[Gate Entry: Initiated...][Destination: Grave of the Dragon King][Warning: Dungeon Instability: High]
The Gate cracked open with a howling gust that smelled of sulfur and ancient blood.
One by one, the raid team crossed the threshold—three S-rankers at the lead, twenty A-class elites at their flanks, and fifty B-class hunters bringing up the rear, most of them nervous, under-equipped, and over-compensating with false bravado.
Behind them came the porters and support staff—barely-ranked mana mules and crate carriers.
Among them was a lone young man in a patched vest:Lee Rovan, B-class utility porter.
He said nothing.Because his voice would only tremble.
The moment they passed through the Gate, the light vanished.
Not dimmed.Gone.
No sun, no sky, not even a false glow from the entrance. The Gate sealed behind them with a soft pop, like a vacuum pulling closed—and they were left in a world of solid darkness.
Mana-powered torches sputtered to life, but the light they cast was... wrong. It didn't spread normally. It clung to the bearers like fireflies trapped in honey. Shadows stretched unnaturally, curving where no surface existed.
The darkness was not passive.It fought the light.
And the silence—so complete it rang in their ears—was not empty, either. It was dense. Like a tomb sealed for a thousand years, where even echoes had died.
The space was massive—a cathedral buried beneath mountains.Columns of blackened bone stretched skyward, their tops swallowed by the void.Walls layered with fossilized scales and ancient claw marks ran jagged along the edges.
In the far distance, the skeleton of a colossal dragon lay half-submerged in the stone. Its wings spanned hundreds of meters. Its ribcage alone could have housed an army. And its skull—shattered and burned—still radiated killing intent after untold millennia.
This was not a dungeon.This was a battlefield turned burial site.A mausoleum built by time, soaked in the blood of things forgotten by history.
Rovan walked near the back, carrying a crate of alchemical bandages and empty ether vials. His steps were small, measured. Every breath took effort—not because the air was thin, but because the very space resisted life.
He wasn't alone in his fear.
The other B-class hunters whispered among themselves, voices trembling even when trying to act tough.
"The bones... they're watching us.""This is worse than the last one. Way worse.""Why do I feel like I'm the one being hunted?"
Several glanced toward the S-ranks at the front for reassurance, but none dared approach them.
Because even the S-rankers were on edge.
Captain Veylor's gaze swept like a hawk's, one hand on his weapon the entire time. Helio Straza walked with his glowing spear held upright, eyes locked forward, golden aura dimmer than usual.
And Arin Gravewalker, the blind necromancer, paused at intervals—head tilting ever so slightly—as if listening to voices no one else could hear.
"No movement yet," she murmured finally."But there are... remains. Hundreds. No, thousands.""And they're not entirely at rest."
A ripple of unease ran through the A-class team.
The dungeon was still uncharted. No layout, no recorded mana flows. The map drones sent earlier had all vanished within seconds. Even divination attempts returned scrambled timelines—visions of fire, flight, and shadows tearing through the sky.
The command team marked their path with beacon pylons, embedding them into the bone-covered floor as they moved forward.
A massive corridor stretched ahead, framed by collapsed pillars and the rusted remnants of titanic weapons. Draconic armor, fused with stone, lay cracked open like ancient eggshells.
Each step deeper was met with increasing pressure—not from air or mana, but from something else.
Something ancient.Something that did not want them there.
Even the bravest A-ranks—guild elites who had once fought cyclopes and chimera-class bosses—walked with hands on hilts, heads low.
It felt like walking into a dead god's lungs.And hearing the heartbeat start again.
No monster had appeared.No trap had been triggered.But the tension—the wrongness—was unbearable.
Rovan gritted his teeth.
His hands were shaking. So were his legs. He had fought before—raids, dungeon cleanups, emergency support—but never anything like this.
He tried to focus on the crate strapped to his back, counting the items to distract himself: 3 healing kits, 2 mana injectors, 6 soul-bonded runes...
But his mind wouldn't calm.His thoughts raced with fear."I don't belong here. I shouldn't be here."
The others ignored him.They were too focused on their own survival.
And Rovan?He was no different.
Just another small, scared porter in a place never meant for humans.
They had stepped into a place not meant to be disturbed.A place where even dragons died in silence.And the deeper they walked, the more certain they all became...
[Location: Second Hall – Vestibule of Broken Thrones][Distance to Grave Core: 3.2 km]
The advance halted.
What lay before them was not a room, but a coliseum of bones—a vast, circular chamber with shattered stone thrones arranged in a spiral. Some stood tall, others lay crumbled. And in the center?
A towering spire of fossilized black bone, spiraled with chains of silver and blood-red rust.
"That's it," Captain Veylor said, narrowing his eyes."That's the Grave Beacon. We're close."
But the words had barely left his lips before the air… changed.
It was like a second breath filled the room. Not from the living.But from the dead.
A crack split the silence.
Then a second.
Then dozens—CRACK. CRACK. CRA-KOOM!
The bone walls around the spire began to tremble. Cracks formed along the fossil-embedded stone. And then—
A shriek tore through the chamber like a banshee's wail, deep and metallic, soaked in ancient fury.
A wyvern's roar.
The bone craters shattered.
From beneath the surface, winged skeletons began to claw their way upward. Enormous ribbed wings unfolded. Empty eye sockets glowed with burning blue flame. Horned skulls snapped upward.
[Warning: Dungeon Shift Detected!][Entity Class: Undead Wyvern Lord – Grade A+][Threat Level: Elevated – Multiple Signatures Detected]
One.Three.Ten.Fourteen undead wyverns burst from their graves, screaming, skeletal wings tearing through the air as they launched into flight.
"ALL UNITS! FORM BATTLE LINES!"Captain Veylor's command echoed through the chaos.
Helio Straza leapt into the air, his golden aura igniting mid-flight.
"SPEAR ART: Sunpiercer Thrust!"A blinding streak of light burst from his spear, striking the first wyvern in the chest mid-air.
The impact exploded the creature into shards of bone, fire and magic. But more were coming.
From below, a wyvern dove toward the formation—
Arin Gravewalker stepped forward, staff raised.
"Necroseal: Circle of Eternal Slumber!"A black rune flared beneath her feet, then shot upward like chains, wrapping around the wyvern and pulling it into the ground—paralyzed, screaming in silence as bone turned to ash.
The A-rank hunters launched into motion.
"Bladestorm Dance!""Infernal Arrows: Scatter Shot!""Mana Barrier – Activate!"
Swords met bone. Arrows tore through wings. Elemental magic scorched the skies.
But the wyverns were not ordinary.
They fought like they remembered. Like they hated.
One swooped down, jaws glowing with necrotic energy, and released a torrent:
"Breath of Rot!"A black mist surged from its mouth, corroding shields and armor instantly.Three B-rank hunters collapsed, screaming as their mana shields snapped.
Another wyvern crashed into the flank, grabbing an A-rank with its claws and slamming him into the wall, shattering it and spraying stone and blood.
[Hunter Juno – Status: Killed in Action]
"We're losing control!""There's too many of them!"
Rovan huddled behind a broken pillar, arms wrapped around his crate.
His ears rang with magic explosions and death cries. A corpse crashed down beside him—still steaming from acid breath.
A wyvern above dived toward his position.
He couldn't scream. He couldn't run.
Time slowed.
But before it reached him—
SHRRRRAK!!
A wall of energy slammed into the wyvern.
Captain Veylor appeared in a flash, his blade engulfed in red light.
"Crimson Fang Style: Final Judgement Slash!"
One swing. One scream. One decapitation.
The wyvern's head flew past Rovan and hit the floor with a wet, echoing thud.
Veylor didn't even look at him.
"Stay. Down."
With synchronized precision, the elite hunters began turning the tide.
A-rank elementalists launched chain spells, raining fire and thunder.
"Thunder Element: Stormcage Prison!"Lightning engulfed three wyverns mid-air, reducing them to twitching, brittle husks.
The S-ranks worked like divine executioners.
"Spear Art: Heavenstrike Cascade!""Necroseal: Ashes to Bone, Bone to Dust!"
Within fifteen minutes, nine wyverns were down.
Five more retreated into the shadows above.
A harsh silence returned, broken only by the wounded groaning and the hiss of scorched air.
The command center was damaged.Four were dead.Eleven were wounded.And they hadn't even reached the true chamber yet.
Arin Gravewalker spoke first:"That… was only the outer rim of the tomb."
Captain Veylor nodded grimly.
"We're waking something up. And it's pissed."
And somewhere at the very rear of the raid, Rovan sat among broken bones and bloodied stone, breathing hard, heart hammering—not with courage, but the kind of raw fear that etches itself into your soul.
He didn't know it yet…
But the real fight hadn't even begun.