Chapter 7: Descent into Silence
They called it the Grave of the Gods.
The 50th floor of the Dungeon—rarely visited, scarcely mapped. The last known expedition ended in silence, their bones left somewhere in the endless dark. For most, it was a boundary not to be crossed.
For Ryu Min—Black Scythe—it was only the beginning.
After the War Game, he left without a word. No farewell. Only a whisper in the wind that he had gone deeper.
Bell and the others searched for him. Even Hestia prayed. But Scythe had descended alone.
He knew what lay ahead.
The silence.
The pressure.
The awakening of something old.
---
The journey through the upper floors was uneventful—monsters barely slowed him. He moved like shadow and storm. By the time he reached the 37th floor, even the Juggernauts gave pause.
The 40th floor greeted him with darkness.
The 45th, with whispers.
The 49th, with screams.
He stood at the threshold of the 50th floor and looked into oblivion.
The very air shifted.
Time bent.
And something *watched*.
---
The 50th floor was unlike anything he had seen. Gravity pulled differently. Light came not from magic stones, but from veins of silver-blue crystal embedded in the walls. Monsters were not born—they *awoke*.
Massive beasts roamed the expanse—obsidian-scaled centipedes with magma-filled maws, floating predators with transparent skin revealing their glowing cores, and worst of all—the Throne Sentinel.
It stood at the heart of the ruins.
Ten feet tall, humanoid in shape but constructed of crystal and bone. A crown of horns. Wings that shimmered with stardust.
Its face bore no eyes—only a single, vertical sigil pulsing with ancient light.
It stirred as Scythe approached the central chamber.
"You should not be here," it intoned. "Turn back, bearer of death."
"I'm already dead," Ryu Min said, drawing his scythe.
The Sentinel charged.
Its steps shattered the floor. Magic surged from its wings—void bolts and time-distorting pulses. It moved with impossible speed, every strike a symphony of force and weight.
Scythe danced around its blows, cutting into joints and seams. Sparks flew, but the creature barely flinched. Its regeneration was near-instant.
He baited it into unleashing its full might. It summoned gravitational spheres that pulled in light and energy, distorting reality.
Scythe activated one of his trump cards: *Reaper's Wake*—a forbidden art granted by Hella. The edge of his blade shimmered with death itself, nullifying regeneration.
He dove beneath its strike, severed its wing, then launched upward.
The vertical sigil glowed—preparing an obliteration beam.
Scythe twisted midair and hurled his scythe like a spinning vortex of doom.
The weapon cleaved the sigil in two.
The Sentinel screamed—not a sound, but a distortion.
Then it crumbled.
Crystal turned to dust.
Silence returned.
---
In the ruins behind the Sentinel's throne, Scythe found a sanctum.
Carvings. Relics. A mural of Hella in chains beneath the Dungeon's roots.
He fell to his knees.
"My goddess," he whispered.
Visions flooded his mind—her eyes, once full of sorrow, looking up in hope.
And then her voice, faint as mist:
"You are close, my scythe. Deeper still... and I will awaken."
Scythe stood, bloodied, but burning with new resolve.
The floor was cleared.
But the Dungeon's secrets were just beginning to stir.
And from below, something else *waited*.