Smoke hung in the air, thick and hot. Every breath should have scorched Eron's throat, but he barely felt it now. The cavern reeked of charred flesh and molten stone. Heat pressed against his skin and burned his eyes, the air heavy with smoke. It was the kind of heat that would have killed most people if they were in Eron's position, but for him, it only caused sweat.
Twenty years of breathing smoke and fire had changed him. His skin no longer blistered. His lungs didn't choke on smoke anymore. Heat that should have ended his life only made him uncomfortable. He still wondered why his body had adapted this way, and why fire no longer burned him.
He pressed one hand against the wall. The rock was hot under his palm, like touching a furnace. He should have pulled away, but he felt only steady warmth. It was harsh but bearable.
The lake where the serpent had thrashed was no longer the same. Half of it had boiled away in the blast, leaving cracked stone and steaming pits. The remaining water hissed and bubbled as waves of heat rolled through the cavern.
The serpent's massive body floated motionless on the boiling surface. Steam rose as its coils shifted slightly with each ripple. Where its head had been, only scorched bone remained.
Eron studied the destruction without emotion. Satisfaction, fear, relief, none of it reached him anymore. Only silence filled the cavern.
Twenty years alone in the Time Pocket had trained him to keep his emotions in check, showing them only when needed. Isolation had forced him to survive that way.
The serpent was dead. That was enough.
His hand twitched. Sparks flashed across his knuckles. For a moment, he thought of testing another spell. Not from excitement, but from cold curiosity.
His fist closed.
"No."
The word echoed against the scorched walls.
"Until I can control it completely," he whispered. "Fireball No. 1 stays sealed."
He exhaled slowly, eyes still fixed on the faint glow of his palm.
That spell is like a nuke.
I can't use it often, not like this.
I need to learn how to adjust the mana output first before I even think of using it again.
He clenched his fist until the sparks faded. A dull ache pulsed through his body, the shockwave had rattled him more than he'd admitted.
"I'm lucky my body's already adapted to fire," he muttered under his breath. He let out a quiet sigh.
"If it hadn't, I might've been the first man to die from his own spell."
The cavern groaned. Fractures split along the walls. Another slab of ceiling broke off and crashed into the steaming lake.
Eron checked his backpack. The straps were burned but intact. Inside were his dented kettle, a half-burned tarp, and a few rations. His clothes were nearly destroyed. His skin was marked with burns and bruises, but he was alive.
A glint caught his eye.
From the serpent's body, a shard of scale fused with bone had fallen. It glowed faintly orange. Eron picked it up. Warmth pulsed through his palm, a drop of proof. He turned it over once, then tucked it into his pack.
"I could probably sell this… if I ever make it back to the surface," he murmured. The thought stayed with him longer than he expected. He had spent twenty years trapped in the Time Pocket, while only a single second passed outside. He hadn't seen the sun or spoken to anyone in all that time. Sometimes he wondered if he'd still know how to live like a normal person once he got out.
He adjusted the strap of his pack and stood still for a moment. The cavern was quiet except for the faint hiss of steam. His body ached, and his thoughts drifted back to silence, the kind he'd lived with for two decades.
Then, the silence broke.
Something alive stirred from the tunnel beyond the cavern.
The roar echoed through the place where he stood, shaking the air around him.
It was deep and sharp, It sounded like a dragon's roar rising from the depths of the abyss. Dust rained from the ceiling as the walls trembled and split. Ripples turned into waves across the boiling lake, sending steam bursting upward in violent bursts.
Eron froze. Heat sparked in his hand before he forced it back down. The roar was so loud it made his ears ring, and he raised an arm to cover them. His instincts screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go.
The roar faded into silence.
"Am I ready to face that?" he muttered.
He swallowed hard, forcing himself to breathe evenly.
"Should I use my Forbidden Spell?"
He shook his head almost immediately.
"No… if I use those here, the entire dungeon might collapse."
He let out a short, tense breath. "I was lucky it only caused one earthquake last time. If I used another variant of Fireball…" He paused as a chill ran down his spine just thinking about it.
There were higher versions, unstable, unfinished, and far beyond his current control. Even imagining their power made his hands tremble slightly.
He took one last look at the boiling lake and the serpent's burned remains. Nothing moved now, only the sound of water hissing against molten rock. The battle was over, but the dungeon was far from silent.
He adjusted his pack and started walking toward the deeper tunnel. The air ahead shimmered with heat, the kind that could melt steel, but he didn't slow down. He'd survived twenty years in the Time Pocket. This was nothing.
He didn't know what waited deeper inside. He didn't know if the dungeon even had an end. But one thing was certain: he couldn't go back.
With fire still burning quietly under his skin and two decades of control holding it in place, Eron Vale stepped forward into the unknown.
High above, adventurers argued over the cause of the quake. Some believed the dungeon was collapsing. Others claimed it was a monster awakening below. Silver-ranks fled. Gold-ranks stayed, drawn by greed or pride.
But in the burned cavern beneath them, one man had already made his choice.
Fireball No. 1 would stay sealed,
until he was strong enough to survive what came next.