The Regressed Heir of Ravencrest

Chapter 57: A Partially Awakened Dungeon

The cavern continued to tremble.

Fragments of stone rained from the ceiling as deep, thunderous rumbles echoed through the mountain. The crimson ritual circle carved across the cavern floor flickered violently before cracks spread across its surface like shattered glass. Veins of raw mana erupted from beneath the stone, swallowing the fading crimson glow in an instant.

Rune immediately dropped low at Ethan’s side, ears pinned flat against his skull as a low, continuous growl vibrated deep within his chest. His blue eyes locked onto the altar where the blackened skull now lay shattered into countless fragments.

"This..."

The sensation was unmistakable.

"The dormant dungeon is awakening."

His grip tightened around the Eternal Sovereign Blade.

In his previous life he had witnessed this scene more times than he cared to remember. Villages and towns gone before the nearest city even received the report.

Near the passage leading outward, the last group of freed villagers froze in sheer terror. The elderly man stumbled back, his knuckles white as he looked around at the shuddering walls.

"Move!" Ethan’s voice cut through the noise.

"S-Sir! The cave — the whole mountain is collapsing!"

The tremors intensified.

A deafening crack echoed throughout the cavern as several massive boulders collapsed directly across the cave entrance, sealing the only exit beneath tons of stone.

Panic spread instantly among the villagers.

"We’re trapped!"

"The entrance collapsed!"

"What do we do?!"

Without wasting another second, Ethan stepped forward.

The Eternal Sovereign Blade released a low hum as aura condensed along its edge.

Northern Heaven War Art—

First Form.

Mountain Cleaving Strike.

The sword descended.

BOOM!!

The massive boulders exploded apart beneath the overwhelming force of the strike. Stone fragments blasted outward while a cloud of dust filled the tunnel. When the dust settled, a clear path stretched toward the outside once more.

"Out! All of you!" Ethan ordered.

The villagers poured through the newly cleared opening, weeping in relief as they reached the cool night air outside.

The elderly man paused at the threshold. His hand shot out and gripped Ethan’s wrist — just for a moment — before Ethan pulled free without looking back.

"The path out is still open, but it won’t stay that way. Take everyone and run down the eastern slope. Do not look back. Go!" he said, already turning back toward the cavern.

The chief swallowed his words, gave a heavy nod, and ushered the remaining villagers down the wooded trail into the darkness.

Only Ethan and Rune remained inside the cavern.

Rune glanced toward him.

Ethan turned back toward the quivering throat of the cavern.

"Let’s see what we woke..." he muttered softly.

He returned to the central chamber, glancing at the corpses of the cultists lying on the forbidden magic circles, and immediately understood the cause. Rune fell into step beside him, his shadow swallowed by the stone. Ethan brought the Eternal Sovereign Blade up, centering his balance.

He expected the first wave of monsters to pour through the newly formed dungeon entrance, just as every fully awakened dungeon had done in his previous life.

Five seconds passed.

Ten seconds.

The violent shaking slowly began to subside, settling into a heavy, unnatural hum that made the air itself feel cold. The dust settled, but no monsters emerged from the dark crevices.

Ethan narrowed his eyes, his mind rapidly sifting through memory.

The ritual had completed...

Then why isn’t the monster tide coming?

No...

The formation had accepted the cultists deaths as its final sacrifice. But it wasn’t enough. Vael had intended to sacrifice an entire village. The deaths of a handful of cultists fell far short of what the ritual required.

The Dungeon Core had awakened... but it lacked the energy required for a complete manifestation.

It wasn’t an outbreak...

Before Ethan could move toward the exit, the space directly above the pedestal distorted.

The air bent like light passing through warped glass. A swirling, jet-black vortex expanded from a tiny speck into an opening several yards wide, radiating an overwhelming spatial pull that seemed to seize everything touched by mana itself.

Rune let out a sharp growl, planting his claws into the stone floor, but the spatial suction was absolute.

The torchlight, the dust, and the very atmosphere of the cavern were pulled into the dark abyss.

Ethan didn’t resist. He recognized the threshold of a spatial gate. He gripped his sword tightly, locked his gaze onto Rune, and allowed the pulling force to wrap around them.

"Stay close, Rune!"

In the next instant, space folded in on itself, wiping the ruined cavern from sight and plunging them both into the lightless void of spatial transit.

Ethan’s boots landed firmly upon solid ground as he instinctively lowered his center of gravity, the Eternal Sovereign Blade already raised before him. Beside him, Rune landed and dropped into a guarded stance, ears twitching at every distant sound, still growling low.

For several long seconds, Ethan remained motionless. His gaze swept across the surrounding mountains, the ancient forest, the crystal formations, and the narrow valleys between them.

A forest-type dungeon...

Mountains in every direction. Ancient trees, three times the height of anything in the Wildlands, vanished into mist above him.

The air was frigid. Every breath pulled mana in whether he wanted it or not.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. The sheer weight of ambient mana pressing against his skin, combined with the vast scale of the folded landscape, gave him a clear benchmark.

Around C-rank, he estimated. Yet a subtle friction lingered in the air — a faint unevenness in how the ambient energy settled across the valley. He kept the observation in mind without letting down his guard.

Before Ethan took another step, a sharp golden light flickered in his vision. Translucent text formed in the air before him.

[Emergency Mission Generated]

Location: Unnamed Forest — Estimated Rank: C-Rank Natural Dungeon

Objective: Clear the Dungeon

Neutralize the Dungeon Core / Dominant Entity.

Time Limit: None — Spatial exit locked until core stabilization.

Reward: 10,000 War Merit.

[NOTICE: Special Mission — Monster Extermination (Continuous) is in progress.]

Ethan’s gaze swept over the screen briefly before he dismissed it with a flicker of intent.

Instead of moving blindly through the dense woods, Ethan began investigating like a seasoned scout.

He moved across the damp earth, checking the age of the giant trees, the structure of the protruding crystal formations, and the subtle vibrations in the ground. He dropped to one knee to examine a cluster of broken branches and deep, clawed footprints embedded in the moss, measuring the depth and stride length.

The ambient energy is completely unstable...

Ethan pieced the clues together. The tree growth was irregular, the monster tracks were frantic rather than territorial, and the ambient mana pulsed in uneven surges.

A dungeon caught mid-formation. The core had crossed the threshold but the rest hadn’t caught up yet — no established territories, no stable mana flow. Everything still deciding what it was.

Moving through the underbrush, Ethan clocked the terrain.

Near the base of a glowing crystal pillar grew a cluster of Silver-Veined Frost Herbs — a rare medicinal plant used in high-grade recovery elixirs. Further along the cliff face, dark veins of Iceheart Ore glittered within the raw stone, completely unmined and pure.

Ethan didn’t stop to gather them. He simply memorized the locations. Once the Core Boss was eliminated and the dimension stabilized, House Ravencrest could send in harvest teams to secure the territory.

They continued deeper into the ancient woods until, after ten minutes of silent movement, Ethan came to a sudden halt.

The density of the ambient mana hadn’t increased, yet its direction began shifting in uneven waves, flowing through the trees before reversing moments later — as though something beneath the stone was still deciding what it wanted to be.

Beside him, Rune’s head snapped left and right, tail dropping low.

The natural sounds of the forest vanished. The rustling canopy, the distant chirping of cave fauna, the soft wind — everything went completely silent.

Ethan closed his eyes, extending his sensory perception outward to read the surrounding energy.

It isn’t a trap... and it isn’t reacting to our presence.

He opened his eyes.

The unstable mana currents weren’t responding to intruders — they were reorganizing themselves. What he was sensing wasn’t an ambush. It was a migration.

Rather than staying in the open forest path where a stampede could surround them, Ethan moved.

His gaze swept across the surrounding terrain before settling upon a narrow pass carved between two towering crystal cliffs. The elevated ground overlooked the valley below, while the stone walls on either side reduced the approach to only a handful of attackers at a time.

"Rune, move!"

Ethan bolted toward the pass using Northern Gale Steps, his feet barely brushing the grass. Rune was already moving.

The moment they reached the high ground of the narrow pass, the earth beneath them began to tremble.

A single mana signature entered Ethan’s perception, followed almost immediately by another. Within moments they multiplied into dozens, then hundreds, until the entire forest ahead seemed alive with approaching presences. The ground trembled beneath countless pounding footsteps as a tide of monsters burst through the mist, surging toward the narrow pass.

Ethan planted his stance at the mouth of the pass and raised the Eternal Sovereign Blade, the blade darkening.

The first creatures burst through the mist into sight.