Chapter 4: The Dead Dungeon ( 2)
My fingers traced the faint carvings on the slab. The stone was colder than the mountain itself, as though untouched by sun or storm for centuries. Even through the exhaustion clouding my body, I could feel it — the weight of history, the residue of mana that no longer lived yet refused to vanish completely.
"A door…" I whispered to myself.
I braced both hands against the slab and pushed. Nothing. The stone didn't budge. My heart sank briefly before memory stirred.
Dead dungeons were remnants, husks of once-living labyrinths whose mana cores had been shattered or consumed. What few people realized was that the death of a dungeon didn't mean the erasure of its identity. The structure remained, sealed by its own lifeless shell. To enter, you had to awaken the door, even if only for a moment.
"Mana…" I muttered.
Closing my eyes, I forced the sluggish flow of energy inside me to gather at my palms. A faint warmth spread into my hands, feeble but steady. I pressed again.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then a line of faint blue light traced across the carvings, illuminating the runes like veins of fire. The slab trembled, then shifted inward with a grinding sound that made my teeth ache.
Dust rained down as the door slid aside, revealing a dark void beyond.
A wave of cold air washed over me. Not the biting chill of altitude, but something deeper, older, like the breath of a forgotten crypt. My exhaustion was swallowed by a rising anticipation.
"This is it…"
I pulled myself through the narrow opening.
---
The passage was cramped, forcing me to crawl on hands and knees for several meters before it widened into a cavernous space. I rose unsteadily, brushing dirt from my palms. My breaths echoed faintly, the sound unnervingly loud in the silence.
Dead silence.
Unlike living dungeons, which thrummed with energy and pulsed with life, this place was void. No beastly growls, no shifting mana currents. Just empty halls carved from dark stone, their walls lined with cracks where roots had wormed through over decades.
Yet the emptiness carried its own weight. As though the dungeon remembered its purpose but could no longer fulfill it. A corpse that still clung to the shape of what it once was.
I adjusted the strap of my bag and pressed forward, boots scuffing against the uneven floor. Each step seemed to echo too long, rebounding through passages that stretched endlessly into shadow.
I should have been relieved there were no monsters. No traps, no ambushes, no battles. But the absence was its own trial. Every sound I made felt like a trespass. Every silence dared me to keep moving.
My grip tightened around the haft of the crude axe strapped to my side. It wasn't anything special just a training tool, little more than steel on wood. But even the weight of it grounded me.
Axemanship Lv.1. A joke profession, according to the world. And yet the thought that the key to reshaping that fate lay hidden here kept me walking deeper.
---
Minutes blurred into an hour. My legs felt like lead, every step dragging. The mana circulation in my body flickered, unable to keep pace with my fatigue. My throat was dry, my stomach hollow.
I found myself leaning against the wall of a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in darkness above. Ancient carvings covered the walls l faded murals of warriors bearing weapons. Most wielded swords, spears, bows. Only one figure, near the far end, carried a massive double-headed axe.
The carving was crude compared to the others, as though even here, axes were given little reverence. Yet the figure stood tall, defiant, carved to face the mural of a colossal beast with fangs like mountains.
Something inside me stirred at that.
Axes weren't refined. They weren't graceful. But they were resolute. Direct. Instruments of finality.
I forced myself upright and pressed on.
---
The deeper I went, the heavier the air became. Not alive with mana, but weighed down by something else — history, perhaps, or expectation. My limbs trembled, not from fear but from exhaustion biting into bone.
Finally, after what felt like forever, the passage narrowed again. At its end stood another slab of stone, smaller than the entrance, marked with runes that barely glowed. Unlike before, I didn't need to force mana into it. My presence alone seemed enough to stir it.
The stone shifted with a groan, revealing a chamber no larger than a single classroom. Dust blanketed the floor, untouched by wind or time. At the chamber's center lay a pedestal, cracked but intact. Upon it rested an object swathed in faint silver light.
The [Limitless] Artifact.
My chest constricted as I stepped closer.
It wasn't ornate. Not a jeweled crown or radiant sword, but a simple shard of crystal, no larger than my fist.
It pulsed faintly, the light irregular, as though caught between life and death much like the dungeon itself.
But I knew what it was. In the webnovel, it had been nothing more than trivia, a discarded detail never meant to matter. A relic said to amplify the boundaries of one's profession, allowing its user to surpass the natural limits imposed by the world.
Limitless.
My knees nearly buckled from the weight of the moment.
I crouched before the pedestal, staring at the shard. My reflection warped in its glow pale, sweat-streaked, eyes sunken but burning with hunger.
"This is it," I whispered. My voice cracked. "My chance."
Not just to survive. Not just to keep up with the protagonist's meteoric rise. But to carve a path no one else had touched. The axe, mocked and forgotten, could become something terrifying. Something legendary.
My hand hovered above the crystal, trembling.
Then the weight of the day slammed into me. My arms shook violently, my lungs heaved, and before I could touch the artifact, my legs gave out. I collapsed onto the cold stone floor, every ounce of strength drained from me.
The dungeon was silent, watching, waiting.
Flat on my back, chest heaving, I let the darkness of the chamber close around me. My body screamed in protest, but my mind burned with certainty.
I had found it.
And soon, I would claim it.