Smoke clung to the air, thick and acrid. Every breath scraped Eron's throat raw, the cavern reeking of scorched flesh and molten stone.
He coughed hard, staggering as he pressed one hand to the wall. The rock burned hot beneath his palm, unnaturally hot, as if the whole cavern had turned into the belly of a furnace.
The lake where the serpent had thrashed was no longer a lake. Nearly half of it had boiled away in the blast, leaving jagged stone and steaming pits where water had been. What remained hissed and bubbled, rolling steam upward to blend with the haze.
The serpent's body floated limp and broken, its massive coils bobbing on the surface. Its head was gone, reduced to charred ruin. Flesh had sloughed off to reveal blackened bone, smoke curling upward like incense for the dead.
Eron swayed where he stood. His knees threatened to buckle, not from mana drain, but from the brutal recoil still echoing through his body. His ribs ached where the shockwave had slammed him into the wall.
Inside the Pocket, Fireball No. 1 had been manageable. He had hurled it thousands of times, refining its size, feeling pride in the control. There, it was practice. Art.
Here, it was catastrophe.
He stared at the steaming wreckage, the cavern cracked open like a wound, and a shiver ran down his spine. His hand twitched, embers sparking across his knuckles as if begging to be unleashed again.
For a heartbeat, he considered it… one more cast, just to prove the first hadn't been a fluke. To feel that surge again.
His fist snapped shut.
"No."
The word echoed against scorched stone.
He dragged in a breath, forcing the sparks to die. He remembered the deafening roar, the way his lungs screamed for air, the shockwave that had nearly broken him. In the Pocket it had seemed simple, just another spell. But here, it was destruction without reins.
"Until I can control it," he whispered, voice hoarse but firm, "Fireball No. 1 stays sealed."
He straightened, body trembling, ribs protesting. It wasn't weakness. It was survival.
---
The cavern groaned as if mocking him. Fractures spiderwebbed along the walls, and another chunk of ceiling gave way, plunging into the steaming lake with a hiss.
Eron shielded his face from the spray, heart still hammering. He checked his backpack almost by instinct. The straps were scorched, fabric blackened and frayed, but it held. Inside: his kettle, dented but intact. A half-burnt tarp. A few ration packs.
His clothes were nearly gone, burned to tatters. His skin stung with burns and bruises, but he was alive. Barely.
A glint caught his eye.
From the serpent's ruin, something slid free, a shard of scale fused with bone, glowing faintly orange in the haze. It clattered onto the stone.
Eron stooped and picked it up. Warmth pulsed through his palm, a reminder of the fire that had seared it into existence.
A drop. He had heard the word murmured in taverns, proofs, trophies, resources. Adventurers bragged about them like currency, the mark of who you had slain.
He turned the shard in his hand, then tucked it carefully into his pack. He didn't know its full value, but it was something. Proof he had fought. Proof he wasn't powerless.
---
A memory pressed against him.
The white void of the Pocket.
He lay flat on the endless floor more times than he could count, staring upward into nothing. Hunger never gnawed at him there, but he ate anyway sometimes, chewing dried rations just to remember what food felt like. He drank from his kettle just to keep the act of being human.
Other times, he pushed fire until his body shook, waiting for exhaustion that never came. He laughed to himself as he numbered them, Fireball No. 1, Fireball No. 4, Fireball No. 7… like a child playing games to ward off madness.
There, the flames were toys.
Here, they were monsters.
---
He coughed, dragging himself toward the cavern's edge. His lungs burned with smoke, ribs flared with every step. The serpent's corpse drifted behind him, the water around it bubbling as if refusing to cool.
Eron pressed a hand to his chest. The mana inside him still pulsed, restless, like fire under his skin. It wanted out. He clenched his teeth and forced it back, fingers digging hard into his ribs until the sparks fizzled away.
---
The silence broke.
From the depths came a sound, not stone, not water. Something alive.
It rolled through the cavern like thunder. A roar. Deep. Resonant. The kind that made bone marrow quiver.
The ceiling dust rained down. Ripples danced across the boiling lake. Cracks along the cavern wall vibrated as if in answer.
Eron froze, every muscle locking. His breath hitched, heat sparking in his hand before he forced it back down. His instincts screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go.
The roar faded into echoes, then silence.
His throat was dry, his heartbeat frantic. Slowly, carefully, he forced himself to take a step forward.
"If it's coming…" His voice was ragged, but steady. "…then I'll be ready."
He didn't know what waited deeper. He didn't know if this dungeon had an end.
But he knew one thing, he couldn't go back.
And so, with fire coiled beneath his skin, Eron Vale walked onward.
---
High above, adventurers whispered of a quake that felt alive. Silver-rank deserters fled, haunted by guilt. Gold-rank warriors argued over the omen.
But in the burned cavern below, a single man had made his vow.
Fireball No. 1 would wait, until he was strong enough to survive it.