Derek stood in the dead silence of a hollow skull, blood flaking off his skin like ash.
The system said he'd killed 4,000 Nether Beasts.
He didn't feel accomplished. He didn't feel powerful. He just felt… drained.
There was no boss fight. No dramatic roar. No glowing flower blooming from the corpse of a final beast. Just more darkness. More corpses. And still—no sign of the Nether Flowerbud.
[Main Mission Progress: 50% – 4000/4000 Nether Beasts Eliminated]
"Halfway to nowhere," he muttered, voice hoarse from days of silence. He leaned on Night Fang like a crutch and forced one boot in front of the other. Every step scraped the ground. His gear reeked. His knuckles were raw.
[Time Remaining: 1 day, 3 hours, 12 minutes]
The countdown sat at the edge of his vision like a guillotine waiting to drop. He didn't know how long it had been since he last had a normal meal, and the Potato Chips no longer tasted as sweet as they did at first. It didn't matter., he never had a proper meal. Back in the real world, the stuff he ate was mostly junk foods and stuff he ravaged from dumpster bins.
Then he saw it. It had a foreboding aura, not the kind of place a flower would grow, but then again, this was no normal flower, and heck, there was no way a flower would grow anywhere here.
He didn't realise he'd stopped walking until his feet refused to move again.
It jutted from the earth like the spine of a god.
Bones.
But not normal ones. This was massive—thicker than a tree trunk, curled and half-buried in black dirt and fungus. Segments of vertebrae stretched into the distance like a dead centipede, curling downward in a spiral tunnel made of marrow and shadow. The walls of the new passage shimmered faintly, almost oily, as if the very air didn't want to be here.
Derek took a cautious step forward.
His hand brushed against the bone. It wasn't stone. It wasn't rotted. It was preserved—somehow still slick with ancient ichor, humming with residual power.
He directly used Appraisal.
[Analysing Material…] ["Elderbone Spine" Detected – A remnant from a fallen Nether Titan] [Warning: Unstable dimensional space detected within the remains]
"You've got to be kidding me."
The bone tunnel beckoned him like a throat waiting to swallow. Everything about it screamed trap.
And yet…
"Nothing good grows in the light," Derek whispered, stepping inside.
[ You have entered the passageway to the second Floor of the Netherworld]
" WTF..." Derek exhaled in shock
The change was immediate.
The moment he crossed the boundary of the spine tunnel, the air turned cold. Not the kind of cold that bit—it dragged. It pulled heat from his skin, thought from his mind, memory from his bones. He staggered, then forced a breath, pushing mana to his limbs.
The walls pulsed with dim, sickly green light. Faint whispers scratched at the edge of his hearing. One of them sounded like his name. Another sounded like hers.
He ignored them both.
Downward. Always downward.
As he descended, the tunnel narrowed. He had to duck, then crawl. The ground beneath his palms was slick with something that didn't feel like blood. The light ahead grew darker and darker, it was not the type of darkness created by the absence of light, it was a type of darkness, you could feel, you could almost touch it.
Then it opened.
He dropped into a cavern so large it swallowed sound.
A chamber of bones, circular and immense, with hundreds, thousands of corpses impaled on jagged bone spikes.
At the very centre, surrounded by blackened roots that dug into the titan bone, bloomed a flower.
It was tiny. Only five petals. Colourless, at first glance—until his eyes adjusted. Then he saw the truth: every petal shimmered with shifting hues—violet, crimson, abyssal black. Like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
[Item Identified: Nether Flowerbud – Dimensional Seed of the Nether Realms]
He didn't move. Not yet.
He recalled the system information about the Nether Flower; it was guarded by a powerful Nether Beast. If this were a video game, this would equate to a final boss.
Derek approached slowly, footfalls silent on the marrow-stained floor. The cavern's breath was stale. The only movement was the subtle ripple of corrupted energy pulsing through the roots that cradled the flower like an altar.
Then the earth shuddered.
A groan echoed long and low, like a forgotten song dragged across a rusted blade.
The corpses impaled on the bone spires twitched.
From the edge of the chamber, bone clattered against bone. Derek turned sharply, instincts flaring. His grip tightened on Night Fang, knuckles cracking, jaw clenched.
Then he saw it.
Emerging from the shadows was a towering figure, nearly three meters tall, bones stained black and engraved with crimson runes that crawled like fire ants beneath the surface. Its armour was fused with its very frame, old and weathered—not rusted, but worn, like it had fought too many battles in too many lifetimes.
Its skull bore a helm fused to its crown. Hollow sockets burned with twin coals of deep abyssal blue. It held a longsword in one hand—no, a greatsword. Barbed. Serrated. The blade hissed as it moved, like air itself refused to be cleaved by it.
The creature stepped forward.
Its foot crashed down with a weight that made the bones beneath Derek groan and shift.
[Boss Identified: Skeleton Knight – C-Rank][Weapon: Soulreaver, C-Rank Cursed Greatsword][Trait Name: Soulbreak Cleave]
Type: Attack-Type TraitRank: CDescription:The Skeleton Knight channels cursed Nether energy into its weapon, delivering a devastating cleave that not only damages the body but severs part of the target's soul.
[Warning: A C-class exceeds your current level by 2 tiers.]
"A level 20 monster "
Derek had a vague idea of how the beasts' ranks matched up to levels; the beasts he fought were previously E or D-
Derek's blood ran hot.
" It was never gonna be easy "
"Yeah," he muttered. "Thought so."