The wind slicing through the Jagged Peaks of the Dwarf Empire did not howl. It screamed.
It carried the bitter, biting chill of high-altitude snow, mixed with the harsh, metallic taste of forge-ash drifting over from the distant industrial sectors. For a normal human, exposure to this altitude without heavy, specialized thermal gear would mean losing fingers to frostbite within the hour.
Alden did not feel the cold.
He stood at the edge of a massive, sheer cliff face, the tails of his shadow-black trench coat whipping violently around his knees.
Beneath the sleek, matte-black mask forged by Herman Blackwood, Alden's breathing was slow and steady. The metal clung to the contours of his jaw and cheekbones like a second skin, comfortably warm against the freezing wind.
CRACK!
Alden's right leg buckled.
He didn't cry out. He didn't even gasp. He simply dropped to one knee in the thick snow, his gloved hands digging into the frozen earth. A violent, agonizing tremor wracked his entire frame. Deep inside his chest, the D+ Rank Chaos core had just thrown another one of its unpredictable, hostile tantrums. A localized surge of dark-gold energy had violently misfired down his nervous system, cleanly snapping his right tibia in two.
'Not now,' Alden gritted his teeth, his jaw locking so tight the muscles bulged against the edges of the metal mask. 'I don't have time for this.'
He squeezed his single crimson eye shut beneath the narrow slit of the mask.
Sizzle… hiss…
The Nephalem bloodline immediately reacted to the trauma. The dark-gold energy that had just broken his bone instantly reversed its polarity, melting the fractured calcium and fusing it back together with a searing, white-hot intensity. The process took less than three seconds, but the sheer, unadulterated pain of a bone breaking and remending in real-time was enough to make his vision swim.
Alden exhaled a long, shuddering breath, his hot breath venting through the micro-perforations in the mask.
He pushed himself up off the snow, testing his weight on the right leg. Solid. Denser than it was a minute ago.
He brushed the snow off his black coat and looked out over the sprawling, treacherous landscape.
The Dwarf Empire was not a single, cohesive nation, but a network of massive, interconnected mountain fortresses. Valleys of dense, petrified forests separated the peaks, filled with beasts that had adapted to the harsh, high-mana environment.
Alden was currently a ghost moving through this incredibly hostile territory.
He reached up, tapping the side of his head with two fingers.
The coordinates.
A sharp, throbbing ache pulsed behind his temples. Liam von Ravel's torture in the Black Cell had left deep, jagged scars on his cognitive retention. Whenever Alden tried to recall the exact numbers burned into his memory from the demon Alister's box, the image would blur and shift, like trying to read a book underwater.
He pressed harder against his temple, forcing his mind to focus. He ignored the phantom pain of peeling skin and shattering wrists that echoed in his peripheral memories.
'Southwest,' Alden deduced, his crimson eye narrowing as a fragment of the map finally clicked into place. 'Three hundred leagues past the Ironpeak borders. Into the Dead Ridges.'
He dropped his hand, adjusting the heavy travel pack secured over his shoulders.
He began his descent down the treacherous cliff face, his movements a terrifying display of raw, physical prowess. Without utilizing a single drop of his volatile Chaos mana, Alden practically glided down the jagged rocks. His A-Rank physical stats allowed his fingers to punch directly into solid stone for handholds. He moved with a fluid, predatory grace, descending hundreds of feet in a matter of minutes.
As he reached the dense, snow-covered tree line at the base of the mountain, a deep, rhythmic thrumming echoed through the valley.
Alden froze. He instantly flattened his back against the massive trunk of a petrified ironwood tree, completely merging with the shadows.
Above the tree canopy, three massive, heavily armored dwarven patrol airships drifted lazily through the grey sky. They were sleek, metallic zeppelins, armed with devastating runic cannons and lined with advanced magical sensors designed to detect even the faintest anomaly in the ambient mana.
Alden held his breath, his hand instinctively hovering over the dark iron band of his repaired storage ring.
The lead airship swept a wide, cone-shaped beam of pale blue light directly over the forest below. The sensor beam washed over the trees, the snow, and passed directly over Alden's hidden form.
Nothing happened.
No alarms blared. The airships didn't break their formation. They simply continued their patrol, drifting slowly toward the northern borders.
Alden let out a quiet, slow exhale.
'Herman really wasn't exaggerating,' Alden thought, reaching up to lightly trace the matte-black metal of his mask.
The Grand Forgemaster's artifact was an absolute masterpiece. Even bathed in the direct light of a high-tier dwarven military sensor, Alden's chaotic, highly explosive Nephalem aura was completely scrambled and nullified. To those airships, he hadn't registered as a human, a monster, or an S-Rank Existential Threat. He had registered as a completely mundane, slightly cold rock.
With his identity flawlessly hidden, Alden pushed away from the tree and continued his trek deeper into the Dead Ridges.
For two grueling days, he moved without rest. He didn't need sleep the way a normal human did anymore; his body fed on the chaotic energy constantly churning in his gut, sustaining his stamina even as it occasionally broke his ribs or ruptured his veins.
The landscape grew increasingly desolate. The snow gave way to fields of jagged, black obsidian glass. The air smelled of sulfur and ancient, stagnant magic.
By the evening of the second day, the coordinates in his head finally stopped shifting. The mental compass locked into a singular, undeniable point.
Alden stood at the edge of a massive, perfectly circular chasm.
The hole in the earth was easily a mile wide. It looked as though a gigantic, perfectly cylindrical core had been cleanly extracted from the center of the mountain range. Peering over the edge, Alden saw nothing but absolute, impenetrable darkness. There were no paths leading down. No ropes. No dwarven scaffolding.
'This is it,' Alden thought, his crimson eye scanning the perimeter of the abyss. 'The exact center of the coordinates.'
He picked up a fist-sized chunk of obsidian and tossed it over the edge.
He waited. He counted the seconds in his head.
Ten. Twenty. Fifty.
No sound of an impact echoed back up.
Alden frowned. If the drop was that deep, physically climbing down even with his A-Rank strength would take days, and one slip would mean an endless freefall.
Suddenly, a strange, heavy vibration hummed against his thigh.
Alden reached into his pocket and pulled out the crystal sphere. The twin wisps of blue and gold, which usually drifted lazily in a slow, peaceful orbit, were now darting frantically against the glass, pointing directly down into the abyss.
Before Alden could even process the sphere's reaction, another item reacted.
VWOOM—
The space directly in front of his chest warped. Unprompted, a dark, heavy object materialized from his storage ring and dropped heavily into the snow.
It was Vajra. The cursed Dragon Slayer hilt.
Alden stared at the dark, porous metal resting in the white snow. The jagged runes etched into the grip were glowing with a faint, sickly purple light. The weapon was practically vibrating, emitting a low, hungry hum that made the hairs on the back of Alden's neck stand up.
The sword had forced itself out of the spatial inventory.
'You sense something down there too?' Alden murmured, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.
He reached down and wrapped his gloved hand around the cursed hilt.
The moment his fingers locked around the grip, the hilt tried to bite him. An invisible, horrifying vacuum ripped open, attempting to violently drain his soul and devour his mana.
Alden didn't flinch.
Down in his dantian, the D+ Rank Chaos core flared. The dark-gold abyss spun, completely rejecting the sword's parasitic curse. The chaotic energy slammed into the vacuum, effectively pouring highly concentrated acid down the throat of a starving beast.
The hilt let out a sharp, almost auditory shriek of static feedback in Alden's mind, immediately cutting off its draining attempt and going completely docile in his grip.
'That's what I thought,' Alden smirked beneath his mask. 'Know your place.'
He secured the hilt to the heavy leather belt at his waist, leaving it easily accessible.
He looked back down into the massive chasm. The crystal sphere in his pocket was pulsing with a rhythmic, urgent heat. The coordinates burned clearly in his mind. Whatever Alister the demon had been hiding, whatever secret was meant to be buried here, it was waiting at the bottom of this impossible drop.
Alden stepped to the very edge of the precipice. His toes hung over the absolute void.
He closed his eye, focusing deeply on the chaotic, volatile energy spinning in his chest. He couldn't use his old spatial steps. He couldn't manifest wings. If he wanted to get to the bottom without climbing for a week, he was going to have to do something incredibly reckless.
He was going to have to trust the Chaos.
Alden took a deep breath, the freezing sulfur air filling his lungs.
He stepped forward, walking directly off the edge of the cliff.
Gravity seized him instantly. The wind roared past his ears, tearing at his black trench coat as he plummeted into the absolute, suffocating darkness. The walls of the chasm became a rushing blur of black stone.
He fell for what felt like an eternity. The temperature plummeted. The light from the surface vanished entirely, leaving him in pitch-black freefall.
'Now,' Alden commanded his core.
He didn't try to form a complex spell. He didn't try to weave a net. He simply visualized the raw, destructive force of the Chaos element and violently shoved a massive surge of dark-gold energy straight down through the soles of his boots.
BOOM!
The eruption of dark-gold mana acted like a localized, explosive thruster. The sheer, concussive force of the blast slammed against the empty air, violently arresting his terminal velocity.
CRACK!
The sudden deceleration shattered both of his ankles instantly.
Alden bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood, tasting copper in his mouth.
Sizzle… hiss…
The Nephalem bloodline immediately rushed to fuse the pulverized bones back together, even as he continued to fall, albeit at a much, much slower, controlled rate.
He repeated the process three more times. Fall. Blast. Shatter. Heal.
It was a brutal, agonizing method of descent, a torture only a body practically immune to permanent damage could endure.
Finally, his boots struck solid ground.
He hit the floor of the chasm hard, dropping into a low crouch, his right hand instantly dropping to the hilt of Vajra at his waist.
Silence.
Total, absolute silence surrounded him.
Alden slowly stood up, rolling his newly healed ankles. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crystal sphere. Holding it aloft, he fed a microscopic sliver of mana into the glass.
The blue and gold wisps flared brilliantly, acting as a makeshift lantern, casting a soft, ethereal light across the subterranean floor.
Alden's crimson eye widened behind his mask.
He was standing in the center of a sprawling, ruined city.
But it wasn't dwarven architecture. It wasn't human.
The buildings were carved from a pale, almost luminescent white stone. The structures were impossibly tall, featuring sweeping, elegant arches and massive, shattered spires that defied all known engineering. The streets were paved with a smooth, glass-like substance that reflected the light of his crystal sphere.
It was beautiful, haunting, and completely, utterly dead.
'What is this place?' Alden thought, his boots making no sound as he walked forward into the silent, ghostly metropolis.
Every building he passed bore the scars of a catastrophic battle. Massive, jagged claw marks scarred the white stone. Entire towers had been sheared in half, the top halves lying in ruins across the glass streets. The ambient mana in the air was incredibly dense, heavy with the metallic scent of ancient, dried blood.
Vibrate. The hilt of Vajra at his waist began to hum violently against his hip.
It wasn't just hungry anymore. It was reacting. It recognized this place.
Alden tightened his grip on the hilt, his combat instincts flaring to their absolute peak. He moved through the ruined streets, following the invisible pull of the coordinates that now felt like a physical tether attached to his chest.
The tether led him toward the center of the subterranean city.
There, sitting in the middle of a massive, shattered plaza, was a towering structure that resembled a colossal cathedral. The massive double doors, forged from a dark, iridescent metal, were blown completely off their hinges.
Alden stepped through the ruined archway, his crystal sphere illuminating the cavernous interior.
The inside of the cathedral was empty, save for a single, massive object resting at the far end of the hall, resting upon a raised dais of black obsidian.
Alden slowly walked down the center aisle, his eyes locked on the dais.
It was a skeleton.
But the scale of it was beyond comprehension. The skull alone was the size of a small house. The massive, sweeping ribs arched up toward the ceiling like the pillars of a temple. The bones were not white; they were a deep, polished obsidian black, radiating an aura of such intense, suffocating malice that Alden's breath physically hitched in his throat.
'A dragon,' Alden realized, his grip on Vajra turning white-knuckled. 'A Celestial Dragon.'
But the dragon wasn't just dead.
Pinned directly through the center of the massive, obsidian skull, anchoring the colossal beast to the stone dais, was a blade.
It was a magnificent, terrifying sword. The blade was forged from pure, solidified starlight, crackling with volatile, silver energy that illuminated the dark corners of the cathedral.
Alden stopped at the base of the dais.
He looked down at the hilt strapped to his waist. Vajra. The Weapon of Heaven's Wrath. The hilt without a blade.
He looked up at the blade pinned through the dragon's skull. The blade without a hilt.
Suddenly, the air inside the cathedral dropped by twenty degrees.
[DING!]
The pristine, chiming resonance of his upgraded system echoed in the absolute silence of the underground ruin.
Hovering in the dark air right in front of the colossal dragon skull, the abyssal black interface of [THE SUPREME LUCK SYSTEM] materialized, its borders lined with blazing, liquid gold.
[Anomaly Detected.]
[You have discovered the 'Tomb of the Primordial Sovereign'.]
[Notice: The ambient resentment of the deceased Celestial Dragon has detected the presence of 'Vajra'.]
[Trigger Event Initiated.]
The massive, obsidian bones of the dragon suddenly rattled. The sound was deafening, a horrific clattering that shook the very foundations of the cathedral.
Deep within the empty, massive eye sockets of the skull, two pinpricks of violent, blinding purple fire ignited.
[Warning: Hostile Entity Awakening.]
[Quest Generated: Claim the Blade of Starlight.]
[Failure Penalty: Complete Soul Annihilation.]
Alden stared at the massive, glowing purple eyes of the undead primordial beast as it slowly, agonizingly began to lift its colossal skull off the dais.
A dark, feral smile spread across Alden's face beneath the sleek metal mask. He unhooked the hilt of Vajra from his belt, the dark metal humming with eager, terrifying anticipation in his grip.
'Finally,' Alden thought, his D+ Rank Chaos core spinning up into a violent, abyssal frenzy. 'A target I don't have to hold back against.'