The crack in the wall wasn't just a gap between stones—it was a fracture in time. On the other side, the light that escaped wasn't coming from the sky, as I'd first assumed. It was filtered, pale, passing through layers of ruin and dust, as if the sun itself was reluctant to touch whatever was waiting there.
The corridor that opened before us was wider, cleaner, more… deliberate. This wasn't the chaotic natural weave of tunnels. It was buried architecture, built by hands that believed the underground should hold more than just darkness. And this place, as deep and forgotten as it was, still carried the order of someone who once ruled it.
Brelgrik stopped beside me, breathing deep, like the very memory of this place was keeping his feet nailed to the ground. His eyes trembled, and for a moment, all that poetic theatrics vanished. What remained was a goblin—tense, reverent, as if remembering something he had spent centuries trying to forget.
From the back of the chamber, we heard the first sound. It wasn't a voice. It was the slow, wet shift of something massive, moving without urgency, as if waking up only out of courtesy.
The light slowly revealed outlines: hollow pillars etched with spiraling inscriptions, marked with the sigil of the cycle—the same one I'd seen on those wax-sealed documents. This wasn't a sanctuary. It was a vault. And not of gold. Of history. Of threat.
When the body finally stepped out of the gloom, I understood why this thing had been buried. It wasn't just a creature. It was a sentence.
The outer shell looked like living stone braided with bone, as if time itself had sculpted the flesh with patience. There was a face—or at least a mask carved into the front of the skull—no eyes, no mouth, but an overwhelming presence.
Chains hung from its frame, some still flickering with runes, others shattered. Whatever it was had been bound, not destroyed. And now, standing before us, it simply waited.
It didn't attack. Didn't advance. It just existed.
And its existence was threat enough.
ENTITY PROFILE: THE DEEPWARDEN |
Type: Ancestral Runic Entity / Living Seal| Classification: Ritual Boss / Keeper of Forgotten Truths |
| ATTRIBUTES| Strength: 24 (Slow, crushing movements. Strikes carry ritualistic weight.)| Constitution: 30 (Extremely high resistance to physical and magical damage; body reinforced by ancient arcane layers.)| Latent Magic: Unknown. Believed to accumulate energy while immobile.| Will: Cannot be corrupted or reasoned with.| Speed: Slow but relentless. Never stops.
ABILITIES► Oath Resonance [Passive]→ Detects anyone who has broken a pact, contract, or promise in their life. Applies penalties when approached.
► Seal of Repetition [Active – Ritual]→ On combat start, reactivates sealed events or memories, forcing intruders to relive past failures—mental and physical effect.
► Marble Rune Claws [Active]→ Slashes that disrupt magical channels and drain life force on contact.
► Echo of the Founder [Ultimate]→ If defeated, triggers a collapse rune that reseals the chamber—with everything inside.
WEAKNESSES→ Central rune on the chest shows signs of wear.→ Incomplete sealing ritual: sensitive to corrupted rune presence.→ Direct sunlight destabilizes runic containment symmetry.
I stood there, watching that thing breathe in silence. I don't know how long it lasted. Maybe seconds. Maybe long enough to rethink my whole damn life. The creature stared back at me—even without eyes, it saw me. And something inside it recognized me. Not as Dante. But as someone who had entered without permission.
Behind me, Brelgrik whispered fragments of words I didn't understand, as if trying to soothe the stone. But the stone didn't want calm. It wanted purpose. And we were the perfect opportunity to fulfill its sacred purpose.
And I thought:
If I moved forward, maybe I'd find the exit.Maybe I'd escape.
Maybe I could take everything I'd uncovered—and use it, just like I'd planned from the start.
But if I took one wrong step, that thing would destroy everything.Not out of anger.Out of duty.
It didn't move.But the chamber did.
It was like the Guardian didn't need to attack to begin the fight—its existence alone was enough. The air thickened. The humidity turned to vapor around its body. And the runes on the pillars started glowing again, pulsing in rhythm like stone-recorded heartbeats.
"If we're doing this," I muttered, pulling back my arm and gripping the cracked pickaxe, "let's make it fast. Before it realizes we're just two exhausted idiots pretending to be threatening."
"It already knows," Brelgrik answered, eyes wide, his voice filled with... excitement? "But stones don't fight for victory. They fight for memory."
"Great. Then let's remind them what it's like to die burning."
I moved first.
The magic reacted slowly—my body still ached from the last fight—but flame formed between my fingers, fed by the silvarite still humming at the bottom of my pouch. I fired a Heat Pulse at the creature's chest, aiming for the chains locked around its torso. The impact triggered a reaction: the central rune lit up—and the thing finally moved.
Slow. Massive. Precise.
The first strike came like a stone crane trying to decapitate me. I dove aside, rolled, slammed my shoulder into a pillar, but kept going. Brelgrik zigzagged across the floor, yelling syllables in ancient Runic—and, to my surprise, the runes on the pillars responded.
"You're controlling this?!" I shouted.
"I'm convincing it!" he shot back. "That's different!"
One of the runes exploded in light, launching a side beam that hit the creature's leg—not enough to cut it, but enough to make it pause. That was all I needed.
I rushed the exposed flank and drove the pickaxe straight into a crack in the bone-plated shell. It sank to the hilt, and thick smoke hissed out like boiling metal. The creature reacted with a soundless roar—a pressure wave that blasted me back and cracked the floor beneath me.
Brelgrik kept chanting.The stones vibrated around him.One of the pillars fell—part of the completed ritual.
The light focused on the chest rune.
And then, without warning, it collapsed.
The Guardian trembled—like its purpose had been revoked.The runes dimmed, one by one.The chains fell.Its body froze mid-motion—then began to dissolve, turning into fine, dark ash carried away like dust that had waited too long to leave.
At its center, something remained.
Three objects.A seal, a metal box inscribed with forbidden markings... and a set of scrolls, sealed with the mark of Ashveil.
Brelgrik stepped forward carefully, touching the seal with reverence."The documents… the deep accords. The names… the prices. It's all here."
I moved closer.
No doubt.
These weren't evidence.They were power.
But there was no time to breathe.
The ground cracked.
A dry, deep sound.A split with cruel precision.
The center of the chamber began to give way, like the weight of the secret released was too much for the room to contain.
"Run!" I shouted, grabbing the scrolls and tossing the box to Brelgrik.
He ran.Short legs, but fast.As fast as panic would allow.
The crack widened—a living line racing between the pillars, swallowing the floor into a vortex of dust and stone.
And then we saw it.Ahead, at the far end of the hall...A sliver.
Light.This time, real.Daylight.Tearing through the wall—narrow, but open.
"Go!" I shouted.
We both ran.
Behind us, the floor collapsed.The chamber was devouring itself.The Guardian had fallen...but the abyss was still hungry.
The stone cracked like ice underfoot, each fault opening with silent hunger—no explosion, no debris—just the slow, elegant finality of something choosing to collapse.
We ran.
The floor crumbled behind us like a path rejecting its own creators. Brelgrik panted in short grunts, his feet stumbling, arms flailing like he thought he could fly. I led the way, guided by instinct alone, eyes locked on the gap ahead—a narrow vertical slash in the wall, like a wound in the world's fabric. And behind me, the low sound of falling stone reminded me this was our last shot.
I jumped.
Braced my hand against the rocky edge, pushed my body through roots, soil, and light. The brightness hit my face like a real slap—hot, strong, final. For a moment, all I saw was white.
And then I turned around.
"Brelgrik!"
He was still running.
But the ground beneath him wasn't ground anymore. It was a bridge of shards—cracked, swaying. Each step looked like it wanted to be the last. And I knew, just by watching, he wasn't going to make it.
"Jump!"
"I… I can't…"
"Jump, dammit!"
He hesitated.
Those eyes—once so wild and alive in madness—now seemed stuck deep in the earth. Like something down there was still calling him.Or maybe… maybe he'd never planned to leave.
But he jumped.
Too late.His leg hit the edge.His body spun mid-air like a sack of badly stacked bones.
And I caught him.
One arm.Thin, small.But still alive.
He slipped halfway down before I planted myself and pulled hard. My fingers dug into the bone of his forearm, my whole body groaning with effort.
"Are you insane?!" I yelled. "It was that or die!"
"I know…" he whispered, eyes wide. "But I… I didn't want to go up."
"Why not?!"
"Because light always feels like a lie when you've lived too long in the dark…"
I pulled harder.He was light.The moment wasn't.
I did it.
Brelgrik collapsed beside me, body trembling, eyes squinting like the brightness was a personal insult.
Silence.
Breath.
Rocks were still falling behind us, the sound echoing until it stopped meaning anything. And the opening revealed the horizon—a pale sky, still hazy, but alive.
Brelgrik lay there for a moment.Then sat up slowly, like an ancestor being lifted for the first time in centuries.
He looked at the sky.For a long time.
Then said,
"Looks like the whole world caught fire… and then regretted it."
I stayed quiet, but only for a few seconds.Then I turned to him and said,
"You are completely insane, you know that?"