Chapter 36 – Echoes of the Dungeon
[KUTO – CLASS A DUNGEON, INTERIOR]
[PALACE OF ZORDIS – SIMULTANEOUS]
The laboratory was silent.
Only the hypnotic ticking of the old clock broke the void — each second marking time that Raimi felt slipping through her fingers like sand.
She entered almost running, her princess dress dragging across the cold stone floor, footsteps echoing through walls lined with shelves filled with flasks, grimoires, artifacts that pulsed with their own light.
— Is Lord Zenk here? — she asked the messenger guarding the door, her voice coming out higher than she intended.
The messenger exchanged a nervous glance with his companion before answering, choosing his words carefully:
— My Lady… Lord Zenk has departed. A dungeon has appeared in the outskirts of the kingdom. He went to investigate.
Raimi frowned, confusion and concern mixing together:
— But why such urgency? Zenk usually leaves these things to—
— We recently discovered — the messenger interrupted, voice low, almost whispering as if afraid to speak the words aloud — that the dungeon is Noble Class.
Heavy pause.
— And His Majesty Kuto… and his companions… have already entered it.
Raimi's blood froze.
Her eyes widened. Her breathing stopped. For three seconds, the entire world fell into absolute silence.
Kuto.
Noble Class.
They entered.
Without saying a word, she turned and ran.
Through the palace corridors, down marble staircases two steps at a time, across gardens, bursting through the stable gates with such force that the guards stepped back in alarm.
— Princess?! — one of them began.
She completely ignored him.
She mounted the nearest horse — not even hers, but it didn't matter — and snapped the reins with a force she had never used before.
The animal bolted.
---
The wind cut across Raimi's face as she galloped down the road leading to the forest.
Trees blurred past. Her heart pounded so hard she felt it in her temples, her wrists, her throat.
Please.
Please, let him be okay.
Please.
She didn't know who she was praying to. The gods? Fate? Anything that might be listening?
When the black structure appeared on the horizon — impossible towers rising against the sky, purple runes pulsing like veins — she nearly fell off the horse.
She yanked the reins hard. The animal skidded to a stop, neighing nervously.
And there, standing before the sealed gates, was Zenk.
Raimi dismounted unsteadily, her legs nearly giving out, but forced herself to run toward him:
— Zenk!
He turned slowly.
His normally expressionless face was… different. Tense. His empty blue eyes carried something close to fear.
— Will they manage to clear this dungeon? — Raimi asked, breathless, gripping his arm. — Tell me they will!
Zenk looked at her for a moment too long.
Then he spoke with brutal honesty that made her stomach churn:
— Based on their abilities… considering what I saw in the fight against the bear…
Pause.
— The probability of survival is minimal.
No.
— Then take them out of there! — Raimi shouted, her voice breaking. — You're the most powerful mage in the kingdom! You can do it! Get them out!
Zenk slowly shook his head, each movement carrying immense weight:
— I've already tried, Raimi. — He looked toward the sealed gates. — The doors closed. The magic that sustains dungeons… everything that exists inside them… is still a mystery even to me.
Painful pause.
— Now… all we can do is pray that everyone comes out alive.
Raimi stared at the gates — black metal engraved with runes pulsing hypnotically, emanating a cold that wasn't physical yet could still be felt.
Her entire body began to tremble.
Kuto is in there.
And I can't do anything.
---
[CLASS A DUNGEON – INTERIOR, HOURS EARLIER]
The darkness was absolute.
Not merely the absence of light — but darkness that consumed light, that swallowed any attempt to see beyond a few meters.
The torches Jack had lit (magically conjured flames that required no fuel) flickered weakly, casting dancing shadows that seemed to have a life of their own.
The group advanced in tense formation — Jack at the front, shield raised, sword ready. Kuto and Haru flanking. Selina, Dimitri, and Sônia in the center, prepared to cast magic. Romeu at the back with his bow drawn. Sensi floating slightly above, eyes closed, sensing the environment. Célia and Gunja at the rear, guarding against attacks from behind.
The corridor was wide — perhaps five meters — with an arched ceiling that disappeared into the darkness above. The walls were smooth black stone, cold to the touch, engraved with runes Kuto did not recognize but that made something ache in the back of his mind when he looked at them directly.
Each step echoed.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound returning distorted, multiplied, as if ten groups were walking instead of one.
— Is anyone else hearing that? — Sônia whispered, her voice trembling.
— Echo — Dimitri replied, trying to sound confident but failing. — Just echo.
But no one fully believed it.
They walked for what felt like an eternity — five minutes? Ten? Twenty? Impossible to tell. Time seemed to warp inside the dungeon, stretching and compressing randomly.
Then the corridor opened.
And they stopped, staring wide-eyed.
---
The chamber was colossal.
The ceiling rose perhaps thirty meters above — so high the torches barely illuminated it. The walls were covered, from floor to invisible ceiling, with coffins.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
Stacked in perfectly symmetrical rows, each engraved with symbols glowing faintly sickly green.
— Wow… — Dimitri murmured, his voice coming out far too small. — All those coffins…
Selina, too nervous to remain serious, pinched him.
— Ow! — Dimitri shouted, jumping. — What was that for?!
— Wanted to see if you were still alive — Selina replied, laughing nervously — or if you'd already turned into a scared zombie.
— That wasn't funny — Dimitri grumbled, rubbing his arm.
But before they could continue—
BOOM.
The sound came from everywhere at once.
The torches — burning orange-hot — instantly shifted to cold blue.
The temperature plummeted. Their breaths turned into dense clouds.
And the coffins began to move.
Not all at once. First one. Then another. Then ten. Then all of them.
Lids slamming. Wood creaking. Metal scraping stone.
— Damn it — Jack whispered, instinctively raising his shield. — STAY ALERT!
The first undead emerged.
Not a common rotting zombie. A skeletal warrior — still wearing rusted armor, wielding a broken sword, empty eye sockets glowing ghostly green.
Then another. Then ten. Then hundreds.
Rising from the coffins like a black, inevitable tide.
Dimitri looked up — at the coffins stacked to the ceiling — and saw shadows falling.
— This isn't good… — his voice strangled.
— SENSI! — Jack shouted. — PROTECTIVE BARRIER! NOW!
Sensi — already reacting before the command even finished — raised both arms, her eyes shining pure white.
Translucent energy burst from her, expanding into a dome that covered the entire group.
At that exact moment, dozens of skeletons fell from the ceiling.
The impact was brutal.
Dead bodies crashing against the barrier with force that made the ground shake, sound like continuous thunder, dust and bone fragments exploding in all directions.
The barrier held.
But Sensi screamed — not from pain, but from effort — her entire body trembling, sweat already running down her temples.
— IN FRONT! — Célia shouted, pointing.
The horde that had risen from the ground-level coffins advanced — a hundred, two hundred, impossible to count — a mass of bones and rusted metal moving with coordination impossible for the dead.
Jack did not hesitate:
— DIMITRI! NOW!
The elemental mage stepped forward, hands already glowing intense orange. He took a deep breath, channeling mana with everything he had:
— COLOSSAL FIREBALL!
Flames exploded from his palms — not a small sphere, but a massive orb the size of a carriage, spinning violently on itself, distorting the air around it with heat.
He hurled it with a shout of effort.
The fireball crossed the distance in half a second and exploded in the center of the horde.
The shockwave flung skeletons in every direction. Flames spread, consuming everything, melting armor, crumbling bones into ash that floated heavily.
Fifty undead turned to dust instantly.
But another hundred kept coming.
— LEFT SIDE! — Jack shouted to Selina.
She was already casting — staff raised, its engraved runes glowing arcane blue:
— ARCANE SPHERE!
Pure energy condensed at the tip of her staff — not fire, not ice, but distilled magic — and shot forward like a dark-blue meteor.
It struck the side of the horde.
The explosion was silent — merely a pulse of energy that distorted space — but devastating.
Everything within a five-meter radius simply disintegrated. Not burned. Not shattered. Simply ceased to exist.
— MY TURN! — Sônia shouted, eyes blazing with fierce determination.
She raised her staff with both hands, channeling magic that made the air around her reek of sulfur:
— INFERNAL FLAMES!
Black fire erupted from her — unnatural, unhealthy, carrying heat that burned even at a distance.
The wave swept through the remaining skeletons in front, enveloping them in flames that would not extinguish, that consumed until nothing remained but smoldering ash and nauseating stench.
But the rain from above did not stop.
Sensi screamed again — her voice torn, her body shaking violently:
— I CAN'T HOLD MUCH LONGER!
Jack looked around desperately. Then he saw them — empty coffins aligned against the walls.
— CAN YOU CREATE A FORCE FIELD JUST FOR YOURSELF? — he shouted to Sensi.
— I CAN! — she replied, her voice breaking. — BUT ONLY FOR A SHORT TIME!
— THEN WAIT FOR MY SIGNAL!
He turned to the group:
— EVERYONE! GET INTO THE WALL COFFINS! NOW!
No one hesitated.
They ran — dodging skeletons still falling, leaping over debris, sliding the last few meters.
Kuto dove into an empty coffin, immediately turning to see—
— hundreds of undead still falling, the weight on Sensi increasing every second, the barrier beginning to visibly crack.
— NOW! — Jack roared.
Sensi dropped the upper barrier.
And condensed everything around her own body — a personal force field glowing translucent blue.
The skeletons plummeted.
Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. Covering the entire floor of the chamber, piling atop one another, creating a grotesque mountain of bones and metal.
Sensi was buried at the center.
But the personal barrier held.
For ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
Then it began to fail — fissures appearing, the glow dimming.
— DIMITRI! SELINA! SÔNIA! — Jack shouted from the coffins. — PREPARE EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!
The three mages emerged from hiding, hands already glowing, channeling mana to the limit.
Dimitri conjured a second fireball — smaller, but concentrated. Selina prepared three arcane spheres simultaneously. Sônia summoned black flames licking the ground around her.
— NOW!
Triple explosion.
Fire. Arcane energy. Infernal flames.
All converging at the center of the chamber, obliterating the mountain of skeletons in an explosion that made the walls shake, dust and ash filling the air until it became impossible to breathe.
When the smoke began to dissipate, Sensi was on her knees in the center — barrier gone, her body trembling violently, sweat and tears mixed on her pale face.
But alive.
Gunja ran to her, sword still in hand but forgotten, kneeling beside her:
— You did it! You did it!
Célia was already casting Blessing of Light — golden aura enveloping everyone, healing minor wounds, restoring spent mana, calming muscles trembling from exhaustion.
Each of them pulled potions from their packs — blue and red liquids that tasted awful but worked — gulping them down quickly.
Jack breathed heavily, looking around:
— Everyone… everyone okay?
Breathless but affirmative responses came from all sides.
Kuto stepped out of the coffin slowly, wiping sweat from his face, looking at the carnage.
Just the first room.
And we almost died.
He looked at his companions — all exhausted, some still trembling, but alive.
I need them to survive.
Broken tools are useless.
But also…
He looked at Sensi — still being comforted by Gunja, smiling weakly but genuinely.
…I don't want to see them die.
When did that change?
He didn't have time to process the thought.
Because ahead, through the dust still settling, a portal was becoming visible.
Not an ordinary door. A portal of purple energy pulsing slowly, like a beating heart.
And from it emanated an aura.
Heavy. Malignant. Ancient.
Dimitri felt it first — sensitive mage that he was — and his face went pale:
— That aura… — his voice strangled. — It's the dungeon's boss.
Absolute silence fell over the group.
They looked at one another.
Hearts pounding like war drums. Hands trembling — not from fear (or not only), but from pure adrenaline.
They still hadn't faced the true danger.
But together — ten people who three days ago had revealed what they had to return to, who waited for them on the other side —
— they were ready to move forward.
Jack raised his sword:
— We rest five minutes. Then… we enter.
No one argued.
They sat right there, among the ashes of dead enemies, mentally preparing for what was to come.
And Kuto, observing each of them in silence, thought for the first time something that wasn't purely strategic:
I won't let them die here.
Not if I can prevent it.
---
[CLASS A DUNGEON: BOSS ROOM AHEAD]
[GROUP: EXHAUSTED BUT ALIVE]
[NEXT: The awakening of Thegg]