Over a month had passed, though it was difficult to tell under the sunless, moonless sky of this domain. Yet, the proof was undeniable—thirteen times the two-day hourglass had been flipped, marking each grueling cycle. For over a month, Licht and his six fellow S-rank adventurers had endured this place, braving the unrelenting expanse of a mountain chain that seemed endless, weathering the oppressive cold capable of freezing even the strongest warriors in mere seconds, and facing down aberrations—monstrosities so fierce that in the land of men, they would have required entire squads of S-ranked adventurers just to leave a scratch.
Day after day, the march felt endless, the hope of an exit growing dimmer with each sunrise that never came. And then, at last, it ended. Cresting yet another gargantuan peak, the seven of them stood together, breath frozen in the air, gazing down at the place they had sought.
They had fought through blizzards sharp enough to carve flesh, scaled cliffs where the ice screamed under their axes, and battled creatures with no right to exist in this world. Yet, in this moment, those memories felt distant—as if they belonged to another life. Before them sprawled a basin unlike any other. It was not a natural valley, but a wound in the earth, so vast it devoured the horizon. Its edges were jagged, as though the mountains themselves had clawed at some falling behemoth, leaving this colossal scar behind.
The ground sloped down into that void, slick with frost and veins of black stone gleaming like polished obsidian beneath the half-light sky. Mist boiled up from the basin’s heart—thick, unnatural mist that churned with no wind to move it, forming pale, writhing walls that obscured whatever lay below. No bottom could be seen, only the mist and silence, heavy with the weight of something ancient and watching.
Even at the edge, Licht could feel it—and from the wary glances his fellow adventurers cast, they could feel it too. It was a faint, relentless pull, a whisper, tugging at their boots, at the edges of their armor, even at the blood in their veins. It wasn’t enough to drag them down, but it made their bones ache with the suggestion of inevitability.
“This is it, right? This is the place,” asked a voice muffled beneath a cumbersome, ridiculously heavy-looking suit of filigree-patterned golden armor.
“Do you even need to ask?” came the reply. “What else could ooze an aura like this if not the guardian of this domain?”
“Ugh… just thinking about it gives me chills.”
“Yeah—and careful, Dommy. Don’t stand so close to the edge. With how heavy you are, you might tumble right down.”
Taking the half-teasing, half-serious warning to heart, Dommy took several steps back, prompting a chuckle from the woman who had spoken.
“Hey… is it just me, or is something pulling at us?” the woman asked, her voice almost casual—but Licht caught the tension underneath.
Laila, tall and broad-shouldered, her dark hair whipping around her face, clutched her battle staff so tightly her knuckles were pale. She was no ordinary adventurer—she was an SSS-ranked battle monger, a legend in her own right. And yet, her voice held something Licht had never heard from her before. A tremor.
Licht, leader of the Astral Luminary party and this entire expedition, stood silently at the edge, saying nothing. There was no need. They had clawed their way to this point for weeks. If even Laila felt fear, it only confirmed how dire this was. In fact, Licht would have been more worried if none of them had felt it.
They stood at the entrance to the sanctum of the Voidborne Catacomb—the oldest and most feared dungeon ever discovered. An SSS-class Dungeon, ancient beyond reckoning.
“I expected something vile and threatening,” sighed a voice to Licht’s left, “but this… this is something else.”
Licht glanced to the side, where an elderly man in white priestly robes stood. A silver scepter trembled slightly in his grip, his hands clutching it almost as tightly as Laila clung to her staff. Despite the tremor, the old man’s weathered face held steady resolve.
Licht’s lips quirked into a teasing smile. “Afraid, old man?”
“Afraid?” the cleric snorted softly. “Of course I’m afraid. I’m not some reckless young pup anymore—not like some.”
His gaze flicked up and down Licht’s eternally youthful face and lithe form before adding, “At least… appearance-wise. My old heart’s not built for this anymore.”
This man was the only one among the seven who wasn’t part of the Astral Luminary, nor was he an SSS-rank adventurer. In truth, he wasn’t even an adventurer at all—he was a man of the Church, and had followed them here for reasons of his own.
“Are you thinking of turning back?” Licht asked, his voice calm.
At the question, all eyes turned to the old man, who stood silent for a beat before chuckling softly. He placed a reassuring hand on Licht’s shoulder, the gesture warm despite the cold.
“It’s too late for that,” the cleric said. “I missed my chance to turn back long ago. Looks like I’m following you lot into the deepest pit of hell after all.”
“I see,” Licht said with matching lightness. “That’s unfortunate.”
Then, turning to the rest of his comrades, he raised his voice slightly. “Anyone else? If anyone wants to walk away, now’s the time. Despite what the old man says, it’s not too late. None of you are bound to this place. You still have lives to live, and I won’t hold it against anyone who chooses safety over glory. After all…”
His gaze swept over them. “What lies ahead may cost you everything. But for those who choose to stay… we’ll carve our names into history as the ones who conquered the Voidborne Catacomb—the oldest dungeon in the world. The dungeon even the Adventurer Queen herself couldn’t claim.”
A moment of silence went by, broken only by, "Erm, Boss are you trying to convince us or dissuade us here?"
"I'm doing both. But I especially want to stress the point that you all can still walk away." At that moment, Licht looked at Dommy—the party's Ironwall, a knight who dedicated 87 levels to being an unbreakable shield, a sturdy wall standing between death and his allies. He then looked at Nero, the party's hybrid, both a knight and a sorcerer, the same as Licht, except Licht was more agility-focused as a knight while Nero was strength-focused. As a sorcerer, Nero had a different secondary subclass, focusing on different elements.
Then Licht looked at Nethis and Thomas, the party’s mage and support. At last, he looked at Laila, the party’s monk—a close-range fighter and battlefield controller, a Verdenkind who dual-classed Monk and Elementalist. He looked at them, both looking forward and dreading their ultimate decision.
The party looked at each other, then Laila broke the silence. "Even a coward like this old man is sticking with us. You can't expect someone like me to turn and walk away with my tail between my legs."
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"That was unnecessarily mean to me," the old Cleric pouted.
"I agree with Laila," added Nero. "I'll stay."
"Me too."
"Me too, Boss."
"Well, me too. I want to enter the legend... Though I suppose I already have. But still I want to enter it like the Adventurer Queen did."
"My tall and sturdy friend, if we pull this off, we will be better than her, for we'll achieve something that even she didn't—clearing the Voidborne Catacomb," said the old Cleric. "It'll even be a guaranteed promotion for me hehe."
"I suppose you're right."
At the sight, Licht was taken by both relief and grief, but letting only one of those emotions show, he declared genuinely, "I apologize for that, comrades. I just had to test your resolve before it was too late. I shouldn't have, and I apologize for that." He didn’t give his party—or even the old priest—a chance to respond before turning toward the descent. "Since you all want to do this with me, we’re going to do this." With eyes filled with anticipation and a hint of nostalgia—the last time he had challenged this dungeon with his former comrades, those who had founded the Astral Luminary party—he looked back at his friends, his new friends, and told them, "Remind me to host a year-long feast once we’re done with this."
"You gave your word."
"Count on us for that, Boss."
"Can I go too?"
"You're a priest, and you're old. Act like your title and age, old man."
"So mean..."
Licht chuckled at the sight, thinking to himself that this new party had nothing to envy about his former comrades. They were just as entertaining. As everyone announced themselves ready after a final check of their equipment—potions and artifacts included—they exchanged a nod, then simultaneously stepped over the edge, allowing themselves to slide down into the mist. The slick obsidian slope offered no handholds, no chance to slow their descent. The mist swallowed them almost instantly, and the world dissolved into a silver void. Sound vanished. Sight became meaningless. There was only the pull—stronger now, like the unseen hands of ancient titans, dragging them deeper into the earth’s broken heart.
Breathing was difficult. The air itself felt heavier, as though every inhalation cost them resources—and it did. From their stats, they saw their HP slightly decrease, but quickly recover for most of them. At their current level, they all had a measure of self-HP-regeneration.
The slope gave way to air. One by one, they tumbled into open space, falling through the mist—no longer sliding, but free-falling. It should have been terrifying, but they weren’t falling fast enough. The air resisted. Gravity itself was confused here, tilting and twisting until the line between down and up blurred entirely.
They landed with soft, weightless impacts, as though the ground itself had hesitated to accept them. They stood in a vast obsidian expanse.
They were quick to notice something. They were not alone. They saw the horns, the wings, the hulking frame—but ironically, it wasn’t the first thing to make them aware of its presence. It was their hearts.
Above, at the basin’s edge, it had manifested as a faint pull. Now, it was no longer subtle. The pull was no longer just making their hearts beat slower. It dragged the blood in their veins. Every breath felt like it was sinking into the stone beneath their feet.
What their eyes saw was even more threatening. They saw a gigantic creature whose bones look like they’d been carved from obsidian and necrotic crystal, his ribs caged around a core that pulsed with sickly violet light. The mist clung to his form, and where it touched, the world bent.
He did not roar. He did not rise. He simply existed, and that was enough. His mere presence twisted the air, the ground, the very fabric of the space they stood in.
"Boss…that’s the bastard, right?"
"Yes, that’s him. That’s Valthorok, the Abyssal Graviton—That’s the guardian of this dungeon—the bastard who took down my comrades. "
For a heartbeat, the massive frame lay still—wings half-folded, his colossal body partially sunken into the cracked ruin floor, as though the dragon had slumbered for centuries. But the moment the first boot scuffed against the stone, his eyes snapped open in eerie synchronization. Not gradually, not the lazy awakening of a creature disturbed from rest, but a total shift—like a god roused from slumber, fully aware in a breath.
Valthorok’s head lifted, the bones in his neck grinding with the weight of worlds. His awareness crashed against the party like an invisible wave, an ancient intelligence sweeping over them, recognizing them in an instant—not as equals, not as challengers, but as unwanted intruders. Flies crawling across the bones of a god.
And in that moment, as instinct kicked in—not to fight, but to understand—all seven of them reached into their packs in near-perfect unison, hands closing around small, gleaming objects. Appraisal stones, each of the highest grade, their crystalline facets thrumming with faint light as they were raised. No seasoned adventurer entered a fight without them—and none of them, not even the highest-ranked among them, had the natural gift of Appraisal, at least not to the sufficient level to properly appraise something like this.
The stones flickered, feeding information directly into their minds—lines of text burning into their thoughts with cold precision. Only a Level 9 Appraisal could draw this much detail.
They read.
And they quickly wished they hadn’t.
—
[Monster Interface]
Name: Valthorok, the Abyssal Graviton
Level: 111
Race: Undead Gravity Dragon
Title: Sovereign of the Fallen Skies, Harbinger of Calamity, Abyssal Tyrant, Devourer of Light - Gravity Incarnate, Guardian
[Status]
H.P: 420,445 / 420,445
M.P: 740,555 / 740,555
S.P: 368,827 / 368,827
Defense: 320,783
Offense: 460,250
[Skills]
Gravity Manipulation: Level 15
Necrotic Expanse: Level 14
Singularity Breath: Level 15
Voidborn Wings - Level 12
Planetary Rend: Level 13
Abyssal Roar: Level 15
Dimensional Tremor: Level 14
Soul Shackles: Level 12
Darklight Vision: Level 10
[Abilities]
- Graviton Core
- Eternal Weight
- Void Singularity
- Black Hole Dominion
- Anti-Magic Field (Gravity Distortion)
- Necrotic Gravity Pulse
- Corpse Reclamation
- Event Horizon
- Astral Rupture
—
Not a single one of them kept a straight face. Their grimaces ranged from faint twitches to full-body winces, the kind of involuntary reaction only someone staring at their own obituary could make.
The first to break the silence was Lailah, her voice dry and tight with forced humor.
"Boss, take no offense to this, but you and your old team sure were stupid going up against something like that."
The party’s leader—battle-worn, half-frozen, and standing at the forefront with a hand still clutching his own appraisal stone–-gave a low, rueful chuckle.
"You think so too..."
"Yeah," Lailah muttered, tucking the stone away with exaggerated care. "And we’re as bad. If not worse. Because here we are, about to do the same damn thing."
"Feeling regret already?" asked the party’s cleric, his composed tone masking the tremor in his hand as he slid his stone back into his satchel.
"To be honest with you? Yeah." She grinned, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. "But I gave my word. So let’s do this, ladies and gentlemen."
On these words, the battle to clear The Voidborne Catacomb—the oldest dungeon in the Fiendfell—began, a battle that would mark the end of one age and the dawn of another, ushering in the Era of Dungeon Crawling, where no dungeon, no matter how ancient or deadly, would ever again be deemed truly unconquerable.
