Slipping from my bedroll without a sound, I moved to the edge of camp and leaned against a tree, letting the cool breeze run across my skin.
Nyxala drifted toward me, her body silent but her eyes alert. A low, quiet hum escaped her chest, a sound so soft it felt more like a memory than a voice.
I reached up and placed a hand against her side. “I’m okay, girl,” I whispered with a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. “Sleep just isn’t in the cards tonight.”
She didn’t reply. She simply hovered there beside me, still and watchful, like a sentinel carved from starlight. But I saw the sorrow in her eyes, even through their usual sharp focus. She was grieving too. I didn’t need words to know it. The way she hovered close, the tightness in her movements, she was feeling the same guilt gnawing away at me.
We hadn’t been there. And part of us would always wonder, if we had, could it have changed the outcome?
My gaze shifted back to the portal embedded in the cliffside, its surface pulsing faintly, like a waiting heartbeat. Then I looked to where the others slept, Trish curled into herself, Max lying rigid but unmoving, Mel with one arm over her eyes as if trying to block out the world.
And I felt the words forming on my tongue.
But before I could speak it, Virellia’s voice cut through the silence, calm but firm, echoing in my mind.
“Do not even think to make a vow you cannot begin to know how to keep.”
Her words struck like a blade to the chest.
Why shouldn’t I? I snapped back, more hurt than angry. Why shouldn’t I vow to protect them? To keep them from the same fate?
“I have never interfered with the oaths you’ve spoken,” she said gently. “And I don’t intend to. I’ll even help you keep them. But this vow… this one carries a weight you cannot measure. Vows in this realm hold power, James. Real power. And if you fail to uphold them, if they break, the consequences won’t simply fall on your shoulders.”
There was a pause, and then her voice dropped, somber and certain.
“They could be dire. Even fatal. And if you fall, James… who will stand between them and what’s coming?”
I let out a slow breath, the weight of Virellia’s warning lingering in my chest. Then I vow to protect them until the day I meet my fate. The words weren’t shouted. But they carried force. I vow I will give everything, gain any power, by any means necessary, to shield them from the fate that took Leo and Sunveil. I may fail… but I will never stop trying.
The moment the vow solidified in my mind, something shifted. It wasn’t physical, not really. But I felt it. Like a thread had been tied deep within me, an anchor, a burden, a bond.
The vow had taken root. And I would carry it.
“This vow,” Virellia said, her voice soft but resolute, “I swear to give my all to help you keep.”
“I shall do the same, brother,” Myrida added, her voice ringing through my thoughts like a blade drawn in promise.
“And I vow to have your back,” came Max’s voice from beside me, so sudden it made me start. I turned and found him already there, emerging from the shadows like he’d always been. His eyes were steady. Fierce. “No enemy will sneak past me, not to Trish, not to Mel. Not while I still draw breath.”
A tear slid down my cheek before I could stop it. I pulled him into a tight embrace. “To the end, brother,” I whispered.
His answer came without hesitation. “To the end.”
We were just about to step back when powerful arms folded around us both, drawing us in. “Whatever that end may be,” Mel murmured. Her voice was low but unyielding, the kind of strength you could lean on even when your world broke apart.
And then softer arms joined the embrace. A delicate presence, radiant and sure. “Let us become the scourge upon her realm,” Trish whispered, her wings unfurling in a soft shimmer of starlight. The glow wrapped around us like a shield. “Let our vengeance be the fire that leaves her no place left to hide.”
In that moment, we were no longer just survivors of a fallen friend. We were a storm, forged in grief, ready to burn her realm to ash.
After a long, heavy silence, we turned back toward the camp and began gathering our supplies. No one spoke. There was no need to. The unspoken weight of what lay ahead bound us tighter than any words could. When everything was packed and ready, we stood together before the massive entrance carved into the cliffside. The stone around it pulsed faintly, as if the mountain itself sensed our presence.
I looked to each of them, my gaze lingering on the fire in their eyes, the same fire I felt burning inside my chest.
"I suppose it’s time," I said quietly.
They each gave a nod, solemn but resolute.
I turned to Nyxala and the other two Lepidomare, who hovered just off the ground nearby, her fins flared and eyes bright with resolve. "Give them hell while we’re gone."
They each answered with a low, resonant hum and a sharp flick of their tails, a promise made in music and motion.
With one final glance behind us, we stepped into the waiting darkness of the cliffside.
And the mountain swallowed us whole.
As we stepped across the threshold of the cliffside, the light behind us dimmed, and then disappeared altogether. The stone beneath our feet shifted from natural earth to something slick and unnatural, as if the very rock had been bled dry of life. The air was thick with pressure, the kind that settled into your lungs and made it harder to breathe, not from lack of air, but from something unseen, watching.
A low hum vibrated through the chamber, rising in pitch until it became a chorus of thousands whispering without words. Then, the notification pulsed into existence before our eyes, the letters jagged, fractured, wrong.
You have entered a Boundless Dungeon. The rules within are as follows:
- Time Limit: 37 hours.
- Main Objective: Kill the Abhorrent.
Good luck, Adventurers! Happy Delving!
YOU ARE NOW ENTERING: VOID OF THE DAMNED
A prison born from discarded pain and silent screams. The Void does not forget. The damned do not forgive. Slay all who bar your path and reach the heart of the suffering. There, the Abhorrent waits.
The words hung in the air longer than usual, burning into our minds like brands. The stone before us cracked open with a loud, groaning grind, revealing a spiral path plunging downward into a lightless abyss. Violet runes pulsed along the walls in irregular patterns, as if daring us to travel further.
I took a single step forward and the temperature hit my skin like I entered a desert, yet the air was heavy with humidity. It was like the air around us threatened to weigh us down with how humid it was.
“Them… it was…” Mel said, rage in the whisper that barely passed her lips.
looked into her eyes, then followed her gaze.
They slithered just ahead of the spiral’s drop, grotesque mockeries of life. Elongated limbs twisted at unnatural angles, their skin stretched thin and translucent, barely hiding the shadows writhing beneath. Some dragged themselves forward with jagged claws, others crawled like insects on all fours, twitching with unnatural spasms. But they all had eyes, blinking, watching.
Without rhythm. Without reason.
One turned its head toward us with a sickening pop, its neck folding sideways like wet paper. The moment its eyes met mine, I felt it, hatred. Ancient. Pure. It radiated from them like heat from a furnace, a hatred that had simmered in silence for centuries, waiting for something to destroy.
“These damned things are what got Leo,” Max growled through clenched teeth.
I reached for Virellia, and she shifted instantly into her flail form. My grip tightened as she solidified in my hand, my shield conjuring into place with a sharp hum.
My jaw locked. “Then this is where we begin our vengeance.”
Before anyone could speak, before breath even returned to the room, I launched forward, the halo at my back igniting in a blaze of gold and violet.
I became fury incarnate.
The voidlings, whatever they once were, were nothing but insects beneath my feet. I tore through them like a storm through dry leaves. They crawled, they shrieked, they lunged, but none of it mattered.
They fell. One after another, faster than thought. It wasn’t a fight. It was an extermination.
Within moments, the others were at my side, silent, focused, deadly. Not a word was needed. Every swing, every strike, was a promise.
This dungeon would be carved in blood and fire; this was the beginning of our wrath.
I was caught by surprise when I noticed Trish at my side, her movements, a blur of furious elegance. She wielded two large ring blades, each sweep slicing through the enemy with lethal grace. When one blade couldn’t reach, one of her wings would snap outward, cutting down voidlings like living razors. And when neither wings nor blades could connect, a gleaming chakram would arc through the air, tearing into the ranks like a hot knife through butter.
At our flank, Max moved like a shadow, loosing arrows with deadly precision. Every voidling that tried to slip past us met a swift, silent end. But when none dared break formation, he vanished from sight, flashing through the horde like a wraith, his bow a whisper between one breath and the next.
Mel was the storm at our center. Her weapon, ever-shifting in her grasp, became a massive blade to pierce, then a broad-headed axe to carve through the press of bodies, then a colossal hammer to shatter the voidlings that got too close. Her strikes were thunder, each one a declaration of power.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
The voidlings began to disperse, not fleeing, but making way.
From the edges of the horde, new shapes began to form. These weren’t the formless, writhing things we had torn through. They were larger, their limbs more defined, their movements more coordinated. Quadrupedal and sinewy, they moved with a predatory grace, their bodies slick with shadow, eyes glowing faintly like dying embers in the dark.
These were different, stronger, smarter, voidspawn.
I tightened my grip on Virellia as the creatures crouched low, waiting to pounce.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words barely escaping my throat.
Trish glanced at me, just a heartbeat’s look, but her focus stayed locked on the predators sizing us up from the dark.
Before she could ask, I answered, voice low. “If I had been there that night… that fight would’ve been trivial.”
Max cut me off with a sharp hiss. “No. Those things, whatever they were, this isn’t the same. These may look similar, but they’re nothing like the ones we faced that night. We weren’t outmatched because we were weak. We were outmatched because that was something else entirely.”
“James…” Trish said quietly. The name felt wrong in her mouth, off by a fraction, like a memory that no longer fit the shape it once had. But I brushed it aside.
“I know it’s foolish to dwell on what-ifs,” I muttered. “But knowing that doesn’t stop them.”
My eyes locked with the closest voidspawn, a hulking, sinewy beast with eyes like dripping pitch. “And I can’t go back and change it. But I’ll be damned if a single one of these abominations draws another breath before I leave this cursed place.”
Something pulsed outward from me, an aura, unbidden, primal. The creature flinched, its stance faltering for the briefest moment.
Virellia’s glow intensified, the sigils etched along her length burning like starlight. The constellations in my shield spun in erratic, furious motion, responding to the storm rising in my chest.
I bellowed, a roar of fury and promise, and the voidspawn answered the challenge.
They surged forward as one.
The others scattered, giving me space to unleash. The cavern here was wide, with room to move and strike freely. I stood my ground, the focal point of the charging wave, and the battle erupted around me.
Some of the creatures peeled off, trying to flank.
They never made it.
Chakrams flashed, slicing through the air like silver comets. Arrows found their marks before claws could sink. Max flickered in and out of the ranks like a phantom, leaving death in his wake. Trish danced through them, her ring blades a blur, her wings cutting down anything too close.
Mel was a force of shifting fury, her weapon changing with each swing, blade, axe, hammer, each form tailored for devastation.
The voidspawn fell, one after another. But the deeper we moved into the mountain’s heart, the darker the world around us became. A twisted presence pulsed in the stone, steady and slow like the beat of some massive, slumbering heart.
Violet runes along the walls pulsed in time with it, flaring and dimming as though the dungeon itself was breathing.
Then, from the shadows beyond the reach of our light, figures began to move. Humanoid, silent, watching. Something worse had awoken.
Though they were hooded, the nearest figure stepped into the light just right, revealing there was no face beneath the cloak. Instead, thousands of tendrils writhed and danced where features should have been, slithering with an eerie grace, like kelp drifting in deep black water.
Its voice was a contradiction: a raspy, hissing whisper that somehow echoed like a scream across the cavern walls. “Ssshe comessss…”
That was all it said.
Each figure reached into the folds of their cloaks and drew long, jagged blades, swords that shimmered with voidlight, pulled from nowhere. Inventories? Or something else? Were these things once human? Or the echoes of a twisted realm that mirrored our own?
A shiver crawled down my spine, but I held the line.
My aura still pulsed from within me, and I could feel its pressure weigh on the void soldiers. It slowed them. Warped their strikes. But it didn’t stop them. They were strong, strong enough to resist the pull, to keep moving.
“Get in close!” I barked, dropping into defensive stance, bracing as they surged.
Trish closed in at my side, her chakrams flashing through the air in elegant arcs. Each strike rang true, but the void soldiers met them with shocking precision, parrying with fluid movements and inhuman grace.
These weren’t just stronger than the voidspawn.
They were trained, and intelligent.
Each soldier fell to coordinated strikes, chakrams slicing through blind spots, arrows punching through gaps in defense, and Mel's massive weapon crashing down with lethal force. I held the front, parrying and blocking their blows, absorbing every impact with my shield and the fury boiling inside me. Their technique was precise, relentless… but not enough.
As the final void soldier crumpled into the dust, a pulse ripped through the cavern.
Not a sound.
A force.
It slammed into me like a hammer of gravity, buckling my knees. I caught myself on my shield, breath heaving, the weight of it wrong, like the very air had thickened into tar.
Then the notification appeared.
Time remaining reduced, remainder of time: 2.5 hours.
Difficulty increased from Rare too Legendary!
“What?!” I gasped, staring at the message. “What is that supposed to mean?! Why the hells would it increase?! And where did all the time go?!”
The pulse returned, stronger.
This one wasn’t just pressure, it was presence. Something immense stirred in the deep, not physically near, but fully aware of us now. Like a storm sensing a match flame.
I hit the ground, both knees slamming to stone, forced down by an invisible hand. It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t violence, it was domination.
And whatever it was… it was waking up.
From the darkness ahead, the runes dimmed—then flared violently, casting the cavern in violent violet light. The floor cracked, warped… and split.
Something was rising.
No… emerging.
A shape tore itself from the shadows, tall and jagged, yet fluid, its armor fused with flesh, pulsing with the same dark energy that poisoned the void. Seven eyes snapped open across its helm, each one locking onto me with intent. Every instinct in my body screamed in warning.
[Elite Voidspawn Lieutenant – Karr’Zhul, Maw of Silence – Lvl 183]
The words hovered ominously above its head.
It stalked forward, deliberate, unhurried.
Then came the voidlings.
They spilled in behind it, fanning out like a tide, encircling us from every angle. Some even began spawning behind us, slithering out from cracks in the cavern floor. My breath hitched as fear clawed up my spine. This wasn’t even the final boss, and already we were surrounded.
And still, no answer. No sign of why the dungeon had changed. Why the timer had warped. Why the difficulty had increased.
I stepped forward, forced the fear down into my gut like cold iron. My gaze hardened. Virellia pulsed in my hand, her light steady and seething. Myrida thrummed in the air beside Max, the two weapons resonating with shared purpose.
Our eyes met.
“Mel. Trish,” I said, my voice calm but sharp, “focus on the voidlings. Join us when you’ve cleared them.”
Trish brushed her hand against my back, an unspoken I’ve got you. Mel gave a firm nod and turned without hesitation, facing the creatures gathering behind us.
These voidlings weren’t like the ones from earlier. They moved with purpose. Their formations were precise, their attacks coordinated. This wasn’t instinct. This was strategy.
Were they being controlled? I wondered. Guided? My eyes flicked back to Karr’Zhul.
I lowered my stance, and the halo behind me responded in kind, rotating faster, glowing with furious intensity. Without hesitation, I surged forward, charging straight at the lieutenant.
The moment I closed the gap, the creature moved. From the folds of its fused flesh and armor, it drew a massive zweih?nder-like blade. The weapon drank the light around it, casting unnatural shadows in its wake. It came down in a wide arc, silent and lethal.
I dropped behind my shield just in time.
The impact was like a landslide. The blow forced me back, my boots dragging across the stone floor as I braced against the weight. My jaw clenched, teeth grinding.
Then Max was there, flashing into view behind the lieutenant, his bow now split into twin daggers. He went for a precise strike aimed at the creature’s exposed back.
But the lieutenant reacted too quickly.
It twisted, sidestepping the blow with inhuman grace, and swept the massive hilt backward in a brutal counter. Max vanished again, blinking out just before the strike landed, the wind of the swing howling through the space he’d just occupied.
I rushed in again, whipping Virellia’s head forward in a precise, arcing strike, but the creature was faster. With a flick of its armored forearm, it parried her effortlessly, the clash echoing like metal dragged across bone.
Its massive blade came thrusting toward me in a sudden, stabbing motion.
I turned with it, rotating my shield sharply and catching the blow just off-center, deflecting it wide. An opening, small, but there.
I snapped Virellia forward again, aiming for its side.
But the lieutenant’s hand lashed out, seizing Virellia’s chain in mid-air. A sickening hiss tore through the air, like steam escaping a broken seal, only darker, fouler.
Virellia screamed.
Not aloud, but in my mind, her voice, her pain, raw and agonizing. I felt it in my chest, a white-hot lance of rage flaring instantly in response.
Then Max was there again.
His dagger drove deep into the lieutenant’s side. Black ichor burst from the wound, the smell of rot and ozone flooding the air. The strike forced the creature to release its grip on Virellia.
I didn’t hesitate.
I pivoted on my heel, using the momentum to swing my shield in a brutal arc. The edge crashed into the side of the lieutenant’s head, sending it stumbling forward.
But all we seemed to do was piss it off.
With a low, rattling growl, its weapon began to shift. The greatsword shrank, folding inward, reshaping. A second blade formed in its off hand, jagged, curved, and wickedly sharp. It now held a weapon in each clawed grip.
The blades blurred in its hands, jagged, twin nightmares of metal and malice. Karr’Zhul surged forward with renewed fury, its movements suddenly became faster, more fluid, like the air itself bent to its will.
I barely raised my shield in time to catch the first strike. Sparks flew as steel screamed against celestial metal. The second blade followed instantly, slashing low, forcing me to twist away to avoid the edge biting into my leg.
Max flickered into existence just behind the creature again, his daggers whistling toward the back of its knee.
The lieutenant kicked backward without even looking.
Max vanished mid-blow, reappearing beside me, a grimace on his face as he panted through clenched teeth. “He’s fast,” he growled, sweat beading on his brow.
“No kidding,” I muttered.
Karr’Zhul didn’t wait. It lunged again, both blades sweeping in a brutal, crossing arc. I braced, catching one on my shield while ducking the other, only to be slammed backward by a shoulder charge that hit like a falling boulder. My boots carved twin trenches in the ground as I skidded, my bones rattling.
Chains cracked as I retaliated, swinging Virellia in a wide arc, her flail head glowing bright with fury. The weapon connected with its shoulder, hard, but the creature rolled with the blow, absorbing the impact like a prizefighter and striking low with a sweeping slash meant to gut me.
Max appeared again, this time above.
He twisted mid-air and hurled a dagger toward one of the eyes glowing across its helmet.
The creature twitched, catching the blade with the flat of its sword just inches from impact.
Max landed hard, ducked a backhanded blow, and spun away, narrowly avoiding being cut in half. “I think it’s learning,” he hissed, already preparing another throw.
Behind us, I caught glimpses of Mel and Trish.
The voidlings were thinning fast, but the ones still standing were smarter, more aggressive, coordinating their attacks in bursts of terrifying precision. Mel’s hammer-axe hybrid crushed one into the stone floor, her body bruised and bloodied but unrelenting. Trish’s chakrams danced around her, wings slicing through the air as she twisted and struck, her breath ragged but her stance solid.
They were holding on… but just barely.
We had to end this.
I surged forward again, ramming my shield into Karr’Zhul’s chest with all my weight. It staggered, and Max took the opportunity, he blinked behind it, daggers drawn wide, slashing into its back. One blade scraped deep, another skipped off bone-like armor.
Karr’Zhul roared, not in pain, but fury.
It spun, faster than before, and slammed the hilt of its blade into Max’s ribs, sending him sprawling across the stone. He tumbled hard, rolled, and came to a stop gasping, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. Still, he rose. Staggered, yes, but his daggers were raised, eyes locked on the lieutenant.
Max now stood on the opposite side of Karr’Zhul as the creature turned its attention back to me. It lunged with sudden speed, a blur of fused armor and violence. I stomped the ground, activating my sanctum, and though it didn’t slow Karr’Zhul’s charge, I heard a sharp hiss escape its throat as it crossed the radiant barrier. Pain, real, tangible, flashed across its features, and I spun aside just in time to feel the scrape of its blade skim along the rear of my armor.
I dropped low and swept Virellia in a wide arc, her head colliding with the back of the lieutenant’s knee. The blow landed true, and Karr’Zhul collapsed to one knee, just long enough for Mel to come barreling in like an ethereal avalanche. Her weapon crashed against its helm with a concussive boom, sending the creature flying.
It didn’t land.
Trish was already there, flashing into position, her wings extending like twin blades. They pierced through Karr’Zhul midair, black ichor spraying outward as she twisted. In that frozen moment, Max appeared once again above the lieutenant, spinning like a cyclone, his daggers carving down the lieutenant’s back with merciless precision.
The creature hit the stone, split down the center, unmoving.
For a breathless second, we stood in silence, watching the pieces settle. I felt that familiar spark rising in my chest, triumph, brief and hard-earned.
Then it hit.
That same presence from before didn’t pulse this time, it slammed into us like a tidal wave. My knees crashed to the ground, breath punched from my lungs, and a pressure more immense than anything we’d yet faced pressed down on us like an ungodly hand.
It wasn’t a voice. Not truly.
It was a challenge. A summons.
And in the depths of my chest, something pulled at me, as if in answer.