Chapter 9: The Goddess and the Cage
Long ago, before the gods descended to live among mortals, there was war in the heavens.
Not all gods agreed with the descent.
There were those who saw the Dungeon for what it truly was: a wound upon the world, a scar left by the Primordial Titan, Yg-Ara, the Endless Maw. Hella, the Goddess of Shadows and Secrets, was one of the few who dared speak its true name.
Yg-Ara had once devoured stars. It had consumed entire realms, its hunger unending. The gods of old united only once—to chain it beneath the mortal world. From its broken form, they forged the Dungeon, an ever-shifting labyrinth meant not to be conquered—but to contain.
Hella did not rejoice.
She watched.
She warned.
The Dungeon was not dead—it was dreaming. Every floor, a layer of slumber. Every monster, a pulse of its mind.
The gods mocked her. Called her paranoid. Dangerous. When she tried to rally others, they accused her of madness. Accused her of consorting with the Dungeon.
She was betrayed.
A divine tribunal was held. Hella, despite her innocence, was cast down—not killed, for no god can be slain—but bound. Not in the Heavens, where her voice might echo, but in the deepest part of the Dungeon. The 100th floor.
There, they sealed her essence. Bound her to stasis with chains forged from twelve divine laws—laws that forbade any deity from descending to save her, and any mortal from remembering her.
But something unexpected happened.
The Dungeon, which should have consumed her, instead began to listen.
It became her prison—but also her mirror. Her dreams intertwined with its heart. Her presence gave it structure. It grew a will—not just hunger.
And so it began to call out.
To those who had nothing.
To those who had died.
To those who had regressed.
It whispered through the cracks in time. It planted seeds of memory in the soul of one mortal.
Ryu Min.
Again and again, he lived. Again and again, he died. Each life brought him closer to the truth.
In every regression, he uncovered a fragment: a symbol, a phrase, a voice in the dark.
And finally, he remembered her.
The Black Scythe was not just a weapon—it was the key. A gift passed through lifetimes, imbued with the resonance of Hella's chained divinity.
The gods thought her forgotten.
But fate has a long memory.
Now she walks again.
She remembers their names—the gods who condemned her.
She remembers what they feared: that she might one day return, not to wage war, but to reveal truth.
The Dungeon was not a trial.
It was a warning.
And now, it stirs.
Because the seal is broken.
Because Hella is free.
And because the Black Scythe stands ready.
The war to come is not one of gods and mortals.
It is a war of memory.
Of what must be forgotten.
And what must never be silenced again.