster behavior. Uncoordinated aggression, ignoring territory boundaries… some monsters attempted to swarm upward."
The mage exhaled sharply. "That is… concerning."
"Is it enough to call it a potential dungeon break?" the knight asked.
"Too early to say," the mage replied. "Dungeons breathe. Mana rises and falls. But a sustained surge at that depth, plus behavioral changes…" She hesitated. "It's worth taking seriously."
The king closed the folder with a soft snap.
"We cannot afford a repeat of the incident a century ago," he said. "Not with that dungeon."
No one disagreed.
"Recommendation?" he asked.
The mage folded her hands. "We should send an investigation party. Small, but capable. Let the guild select professionals familiar with deep floors and have them confirm whether the core is stable—and whether monster behavior is evolving."
"We keep it discreet," the knight added. "No reason to worry the public."
"Agreed," the king said. "Better to take precautions than be caught off guard."
He turned back to the messenger.
"Contact the Adventurers' Guild. Request a capable team to investigate the old capital dungeon."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The man gathered the folder and stepped back.
The room moved on to tax reports and border patrols, but the map of the old capital—marked with a dark circle at its heart—remained ominously open.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The wind whistled through broken stone.
Once, the city had been grand. You could tell.
Wide avenues still cut straight lines through the ruins.
Shattered columns hinted at temples and palaces.
Fragments of statues lay half-buried in moss and dust.
Now, the place was just… empty.
Four figures walked down a weed-choked street, their footsteps crunching on old debris.
"This place always creeps me out," the girl in front muttered.
She wore light leather armor, twin daggers at her hips, and an oversized backpack that looked like it weighed more than she did. Her reddish-brown ponytail swayed as she walked, eyes darting warily between broken doorways.
"Everything creeps you out, Rina," the tall man behind her said. A shield was slung over his back. Despite the joking tone, his hand never wandered far from the hilt. "You said the same thing about that abandoned mill last week."
"The mill had rats," Rina shot back. "And this looks like a ghost town."
"You believe in ghosts now?" the third member asked dryly.
Slimmer than the others, he carried a staff and wore robes tied at the waist to keep them from snagging on rubble. A small crystal hung at his neck, faintly glowing.
"I believe in places I don't want to sleep in," Rina said. "This is one of them."
The fourth member—a woman in chainmail with a long spear on her shoulder—chuckled softly.
"Hard to imagine this was once the capital," she said, glancing up at a toppled archway. "The bards make it sound so grand. Festivals every season, shining towers…"
"Bards make everything sound grand," the mage said. "That's their job."
"How long ago was it again?" Rina asked. "Since this was an actual city, not… this?"
"A couple of centuries," the spearwoman replied. "People tried rebuilding the outskirts, but nobody wanted to live near the center."
"Because of the dungeon?" the shield-bearer asked.
"Because of the 'bad luck,'" the mage said. "The Dungeon came way later. Or so the guild records say."
Rina made a face. "Bad luck sounds less scary than 'giant death cave.'"
"Tell that to the people who lived here during the break," the spearwoman murmured.
Silence fell for a few steps.
A broken signboard creaked in the wind as they passed.
"So," Rina eventually said, trying to lighten the mood, "the guild really got a royal request for this?"
"Real royal pay," the mage said. "Bonus included."
"I am suddenly feeling very brave," Rina said.
"You always feel brave when money's involved," the shield-bearer said.
She ignored him.
They rounded a corner—and froze.
Ahead, the street simply… ended. The neatly cut stone road broke off at the edge of a vast, circular pit, carved into what had once been a plaza. Jagged remnants of old buildings clung to the rim like broken teeth. From somewhere deep below, a faint blue glow pulsed, steady and slow.
Rina shivered. "Every time. This dungeon still gives me the shivers."
"Hard not to," the shield-bearer murmured. "Looks like a giant mouth waiting to swallow you."
The mage summoned a small orb of light and sent it drifting downward, revealing stone platforms and spiraling stairwells.
"How far today?" the spearwoman asked.
"Quest only says mid floors," the mage replied. "Anything beyond is optional."
"Great," Rina muttered.
They traced the rim until they reached a half-intact stairway carved into the side. The mage's light hovered above them like a lantern.
"Well," the shield-bearer said finally, rolling his shoulders. "We only need to confirm whether things are weirder than usual, right? Not clear the whole place."
"'Weirder than usual' in a place like this covers a lot," the mage said. "But yes. Shallow and mid floors. Patterns, behavior, mana flows, anything that doesn't fit the old reports."
Rina adjusted the straps of her backpack.
"So, in, check, don't die, report back, get paid," she summarized. "Simple."
"When you say it like that," the spearwoman said, "it always sounds like a flag."
"Don't jinx it!" Rina hissed.
They walked along the broken lip of the pit until they reached a set of half-intact stairs cut into the side.
"Ready?" the shield-bearer asked.
Rina drew a dagger, forcing a grin.
"Let's go earn that bonus."
Together, they descended into the dungeon.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deeper than any adventurer had gone in centuries, past layers of stone and monsters and mana-soaked air—
A chamber lay untouched by time.
An altar bound to the earth.
And sealed upon it—
Something stirred.
Mana seeped in faster.
Stronger.
Warmer.
The metal followed the flow like a starving creature.
The dark thinned.
Shapes—not yet seen—pressed at the edge of awareness.
Something clicked.
....
[System Initializing…]
[Analyzing core structure…]
[Warning: No matching species found.]
[Scanning traits…]
[Monster-class mana pattern detected.]
[Demonic residue detected.]
[Draconic imprint detected.]
[Serpentine imprint detected.]
[Artifact-class structure detected.]
[New entry created.]
[Designation: Sentient Chains]
[Category: Unique]
[Welcome to the System]
...
Cold stone.
Heavy weight.
Tightness around—
Not limbs.
…Chains?
A sluggish thought surfaced.
…Where?