The oppressive, holy aura of the 50th floor had vanished, replaced by a grim, heavy silence broken only by the soft dripping of poison from the dagger still embedded in the Light General's chest. His body hung grotesquely from the massive tree, Liam stood before the corpse, the notifications from his System slowly fading from his vision. He took a deep, shuddering breath, the immense power of twenty new levels settling into his bones. He was stronger, faster, more resilient than he had been just minutes ago, but the victory felt hollow, tasting of ash and loss.
He closed the notification screen, the glowing numbers doing little to soothe the cold knot in his stomach. A few yards away, the survivors of their doomed party were a portrait of grief. Seraphina and Zarya were huddled together, their faces buried in their hands, their shoulders shaking with silent, wracking sobs. Garrus, the stoic shielder, sat on the ground, his back against a scarred tree, his gaze empty as he stared at the spot where Kaelen's body had fallen. They had lost their leader, their friend, and in the suffocating quiet of the jungle floor, that loss felt larger and more real than the dead general hanging from the tree.
Liam himself was at his limit, the massive expenditure of magic to heal himself leaving him feeling scoured from the inside out. Beside him, Nyx and Luna stood with a rigid stillness, their perfect faces betraying none of the exhaustion he knew they must also be feeling. They had been taken, incapacitated, and forced back into a desperate fight. They were his responsibility, and he had nearly failed them. He had failed Kaelen completely.
Finally, Garrus moved. He pushed himself to his feet with a groan, his eyes, red-rimmed and full of a terrible new light, locking onto Liam. He stomped over, his grief transmuting into a raw, accusatory anger.
"What was that?" he demanded, his voice a low growl. "That… thing. That was not an ordinary monster. That was a created being, a weapon designed to kill everything in its path. Why was it here?" He got closer, jabbing a finger towards Liam's chest. "You knew, didn't you? You knew something like this was here. You are not what you say you are. How can a healer be so powerful? How can you use dark magic? We all saw it!"
The accusation hung in the air, thick and suffocating. Liam's exhaustion made his temper short. His voice was cold, flat, and devoid of sympathy. "I told all of you to go back. On Floor 40, I gave you the choice. None of you listened to me. Kaelen chose to press on. You all followed him. Now you want to pin his death on me? You believe it was my fault?"
The harsh truth of his words struck Garrus like a physical blow, and he recoiled, the anger draining from his face to be replaced by shame.
"No," Seraphina said softly, looking up, her face tear-streaked but her gaze clear. "We don't say it's your fault, Liam. But he's right. We don't know who you are. Why you can heal like a priest of the Life God but fight with the magic of a demon."
Liam looked at their shattered faces and felt a pang of something he couldn't name. He was their protector now, whether he liked it or not. "That's another story for another day," he said, his tone softening slightly. He turned his attention to Luna and nyx , the only ones here who truly understood his nature. "Thank you," he said, his voice sincere. "I only won that fight because of both of you."
Nyx and Luna turned to him in perfect unison and bowed deeply from the waist. "We are happy that we could be of assistance, Master," Nyx said, her voice a respectful .
"Master?" Zarya choked out, her head snapping up. "What's going on? Why did they bow to you? Who are you, Liam?"
Luna, ever the more direct of the two, answered before Liam could. She straightened up, her dark eyes sweeping over the three stunned hunters with an air of indisputable authority. "He is our master," she stated simply. "Our General."
The confusion on their faces was absolute. General? Master? The words made no sense in the context of the quiet, withdrawn healer they thought they knew.
Liam sighed, pushing his fatigue aside. There was no time for this. "What we do now is what matters," he said, his voice taking on the commanding tone "And you will listen to me this time." He leveled a firm gaze at the three of them. "Take Kaelen's body. Carry him back to the safe zone on Floor 30. From there, you will exit this dungeon and return to Oakhaven. Bury him. Make a proper grave for your leader." He paused, then his eyes hardened with resolve. "We will go up. We will clear this dungeon."
There were no arguments this time. The brief, bloody horror of the 50th floor had stripped them of their arrogance. They nodded silently, their shoulders slumped in defeat and grief.
The hours that followed were a blur of grim work and a somber parting. Liam stood guard while the three survivors wrapped their fallen leader in a cloak and began the long, quiet journey back down. As he watched them go, a silent promise formed in his mind. Kaelen's death would not be in vain.
"Let's move," he commanded Nyx and Luna.
What followed was not a crawl, but a conquest. The remaining fifty floors became a testament to Liam's newfound power. He, Nyx, and Luna moved as a single, unstoppable unit. The monsters that had terrified countless hunters before them were now little more than fodder, obstacles to be swept aside with brutal efficiency.
On Floor 60, they entered a vast, pillared hall. The ground trembled as two monolithic figures of stone and earth rose from the floor.
> MINI-BOSS DETECTED (x2)
> * Name: Golem Sentinel
> * Level: 190
> * Strength: 1100
> * Agility: 100
> * Type: Construct
> * Health: 80000/80000
>
The Golems moved with ponderous, ground-shaking steps, their fists like wrecking balls. Liam didn't hesitate. He blurred forward, his own fists glowing with Dark Force, meeting the Golem's stone hand with a crack like thunder. Nyx and Luna were phantoms on the periphery, their blades striking at the Golems' joints, chipping away at the enchanted rock with impossible speed. The fight was a cacophony of grinding stone and concussive blasts of dark energy. Liam fought with a ferocity that bordered on joy, reveling in the sheer power that now flowed through him. He shattered the first Golem with a final, overwhelming punch that turned its torso to gravel. Nyx and Luna, working in tandem, shattered the legs of the second, and as it toppled, Liam brought his heel down on its head, crushing it completely.
> MINI-BOSS ELIMINATED (x2)
> * Experience Gained: 10,000
> LEVEL UP! (x10)
> Liam – Level 216/∞
>
They didn't stop to rest. They moved upward, a whirlwind of destruction. On Floor 85, the challenge changed. They entered a chamber filled with swirling mist and disorienting shadows.
> MINI-BOSS DETECTED
> * Name: The Shadow Weaver
> * Level: 220
> * Strength: 500
> * Agility: 1500
> * Type: Shade
> * Health: 40000/40000
>
This fight was not one of strength, but of deception. The Weaver was a creature of illusion, a master of stealth. It flitted through the mists, its whispers echoing in their minds, trying to turn them against one another with visions of past failures and future fears. But it could not fool them. Liam's senses, honed by his multiple attributes, cut through the illusions like a knife. He located the Weaver hiding in the shadow of a phantom memory and pinned it with a blast of pure light, a power he rarely used. The creature shrieked as the holy energy seared its form, and Nyx was there in an instant, her sword ending its existence.
> MINI-BOSS ELIMINATED
> * Experience Gained: 5,000
> LEVEL UP! (x5)
> Liam – Level 221/∞
>
They reached the 100th and final floor. It was a vast, empty throne room, eerily similar to the one where he had met Valerius, but this one was silent and unoccupied. The second powerful being, the other guardian they had been warned of, was nowhere to be found.
Miles away, in the sunlight outside the dungeon, Garrus, Seraphina, and Zarya stood before a small mound of freshly turned earth. A simple, carved stone marked Kaelen's grave. As they stood in silence, a booming, disembodied voice echoed across the land, speaking to all who remained of the dungeon's challengers.
"DUNGEON CLEARED. YOU WILL BE TRANSFERRED OUTSIDE IN 10 MINUTES WITH YOUR REWARD."
Tears welled in Seraphina's eyes. He did it. Liam actually did it.
Ten minutes later, Liam, Nyx, and Luna materialized in the open air, a short distance from the dungeon's entrance. At their feet, a small chest appeared. Inside were piles of gold and silver, and resting atop them, a single, thick, leather-bound book.
Liam took the book. "This is for me," he said. The others didn't care. They silently divided the gold and silver, their share of the prize feeling more like blood money than a reward. They said their goodbyes, their paths now irrevocably diverged, and headed back toward Oakhaven.
As Liam watched them go, clutching the complete Book of the Dungeon, he wondered. Where was the other boss? Did it die? Or did someone else kill it?
In the demon lord castle of obsidian and shadow. The Demon Lord sat upon his throne, a vortex of perfect darkness.
"Sir," a guard announced. "The 5th General wishes to see you."
"Let him in," the Demon Lord rumbled.
The 5th General, a hulking demon clad in black iron, strode in and knelt. "Sir! I was in the First Dungeon, as you commanded. The mortal, Liam, was there. He killed the 6th Light General!"
The Demon Lord leaned forward, a flicker of what might have been interest in the darkness. "Ok. Then you killed Liam and came to tell me the good news You think it is a good news, but well done, I guess. We will have to wait some centuries for my plan to come to fruition, but a victory is a victory."
Before the General could respond, one of the Demon Lord's personal guards, a being of pure shadow, materialized. "May I speak, sir?"
"Yes."
"He did not kill Liam, my Lord," the guard hissed. "He ran away. He does not want to admit that he was scared. Liam cleared the dungeon and has received the book."
The silence that followed was terrifying. Then, the Demon Lord's rage manifested as a physical tremor that shook the very foundations of the castle. "WHAAAAT?" The word was a blast of pure malice. "You are a Demon General, and you did not fight? You coward! For what purpose do I have to let you live? The others will mock me! Their General died fighting for their god, and you… you ran away!"
He stood, and with a wave of his hand, the 5th General was ripped from his kneeling position and flew across the room into the Demon Lord's grasp. The hulking demon, a being of immense power, was held in the dark fist and simply… crumbled, turning to black dust that sifted to the floor.
"Guard," the Demon Lord said, his voice deceptively calm.
"Yes, sir."
"Find another demon that can fulfill his role.
"Ok, sir."
Back in the mortal realm, Liam, Nyx, and Luna were walking away from the now-silent dungeon. Suddenly, the earth began to shake violently. Liam's System flared one last time.
> SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT
> * The First Dungeon has been cleared. It will now disappear and reappear in a new, random location.
>
The colossal structure before them wavered, turned translucent, and then vanished completely, leaving only an empty patch of land behind.