An awkward silence thickened the air as we descended. My senses stretching out—not just sight and sound, but feeling the very tremors in the earth and the subtle currents of mana for any threat. A habit from a harder past, stubbornly clinging even though Varda had already declared the path clear.
("Master, the goddess Artemis has not stopped observing you. To continue ignoring her gaze may become... rude to her.") Varda's voice was a calm chime in my mind.
("I know," I thought back, my eyes fixed ahead. ("But in a world where gods can smell a lie, every word is a potential trap.")
("Hmm. From the fragments in master memory, the goddess called Artemis does not seem like the troublesome sort. She values honesty and wisdom, does she not?")
("It's never that simple, Varda.")
My own knowledge was a shaky foundation, built more on distorted video game lore than scholarly texts. Yet, Varda had a point. Ignoring a goddess was like pretending not to see a drawn bow.
"That lightning of yours," Artemis's voice cut through the gloom, casual yet sharp as a hunter's blade. "It's strikingly familiar. Almost identical to a certain… pervert's."
I nearly missed a step. Varda's immediate, amused whisper—("Zeus, my lord.")—confirmed it. Of course. The King of the Gods' infamous reputation had even reached the Elven forests.
I felt Artemis's gaze boring into the back of my helmet, searching for a flinch, a tensed shoulder. Thanks to my enchanted armor and Varda's steadying presence, I remained a statue.
"And not just the lightning," she continued, her tone shifting to analytical curiosity. "The way you move, your footprints in soft earth… it's as if you can dismiss your own weight. A rare ability, mysterious knight."
("I did warn you this might happen,") Varda hummed, a hint of pride in her mental voice.
"So, if you wish to hide your identity," Artemis concluded, her voice dropping to a knowing murmur just behind me, "I suggest you hide your abilities along with your face."
"The advice is noted, Goddess Artemis." The words came out in my stead, filtered through Varda's magic to sound sincere and steady.
"Good." A pause, heavy with unspoken deduction. "You're powerful. Perhaps the strongest mortal I've ever encountered. And yet you hide… not from fear for yourself, I think." Her next words were softer, almost gentle. "You hide to protect those close to you."
A cold spike of unease shot through me. Every second in her presence felt like another layer of my disguise being peeled away.
The tension was shattered as we arrived before a colossal door. My gauntlet brushed against its surface, and I froze. This was no ordinary iron.
'Adamantium.'
The rarest, most resilient metal known. My family's wealth had allowed me to handle a sample once; I remembered its impossible density.
I pressed my palm flat against the cold metal. A deep groan echoed, and the legendary Adamantium began to shiver, then crumble inward like a sandcastle struck by a wave.
A blinding, cerulean light erupted from the revealed chamber. Instinct took over. I stepped in front of Artemis, a multi-layered barrier flaring to life around us.
("its fine my lord,") Varda whispered, a gentle tap on my shoulder calming my surge of mana.
In the heart of the room, resting on a stone pedestal, was a massive crystal. It pulsed with an internal, verdant fire, radiating a concentration of pure mana so potent the air itself vibrated.
"A magic crystal? But of what magnitude…" Artemis breathed, stepping beside me.
Before I could answer, the world heaved. A seismic roar, deeper than thunder, rolled through the dungeon. The ground bucked violently, stones raining from the ceiling—a quake powerful enough to bury cities.
("Varda! Protect everyone inside!")
Without a word, my familiar melted from my shoulder and into the earth. In that instant the shaken earth subsided and the crack start too healed.
"What in the heavens was that?!" Artemis demanded, already in a crouch, her bow on her hand.
My senses racing westward, tracing the terrifying ripple through the planet's very bones. The epicenter was impossibly far. My mind scrambled through maps, dismissing volcanoes, until it landed on the only place that could generate such cataclysmic power.
A cold realization dawned, chilling me more than any dungeon could.
'Orario.'
Oration – Dawn
The first light of sunrise painted the sky in hues of gold when the earth itself roared to life. A violent tremor ripped through the city, shaking buildings, rattling windows, and jolting everyone awake.
Loki Familia Manor
Loki shot upright in bed, her usual lazy grin wiped clean off her face. The splitting headache from last night's drinking binge vanished in an instant, replaced by pure, razor-sharp alertness.
'An earthquake? No—this feels different.'
The shaking lasted only ten seconds, but it was enough to send a chill down her spine.
BANG!
Her door flew open before she could even move. Finn stood there, spear already in hand, his usual calm demeanor edged with urgency.
"Loki-sama, are you alright?"
She waved him off. "Fine. Status report?"
Finn shook his head. "Unknown. No casualties in the manor, but the city—"
Before he could finish, the ground trembled again—harder this time. A deep, ominous groan echoed from beneath the earth, as if something monstrous was stirring.
Loki's crimson eyes narrowed. "Finn. Recall every member. Now."
"You think this is more than a quake?"
She smirked, but there was no humour in it. "Call it a goddess's intuition. Something's coming."
And then—the world shook again.
====x====
Dungeon
Somewhere in the dungeon a party of Loki Familia who made mostly new members who are guided by Riveria.
She felt the same earth quake however it was so powerful that she feels like the dungeon itself would fall.
"Riveria-sama!"
"No need to panic." Riveria who still kept her compose expression gave a bit reinsurance in idle of chaos.
"Keep everyone together and keep on watch on the ceiling. We will head back to the surface."
"Understood Riveria-sama."
Deep in her very soul she can feel something are terribly wrong are about to accrue.
====x====
High above Orario, piercing the heavens like a spear of the gods, stood a tower so vast that its peak vanished beyond sight—an endless monolith that defied mortal comprehension. This was her domain now, a luxurious perch from which the Goddess of Beauty observed the world below with a predator's patience.
Freya lounged in her opulent chambers, her silver hair cascading like liquid moonlight as she gazed toward the eastern horizon. A strange longing flickered in her violet eyes—an unspoken hunger, a whisper of destiny yet unfulfilled.
Then—the world trembled.
The ground quaked beneath her, rattling the crystal goblets on the table and nearly toppling her from her seat. But Freya did not flinch. Instead, her lips curled into a slow, fascinated smile as her eyes locked onto the distant sky.
The clouds tore apart.
A force unlike anything she had ever witnessed ripped through the heavens, scattering the mist like a divine hand swatting away smoke. Trees in the far distance bent violently, their branches snapping as an invisible tempest roared across the land.
Freya's breath hitched. Her pulse quickened.
"Fate is on my side after all."
BAM!
The doors burst open as Ottar, her steadfast champion, charged in, his usual composure shattered. "Freya-sama! We must evacuate—!"
But his words died in his throat.
Because Freya was already rising, her movements smooth and deliberate, her eyes alight with something he had never seen before—a terrifying, all-consuming delight.
"I'll be heading out for a moment," she said, her voice a silken purr.
Ottar froze. Never in his life had he felt such dread—not in the Dungeon's deepest pits, not in the fiercest battles. This was different. This was her whimsy, and that was far more dangerous than any monster.
"B-but, Freya-sama—"
"I will not tell you twice."
Her voice was ice.
In that moment, Ottar—one of the strongest adventurers in Freya familia—wished desperately for Mia Grand's stern presence. But the captain was gone, and he was left alone to face the storm that was Freya's will.
And as she stepped past him, her gown whispering against the marble floor, Ottar knew one thing with absolute certainty:
'Whatever she had seen in that sky… it would change everything. Like hell she will miss such chance.'
====x====
Athol
I went to the surface with the captured slave who already fully healed some are celebrated and other sat silently while gaze with an empty gaze, but everyone at least glance toward silver-knight who stood t A strange, heavy silence settled over the surface.
The freed slaves we'd brought up from the darkness stood in a patch of painful sunlight—some embracing and weeping with joy, others just staring into nothingness with hollow eyes. But every single one of them, the celebratory and the broken, eventually glanced toward the Black knight. He stood apart, an unmoving statue of polished steel, an aura of quiet power keeping the crowd at a respectful distance.
At the center of the clearing, Artemis loomed over the beaten trafficker, while Tania finished her interrogation.
"He confirms the town magistrate was paid to look the other way," Tania reported, her voice crisp with disdain. "But he claims ignorance of the magic crystals. He oversaw the 'goods,' but never the real cargo."
'Is that magic crystal causing the monster all head this way? No Mana should not able to do that unless there is active spell, but there is no magic crystal whatsoever.'
There is so many thing happen at once with low information make any conclusion can stray away from the truth.
'Is something to do with goddess Artemis? Or some kind elaborate scheme by Fultone, but for what reason they want a small town to be laid in waste?'
Then it came.
A wave of primal terror. Every hair on my body stood on end, my blood turned to ice water, and every instinct I possessed screamed in unison—DANGER.
("Master!") Varda's psychic cry was a sharp pain in my skull.
("I feel it. Something is waking.")
There was no time for ceremony. Through Varda, my voice echoed from the knight's helm, "Goddess Artemis, my apologies. I must go."
She didn't ask questions. Her divine eyes, sharp and ancient, had already seen the shift in the air. "Go. We will handle everything here."
Before the last word faded, wind magic erupted around the knight's feet in a silent vortex. The earth cracked beneath him as he shot into the sky like a Black arrow.
A collective gasp ripped through the crowd. "He can fly?" someone whispered, their awe breaking the silence. Dozens of wide, disbelieving eyes traced his arc across the sun.
Artemis watched him go, a slow, unmistakable smile playing on her lips—a smile of fierce approval and thrilling anticipation.
Beside her, Atalanta stared. In all her years of devotion, she had never seen her goddess look upon a stranger with such an expression. Who was this knight that he could command the sky and, in turn, the smile of a goddess?
"Who is that man?"
====x====
"Did I make the right decision?"
The question wasn't a thought—it was a mantra, a drumbeat in my skull matching the frantic rhythm of my heart. Dawn was a thin, bleeding line on the horizon as I tore through the jungle canopy, the world a blur of damp leaves and shadows.
Then I saw it.
A light, fierce and brilliant as a falling star. It hung for a glorious second, a tiny sun against the violet dark… before it guttered and died.
((BOOM))
The world folded. Sound vanished, replaced by a sheer, pressure wave that hammered my eardrums.
"Ugh!"
I create a wind barrier and stood my posture strait. "A shock wave? This powerful?"
My own voice sounded muffled, distant beneath the ringing silence. The mantra in my head swelled into a scream. Wrong decision, wrong decision, wrong—
"Stop." I bit the word out, a command to my soul. A deep, shuddering breath. "What am I even afraid of?"
My right hand trembled—a traitorous, frantic dance. I gripped it with my left, squeezing until the bones ached. Pathetic. The monster they fear. The so-called 'God of Magic.' And yet here you are, shaking. Not at death… The fear was sharper, more intimate. It was the fear of failing them.
A wave of dizzying déjà vu crashed over me. A different life. A similar cliff edge. The same corrosive hesitation that once cost me everything.
"Screw it!"
Hesitation is the cousin of defeat. I launched forward. Below, Varda erupted from the earth, her gaze snapping to the same horror I saw.
((ROARRR!))
The sound was primal, a shockwave of pure rage that shook the very roots of the jungle. Dawn's weak light should have hidden it, but my eyes saw with cruel clarity.
A western like dragon levitate above the burning ashes. It dwarfed any Red-Dragon I'd known, triple the size, a mountain of scaled wrath. It was cloaked not in fire, but in a crawling, devouring darkness that smoked like black flame. And within that void—two eyes and a sweeping horn burned with a cold, relentless white, stars in a dead sky.
"One eyed, black scale…."
My eyed widen in shock realize what monster I just witness.
"One-eyed Black dragon!"
++++++++++++++
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