"What the... hell is that?" Tony's voice trembled as it echoed faintly through the mind link.
John didn't reply. He floated in the still, cold water, his eyes locked onto the strange sight ahead—unable, or perhaps unwilling, to look away.
Fifty meters in front of them, three glowing green stones hovered in perfect silence, each the size of a human head. Their gentle pulsing cast eerie reflections across the dark waters, as if trying to communicate something unspoken. They formed a perfect triangle, geometrically precise—too perfect to be natural.
In the center of that triangle was a crack in space.
It didn't tear the water apart or release any bubbles. It was just there, jagged and shimmering, a scar on reality itself. A thin, translucent green film stretched over the crack like a mystical barrier—flickering faintly, holding back something unfathomable.
Tony drifted closer beside John, both suspended in awe and confusion.
"What do you think it is?" Tony asked again, his usual playfulness gone, replaced by tension.
John's voice was low. "I don't know... but it's not something we want to mess with."
He wasn't wrong. The energy coming off the crack wasn't wild or chaotic—it was still and crushing, like the calm before a world-ending storm.
"We should leave," John finally said, glancing at Tony with urgency in his eyes. He began to back away slowly, hands and legs moving with practiced control through the water.
Tony followed without argument. But just as they had moved a meter back, the green film over the crack rippled—and then vanished completely, as if blinked out of existence.
There was no sound. No warning.
Then came the pull.
A monstrous suction force burst out of the crack, dragging the water—and them—toward it with terrifying power. John activated his water resistance ability, fighting against the current. Tony gritted his teeth, trying to stabilize himself by pressing against a nearby stone.
It didn't matter.
The pull was relentless. Their resistance barely lasted seconds before they were swept in—helpless.
The world blurred. Space twisted. Vision fragmented.
Then—darkness.
---
When John and Tony regained consciousness, the world around them had changed entirely.
They were no longer underwater. The air here was heavy and dry, thick with an earthy musk. As they stood on trembling legs, their boots crunching against stone and dust, they looked up—and up.
A cave. But no ordinary one.
The chamber stretched for kilometers in every direction. Towering crystal formations glowed faintly from the ceiling, casting streaks of blue, violet, and green light down into the abyssal depths of the cavern. The cave walls were covered in unknown runes, pulsating like a heartbeat. The air was so saturated with raw, untamed energy that the hairs on their arms stood up.
Tony turned slowly, eyes wide with disbelief. "What the hell is this place?" he whispered, but his voice fell silent as his gaze locked onto something ahead.
John turned too.
Roughly 500 hundred meters away, partially veiled in shadows, lay a massive, monstrous figure.
It was asleep—or perhaps simply dormant—but even at rest, it exuded a terrifying presence. Its enormous limbs curled beneath its hulking frame. The entire creature seemed to be forged from darkness itself, its scales absorbing the ambient light like a black hole.
The very shape of it was wrong—unnatural.
And yet... majestic.
"Unbelievable... Am I seeing things?!" Tony gasped.
John didn't speak. He felt paralyzed, not by fear, but by the overwhelming sense of power. It felt like they were staring at a mountain that could move.
And then, without so much as a sound, space shimmered beside them.
A soft, barely audible crackle announced the sudden arrival of a figure. One moment the spot beside them was empty—the next, a man stood there, as if plucked from the air itself.
Middle-aged. Dressed in a long black coat that billowed despite the still air. His silver-streaked hair was tied back loosely, and his amber eyes gleamed with a calm, almost mischievous wisdom.
Tony stumbled back. "Eccaruss?"
John blinked, his heart skipping. "It's really him..."
They remembered him. A year ago, shortly after they arrived into this world, they had encountered this man. He had appeared from nowhere, and thought them lots of things , then vanished just as mysteriously.
"You!" Tony snapped back into focus. "What the hell are you doing here?! What is this place? And where did that Godzilla-type monster come from?!"
Eccaruss chuckled softly, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve.
"Still as loud as ever, Tony," he said with a smirk. "Tell me—how do you like my little gift?"
"Gift?!" Tony's eyes widened. "You call that thing a gift? Are you insane, old man?!"
John frowned, his earlier awe giving way to suspicion. "You brought us here deliberately."
Eccaruss gave a casual nod. "Of course. I wanted to see how far you've come, John. What better way to test one's growth than by placing them in front of a sleeping nightmare?"
Tony looked like he was going to explode. "You mean this is a test?! You dragged us into this death trap just to measure his power?!"
"A test of courage, intuition, and potential," Eccaruss replied, his voice calm and measured. "You won't become anything great without facing true fear."
He began to walk forward slowly, his boots making soft echoes on the stone floor. His gaze locked on the monstrous figure ahead.
"That creature," he said after a moment, "is one of the oldest beings in existence. A primordial lifeform from before written history—long before this world settled into what you now see."
He glanced back at them, smile fading. "It is also one of the most evil and destructive entities to ever walk the lands. It took me decades—and the loss of many allies—to capture and seal it."
Tony swallowed. "Then why bring it out now?"
Eccaruss shrugged. "Because power left to rust is no power at all." He turned to John. "You have potential that even I can't fully measure. But potential means nothing if it isn't forged under pressure."
John stared at the sleeping giant, feeling his heart pounding louder with each passing second. Doubt whispered in one ear. Excitement whispered in the other.
Eccaruss saw it.
"Relax," the older man said, raising his hand. "This creature is no longer at its peak. It has lost ninety-five percent of its power source. Its strength now... is merely a shadow of what it once was."
Tony didn't look reassured. "That shadow could still crush us."
Eccaruss smiled again, stepping back. "Then don't let it."
He let the silence hang for a moment, before speaking again—his voice soft, almost reverent.
"Its true name has been lost to time... but now you can simply call it primordial... black dragon."