---
The boat scraped against wet stone.
Vihan looked up at the Sunken Spire and felt his chest tighten. From the shore, it had seemed large. From here, with its black mass looming overhead, blocking the morning sun, it felt like a monument to something ancient and terrible. The stone was slick with moisture, covered in patches of luminescent fungus that glowed a sickly green. Water lapped against its base, dark and depths unknown.
Seraphine stepped out first, landing on a narrow stone ledge that circled the tower. Marcus followed, then Vex. Vihan climbed out last, his boots slipping on the wet surface.
"There." Seraphine pointed to an opening in the stone—a doorway, once, now just a gaping maw half-submerged in the lake. Water sloshed at its threshold, and beyond, darkness waited. "The entrance. We go in, we go down. The Heart is in the lowest dry chamber, about thirty meters below the waterline."
"How do we breathe?" Vihan asked.
"There are air pockets. Old chambers that never flooded. The dungeon maintains them." Seraphine produced a small crystal from her pocket. It glowed faintly blue. "Light source. Stay close. Don't touch anything without permission."
She stepped through the doorway and vanished into darkness.
Marcus gestured for Vihan to follow. The massive man's face was impassive, but something in his eyes suggested patience—or maybe pity. Vihan couldn't tell.
He stepped through.
---
Darkness swallowed him.
Not the gentle dark of night, with stars and distant light. This was absolute. Complete. The kind of dark that pressed against his eyes and made him doubt they were open.
Then Seraphine's crystal flared, and the world returned.
They stood in a circular chamber, maybe twenty meters across. The floor was uneven stone, covered in a thin layer of water. Pillars rose toward a ceiling lost in shadow. The walls were carved with figures—men and women in chains, their faces twisted in agony, their hands reaching toward something above.
"A prison," Vihan breathed.
"Yes." Seraphine's voice echoed slightly. "The Spire held thousands, once. When the Dungeons came, the prisoners were already dead. Something woke them."
As if in response, a splash echoed from somewhere deeper in the tower.
"Stay alert." Seraphine moved toward a staircase on the far side—spiral, descending into darkness. "Vex, watch our rear. Marcus, point. Vihan, center. Don't engage anything unless it engages us first."
They moved.
---
The staircase was endless.
Down and down and down, spiraling around a central column, the walls pressing closer with each step. Water dripped constantly, a percussion of drops that echoed in the confined space. The air grew colder. Thicker. It smelled of age and decay and something else—something that made Vihan's skin crawl.
He counted steps to keep his mind occupied.
One hundred. Two hundred. Three.
At three hundred and seventy-two, the staircase ended.
They emerged into a chamber far larger than the first. This one had been grand once—tall ceilings, arched windows now filled with water, a floor of black and white marble cracked by centuries of pressure. Water stood ankle-deep throughout. And in the center, barely visible in the crystal's glow, something moved.
"Tidecaller," Marcus rumbled.
The creature rose from the water like a nightmare given form. Humanoid, vaguely, but its skin was grey and bloated, stretched tight over bones that shouldn't bend that way. Its eyes were white orbs, blind but searching. Its mouth opened too wide, revealing rows of needle teeth. Water streamed from its body as it stood.
Skeletal Tidecaller - C-Rank
The notification appeared in Vihan's vision. His first System prompt since entering the dungeon.
"Marcus." Seraphine's voice was calm.
The massive man moved.
One moment he was beside Vihan. The next, he was there, greatsword already swinging. The blade took the Tidecaller at the waist, shearing through bone and bloated flesh like paper. The creature collapsed into two halves that continued twitching in the water.
Vihan stared.
One swing. One. A C-Rank monster, dead in less than a second.
"That's," he started, then stopped. Swallowed. "That's S-Rank?"
"That's Marcus." Seraphine stepped past the remains without looking at them. "He's been S-Rank for twelve years. The Tidecaller never had a chance."
Vihan followed, carefully avoiding the twitching pieces. The water around them was dark with something that might have been blood, or might have been something else.
They pressed deeper.
---
Three more chambers. Four more Tidecallers. Each died the same way—Marcus appearing, swinging, moving on. Vihan stopped counting after the second. His presence here felt absurd. A mouse walking with lions.
Then they reached the waterline.
The chamber before them was flooded completely—dark water rising to meet a ceiling barely visible above. A staircase continued downward into the depths, swallowed by blackness.
"Air pocket below," Seraphine said. "Thirty seconds of swimming. Don't panic. Don't hold your breath too long. Just follow the stairs down and you'll surface on the other side."
She slipped into the water without hesitation, crystal clutched in her teeth. The glow descended, faded, vanished.
Marcus went next. Then Vex.
Vihan stood at the edge.
The water was black. Absolute. He couldn't see an inch below the surface. Something could be waiting there—something hungry, something patient—and he'd never know until it was too late.
The betrayers come. Soon.
The dream's words echoed in his mind. He didn't know what they meant. He didn't know if they meant anything at all.
He took a breath and stepped forward.
---
Cold.
The water was so cold it stole his breath. His lungs seized. His limbs numbed. He kicked downward, following the stairs—visible now as vague shapes in the darkness, lit by the fading glow of Seraphine's crystal far ahead.
Down. Down. The stairs kept going. His chest burned. His vision swam.
Twenty seconds. Twenty-five.
The stairs ended. He kicked harder, following the light, following the surface he couldn't see—
His head broke through into air.
Vihan gasped, dragged air into starving lungs, coughed water, gasped again. Hands gripped his collar and pulled him onto stone. He lay on his back, chest heaving, staring up at a ceiling covered in glowing fungus.
"You made it." Seraphine's face appeared above him. "Good. Rest. The next part is worse."
He laughed. It came out broken.
"Worse?"
"The flooded chambers are just the welcome. The real dungeon starts here."
She helped him stand. They were in another chamber, smaller than the others, but dry—or dry-ish. Water dripped from the ceiling, but the floor was solid stone. Three passages led deeper into the tower, their mouths dark and waiting.
Vex stood at the center passage, her hooded head tilted.
"This one," she said quietly. "Something old. Something waiting."
Seraphine nodded. "Then that's where we go."
---
The passage sloped downward.
The walls here were different—smoother, almost polished, carved with symbols that seemed to writhe in the fungus-light. Vihan didn't recognize the language. It wasn't anything from Aethelgard's seven kingdoms. Older. Stranger.
"The old world," Marcus said, noticing his gaze. "Before the Dungeons. They built things we don't understand."
"What happened to them?"
"They died. We woke." The massive man's voice was flat. "That's all anyone knows."
They walked in silence after that.
The passage opened into a chamber that stole Vihan's breath for an entirely different reason.
It was massive. A cathedral underground, its ceiling lost in shadow, its walls lined with alcoves. And in every alcove, a skeleton sat in chains. Hundreds of them. Thousands. The remains of prisoners who had died in this place, still bound to the stone after centuries.
In the center of the chamber, raised on a platform of black rock, stood a throne.
And on the throne sat a figure.
It had been human once. Tall, by the look of its bones. Robes of decayed fabric hung from its frame, and a crown—tarnished silver, set with stones that no longer gleamed—rested on its skull. In its skeletal hands, it held a staff topped with a crystal that pulsed with faint blue light.
Drowned Lich - C+ Rank (Chamber Guardian)
The notification appeared, and this time, it was red.
Seraphine's blade was in her hand. Marcus's greatsword gleamed. Even Vex shifted, shadows gathering around her fingers like living things.
"It knows we're here," Seraphine said quietly.
The Lich's skull lifted.
Empty eye sockets stared at them. Its jaw opened, and a sound emerged—not speech, but something worse. A whisper of a thousand voices, all speaking at once, all saying things Vihan couldn't understand.
The skeletons in the alcoves began to move.
---
Chaos erupted.
Marcus charged the Lich, greatsword swinging. The creature raised its staff, and a wall of ice exploded between them—thick, ancient, crackling with cold. Marcus's blade shattered it, but the delay cost him. Skeletons were rising from their chains, pulling free of centuries-old restraints, their empty hands reaching.
Seraphine met the first wave. Her curved blade danced, severing bone, scattering remains. Each skeleton fell, but more rose behind them. Dozens. Hundreds.
Vex moved like smoke through the battle. Where her hands touched skeletons, shadows wrapped around them, held them, crushed them into dust. But even she couldn't be everywhere.
And Vihan stood at the edge, sword drawn, useless.
A skeleton lunged at him. He swung. His blade bit into its ribs, and the thing stumbled—but didn't fall. Its bony hand clawed at his face. He ducked, swung again, and this time the skull separated from the spine.
0% Lifesteal activated.
Of course.
Another skeleton. Another. He fought, desperate, his training taking over—Kaelen's voice in his head: Footwork first. Blade second. Survive third. He moved, dodged, struck. Skeletons fell. More came.
The Lich raised its staff, and the air turned cold.
Ice spread across the floor, climbing the walls, reaching for them. Seraphine shouted something Vihan couldn't hear. Marcus was still fighting through the ice wall, his greatsword a blur of steel. Vex was surrounded, shadows battling bone.
And Vihan saw it.
The Lich's attention was on the S-Ranks. It hadn't noticed him. The E-Rank. The nobody.
He moved.
Kaelen's training took over completely. Stay low. Stay quiet. Use the chaos. He weaved through the skeleton horde, stepping where they weren't, sliding where they'd just passed. The cold bit at his skin. His breath misted. But he kept moving.
The throne platform rose before him. The Lich's back was turned.
Vihan climbed.
His sword was in his hand. He didn't know if it could hurt a C+ Guardian. He didn't know if his strike would even land. But he was here, and everyone else was dying, and he had to do something.
He raised the blade.
The Lich turned.
Empty eyes met his. The staff began to rise. Ice formed in the air between them, ready to impale—
And Vihan's sword found its chest.
The blade sank into ancient bone, through decayed robes, into the crystal that pulsed where a heart should be. The crystal cracked. Light flared—blue, then white, then nothing.
The Lich screamed.
It wasn't a sound from its mouth. It was a sound from everywhere—a psychic shriek that drove Vihan to his knees, that made his skull feel like it would split. He clutched his head, screaming, as the Lich's form began to dissolve.
The skeletons stopped moving.
The ice stopped spreading.
And in the center of the chamber, the Drowned Lich collapsed into dust.
---
Silence.
Vihan knelt on the platform, gasping, his sword fallen from nerveless fingers. His head throbbed. His vision swam. But he was alive.
Seraphine appeared below him, staring up with wide amber eyes.
"You," she said. "You killed it."
"I..." He didn't have words.
Marcus laughed—a deep, rumbling sound of genuine surprise. "The E-Rank just killed the Guardian."
Vex was watching him with those copper eyes, and for the first time, Vihan saw something other than distance in them. Interest. Calculation. And maybe... fear?
Then the System notification appeared.
[Drowned Lich (C+ Guardian) defeated.]
[You have dealt the killing blow.]
[Your skill: Lifesteal (1%) has activated.]
[Processing...]
[ERROR: Incompatible target type detected.]
[ERROR: Skill mismatch.]
[WARNING: Unknown skill protocol initiating.]
[ANALYZING...]
[ANALYZING...]
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE.]
[True skill identified: PERMANENCE THEFT (Bloodline Inheritance)]
[Do you wish to claim 1% Permanence from Drowned Lich?]
[1% of peak attributes will be added permanently to your base.]
[1% of unique skills will be added permanently to your skill list.]
[1% of elemental affinities will be added permanently to your affinity pool.]
[Do you wish to claim the SHADOW of Drowned Lich?]
[The target's soul is notable. A Shadow Soldier may be created.]
[Warning: Shadow Slots remaining: 5/5. You must release an existing shadow to claim another.]
---
Vihan stared at the words.
They didn't make sense. They couldn't make sense.
Permanence Theft? Bloodline Inheritance? Shadow Soldiers?
He had no shadows. He had never claimed anything. His skill had never worked—
But even as he thought it, he felt it.
Something stirring in the back of his mind. A presence. Cold, ancient, patient. Waiting.
The feather.
The dream.
"They wait for you. In the space between life and permanence."
Seraphine was climbing the platform. She'd reach him in seconds. He had to decide now.
[Do you wish to claim 1% Permanence from Drowned Lich?]
[YES] / [NO]
[Do you wish to claim the SHADOW of Drowned Lich?]
[YES] / [NO]
---
Vihan's hand trembled over the notifications.
He thought of Kaelen's face at the gate. Of the Veilstone in the moonlight. Of nineteen years of failure and mockery and being told his skill was trash.
He thought of the Lich's empty eyes, and the thousands of skeletons it had commanded, and the power it had wielded.
One percent.
Just one percent.
His finger moved.
---
End of Chapter 3
---