Morning in the dungeon was not a change in light-it was a change in pressure. The heavy, suffocating weight of the King's presence had lifted, replaced by the hollow, ringing silence of a place that had spent its fury.
Maren kicked dirt over the heating disc, extinguishing the last ember of their warmth. She didn't need to give a speech. The formation was tighter than yesterday. The banter was gone.
"Floor three," she said, adjusting her staff. "Standard protocol until we know what the King's death affected. We move fast, we stay quiet."
They descended.
The stairs to floor three were steep, spiraling down into a colder, damper air. The stone walls lost their luminescence, shifting from that eerie blue-white to a dull, absorbent grey.
Haruki walked at the back, his eyes scanning the walls, the floors, the cracks in the masonry. His systems were buzzing.
"Haruki," Sol said, his voice crisp.
"Mm."
"I am detecting a localized energy signature. High purity. High density." A pause, laden with administrative weight. "It appears to be a Legendary Class Power Stone. Formation age is approximately-"
"I don't care," Haruki thought back, adjusting the strap of his carrying frame.
A beat of stunned silence followed. Not from the dungeon, but from his own head.
"You... don't care," Sol repeated slowly.
"No. It's a rock. It's heavy. I have enough heavy things." Haruki stepped over a loose cobble. "Tell me something that matters. Is the floor stable? Are we about to walk into a den of Apex predators? That's the data I need."
"It is... highly unusual for a host to dismiss a Legendary resource," Sol said, sounding almost offended on behalf of the system's database.
"Get used to it."
"Fine," Rax grumbled, cutting in. "If you don't want the cool rock, fine. But you should know this: Floor three is a Nesting Ground. Mid-tier monsters. Horned Hoppers and Cave Lizards. They're territorial. They don't swarm like goblins; they ambush. Harder to kill. Nastier tempers."
That was useful.
"Thanks, Rax," Haruki said.
They reached the bottom of the stairs.
Floor three was a labyrinth. The walls were jagged, natural rock formations rather than carved stone, creating tight corridors and sudden, open caverns. The air smelled of wet moss and something copper-old blood, maybe, or mineral deposits.
Maren raised her fist. Halt.
She gestured to Cas, then to the left corridor. Cas nodded, moved his shield to his side, and crept forward.
The monsters were waiting.
They were low to the ground-reptilian, with slate-grey scales that blended perfectly into the stone. Cave Lizards. Their eyes were milky white; they hunted by vibration. There were four of them in the first cavern, lounging on warm stones that vented steam from the dungeon's depths.
"Contact," Maren whispered.
The fight began instantly.
Unlike the chaotic charge of goblins, this was a slaughter of efficiency. Cas didn't charge; he baited. He stomped his foot once, hard, on the stone floor.
The Lizards snapped to attention, heads turning toward the vibration.
Sable moved. She wasn't a blur this time; she was a ghost. She dropped from a ledge above, driving her batons into the neck joints of the nearest lizard. A sickening crack, and it thrashed, dead before it hit the ground.
Fen was already casting. "Frost Shard." A needle of ice impaled a second lizard against the wall.
Maren covered Cas as he engaged the third, his sword finding the soft underbelly.
It was efficient. It was professional.
And it was loud.
Haruki stayed back, in the designated "safe zone" near the corridor entrance. He watched the shadows, his hand resting on his mining pick. He watched the party work, noting the slight delay in Cas's swing-the fractured rib was slowing him down. He noted the way Fen favored his left side-the mana burnout from yesterday making him cautious.
They were winning, but they were tired.
When the last lizard fell, Haruki moved forward. His job was simple: salvage.
He stepped into the cavern, avoiding the pools of dark blood. He collected the claws, the teeth-Fen had said the teeth were good for piercing enchantments-and the mana cores, which were denser and heavier than the slime cores from floor one.
He worked quickly, efficiently, his hands moving with practiced routine.
Then he saw it.
It was tucked into a crevice behind the largest steam vent, hidden from direct view. A red glow, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Haruki reached in. His fingers closed around something warm and smooth. He pulled it out.
It was a stone, roughly the size of his palm. Deep crimson, with veins of gold running through the center. It pulsed with a rhythm that matched his own breathing.
[SYSTEM ALERT: LEGENDARY CLASS POWER STONE DETECTED. Attribute: Fire - Eternity Flame.]
"Hey," Rax said, his voice vibrating with excitement. "That's the one. The thing Sol was yelling about. That is worth a fortune. That is 'buy a small island' money. That is—"
Haruki stared at it. It was beautiful. Heavy. Warm.
He turned to call out to Maren. To tell her they had scored big. Something good to balance out the trauma of the King.
"Lea—" he started.
He didn't get the word out.
The wall to his right didn't break. It *exploded*.
Something massive and white burst from the solid rock as if it were paper. It was a Mole—a Giant Dungeon Mole, blind and furious, its claws the size of scythes. It had been tunneling, silent, vibrations masked by the steam vents.
It wasn't aiming for the party.
It was aiming for the heat source.
The stone.
Haruki was in the way.
The impact was not a strike; it was a collision. The beast's shoulder—or head, or whatever hard plate of bone was at its front—slammed into Haruki's side.
He flew backward.
The stone was clutched in his hand. He landed hard on his back, the wind knocked out of him, the carrying frame digging into his spine.
The Mole thrashed, its claws scraping the stone, trying to find the red glow that had been disturbed. It brought a massive claw down.
Right onto Haruki's hand.
Haruki didn't scream. The pain was distant, muffled by the adrenaline and the sheer concussive force of the blow. But he heard it.
'CRUNCH.'
Not bone.
Stone.
The Mole's claw had crushed the Legendary Power Stone in his grip.
The red light didn't fade. It 'shattered'.
A shockwave of raw, uncompressed mana blasted outward from his palm. It was like holding a grenade that decided to disassemble itself into pure energy. The red light washed over Haruki, over the Mole, over the walls.
The Mole shrieked—a sound of pure agony as the chaotic mana seared its senses. It reared back, thrashing.
"Haruki!"
Maren was there. She didn't hesitate. She didn't assess the tactical situation. She saw the white beast over her porter and she moved.
She channeled every ounce of remaining mana into her staff. Not a beam this time. A detonation.
'Solar Flare.'
A point-blank explosion of light and force erupted from her staff, driving into the Mole's exposed flank. The beast was thrown sideways, crashing into the far wall. It twitched once, the mana in its body destabilized by the shattered stone's backlash, and collapsed, stone-still.
Silence returned to the cavern. Steam hissed from the vents.
Haruki lay on the ground. His hand was bleeding, the palm shredded by the shards of the broken crystal. The red dust of the stone was settling on his skin, glowing faintly before fading into his cuts.
"Haruki!" Maren dropped to her knees beside him. Her hands were hovering over him, checking for broken bones, her face pale. "Talk to me. Are you okay? Did it gut you?"
Haruki didn't answer.
He stared at his hand.
The stone was gone. Reduced to dust and splinters embedded in his skin. The warm, pulsing rhythm was gone, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache.
"I..." Haruki's voice was a whisper.
He looked up at Maren. He looked at the empty space where the fortune had been. The "buy a small island" money. The "retire forever" gem.
He had been holding it for three seconds.
And now it was gravel.
"Haruki," Maren said, her voice tight with fear. "Say something. Are you hurt?"
Haruki closed his eyes.
He didn't respond.
He just looked at the dust on his palm, the remnants of a legend, ground into the dirt of a floor they weren't supposed to be on.
The silence stretched, heavy and broken.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Chapters will come every WFS : Tuesday , Thursday and Saturday at 4:35 AM