Dungeon
New Sol continent (former seven continents of Terra)
Terra, Gaea, Solar system
Milky Way Galaxy
Luminary Star sector
15th Vetraeus cycle, 50 New Solaris Prime
"On your right, Henry!" Sam's voice rang out sharply through the chaos.
Without hesitation, Henry Goldsman pivoted, his reflexes honed from years of combat, his silver-stained blade arced cleanly through the air, slicing into coarse grey fur and muscle. Black blood sprayed, thick and steaming, as the snarling creature lunging toward him was cleaved in two. The upper half of its body twisted grotesquely in the air before collapsing beside its hindquarters in a heap.
"Thanks!" Henry called over his shoulder.
Sam merely nodded, already sprinting past him like a blur of motion and purpose. Her gauntlets shimmered, resonant energy gathering around her fists—bubbles of raw kinetic force distorting the space around her knuckles. Her timing was impeccable. A Stormfang Wolf—towering and thickly muscled, with a broad silver-streaked back and glowing eyes—charged forward. Before it could lunge, Sam struck.
She launched into a brutal combo, fists crashing into the beast's side with the power of compressed shockwaves. Each strike sounded like a mini explosion, the wolf's ribs splintering under the pressure. Its body jolted with every impact as though it had been caught in the path of a heavy artillery barrage.
The final punch sent the Stormfang flying backwards through the air, its form crumpling into a mangled heap against the jagged rocks. The ground quaked faintly beneath their feet. The underground space around them was stained with blood and smoke, and the scent of ozone—resonant energy- was still crackling in the air.
Henry took a breath, scanning the field. "We're not done yet."
Sam smirked, cracking her knuckles as her gauntlets flared again. "Good. I was just getting started."
Her other teammates—Rosa Chavez, Callum Oyedepo, and Trini Fairborn—were already deep in the thick of the skirmish, carving their way through the remainder of the Mystic Beast pack. Their movements were practiced and ruthless, each of them a seasoned fighter in their own right. Rosa danced between wolves with elegant precision, her twin sabers spinning in fluid arcs. Callum, massive and silent, brought down his hammer with seismic force, bones and sinew crunching beneath his strikes. Trini, the quietest of the group, moved like a phantom, her wand releasing spells that sliced through fur and flesh before any of the beasts even realized she was there.
By the time Sam and Henry joined the fray, the tide of battle had already turned. The Stormfang Wolves, once a snarling tide of teeth and muscle, were now being pushed back—slain one by one with merciless efficiency. Sam launched herself into the chaos, her gauntlet thrumming with charged resonance, while Henry's silver blade gleamed with every arc, cutting down beasts with clean, calculated blows.
The pack fought savagely, but they were outmatched. It took them twenty grueling minutes—twenty minutes of blood, sweat, and the roaring echo of battle cries—but in the end, they annihilated the pack that had tried to rip them apart.
When the last wolf fell, Henry stumbled backward and dropped onto a nearby boulder, his chest heaving, sweat mingling with streaks of black blood across his armor. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the adrenaline settle, the silence after the slaughter almost disorienting.
Sam strode past him, a slight smile on her lips. "You'll live," she said, casting him a teasing glance.
Henry gave a half-hearted chuckle between breaths. "Barely."
Sam turned her attention toward Rosa, who was already moving methodically through the battlefield, collecting mana cores that had spilled from the corpses. The glowing orbs pulsed softly, each one a potent reservoir of the creature's Essence—prized for both cultivation and trade.
With a flick of her fingers, Sam conjured a stream of water—clear and cool—and began washing the gore from her gauntlets. The crimson and black fluids swirled at her feet before evaporating into mist. As the blood washed away, her eyes drifted toward a darkened corner of the clearing.
Something stirred.
A figure stepped out from the veil of shadow—tall, with a poise that suggested both grace and danger. Her features were striking, almost unreal in their beauty. Russet-colored hair cascaded past her shoulders in loose, effortless waves, framing a face both regal and fierce. Her orange eyes, glowing faintly like twin embers, locked onto Sam with unsettling calm.
"Where the hell have you been?" Trini spat, voice sharp enough to cut steel.
Her golden eyes narrowed with familiar disdain, and her hand instinctively hovered near the hilt of her wand. The tension in her posture was unmistakable. She wasn't just annoyed—she was angry.
Sam let out a tired sigh. The animosity Trini held toward Pleiadians—and by extension, Emily—hadn't cooled much, even after all they'd been through. Sam remembered a time not long ago when Trini would barely speak to her without lacing every word with venom, simply because Sam was an Ascendant, a being who evolved by cultivating mystical powers. Things had gotten marginally better since then, especially after Trini's awakening, but the old grudges lingered.
"She was scouting ahead for us," Sam said evenly, glancing toward Emily.
Trini scoffed. "So while the rest of us were fighting for our lives, she got the easy job."
Before Sam could reply, Emily calmly raised her hand.
In an instant, twenty glowing orbs materialized around her, each one a condensed mana core, pulsing with raw, unstable energy. They floated in the air like spectral stars, casting an eerie light across her face.
"I encountered a pack of Awakened Mystic Beasts, all of them at the Master Realm," Emily said, her voice serene but edged with steel. "They were blocking the path ahead. I cleared it."
A heavy silence fell over the group.
All eyes—except for Trini's—were locked on the floating orbs. The air was thick with disbelief and awe. Emily, on her own, had wiped out a full pack of Master-level Awakened Beasts. They had just barely finished off a pack of Adept Realm Stormfangs, and it had taken all of them working together to do it. What Emily had done was just that impressive.
Sam watched their expressions with quiet understanding. At her current level, she too could have dispatched the Adept Beasts alone with little effort. But she hadn't. As the squad leader, her role wasn't just to fight—it was to guide. Her team needed the experience. These were no longer the days of Dormant Beasts—those had vanished with the old era. Now, even the weakest Mystic Beasts were Awakened, and survival meant adaptation.
She had to make sure her team grew stronger, that they could stand on their own against the changing world.
Rosa, the most advanced of them, had already reached the Warrior Realm of the Awakening Stage, her techniques sharpened by the countless missions she'd survived. Henry and Trini weren't far behind, also standing at the Warrior Realm, their auras just beginning to mature with the weight of real battle. Callum remained at the Adept Realm, but Sam could sense the stirrings of a breakthrough within him—he was close.
And then there was Sam herself—a force unto her own. She had climbed to the pinnacle of the Master Realm, her essence blazing just beneath the threshold of transcendence. But pushing beyond into the next stage of cultivation was not just a matter of power—it required perfect harmony between body, mind, and soul. Even for someone as gifted as her, breaking through wasn't easy. Especially not in this era.
It had been fifty years since the world changed forever.
Five decades since the Merging—when the boundaries between the mundane and the mystical were torn apart, and the world was reborn in fire and chaos. Millions had perished in the cataclysm that followed. Cities crumbled, continents shifted, and the laws of reality themselves began to warp. At the heart of it all was the awakening of the World Core, a slumbering nexus of power buried deep within the planet's mantle. And with its awakening came the collapse of the Grey—the ethereal veil that had long separated the Mundane World from the Hidden World, a realm of ancient magic, forgotten science, and civilizations lost to myth.
The very air had changed. The concentration of World Energy—the fundamental essence that coursed through both life and matter—had undergone a seismic transformation. It was no longer the passive, ambient energy it once was. Now it pulsed with force, saturated with volatile potential. A qualitative and quantitative shift had occurred, birthing miracles and monsters alike. For some, it was a new dawn. For others, it was an apocalypse.
And the one responsible for it all... was Sam.
She was the Asha'Yee, the Keeper of the Sacred Flames. The one who had dared to ignite the core of the planet and awaken the sleeping heart of Terra. The spark she lit had spread across the globe like wildfire, burning away the old world and forging something terrifyingly new. Some called her savior. Others called her destroyer. Sam didn't care for either title.
How did she live with it? How did she bear the weight of so many lives lost?
If you asked her, she'd say she was doing better than she had five decades ago. The nightmares were still there—echoes of screams, cities swallowed in light, skies cracking open—but they didn't drive her out of bed anymore. The guilt no longer strangled her in the dark. She had made peace with her decision, or at least, the necessity of it. The truth was simple and cruel:
Either the planet awakened… or humanity perished.
That had been the choice. And she had chosen survival.
"So, did you find it?" Sam asked, her voice calm but edged with tension.
Emily nodded once, her expression unreadable. "Yeah."
"Good," Sam said, brushing the dust from her palms. "Let's get out of this dungeon."
Emily turned and led the way, her movements precise and silent. The group followed in her footsteps, weaving through the carnage-strewn corridor. Shredded bodies littered the stone floor, their twisted remains barely recognizable. Limbs torn apart, entrails strewn like threads of yarn—whatever had attacked them hadn't left much behind.
Sam spared the scene a glance. Then she looked away and focused on Emily's back.
I guess she didn't hold back, she thought, not without a hint of admiration. Emily never did.
They soon arrived at the end of the corridor—a towering obsidian door, its surface black as midnight and cold to the touch. Intricate runes were carved into it, spiraling patterns of symbols that seemed to shimmer with faint blue light. They were ancient and arcane, unfamiliar to most, yet eerily recognizable to Sam. She had seen them before.
Once, in the Awakening Temple, during the moment her Essence ignited for the first time.And again, in the Echo Field, a metaphysical rift where she had glimpsed a civilization lost to time—one that should never have existed.
"There are powerful enchantments surrounding the door," Emily murmured, her eyes glowing faintly as she activated her internal senses. "Tier Six. At least."
Sam's brow furrowed. Tier Six enchantments were no trivial matter. That level of magic meant the spells weren't merely mechanical—they carried Will. Some ancient consciousness had embedded its intent within the weaves of energy. Sentient. Defensive. Dangerous.
"Well," Sam said with a soft exhale, "I guess they didn't want anyone getting through."
Emily stepped back, giving Sam space.
And together, they prepared to open the door. Sam closed her eyes, slowing her breath as she expanded her internal senses outward like a ripple in still water. Her intent—focused, deliberate, stretched forward and touched the surface of the great obsidian door before her. A heartbeat passed, then another.
Suddenly, a soft clicking sound echoed through the chamber.
The air shimmered faintly as the intricate enchantments carved into the door began to unravel. Runes faded into nothingness, like ink dissolving in water. A soft pulse of energy washed over them, dissipating into silence.
Sam grinned.
She hadn't just forced the enchantments open—she had been recognized. The Will embedded within the spellwork had responded to her essence, her intent, and her title. The spell, she realized, had likely been cast long ago… by her predecessor. Someone who had once held the same mantle she bore now: Asha'Yee—Keeper of the Sacred Flames.
"How did you undo the enchantments?" Emily asked, blinking in surprise. Her hand had already been glowing, ready to unleash her Ability Factor and forcibly break the seal. She looked visibly relieved that it hadn't come to that.
Sam gave her a half-shrug, still smiling. "Perk of being the Asha'Yee."
Emily rolled her eyes with mock annoyance, though the corners of her lips twitched ever so slightly—her version of a smirk. Sam chuckled. She'd grown used to Emily's subtle shifts in expression over the years, each one carrying more meaning than a thousand words. The stoic, emotionally distant woman from decades ago had mellowed—not by much, but just enough for Sam to notice. The old Emily would have accepted her explanation with an unreadable face, no questions asked, no reaction given. Now, though, she was different. Still composed, still razor-sharp, but more human. Even Trini's constant remarks about Pleiadians never seemed to get under her skin anymore.
With a deep, grinding groan, the obsidian door swung open. A burst of wind howled through the passage, thick with a sharp tang of raw World Energy. The air crackled, charged like the sky before a lightning strike. Sam felt the energy wrap around her skin, stronger than anything they'd encountered since entering this strange structure.
And then they stepped inside. The chamber beyond was vast—cathedral-like in scale, with high arched ceilings and gleaming stone walls that seemed to hum with ancient power. What greeted them inside was nothing short of breathtaking.
Treasure.
Piles upon piles of it. Gold bars stacked like bricks. Jewels of every kind—rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds—glinting under the pale ambient light. Chains, amulets, rings, and crowns, many of them pulsing faintly with stored World Energy. Some glowed like stars, others buzzed with latent enchantments. Enchanted weapons lay strewn among the wealth—blades with runes carved into their spines, gauntlets forged of meteor steel, staffs that vibrated with stored mana.
It looked like a dragon's hoard from myth.
And as expected, Henry did what Henry always did—he leapt into the nearest pile of treasure with a triumphant yell, gold coins and gemstone-studded relics flying around him like confetti.
Callum wasn't far behind, gripping his warhammer as he dove in with a wide grin. The clang of his armor hitting metal echoed through the chamber.
Rosa sighed, arms crossed, shaking her head. "Idiots," she muttered under her breath, though there was no malice in it—just the weariness of a long-suffering older sister.
Sam, meanwhile, walked slowly through the glittering chaos. Her eyes scanned the treasures not for their monetary value, but for something else—patterns, hidden meanings, echoes of power. She passed enchanted blades that still whispered the names of their slain foes, talismans humming with bound spirits, and orbs carved from starlight crystal.
She couldn't help but wonder: Who placed these here? Who sealed this vault? And why now?
The timing was suspicious. It had been over a decade since the Merging—the fusion of the Hidden World with the Mundane. The world was still reeling from the devastation. Entire nations were rebuilding. And humanity, now forced to live alongside mystics, mages, and creatures from myth, was still adjusting to its new reality.
And then, without warning, they appeared.
Strange structures—massive towers of unknown origin—had erupted from the earth like the bones of giants rising from ancient graves. No seismic activity had preceded their emergence. No magical trace could predict them. They simply… appeared.
And with them came the Beasts.
Mystical Beasts, born of awakened World Energy—predatory, intelligent, and far more dangerous than anything native to the planet. Their bodies were refined beyond even most Ascendants, their power rivaling that of old-world legends.
Golden Dawn, the organization backing Sam, had been quick to respond. Their elite Guardians were deployed to combat the threat and protect what remained of civilization. But the beasts weren't the only mystery.
The towers—quickly dubbed Dungeons—were more than mere shelters or lairs. They were labyrinths, constructed with deliberate intelligence. Inside them were riddles, relics… and power.
Sam had been among the first to enter the Dungeons. What they found defied all known cosmology. According to Emily's input, these towers didn't exist anywhere else in the known universe. No other planet, no other star system had registered anything like them. That meant only one thing.
This Dungeon… and the others like it… were unique. A wonder unlike any other. Or perhaps, a sign. Sam wanted to believe it wasn't an omen—that this place, this Dungeon, wasn't some cryptic harbinger of doom. But the constant emergence of Mystic Beasts, each more dangerous and evolved than the last, made it difficult to ignore the gnawing unease in her chest. There was something wrong here, something ancient and watchful. Every step she took in this place deepened that feeling.
Her boots echoed against the polished obsidian floor as she approached the center of the vast chamber. There, atop a raised stone platform, stood a podium carved from deep violet marble, veined with silver lines that pulsed with faint energy. Embedded within its surface was a shallow basin, the stone smooth as glass. Floating just inches above the basin was a spherical object—roughly the size of a clenched fist—suspended in the air by invisible forces.
The sphere was matte black, yet speckled with pinprick holes from which soft white light trickled out like mist. It spun slowly, silently, as if alive. Each hole seemed like an eye—watching, waiting.
Rosa and Emily stood beside her, both drawn to the object's subtle pull.
"Do you think this is it?" Emily asked quietly, her gaze fixed on the sphere. "What you've been searching for?"
Sam didn't answer right away. Her brows furrowed in thought as she examined the strange artifact. "Who knows," she murmured at last. "Honestly, I still don't know what my dreams are trying to tell me."
The dreams had begun weeks ago—strange, fragmented visions that felt too vivid to be dismissed as subconscious noise. Whispered voices in unknown languages. A city of impossible architecture. And always… the image of a sealed vault, glowing with the same pale light now spilling from the orb before her.
Something—or someone—was trying to reach her through those dreams. But for what purpose, she had no idea.
Sam extended her hand toward the object. Her internal senses reached out first, probing its surface and deeper layers, hoping to decipher what lay within. But the orb was a void—blank, impenetrable. No Essence signature. No magic trace. As though it existed outside the rules of the world.
Curiosity and instinct compelled her forward.
The moment her fingers brushed against its smooth surface, a crackling jolt surged through the air. A pulse of static exploded outward in every direction. The chamber groaned.
Then the floor began to tremble.
Fissures spiderwebbed out from the base of the podium, spreading like cracks in ice. From within those cracks, a thick black mist began to pour out—slow at first, then in a relentless tide. The mist reeked of decay and malice, clinging to their skin like oil. It coiled upward into the air, writhing like a living thing. And then—crack!
A bolt of black lightning tore through the mist, illuminating the room in a pulse of darkness.
The mist coalesced, swirling faster and faster until it took shape: a towering, wraith-like figure encased in ebony armor, etched with blood-red runes. Its face was hidden behind a helm shaped like a screaming skull. In one hand, it held a jagged longsword crackling with shadowflame; in the other, a broad shield shaped like a demonic face, its eyes glowing faintly with sickly green light.
It descended silently, landing with unnatural grace on the stone floor, the air around it warping with pressure. It rose from its bow with slow, deliberate movement—then opened its mouth in a voiceless howl.
The scream wasn't sound—it was sensation, a psychic shriek that burrowed into their minds. Sam flinched as the howl clawed through her bones, freezing her blood for a moment.
Emily's expression tightened. Her hand instinctively gripped the hilt of her blade, her voice low and sharp.
"It's a damn Greater Demon," she hissed.