Chapter 265: Into the Depths Alone
The Hollow slept in peace. Kael did not.
He walked the streets like a phantom, the lanterns casting slivers of gold across his face. His people deserved their rest — children dreaming in safety, blacksmiths' hammers cold for the night, even the council wrapped in the warmth of sleep. Kael, however, felt only the pull of the earth, the dungeon calling him like a challenge whispered into his bones.
The gate yawned open before him, torchlight licking against ancient stone. He adjusted the strap of his magisteel sword, tested the weight of his satchel — waterskin, rations, a few potions — and stepped inside.
The descent began.
Floors One to Five: The Warm-Up
The first floor erupted with skeletal hounds, their jaws gnashing in the dark. Kael barely slowed. His sword blurred, a storm of silver arcs, each swing cutting through bone like brittle glass. Their skulls shattered under his boots, their forms reduced to nothing but ash.
The second floor gave rise to serpents of stone, their scales grinding like millstones. One lunged, massive head wide enough to swallow him whole. Kael stepped into the strike, blade flashing as he rammed the edge through its maw and split its skull from crown to chin. The others writhed, striking in unison — but Kael spun, chaos magic flaring from his free hand, and a shockwave of violet force blasted them into jagged rubble.
The third floor tested him with armored revenants, silent warriors bound by runes older than empires. Shields locked, swords gleamed with pale blue fire. Kael didn't hesitate. His blade clashed against theirs in a symphony of sparks, his footwork relentless. A parry flowed into a slash, a feint into a thrust — every motion fluid, precise, devastating. He broke their formation with a surge of magic, chaos energy exploding from his palm and ripping them off their feet. When the dust cleared, their weapons clattered lifeless to the ground.
The fourth floor belonged to shadow wraiths. They lunged from darkness, claws slicing the air with shrieks that pierced bone. Kael closed his eyes, letting instinct guide him. When the shadows struck, he moved faster than thought, his blade cutting arcs of light through incorporeal flesh. Chaos fire flared from his free hand, burning the darkness away until nothing but silence remained.
The fifth floor seethed with molten veins, magma elementals rising from rivers of fire. Their fists came down like hammers. Kael dodged, sweat slick across his skin, his sword carving through molten cores. Chaos energy wreathed his blade, each strike exploding on contact, shattering elemental after elemental until the cavern was littered with rivers of cooling slag.
His breath was heavy, but his eyes burned bright. He pressed deeper.
Floors Six to Ten: The Dungeon's Teeth
The sixth floor brought swarms of carrion birds, their wings blotting out torchlight, talons dripping acid. Kael spun his sword in a wide arc, chaos fire leaping from its edge in a scorching wave that burned feathers to ash mid-flight.
The seventh tested him with a labyrinth of stone. Minotaurs roamed, their horns glinting like blades, their roars shaking walls. Kael met them head-on. One charged, the ground trembling beneath its weight. Kael ducked low, his sword slicing through the tendon of its leg before he vaulted upward, driving the blade through its throat. Blood sprayed the walls, hot and heavy. Another fell to a blast of chaos magic that caved its ribcage in with a thunderous crack.
On the eighth floor, armored giants lumbered through a cavern lit by eerie crystals. Their clubs could shatter stone walls. Kael fought them like he was born to it — ducking under colossal swings, rolling to the side, striking between armored plates with surgical precision. When one giant brought its club down in a final crushing blow, Kael caught it with chaos-empowered strength, muscles straining, before twisting and cleaving the giant's head clean from its shoulders.
The ninth floor was swarming with wolf packs, beasts larger than horses, fangs like daggers. They came in relentless waves. Kael fought until blood slicked his arms and the cavern floor ran wet with gore. When one wolf lunged for his throat, his hand shot out, chaos magic flaring. He crushed its skull in his grip, its body collapsing limp before his feet.
The tenth floor was a chamber of fire and fury. The boss roared — a wyvern of scales and molten eyes, wings spreading wide to block the cavern ceiling. Kael charged. Its claws ripped through stone, its tail slammed like a falling tree. Kael ducked and spun, blade carving glowing scars across its body. Chaos magic surged through him, amplifying his every strike until his sword was a blur of violet and silver.
The wyvern screeched as Kael drove his blade into its chest, chaos fire exploding from the wound. With a thunderous roar, the beast toppled, flames erupting across the cavern before it dissolved into ash.
And there it was — the sound of chains.
Zerathis.
Kael felt it before he saw it — that oppressive presence, raw and suffocating, bleeding from the daemon's prison. He walked past the chamber without a word. Zerathis watched. Kael did not stop. Not tonight.
Floors Eleven to Fifteen: Beyond the Prison
The eleventh floor opened into caverns alive with fungal forests, glowing spores filling the air. Lurking within were abominations of flesh and root, twisted forms that screeched as they attacked. Kael tore through them, his sword hacking limbs from bodies, chaos energy burning spores from the air until the cavern stank of charred rot.
The twelfth was an endless sea of quicksand. Sand golems rose with fists like boulders, dragging Kael under with every strike. He fought with precision, feet light despite the sinking earth, blade cleaving cores from their sandy chests. Chaos fire erupted beneath his boots, solidifying paths where there were none, allowing him to carve his way forward.
The thirteenth floor was silent save for the drip of water. Too silent. Then the water moved. Tentacles shot from black pools — leviathans lurking beneath. Kael's blade cut through their rubbery flesh as he leapt from stone to stone, chaos lightning sparking from his hands to fry the water itself. When the final tentacle slumped lifeless into the depths, Kael pressed onward, chest heaving.
The fourteenth floor belonged to the dead. Rows of corpses lined the walls, their mouths sewn shut, their eyes glowing faint red. They rose in unison, an army of silence. Kael met them with fury. His blade severed limbs, heads, torsos. Chaos fire burst from his core, incinerating lines of undead in blinding explosions. He fought for what felt like hours, drenched in blood and sweat, until nothing but ash and smoldering bodies remained.
The fifteenth floor was his crucible. A beast of stone and flame stood guard — a colossal golem, runes carved into its chest, eyes burning with furnace light. It swung a hammer larger than a house, each strike shaking the cavern. Kael dodged, rolled, struck. His blade rang against rune-carved stone, chaos magic lancing into cracks with every blow. The golem bellowed, hammer crashing down, but Kael caught the strike with both hands, chaos surging through his muscles. With a roar of his own, he shattered the hammer's head, leapt high, and drove his blade into the glowing rune at the golem's chest.
The explosion shook the floor. The golem crumbled into rubble, its fire snuffed out.
Kael stood in the silence, chest heaving, his sword dripping with ichor and ash. Fifteen floors. Alone. His body was battered, his knuckles raw, but his spirit burned hotter than the fires of the dungeon.
He sat at the edge of a shattered rune, drinking from his waterskin, sweat soaking his hair.
"Not yet, Zerathis," he muttered, voice low. "But soon."