The final key didn't glow.
It didn't hum, didn't pulse, didn't shine. It was a shard of nothing—black, cracked, drinking in the light around it. When I picked it up, my storm went silent.
No warning. No system prompt. No guidance.
Just a single word burned into my vision:
[Dungeon Discovered: The Nameless Abyss]
[Threat Level: Oblivion-Class]
[System Support: 0%]
[Objective: Survive.]
My breath caught. Oblivion-class? I had heard of Catastrophic dungeons—but this was new. Something past impossible.
For the first time in a long time, my hand trembled.
I smirked anyway. "Figures the last one would try to bury me."
And I stepped in.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
Not the kind of dark you get at night. This was older. Heavier. A black that pressed down on my lungs, crushed into my skull, seeped into my bones. My storm sparked uselessly, its violet light snuffed out as if it had never existed.
The ground beneath me wasn't solid—it shifted, rippling like water and stone together.
And then came the voices.
Not one. Not many. Endless. Whispers of rage, sorrow, hunger, laughter. They clawed through my ears, scraped across my mind, every word speaking of things I shouldn't know.
I staggered. My chest burned. My storm wouldn't answer.
For the first time since gaining this cursed gift—I felt powerless.
The monsters here weren't beasts.
They were fragments of void. Shattered silhouettes of men and gods, hollow-eyed, moving like broken marionettes. They didn't bleed, didn't burn, didn't break. When I cut them, the pieces crawled back, reformed, and grinned at me with faces that weren't their own.
One spoke with my voice.
"Failure."
Another wore my mother's.
"Burden."
The dungeon wasn't just trying to kill me—it was trying to erase me.
And it was working.
Three days bled together in torment.
I fought until my body shredded. My storm flickered, weaker each hour, drowned beneath the Abyss. My wraiths couldn't manifest—the void swallowed them whole.
By the third night, I was on my knees. My arms hung broken at my sides, blood leaking freely from wounds that wouldn't close.
The whispers grew louder.
"Give up."
"You are nothing."
"You were never chosen."
I laughed through cracked lips, a bitter sound. "That all you got? I've heard worse."
But my voice was weak.
And deep inside, I wondered—maybe this time, I don't crawl back.
That's when I saw it.
A throne.
Not gold, not jeweled. A monolith carved from the same void as the dungeon itself, half-buried in the abyss. No one sat upon it. Yet the moment my eyes touched it, everything went still.
The whispers hushed. The void paused. The abyss… listened.
I stumbled toward it, dragging my ruined body.
And then I heard the voice. Not like the whispers. This one was absolute. Ancient. It didn't speak in words—it spoke in truths.
"My heir bleeds."
The storm in me quivered. Lightning—violet, bright, defiant—ignited once more, stronger than before. It didn't just crackle. It roared, splitting the darkness apart.
But it wasn't mine alone anymore. Something deeper pulsed within it. A weightless nothing, a silent eternity, braided with my lightning until the air itself shook.
The void creatures shrieked and crumbled into dust. The Abyss recoiled.
And the voice whispered again:
"Rise, Heir of the Nameless God."
The system screamed to life:
[Dungeon Survived: The Nameless Abyss]
[Unique Title Obtained: Heir of the Nameless God]
[Passive Acquired: Nameless Authority – Your existence resists erasure, silence, and assimilation.]
[Skill Acquired: Abyssstorm – Lightning entwined with Void. Devours as it destroys.]
[Permanent Trait: Nameless Resonance – Certain forgotten powers will answer your call.]
I collapsed at the throne's foot, gasping. My vision swam, my blood pooling beneath me.
For the first time, I hadn't won.
I had survived. Barely.
But survival was enough.
Because I didn't just walk out with strength.
I walked out with a name whispered by the void itself.
The Nameless God.
And for better or worse… I was His heir now.