Chương 18: Tragedy in the Depths

Before we entered the opened wall door to the undercave, Gordin suddenly raised his hand and called for a halt.

"As the historian here, everything from this point onward is unclaimed and unknown terrain," he declared with solemn authority.

"Someone like me is perfect for the role of going first. No complaints, I will lead." With no objections, we ventured down into the depths with Gordin at the front, walking slowly and steadily. He explained that he moved with caution in case traps or ancient riddles still guarded the way after a thousand years. In truth, his real reason burned in his mind like a secret flame: None of these wiser ones can get close to my true goal and dare to steal it from me.

From everything I've gathered over the years, what I suspect is down here will change a person's might forever. As a meager man in strength and size, I will finally achieve my dream and never again be ridiculed by my peers or others. After trotting down the long stone steps for what felt like an eternity, checking every shadow for inconsistencies that might signal traps, we reached the entrance.

"Woahhh…" Rachina and Justine breathed in unison. The undercave was huge… so vast and spacious it felt like an underground cathedral carved by giants, already overgrown with strange vegetation that glowed faintly in the darkness. Olafigum knelt and pressed his hand to the ground.

"We are not alone. There are footprints around." Ursen and Theodoros nodded grimly, they felt the same oppressive presence. Mitsumare's hand trembled slightly as he murmured, "There is much bigger trouble here than expected. It hits my gut. We should be careful." We pressed on in awe.

"Cool, look at these huge trees, much wider than ours," Galer and Husher said, running their hands over the colossal trunks. They were covered in huge scratch marks and strangely wet for some unknown reason. Mariana whispered, "The room for traversal is too big… like, really." Gordin analyzed the space and declared, "It had to be Rock Golems." I turned to him, eyes wide with excitement.

"Rock Golems?! Really?!" As a former miner, I had always had encounters with my father and the Minotaurus, a species evolved from the minotaurs in the mountains, very high in the hierarchy of danger though nothing compared to the sleep-nesters, the mighty Emperors of the Sky Dragons. My father once said he had seen a Rock Golem. I had witnessed Father battle a Minotaurus, so a Rock Golem had to sit even higher on the food chain, as Father claimed it to be very strong.

Gordin, seeing the gleaming excitement in my eyes, raised his voice and explained: "Rock Golems are an amalgamation of vegetation and stone. They grow from rocks that fall into water and infuse with it, eating and growing until they leave the water as a nest and wander the mountains or grottos. They are powerful yet somewhat slow in the head. A Minotaurus is dangerous for its adaptation in battle, while a Rock Golem is just a heap of relentless attack without hesitation.

Their danger lies in the fact that they can't be fooled and they can't think well." I hoped the ones we encountered were not many in numbers, since luckily they couldn't procreate. Only the rocks from above could create new ones, as i understood it. Gordin looked upward into the vast darkness, wondering aloud, "How is the undercave this huge? It's like the size of the castle itself. Something must be wrong in the design." In his head he thought, If it was that big, there was no reason to keep it hidden.

Something in those 1, 000 years must have happened and shifted the inner cave size. Gordin motioned for us to follow him along the free passage. After walking further along the wall, that alone took us 28 minutes, he found the water source on a side line which lay very low. There, in a low hidden view, he discovered a broken altar. He assumed it was what he had searched for his entire life... his ticket to mastery of strength. Before he could rush over, a horde of Rock Golems burst from all angles in angry silence.

We have fought again. Galer recommended I not join this one as well.

"They are too sturdy for someone at your Animo level." I protested strongly.

"I also want to fight!" Galer and Husher facepalmed. Husher said he would watch over me. Everyone attacked these massive 5-meter rock husks that could rip rocks from their own bodies for mid-range attacks and then deliver punch attacks with the force to shatter castle walls with a single building punch. One of them received a direct hit, Theodoros, the tankiest of all of us and a pure physical fighter... and even he was sent flying.

I attacked one anyway, determined to protest Galer's suggestion and to show them all who still viewed me as inadequate and weak. It was futile. Husher had to use Bubble Way to pull both me and himself away from a crushing punch. Afterward, I accepted the state of it as i saw the big crater it just created with one punch. Husher said, "You are getting stronger, but you can't expect to keep up with all the others as they are just stronger.

Do not dwell on your weakness but on your strength as you did today in the Dregs fight." Galer added, "You are getting slowly ahead, but you should not rush and overestimate yourself and fall to an easy death." I apologized to Husher. He replied, "To have spunk is fine, but to overestimate oneself... there needs to be understanding when to pull back from a battle." After the reprimanding, Galer looked at me too as a precaution to jump in and help if something happened.

Theodoros, the big man from Helenia, had taken most of the exchanges in the combat, even with only one eye on me to help as he said he would. I went to Gordin and watched them continuously slice and dice the Rock Golems. After a good time passed, since the sun was not here I did not know how much, but I would estimate a good 35 minutes, and while looking at the battle before it was fully done, Gordin suddenly suggested I follow him. I questioned him with a look.

"Being here is the safest place." He said he had urgently found something and had to check. So I followed him without the others, since all of them were locked in combat. After 20 minutes of fast jogging and running along some lines he saw, we arrived at the altar which was dusted and a bit broken down. Gordin came closer. He looked like he had found Michaelanius' remains himself, as he put himself in a praying position, as if wanting to praise this historic find.

But in his euphoric phase, he then checked the top, behind, and below the broken hole of the altar in frantic panic, only to realize the item he sought was not there. So we quickly went down from the altar. As he thought, Gordin told me we should follow the broken lines from that somewhat sunken altar." Shifting," Gordin explained, his face alive with excitement and his voice laced with panic.

"Something has altered the terrain, making it much more spacious. Whatever was there must have fallen somewhere close by." As we reached the ground, I asked what the smell was. He said he did not know, maybe sulfuric acid. I said it was like dried dead meat. He agreed, "Yeah, that is it," but there was no meat... only these weird-looking pillars that went from the ground up to the near top, which were not fully visible in this thick darkness.

With the lightning-buzzing trees which gave us light in this undercave and our torches out of fire, it was hard to see and travel while fully seeing what was around us. Then in our misery we were finally joined by the others, all more weakened from their epic battle. Galer was mad at me for not staying behind. I changed the target to the employer and explained the reason for not staying behind.

With their now new lighted torches we saw the huge pillars were not pillars but rib-cages from a huge animal we did not know. Even Gordin was perplexed. For the first time his historian heart beat for the unknown, but in vain, he had read a lot of books in his life, yet this animal was unknown to the Terrarum. Mitsumare felt the dangerous presence stronger and stronger. He followed it along a certain line, checking out what was making his body tremble so much.

The others went along on the suggested search for something dusty as Gordin told us to look and holler him when found, but not to touch it. With that in mind we eventually found a giant sinkhole... so huge in its void that it made the castle above us look small in its size. Not just that, it went so deep that when one of us threw a rock down we heard no plump sound. It felt surreal. Then Mitsumare found the strong Animo source of Strength.

Gordin sprinted like never in his life before, convinced it was his long-sought item. He had to reach it before it was too late and somebody else got their grubby hands on it. As they drew closer, they saw the huge egg that was wiggling around, as if it was about to hatch at any moment. Mitsumare, the best Animo reader among them, stated the number 1, 600. Husher and Olafigum checked it as well.

It was already 1, 680 and climbing to 1, 842, constantly rising in power with no sign of stopping, making everyone tremble about this huge egg plainly because of its ever-growing Animo. Gordin, checking the egg after finally realizing it was not his item, turned toward the ground like an obsessed man. And there it was... the item of long lust and obsession. There the item lay: a partially visible crown with crests and diamonds in its color, still emblazoned even under dust.

Luckily no one cared as they all looked at the mightier egg and its growing power. As he approached the egg, wiggling harder, indicating its birth cycle, he finally saw the pattern on it, ten meters in size, and he started to shiver as he realized what the egg entailed. He ordered all to attack it with no hesitation in mind. With the three Animo readers confirming the thing's growing strength, Gordin screamed again, "We all have to destroy it! It cannot hatch! It should not... never hatch while we are here!"

I asked what it was. Gordin replied with fear and awe in his tone, his face twisting between euphoria and pure terror, "It's one of the 3 Emperors of Orbis Terrarum!" All of us were shocked. I asked with a shocked face, "NO WAY... A DRAGON???" the only one I knew of and thought it was three different species of dragons, he meant. He then replied, "Nooo… Worse… for us…" Galer pressed, "Which one is it then? A Lind, a Branga, or maybe still a Dragon... but if it's worse?"

As they all already started attacking it with desperation, with me also trying desperately to hinder its birth as well, the sly, shivering Gordin, who attacked in a strange, frantic way as if trying to pull something from the ground, said in heavy breathing, "I'm certain it's a Branga!" I cut alongside everyone else, with Mitsumare now reading a number of 5, 000. Even I felt its super powerful Animo in my presence. Gordin got his item and hid it in his jacket. We barely did any damage to the egg shell.

Gordin said we need to run,... it was not worth continuing. He lied through his teeth as he had already gotten what he needed, yet none the wiser, we did not know he had put it in his jacket. As he slipped the crown into the side pocket of his jacket, hiding it from us, we turned and ran toward the entrance we came from. As we all ran, Theodoros picked me and Gordin up and started sprinting back, arguing that it would be faster to get out.

We saw the rock golems they had killed lying dead and even more rock golems amassing in numbers, but they were not moving toward us despite the fact we had killed dozens of them. The reading now showed Mitsumare 7, 000 as they confronted the egg to stop its birth themselves. The egg just hatched and a scream so loud came from out there, likely calling its parents back. The Rock Golems attacked the newborn Branga in their best effort to kill it.

The Branga thought the mother had left them for it to play and eat, but in reality the Rock Golems relentlessly attacked the target, as if they knew that if that egg, which was dormant for quite some time... got out of its shell completely, revealing its full body, they would all die. Upon reaching the exit, the whole place was already shifting and wiggling from the Branga's overwhelming presence and fighting. Suddenly, it all made sense.

While we were running back, Gordin explained the 3 Emperors: Linds - the Rulers of Heaven beyond the sky (powerful, the rarest of all; only 4 were found on the ground of our Terrarum and seen as the doorkeepers of Heaven like where Michaelanius is from... that's what all folk assume). The height a whopping 900 meters. Its eyes (it looks like a massive segmented sand-burrower with countless glowing orbs of eyes; it has no wings but levitates so high up and rules the heavenly clouds and their stars).

Its eyes are many; nobody knows its full extent of strength. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The 2nd Rulers are Dragons - plenty known and some have been beaten but not their ultimate state the Primal Elders. They reach a height and length of 740 meters. The 3rd are Brangas - which are the rulers of the underground, do not come this close to us in many years of known and written history; only 3 were found and fought against.

So their power is they have (they look like a salamander but have 4 eyes, no wings, are 550 meters long and have the best claws in their arsenal and can spawn air pressure to not beat you, as rather to slow you, their lower oxygen in a certain radius. Victims in that radius reaches one's brain and act slower in general thought, movement even recovery... that's their main power, Hypoxia.) Reaching the cellar and running out of the castle.

The Branga followed from the bottom, creating a huge hole and climbing while having one Rock Golem in its mouth, devouring it. Then it reeked us with its nostrils and the smell it followed to the surface. As we stood in the courtyard thinking safety was finally on our side... nooooo... this monstrosity of now 13 meters came out from the ground. We had no choice but to fight it, and it was brutal in its Animo. It killed with one air pressure alone.

Even knowing it, you couldn't shake it off, the power difference was too strong for any of us. Theodoros, who used his full power in his most weakened state after fighting so much, still rushed it. As it already started its passive ability, oxygen deprivation known as Hypoxia, its ability from its mouth and body was absorbing air around 50 to 100 meters, reducing the normal air availability in this world and making it harder to breathe.

His full-powered assault did zero damage, and it just ate him in one gulp, then violently expelled his remains and skull in a single powerful spray from its blowhole-like opening at the top of its head, splattering blood and bone across the stone floor in seconds. As we all stood inactive while the air was getting harder to breathe in. No, not even I could move since I had already experienced such a power before not that long ago.

It was for me like a second time seeing Siegfried before me, freezing me again, curling me inside my own mind and showing me all the badass lines and all the thoughts of having improved, only to be in naught as this beast slowly came closer to his level of power and a short shadow of emerald green eyes stood behind it for it to disappear right after. Then the small Gordin said in his last defiance, in heavy breath with some coughs, "You beast will not… cough… ruin my great… cough… achievement of today… cough.

Oh please, the treasure which was destined for the boy king's reign but for having reach adulthood, which was a present from who knows whom, maybe the Nibelungen. Also it has written on the crown's inscription to give the rightful boy King of Dacram a proper chance to fight off any attackers on his kingdom." Right after placing the crown upon his head, his Animo... which had been only 129, surged upward in milliseconds, growing stronger and stronger with every heartbeat of his.

The monstrosity of a Branga even realized it or comprehended instinctively, it had to stop this small manlet from getting more powerful. Gordin, lost in power, grew bigger and bigger in size. The shining dark crown fused onto his head, locking itself to him as if infusing with his very being. He changed slowly, his color shifting from that of a white man into a nightmarish form told in folktales to scare children.

His body elongated and twisted into a towering, skeletal horror with elongated limbs and clawed hands and legs. His skin turned a sickly, rotting purple-black color that seemed to abhor light. His face became a monstrous maw with glowing red eyes and jagged teeth, while tattered, shadowy robes formed around his frame like decaying wings. He kept his legs, but they became powerful, clawed pillars that shook the ground with every step.

The crown fused into his forehead like a cursed third eye, pulsing with dark energy as his entire being radiated overwhelming, corrupted might. The Branga, with such speed that it seemed like teleportation to all of us, attacked Gordin and tried to swallow him in one gulp. Even while held in its mouth and oxygen-deprived, Gordin's growth did not stop. He grew too big to be swallowed in one bite. Its mouth already struggled to keep him trapped, and it had to release him.

The moment he was released, he stood with a strength of 8, 000 Animo and still rising, while the Branga reached its final peak of 7, 500. An epic battle between monsters ensued. As they created more powerful shockwaves with their exchanges, the Branga's claws ripped Gordin's face and body, ignoring his punches. That was a mistake, since the damage on the seen Branga made it scream at the monstrosity of its foe. We, who had finally slowly adapted to the low oxygen state, walked away but could not run.

Gordin subconsciously created a wall-like barrier for some reason we did not know. We had no idea what would happen later and why he did it. Exhausted from everything, we decided to watch this battle between monsters. Both fought, showcasing how much power Gordin had hidden from us, how much power it could grant one person. As the battle continued, the Branga, which was far behind in spirit level, showed its moves to counter the untrained, unknown, just aggressive swings and kicks from Gordin.

He truly was not a strong fighter, his punches were too telegraphed and he seemed like a mindless monster more than a dangerous beast, hitting all over with so much strength and not knowing how to use it right. The Branga landed more attacks and successfully hit and somewhat damaged Gordin, but the damage was too low to have much impact, while Gordin's few hits did much more to the Branga. So it understood instinctively... it was over. It needed to run down again and hide in the undercave.

The Gordin monstrosity followed it down, and earthquakes followed both. After some time, the air finally returned to its natural state and our coughs ended. The emerging winner came up, the turned monster Gordin... with the dead Branga child as a souvenir, even starting to eat a bit from it. With that, everyone understood that Gordin was not human anymore and that the crown was a cursed one. Even the few monsters that stood there in hiding, as we did, which tried to run away, seemed to find no way of exit.

They and we finally understood why as he tore apart those loud animals and monsters. There was no one left to survive. Otherwise there would be no reason to do all of that. The crazy monster destroyed more and more of the castle, creating heavy damage in his violent outburst, with finally his strength reaching 9, 000 Animo. He, who was actively looking for us, found us in the rubble of destruction and killed all since we had all been unintentionally caught up in his crazy outbursts.

With that he killed Ursen with a kick, ate the screaming Rachina, trampled down the running Justine, and ultimately grabbed and ate Mariana. Thus only 4 remained, Husher, Galer, Mitsumare, and me. We four were the lucky ones. But ultimately his strength could not handle his original mind. Therefore his body outgrew his limit. With an Animo of 9, 200 his vessel popped. The crown that was not even his to begin with, like a curse for wishing ultimate strength... ended his own reign of might.

When we found him there lying on the ground, brain splattered all over, yet still having the ability to speak his last words, he said to us it was his ultimate wish to just be strong, to be recognized. That's why the turned historian used his art for power… found many things indicating this crown for power, but like a curse it took his mind and used his obsession for hunger and killed indiscriminately.

And he understood on his last dying breath that not everyone is born equal and not everyone has the talent or grit to get stronger or deserves it, and cursed the world of our Terrarum on why he could have not been also a chosen one... While putting his one hand up, the most damaged from the drawback, taken the pain of his malformed body in such unrecognizable state, he grabbed at the sun, dying, cursing this world of its inequality. Even so, we did not forgive him.

In his last choice, yes, he might have saved us from the Branga, yet he did not stop his reign, killing five other humans in his wake of power. With that in mind, his obsession with the crown and using it would only, after absorbing it, bring despair outside its castle. When looking at him running to other places he would be hunted by the Michaelanius Order. He would have never been accepted as a human in the first place looking the way he looked.

And still, at least the four of us were happy for him at least killing the Branga and saving us who survived this to tell the tale. With that we created a simple tomb for all those who died, using broken stones from the castle rubble. The air still carried the metallic scent of blood and the faint dust of collapsed rock. I stood there feeling mostly numb to it all. My time as a slave and the loss of my father had already taught me how quickly people could vanish from life.

The deaths didn't cut as deep as they might have for others. I hadn't known most of them well anyway. Mitsumare, however, held high regard for every fallen comrade he lost. He stood straight, his long black hair tied back, and spoke quietly about honor and the cost of the unknown. His words carried real weight, and even in exhaustion, he made sure each name was remembered. Galer stood beside me, silent for a long time. He understood something of Gordin's desperate hunger for power.

"Maybe I would have been swayed by it too given the chance," he muttered once, almost to himself.

"The promise of strength… it can break a man." Husher, still breathing hard from the fight, glanced at the half-paid gold we had received earlier and grumbled, "Only half paid… typical." Mitsumare caught him quickly.

"Stop being rude, Husher. They fought well." He gave a short, awkward apology to the group before falling silent. We all stayed quiet for a bit after that, the weight of the day settling over us like the dust in the air. No grand speeches, no tears from me, just the simple reality of survival and loss. We prayed in the name of Michaelanius to carry each of them on to a better world. Then, without another word, the mission ended in tragedy born from a fool's dream of power. We began our return to Plew.