Consciousness drifted back like a lazy patch update... slow, buggy, and entirely unwelcome.
The last thing I remembered was that overwhelming light… that voice. A system so divine it practically screamed final boss energy. I'd barely had time to register the throne, the mountain of gold, the weapons glowing with unnatural power, then boom. My brain hit the emergency brake.
I passed out.
No epic speech, no dramatic monologue. Just sensory overload and lights out, like a rookie fainting during their first horror game stream. Pathetic.Now, as I stirred, my body felt like it had been dumped onto marble and left to marinate in regret.
Cold seeped through my clothes, sharp and unforgiving, and for a wild second, I wondered if my gaming chair had finally rebelled and kicked me onto the floor.
But no… this wasn't home. I wasn't back in my apartment. I wasn't even sure I was still alive.
"Where… the hell am I?" I muttered, my voice raw and hoarse. It echoed through the vast chamber, slow and eerie, bouncing across high arches that felt far too massive to be real.
I cracked my eyes open.
Gold.
Gleaming piles of it.
Swords and spears embedded in pillars. Enchanted runes glowed along the walls like starlight frozen in time. A cracked yet majestic throne loomed at the far end, half-swallowed by shadow.
Yep. Still in the dungeon.
Still not dreaming.
And still completely screwed.
The throne room, because that's what it undeniably was, stretched out before me like something from a fever dream designed by someone with an unlimited budget and questionable taste.
Towering obsidian pillars rose toward a vaulted ceiling lost in darkness, their surfaces carved with divine symbols that twisted and writhed when I wasn't looking directly at them.
Stained glass windows high above cast fractured rainbows across the floor, their patterns suspiciously resembling ritual circles.
And the treasure. Dear god, the treasure.
Mountains of gold coins spilled across the floor in casual heaps, as if someone had emptied the world's banks and just... left it there. Rubies the size of my fist glittered among emeralds that pulsed with their own inner light. Diamonds scattered like someone had been having a very expensive pillow fight. It was the kind of wealth that would make fantasy dragons weep with envy.
"Okay," I said aloud, taking a cautious step forward. The sound of my footfall echoed like thunder in the vast space. "Either I've been kidnapped by the world's most theatrical treasure hoarder, or that game actually transported me to—"
I stopped mid-sentence as my eyes fell on the weapons.
These weren't the kind of decorative pieces you'd find in some rich collector's study. These were instruments of divine warfare, each one radiating power that made my teeth ache just from looking at them.
A cursed black katana floated vertically in a glass stasis cube, its blade so dark it seemed to absorb light. Every few seconds, it pulsed with energy that felt like concentrated malice.
Behind the throne, and it was definitely a throne, carved from obsidian and gold with dragon-scale padding that probably cost more than my entire existence, a crescent halberd hung suspended in mid-air. Phoenix motifs were engraved along its shaft, and I swear I could see tiny flames dancing along the edges of the blade.
But the piece that really caught my attention was a bow made from what looked like crystallized spider silk, its string drawn taut despite having no arrow nocked. It hung in the air like it was waiting for someone worthy enough to draw it.
"Right," I said, trying to maintain my sanity through sheer force of sarcasm. "So I'm either in the world's most elaborate escape room, or I've somehow become the protagonist of a very expensive fantasy novel. Either way, there's got to be an exit somewhere."
What followed was perhaps the most thorough exploration of a single room in human history. I checked behind every tapestry, and there were dozens, depicting battles between gods and mortals that made the Iliad look like a children's book. I examined every statue, every pillar, every decorative element that might conceal a hidden door or passage.
Nothing.
The stained glass windows were too high to reach, and even if I could get to them, they were probably just for show. No doors, no corridors, no convenient "Exit" signs. Just me, a room full of divine weapons I was afraid to touch, and enough treasure to buy a small country.
After what felt like hours of increasingly frantic searching, I slumped down beside one of the treasure piles, breathing hard and trying not to panic. This was fine. This was totally fine. I was just trapped in an impossible room with no way out and a trial hanging over my head that involved forging a divine hammer or suffering eternal death.
Yeah, definitely fine.
That's when I noticed the scroll.
It was golden, etched with runes that seemed to glow with their own inner light, partially buried beneath a pile of coins that could have funded a small space program. Unlike the gaudy display of wealth around it, this scroll felt... important. The kind of important that came with capital letters and ominous background music.
"The Past of the Sword Sage," I read aloud, the words appearing in my mind rather than on the scroll itself. "Well, that's not ominous at all."
I reached for it, and the moment my fingers made contact, the runes began to move. They uncoiled like living serpents, flowing across the golden surface in patterns that hurt to look at directly. The scroll pulsed with power, and suddenly my vision went white.
Images flooded my mind, not memories, but something deeper. A battlefield where the sky bled crimson, and a lone warrior stood among the corpses of gods. I saw him forge a blade beneath lightning that struck the earth like the wrath of heaven itself, tempering the metal with his own blood and tears. The warrior's face was hidden beneath a helm that seemed to be made from concentrated shadow, but his hands...
His hands moved like mine did when I worked the forge.
The vision intensified, threatening to burn itself permanently into my consciousness, when suddenly—
[WARNING: Item Tier exceeds absorption limit.]
[Absorption Denied.]
A crimson system window slammed into existence, the text pulsing like an emergency alert. The scroll went dead in my hands, the runes freezing mid-movement as if someone had hit a pause button on reality itself.
I gasped and threw the scroll away, clutching my chest as aftershocks of pain rippled through my skull. My heart was racing like I'd just sprinted a marathon, and I could taste copper in my mouth.
"What the hell was that?" I panted, staring at the now-innocent looking scroll.
The system window flickered and vanished without offering any explanation, leaving me alone with my confusion and a rapidly growing headache.
I sat there for a long moment, trying to process what had just happened. The visions, the warrior, the feeling that I'd almost seen something important, something that might explain why I was here and what I was supposed to do. But it was gone now, locked away behind some arbitrary system limitation that treated cosmic knowledge like a video game mechanic.
The despair hit me then, sudden and overwhelming. Here I was, trapped in an impossible place with an impossible task, and I couldn't even access the information that might help me survive. I thought about Earth, about the life I'd left behind. My parents, who probably thought I'd finally cracked under the pressure of my streaming career.
My viewers, who were probably still waiting for me to come back online. The apartment I'd never see again, with its familiar smell of takeout and the gentle hum of overworked electronics.
I'd sacrificed everything for this stupid quest, and for what? To die alone in a room that might as well be a tomb?
"No," I said aloud, my voice cracking with emotion. "No, after all that... this dungeon won't break me."
I forced myself to stand, to look around the throne room with new eyes. There had to be a way forward. There was always a way forward, that was the first rule of game design, and whatever cosmic force had brought me here seemed to be following some kind of twisted game logic.
My gaze fell on a rack of blacksmithing tools near the throne, and something clicked into place. The trial wasn't just about forging a divine hammer, it was about proving I belonged here. And I'd proven my worth with a forge once before.
"Fine," I said, walking toward the tools with renewed determination. "I forge my own damn exit."