CHAPTER 1 – THE BOY WHO FELL TOO FAR
F-Rank Dungeon – Outer Ring of Vaeloris
Morning
I was once told that if you stare into the Abyss long enough, something will eventually stare back.
No one ever told me what happens when you fall so deep into it that it becomes part of you.
The answer, as it turns out, is inconvenient.
The world greeted Draven Dragnar with screaming.
Not the dramatic kind people made when they saw something frightening in a story. This was the panicked, breathless kind that came from someone who had run out of options.
Draven stood barefoot on fractured stone as the tear in space behind him slowly closed. There was no flash of light or loud explosion. Reality simply stitched itself together, as if it wanted to pretend he had never been there.
He looked around.
Rotting trees twisted beneath a grey sky. The ground was damp, and the air carried the familiar smell of soil mixed with mana residue.
A dungeon.
An F-Rank dungeon, judging by the weak mana in the air.
He looked towards the source of the screaming.
Five heartbeats.
Two injured.
One bleeding heavily.
Three monsters closing in.
Draven exhaled.
Sixteen days.
That was how long he had been gone in Vaeloris.
Sixteen days.
One thousand, six hundred years.
His eyes moved over his hands. They looked almost the same, but his body felt smaller than he remembered. The strength he had spent centuries building was still there, buried beneath something that pressed against him like invisible chains.
He flexed his fingers.
Slower than before.
“Interesting.”
A claw tore through the air beside his head.
Draven moved half a step to the side. The creature’s attack missed him, and he caught its forelimb before it could recover. He turned with its momentum and pressed two fingers into the joint beneath its shoulder plate.
There was a sharp crack.
The monster dropped.
Draven looked down at it.
“That it?”
The remaining students stared at him.
One of them, a girl holding what looked like a half-formed mana spear, blinked several times.
“W-What?”
He glanced at her weapon.
The mana was unstable. Too much energy was gathering near the head, while the base was leaking power. She was forcing the weapon to hold its shape instead of controlling the flow properly.
At that rate, she would exhaust herself before the fight was over.
“You’re wasting energy,” he said.
The girl stared at him.
“What?”
“Your spear. Tighten the spiral at the base.”
“Now?”
“Unless you were planning to do it tomorrow.”
She looked offended.
Before she could answer, another monster roared and charged.
Draven sighed.
He had forgotten how noisy this world could be.
The creature rushed towards him. This time, he didn’t attack immediately. He watched its movements, measuring its stride and the angle of its claws.
At the last moment, he stepped inside its range.
His elbow struck its throat. His palm followed against its jaw, and his knee drove into its underbelly.
The monster stumbled.
A final strike sent it crashing onto the ground.
The girl was still staring.
“How did you do that?”
“Practice.”
“What kind of practice?”
“The unpleasant kind.”
She looked as though she wanted to ask more, but the third creature was already moving.
It was faster than the others.
Draven noticed the difference immediately. Its movements were less predictable, and its claws carried a faint coating of poison.
He could have avoided the attack completely.
Instead, he allowed one claw to scrape his forearm.
Pain registered.
Surface-level.
Beneath his skin, something responded.
Adaptive Resonance.
The ability stirred, examining the toxin and mapping its structure. A faint sensation spread through his arm as his body began adjusting to the poison.
Draven caught the creature’s skull and drove it into the stone.
Once.
Twice.
It stopped moving.
He looked at the shallow scratch on his arm.
“Still working.”
Behind him, someone whispered.
“He’s F-Rank?”
Draven rolled his shoulder.
The suppression was firm. His body remembered how to move faster, but the world refused to allow it.
How rude.
The injured boy coughed.
“Who... who are you?”
Draven turned towards him.
The boy was young, probably around the same age as the others. Blood had soaked through part of his clothing, and he was struggling to keep his injured leg still.
Draven pointed towards the wound.
“Put pressure there.”
The boy looked down.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Will that stop the bleeding?”
“It should slow it down.”
The boy pressed his hand against the wound.
“Is my leg broken?”
Draven looked at it.
“Probably.”
The boy’s face fell.
“Probably?”
“Would you prefer a confident answer?”
“Yes!”
“Then yes.”
The boy stared at him.
One of the other students let out a nervous laugh, although he quickly stopped when the injured boy glared at him.
The girl with the spear shook her head.
“You’re not helping.”
“I gave him an answer.”
“You frightened him.”
“He asked.”
The boy raised his head slightly.
“Can both of you stop talking about my leg?”
Draven looked at him.
“Good. You’re still alert.”
The boy didn’t seem to appreciate the compliment.
The last two monsters began circling them.
Draven turned his attention back to the creatures.
They were learning.
Their movements had changed since the first attack. They were no longer charging blindly. One kept its distance while the other watched for an opening.
A little better.
He almost smiled.
At least they were trying.
The two monsters attacked together.
Draven moved before their claws reached him. He shifted his weight, redirected one creature’s strike into the other and stepped through the space between them.
A blow landed against a nerve cluster.
One monster dropped to its knees.
The second turned too slowly.
Draven struck beneath its jaw and sent it crashing into a broken tree.
The first tried to rise.
He finished it with a short, precise strike.
Within seconds, both creatures lay still.
The dungeon became quiet again.
The girl lowered her spear.
“Are they all dead?”
Draven looked at the bodies.
“Unless they are pretending.”
She frowned.
“Do you always answer questions like that?”
“Only the unnecessary ones.”
“That wasn’t unnecessary!”
He looked at her.
She looked back.
For a moment, neither said anything.
Then one of the students laughed.
The girl turned sharply.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing.”
“Then stop laughing.”
The boy raised both hands.
“All right. Sorry.”
Draven turned away from them.
The fight had confirmed something he already suspected. His body was restricted, and the world was actively limiting what he could use. Even so, he could still move, observe and adapt.
It would be enough for now.
He looked towards the trees.
Beyond them, a dungeon core pulsed faintly.
Its light flickered when his gaze settled on it.
The air shifted.
A thin wisp of black mist curled around his fingers before fading.
Draven watched it disappear.
The students had not noticed.
The spear girl finally approached him.
“Hey.”
He glanced at her.
“What?”
“You’re not from our squad.”
“No.”
“Are you from another team?”
“No.”
She waited for him to explain.
He didn’t.
She sighed.
“Then why are you here?”
Draven considered the question.
Why was he here?
The Abyss had not pushed him out.
It had released him.
He looked at his hand again.
“I was falling,” he said. “This was in the way.”
The girl stared at him.
One of the boys let out a nervous laugh.
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
That ended the conversation.
Draven looked towards the sky. Artificial light filtered through the dungeon canopy, and the weak mana in the air barely reached him.
A small notification appeared in his vision.
Suppression Laws: Active
Adaptation Progress: 0.02% Restored
He tilted his head.
“Slow.”
The girl turned towards him.
“What is?”
“This place.”
She frowned.
The injured boy looked at him carefully.
“You don’t feel like an F-Rank.”
Draven glanced at him.
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Why?”
“Because apparently I am.”
He started walking towards the exit.
“Wait!” the girl called.
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“At least tell us your name!”
For a moment, the wind moved through the broken branches.
Something colder than mana brushed the air around him. It was faint, almost impossible to notice, but it reminded him of a place he had spent far too long calling home.
He glanced back.
“Draven.”
The girl waited.
“Draven what?”
“Dragnar.”
She nodded slowly.
“I’m Violet.”
He gave a small nod and continued walking.
Behind him, the dungeon core flickered again.
As if recognising something it should not.
As if something from the place where dungeons went when they died had just returned.
Outside the dungeon barrier, alarms were beginning to sound.
Draven didn’t hear them.
He was listening to something far quieter.
The world breathing.
Vaeloris had laws.
The Abyss did not.
And Draven had just stepped back into both.
