BOOOM!
A black flash slams into the ground, tearing through the heavy air. Dust erupts outward in violent waves, cloaking the surroundings in a thick, roiling haze. The light in the sky above flickers strangely, dimming with an uneven pulse like a dying lightbulb struggling against inevitable darkness. Shadows on the ground twist unnaturally—one belonging to a lone, withered tree jerks suddenly, shifting sides as if the world itself has turned upside down.
The dust begins to clear, revealing the plateau atop Mount Rui. Ancient stones, marked with long-forgotten hieroglyphs, jut from the ground in cracked, solemn rows. Their carvings shimmer faintly in the dim, unstable light, casting long, quivering silhouettes that dance as if alive.
From within the churning dust, a hand slowly extends outward—a small, gloved hand, wrapped delicately in black silk. It emerges from within the folds of a heavy, dark cloak that blends seamlessly with the mist still swirling madly across the stone floor.
Soft whispers, almost imperceptible at first, slither through the thickening air. The voices weave in broken syllables, building, layering over one another:
"Ts'hal...vehrim...sulo-ka...Drah'nek...si'lah...ku'shan...vek-ta'rah..."
The whispers grow louder, faster, gaining a manic cadence. Stones etched with hieroglyphs begin to glow, the markings burning with an urgent, blood-red light. Thin, crackling veins of crimson energy zap violently through the air, scorching the stone and flashing across the ground with wild, sporadic snaps.
The hand, still extended upward, moves with a slow, commanding grace. As it rises, a dense fog—darker than night—coils tighter. It flows with mounting force toward the ancient writings, threads of pitch-black mist streaming into the illuminated glyphs.
The stones pulse desperately, the red glow intensifying to a feverish brightness, before the coursing shadows begin to overwhelm them. The blood-red inscriptions flicker, choke, and darken—swallowed inch by inch by the devouring mist.
With a final surge, the energy crackling through the air snuffs out all at once. The stones fall black and dead. The whispers vanish mid-syllable. The plateau plunges into absolute, oppressive silence.
Only the dust remains, swirling lazily around the figure cloaked in darkness, hand still raised high against the dimming world.
The figure steps forward, movement smooth and effortless. The surroundings slowly come into view—the shattered stone underfoot, the broken lines of the plateau, and at the very heart of it all, the dungeon core. It rests silently atop a cracked pedestal, a sphere of green-black stone, its surface unnaturally smooth and polished, untouched by the violence unfolding around it.
The figure glides closer. With each step, the ground splits. Thin, dead-black needles spear up from the earth—at first tiny, but growing longer and sharper, clawing higher toward the churning sky. The needles thicken, shift, revealing themselves as twisted, pointed fingers, gnarled and jointed wrong, the skin stretched too tight, glistening with an unnatural dark sheen.
Dozens more erupt from the ground. Blackened hands, sharp-knuckled and clawed, grasp at the empty air, and from beneath the earth, heads follow. Their faces are long and malformed, too many teeth crammed into twisted mouths, empty sockets staring blankly, skin stretched thin as paper over jagged bone. Hollow rasping noises leak from their throats, low and trembling.
The figure does not react.
The shadows underfoot shift with sudden, violent force. In a single moment—no warning, no sound—long, thin misty-black swords impale each grotesque head. The creatures freeze mid-crawl, their bodies going slack before they even realize.
The swords have simply appeared, stabbing cleanly through skulls and maws, still vibrating from the sheer speed and force. One blink, and the abominations are gone, pinned lifelessly to the ground, their reaching hands limp.
The figure continues forward, unhurried.
The gloved hand reaches toward the core.
Fingers curl against the flawless surface. Cracks blossom instantly where the hand touches—thin, black fissures that spiderweb across the core with unnatural speed. A low, deep rumble shakes the plateau.
The mountain groans beneath their feet, trembling with increasing violence. The cracks in the core pulse outward, sending deep, resonating waves of energy through the dungeon's twisted spaces.
Tears in reality start to rip open across the dungeon floors—jagged, gaping maws splitting walls, skies, and landscapes apart. Floors above and below fracture, tilting and collapsing into spiraling voids.
Outside, in the real world, Mount Rui screams in protest. A massive crack splits the summit, racing down its slope like a living thing, carving a jagged ravine through the dense Black Forest below, stretching for miles, uprooting trees like matchsticks.
Closer to the core, the pulses intensify. Each beat sends violent jolts of energy outward, ripping ancient stones from their foundations, tossing massive chunks of earth skyward. Yet through it all, the cloaked figure remains untouched, unmoving, framed in the center of the devastation.
The core grows darker. Its internal glow snuffs out, the cracks bleeding pure shadow until, with a final, violent pulse, it explodes outward in a blast of black energy, leaving a gaping hole where the heart of the dungeon once rested.
Dust and debris whip outward. Chunks of shattered stone rain down. Amid the chaos, the figure turns soundlessly, the edges of the cloak dissolving into mist. Without a sound, the figure phases into the swirling black fog and vanishes
—
"AHH! FUCK!" Kael yells out, gripping his head as a searing pain scrambles through his mind. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, this fucking hurts!' he screams internally, his knees buckling as the agony pulses harder with every second.
[WARNING!] [WARNING!]
[A high amount of mental influence is straining your mind. If this continues, your mind will break under the pressure.]
[Quest complete!]
[You have talked to Rui and found out the truth regarding the Phantom Dungeon.]
[WARNING!] [WARNING!]
[Mental corruption has reached 30%.]
[A change has been made.]
[Due to continuous strain, I have determined you lack coherent thought. To prevent further damage, your reward will be given immediately.]
[You will now enter the Record of Time.]
"M-mother!" Leena grunts through several coughs, her body trembling as she pulls her head out of the fractured ground. "I'm tired... please," she mumbles, her voice barely more than a whisper as she collapses to her knees, gasping through the waves of pain. "Please kill me... I want to be free of this torment..." Tears streak down her bloodied cheeks as another sharp jolt sends her body convulsing.
The witch turns slightly, her golden pupils swirling within blood-red irises, the light of her gaze cold and unfeeling. Her cloak clings tightly to her form, the living cloth endlessly shifting and writhing around her as if alive, flowing with a will of its own.
She tilts her head, examining Kael with detached curiosity. 'Strange resistance,' she muses silently.
Without warmth, her gaze falls upon Leena once more. Her face remains untouched by compassion.
"You stupid, stupid girl. You are too weak to escape fate," she says, voice steady and indifferent.
With a flick of her finger, a pulse of invisible force hurls Leena across the field. She smashes into the ground, skipping like a ragdoll across the broken earth before slamming into the base of a twisted, half-dead tree, leaving a deep trail in her wake.
TssssKssksss
BOOOM!
Sparks erupt violently as a shockwave bursts outward, the raw force shattering the already-broken dungeon floor, revealing glimpses of the cold, dark night above. Jagged fractures ripple through the stone like cracks in glass. A black blade slides off the witch's flowing cloak, screeching against the ground and leaving a trail of furious sparks.
The cloaked figure before her doesn't flinch. Without a word, the figure releases the blade, allowing it to dissolve instantly into black steam, vanishing as if it never existed. A second later, the figure's gloved palm opens slightly.
Without hesitation, a massive black laser erupts from the hand, the beam slicing through the thick air, screaming toward the witch with lethal speed.
The witch's mouth parts in a quiet whisper. As the dark beam slams into her, the entire world seems to crack for an instant—
But in the next heartbeat, a blast of cursed red energy explodes from her palm, a jagged bolt of lightning tearing through the beam as if it were paper. The cursed strike splits the air with a soundless shriek, piercing the cloaked figure cleanly.
Yet the body offers no resistance. The instant the red energy strikes, the figure dissolves into a swirling mist, vanishing as if consumed by the darkness itself.
"You owe me an explanation," the witch murmurs, tilting her head to the black sky, her voice calm, low, and edged with cold fury.