Chapter 8: Chapter 8 — Dark Magic
Thud... thud... creak...
As we descended the worn stone steps toward the second floor of the Goldfish Dungeon, the atmosphere grew dense, saturated with a piercing stench of decay.
We immediately ran into fierce resistance: more hordes of undead, but this time they weren’t simple living skeletons—they were corpulent zombies with withered, putrid skin, disturbingly similar to the rotten state we found Domack in before purifying him.
Fortunately, having a heavy vanguard made an abysmal difference. Thanks to the coordinated brute strength of my two tanks, we managed to advance at a relentless pace.
Although the number of those bastards seemed almost infinite in the narrow corridors, Domack and Dorko plowed forward like two bulldozers, crushing skulls and tearing apart dead limbs without showing the slightest effort.
CRUNCH! SMASH! Splat!
As we advanced covering their flanks alongside Samira, I took advantage of a brief breather to clear up a lore question about this place that had been spinning around in my head. I turned toward the gray colossus.
"Hey, Domack!" I called out amidst the echo of combat.
"Yes, my master?" the Ash Orc replied, popping a zombie’s head with his iron club before giving me his full attention.
Splat!
"When you were a zombie... well, before I absorbed your soul, do you remember if you were revived directly by someone else’s spell, or did you just wake up already turned into an undead?"
Domack fell silent for a second, processing his sealed memories while his heavy jaw articulated the words with martial solemnity.
"I only remember falling with honor in battle after facing a great orc regent... and then, opening my eyes again in the gloom of these catacombs. I saw no one, master. However, there was a constant whispering voice nailed into my head; an absolute order repeating that I was to mercilessly eliminate any intruder who set foot on this ground."
"Hm, I see. Alright, thanks for the intel, Domack," I replied, nodding to myself.
"At first I thought the final boss of this dungeon was raising his troops directly through mass necromancy," I reflected, analyzing his words. "But apparently, whatever is controlling the undead is operating indirectly, keeping itself well hidden deep down to avoid detection."
...
Our theory didn’t take long to prove itself. After battling for several minutes and carving our way through an antechamber, we located and dispatched a lower-ranking undead necromancer who was channeling energy toward the hordes in the hallway.
"Master, come see this!" Samira exclaimed, calling me over as she inspected the putrid corpse of the hooded necromancer that had just collapsed.
Thud...
I approached her immediately.
"Did you find something interesting?"
"Yes, look at the core in its chest."
Samira pointed to a kind of crystalline sphere embedded in the monster’s ribs, completely impregnated with a dense, viscous jet-black energy. For some mystical reason, an incredibly foul smell, similar to rotten eggs combined with sulfur, emanated from the crystal the moment we got close.
Hissss...
I felt a violent retch that almost made me vomit my gacha lunch, but I covered my mouth and held it in with pride.
"Wait... this isn’t ordinary ether..." I murmured, narrowing my eyes.
"Black magic!" we said in unison.
A while ago, when we were on the first floor and I activated the spiritual X-ray vision during the battle, I had noticed that Domack’s green aura flow when he was a zombie looked strange and distorted. At that moment I assumed it was simple corruption from the physical state of the corpses and didn’t give it much importance; but now, after examining this necromancer’s corrupted core, I detected with my magical sensitivity the very same dark energy signature that Domack had been artificially imbued with.
"I see, the puzzle is complete. The bastard behind this dungeon split fragments of his own black magic reserve to create and control these intermediate necromancers, using them as signal repeaters to move thousands of soulless puppets. It’s a brilliant strategy so intruders can never deduce his real location," I reasoned, feeling a rush of gacha adrenaline in my chest. "But the wretched fool made a gravely serious miscalculation in his security system, because..."
A wide grin spread across my face. Seeing me, Samira also smiled with absolute elemental mischief, tuning in immediately with my thoughts.
"Because we can trace the reverse flow of that dark energy, straight to its origin, since the idiot left his magical trail completely exposed and didn’t bother to conceal it properly," Samira added, completing my sentence in a flirtatious voice.
Without a doubt, I hadn’t expected to find a main antagonist who made such a stupid oversight on the early floors. "But oh well," I thought smugly, "surely it’s the classic, cliché millennial Lich with delusions of grandeur, holed up in a cave plotting generic revenge against humanity under the motto of ’I am a superior race to human cattle’." Whoever it was, he was going to eat his words.
...
I extended my hand, activated spiritual vision again, and fixed my gaze on the thread of dark energy flickering in the air like a damaged fluorescent light.
Bzzzt... flicker...
We followed the reverse trail of the black magic through a series of hidden passageways until, finally, the walls opened up, revealing a colossal vaulted chamber.
The place was a genuine mass grave: the floor was completely covered by thousands of bones scattered chaotically everywhere. Some fragments clearly belonged to human skeletons, but others were part of gigantic ossatures and anatomical aberrations so twisted they were impossible to describe by the logic of an Earthling.
Crunch... crackle... under our boots.
In the exact center of the grim chamber, elevated on a stone dais, rose an imposing throne carved from black obsidian. Seated upon it, an individual covered by a dark robe remained relaxed, elegantly holding a crystal goblet filled with a viscous, purplish liquid pretending to be some kind of fine wine.
"Holy shit," it seemed my anime and light novel trope-divination skills had hit with absolute perfection. Or, at least, that’s what my stupid overconfidence made me believe at that instant.
"Hmm... you arrived at my chambers far faster than my calculations estimated," the hooded figure pronounced from the depths of the throne, his voice resonating with a dry echo devoid of all emotion as he took a slow sip from his goblet.
Sip...
"So you’re the supposed lord of this dump?" I asked, stepping forward as Domack and Dorko positioned themselves at my sides in low guard. "Are you the imbecile Lich who’s been sending waves of cheap hordes while hiding at the bottom of the dungeon like a fucking coward?"
Upon hearing my direct insults, the hooded figure stopped his goblet’s movement halfway. Slowly, he raised the face hidden beneath the fabric, revealing two intense, piercing lights of a scarlet red color that flashed with pure malice from the shadows of his hood.
"You dare insult me in my own domain, insignificant mortal?" he hissed with a calmness that froze my blood. "Did your limited brain truly believe that an entity such as myself would leave a trail of dark magic erroneously?"
SNAP!
The figure snapped the fingers of his free hand with a dry sound.
Crackle... rumble...
Instantly, the cracked ground groaned and a thick, heavy, freezing fog of ash-gray color sprouted from the grooves, coiling around our feet and expanding upward at an alarming speed, blocking all visibility.
Whoooosh...
From atop the dais, the bastard’s silhouette expanded its scarlet eyes, unleashing a hoarse laugh steeped in pure martial superiority.
"Heh heh heh... HAHAHAHA!"
"Fuck" I exclaimed, feeling the ether flow in my body suddenly slow down under the pressure of the mist.
There had been no miscalculation at all. We had fallen, round and defenseless, into his damn trap...
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