Dreadhold Abyss is a notorious dungeon situated on the northwestern boundary of Astral's Edenfield and the Mires. The Mires are an unconquered, vast, cursed wasteland teeming with monstrous activity, lying between the Astral and Emperium empires.
It was discovered Millennia ago- an ancient place rumored to be a prison for gods and monsters alike. Others believe that the Goddess of Fortune left her most prized artifact hidden inside, awaiting a soul worthy of its power.
Yet, in all truthfulness, no one truly knows what lies within this abyssal chasm, nor its true origin or forgotten history. The tales, whether divine or monstrous, remain just that – tales.
From the very dawn of its discovery, an endless procession of scholars, adventurers, nobles, mages, and every ambitious soul imaginable has dared to venture into its shadowed embrace. They sought to discovered its secret, the rumored legendary artifact of the goddess, or simply anything they believed that the dungeon might yield—power, fame, answers.
Countless have tried venturing in this dungeon, yet not a single soul who has entered it emerged alive.
Not even the strongest and most legendary heroes, whose names once resonated across empires, could defy its grasp. Even when some of them were armed with the rarest and most potent teleportation artifacts as a means to escape, their efforts still proved futile.
Once you enter, there is no escape.
That is the chilling truth, forged in millennia of futile attempts. Because of this, the dungeon earned another, more chilling name: the Dungeon of Death. To journey there was, without question, a death sentence.
And after millennia of failed attempts, people stopped entering the dungeon. Even the most powerful and influential figures in the empires no longer dare to go near it.
That was the Dreadhold Abyss, The Dungeon of death.
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Inside the carriage—if one could even call the creaking, splinter-ridden box that—sat Natan.
His wrinkled white shirt clung to his frame, and his coarse brown shorts did little to shield him from the cold. Black hair hung over his face, partly hiding his dull crimson eyes—lifeless, empty, hopeless.
He wasn't riding. He was caged.
Across from him sat two knights in worn armor, their swords resting heavily on their laps. Right beside Natan sat a butler in his sixties, his posture stiff, eyes forward, silent as stone.
This was the same butler that had carried young Natan's suitcase on his trip to Sylverwyn Academy. Now, he was here to make sure Natan entered the dungeon—no escape, no turning back.
Rumors whispered that this man, despite his frail look, was one of the Blazeforge family's deadliest hands. He was without the doubt the most trusted man in the blazeforge estate.
In their travels; No one spoke. No one needed to.
The air was thick with silent bitterness and grim resolve.
The journey dragged on for a day and a half. Natan had nothing but a meager meal of dry rice, a tasteless chunk of potato, and a single cup of lukewarm water—barely enough to sustain him.
The carriage rumbled north, then veered northwest. As hours passed, the world outside grew barren. The air itself seemed to grow heavy—tainted with something ancient and wrong.
CLOP-CLOP-CLOP... HHHHT!
The horses stopped. The carriage groaned to a halt. They have arrived at their destination.
The iron door creaked open, and a cold wind swept in. More armored knights waited outside, their expressions hidden in shadow.
"Get out," one of the knights inside barked.
Natan moved, stiff and hollow, stepping down onto the dry earth. He kept his gaze low, watching the dust swirl around his feet.
Above him, the sky blazed orange. The sun sank toward the horizon, casting orange across the land. Before him, a sheer cliff towered, jagged and black. At its summit stood a massive stone statue of a knight—helmet cracked, mouth grim, sword plunged into the ground.
Beneath its foot lay a round obsidian pad, pulsing faintly with a deep, arcane light.
It was the entrance for the Dungeon of Death.
Natan's shadow stretched long beside the statue's. He turned his head, his eyes drifting toward the horizon.
Below the cliff stretched a thick forest, but it was the sky that left him breathless—glowing in orange, lavender, and deep violet. Golden and crimson clouds looked like wounds in the heavens, and the trees glowed under the sun's final light, as if dusted with amber.
It was beautiful.
And final.
A last goodbye.
His hands clenched. His teeth ground. His chest heaved with a scream that never left his lips.
'So this is it… I'm really going to die… Why do I have to suffer like this? Why was I born without mana? Why is the world so cruel to me? If only I were normal… maybe I could've lived a good life. WHY… WHY… Why?!
Why was I even born in this place to begin with?! Gods… Goddesses… why did it have to be me?!'
He screamed, not aloud, but deep within his thoughts. A final, silent scream.
Tears blurred the colors before him, twisting beauty into pain.
"Natan Blazeforge," the butler said, stepping forward.
"By command of the Lord, the Academy, and the Crown, you are hereby sentenced to the Dreadhold Abyss. Do you have any last words?"
Natan opened his mouth.
"Yeah… Tell my fam—"
He paused. The word "family" felt like poison.
"No. Tell the Blazeforge family: FUCK THEM. I HOPE THEY ROT IN HELL!"
"YOU DARE!" roared a knight, rising, sword drawn.
"Stop." The butler's voice cut like a blade.
"But—!" the knight protested.
"I said stop. Let him speak. He'll die anyway."
The old man turned back to Natan. "I'll deliver your message. Now… face your fate."
The knight shoved him forward, making sure he'd be the only one teleported. Natan didn't resist. He stepped onto the obsidian pad and looked down at the swirling runes beneath his feet.
The cool air brushed his face one last time. His hair fluttered in the breeze. His hollow eyes gazed upward—at the statue, at the sky, at the fading world.
Then—
ZZZZZAAAAAAPPP!
Blinding light swallowed him whole.
Darkness.
The world reformed in silence and shadow. The ground beneath him was damp and uneven. Crystalline shards flickered faintly, casting a ghostly faint glow. The air stank of decay and something older—forgotten.
Then—
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A low, heavy rhythm—like footsteps—approached. From the shadows, a massive beast emerged. Green skin. Burning eyes. Hunger.
Natan closed his eyes accepting his fate. His body didn't move. His soul had already given up.
And just before the creature reached him, He has consciously vanished.
////
Caesar gasped, his chest heaving, his fingers clenched around the bloody club of the dead orc. As the flood of memories came to him. Natan's life. His pain. His despair. All of it slammed into Caesar's mind like a tidal wave.
Before him stood Natan's fragmented image—lifeless hair, dead crimson eyes.
"Stop bullshitting me… You're fated to die? What do you mean you're fated to die? Stop Fucking Bullshitting me!" Caesar roared, his voice raw and ragged, echoing in the cavern.
"Sure, your parents were shit, the world is shit, the people in it are shit… but you got everything! You have the opportunity to overcome this! You have the choice to overcome your goddamn fate! Stop blaming your Gods, you piece of shit… And It's unfair, you say? That they have mana and you don't, you say? What's with mana anyway, is it everything? Stop bullshitting me… You… you have this body… This special body that could conquer worlds… Your body has more potential than I had in my previous world, and I tell you, I was the strongest in my world… and you say this is trash? Don't fuck with me!"
Caesar couldn't contain his rage towards Natan's Past.
"You got this on your own, you dipshit! If you had tried different things, found different ways, and never let the tragic fate dictate your life… Never cared what others saw you as… Never cared if you were different… You would have succeeded!"
"People in my world would've been thrilled—they would've died just to be in your place. And yet here you are, whining and cursing the world like some pathetic little piece of shit!
You are a piece of shit who lets the so-called 'Fate' dictate your life… You let the world drag you around—and you follow it like a dog…"
Caesar continued, his voice now lower, heavier—a controlled thunder of rage. He pointed his finger, not just at the fragmented Natan, but at himself.
He clenched his fist, staring at the fractured Natan from his mind like a reflection in a shattered mirror. He knew—no, he lived—everything Natan had experienced. He felt it too. He wasn't just Caesar anymore; he was Natan. And that's why he was so furious—furious at himself, at the weakness mirrored in front of him.
"Fuck this… I won't let the world determine my fate… I'll survive this… I will…"
As Caesar walked past Natan's fading fragment, the image began to dissipate, like smoke dissolving in the air.
Caesar's face, half-obscured by his wild, sweat-soaked hair, was fierce, newly ablaze. His crimson eyes, once hollow, now gleamed with a burning intensity as he glared at the monstrous shapes slowly emerging from the abyssal darkness.
He pushed himself upright, his muscles screaming in protest, and with a grunt of effort, he hefted the crude club. It was almost a third of his size, torn from the very monster he had just annihilated, and it felt impossibly heavy, yet strangely empowering.
WHOOSH!
A razor-thin streak of black flame shot towards Caesar's side, forcing him to dodge with a sudden, desperate lurch.
A robed, skeletal figure, staff clutched in boney fingers, stood amidst the shadows, its empty eye sockets fixed on him. Then, from the ground, dozens of skeletal hands, brittle and yellowed, began to push their way through the damp earth, clawing towards the surface.
CRACKLE-CRUMBLE-SCRAPE
"I will survive this… just you wait…" he muttered, his voice a low, fierce growl.
His gaze was no longer dead, but burning, a furious inferno of anger and the primal, unyielding instinct for survival.
-- Chapter 9 end