The eye had vanished, but the weight of its gaze still lingered. Even hours later, I could feel it—an invisible pressure in the back of my mind, a presence that refused to leave. It wasn't just paranoia.
Cthulhu was awake.
Not fully, not yet. But the first seal was gone. I had seen it. I had felt it. And now, I had no choice but to stop the rest from breaking.
I sat in my workshop, staring at a rough map of the land I had sketched on parchment. The Crimson had grown since my last survey. It had moved faster than before, consuming land in days that should've taken months. It wasn't just spreading—it was accelerating.
The Slime Queen hovered nearby, her body shifting uneasily. Even she seemed... different. Her usual bright blue hue had darkened slightly, her form flickering at the edges like a candle in the wind.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" I asked quietly.
She rumbled, her minions bouncing with agitation. They weren't just restless—they were afraid.
I exhaled sharply, running a hand through my hair. "Alright. No more waiting. We stop this now."
No more playing defense. No more waiting for the next disaster to come knocking.
If I wanted to stop Cthulhu from returning, I had to find the remaining seals.
I grabbed my gear and headed out.
---
I started with the Dungeon.
Terraria's Dungeon was an ancient, sprawling labyrinth of stone, buried deep beneath a ruined castle. If there was any place in this world that held answers, it was there. I had avoided it before, knowing it was dangerous, but I didn't have time to be cautious anymore.
The journey there took days. I crossed forests, mountains, and deserts, my minecart tracks taking me as far as they could before I had to travel on foot. The landscape had changed since I last ventured this far. The Crimson had begun creeping into biomes it shouldn't have been able to reach.
That wasn't normal.
This wasn't natural.
This was intentional.
I reached the Dungeon entrance at dusk, standing before its towering stone walls, covered in glowing blue runes. Even from the outside, I could feel the magic woven into its structure—ancient, powerful, and utterly alien.
A skeletal figure stood at the entrance, bound in rusted chains, its hollow eyes flickering with a faint blue glow. Skeletron.
The guardian of the Dungeon.
It didn't attack. Not yet. It just... watched me. Waiting.
I raised a hand in greeting. "I need inside."
The air around the skeleton shuddered. A voice, dry and brittle, spoke directly into my mind.
"You should not be here."
"I don't have a choice," I said, stepping forward. "The seals are breaking. Cthulhu is waking up."
The blue glow in its eyes flared.
"Then you are already too late."
I clenched my fists. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I need to know what's down there."
The skeleton was silent for a long time. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, it stepped aside.
"You have been marked. There is no turning back."
That wasn't comforting.
I took a deep breath and entered the Dungeon.
---
The Dungeon was worse than I expected.
The deeper I went, the colder it became. The stone walls were lined with faded murals—scenes of ancient battles, of gods warring with monsters, of shattered seals and broken worlds.
And the whispers.
Not like Cthulhu's. These were different.
"They failed."
"You will fail too."
"There is no stopping it."
I ignored them, pushing deeper. The further I went, the more I realized the Dungeon wasn't just a prison.
It was a graveyard.
Bones littered the halls, remnants of warriors who had come before me. Some wore ancient armor, their weapons rusted but still humming with faint enchantments.
Others... others weren't human at all.
I found a shattered golden mask, still glowing faintly. A long-dead ruler? A lost god?
The Dungeon held secrets far older than Terraria itself.
Then, at the lowest level, I found it.
A second seal.
A massive stone slab, covered in runes, pulsating with a sickly red light. Unlike the murals above, this was active, its energy thrumming against my skin.
And then I heard him again.
"YOU CANNOT STOP THIS."
The air rippled, and suddenly I wasn't in the Dungeon anymore.
I was somewhere else.
A vast, endless void stretched before me, filled with shifting shadows and watching eyes. The ground was liquid, swirling with the same crimson energy I had seen in the Caverns.
At the center of it all, something stirred.
I couldn't see it fully—my mind refused to process its shape. It was too big, too unnatural, shifting between titanic flesh and cosmic void.
But the eyes.
The eyes never changed.
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?"
"YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO WIN."
I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to move. The weight of its presence was overwhelming, pressing against every inch of my being, but I refused to kneel.
I summoned fire, shadow, every ounce of magic I had—
And the vision shattered.
I was back in the Dungeon, gasping for breath. The seal was still there, pulsing with its unholy light.
But now I understood.
These weren't just barriers.
They were locks.
Cthulhu had been imprisoned, not defeated. And something—or someone—was breaking the locks one by one.
I had wasted too much time.
I raised my Flamelash and unleashed a torrent of fire into the seal. The runes flickered, resisting, but I poured everything I had into the attack.
The stone cracked.
The magic withered.
The seal was destroyed.
I expected something to happen.
A tremor, an explosion, a shift in the air. But there was nothing.
And that was worse.
I had delayed him. Maybe. But I knew one thing for certain.
The final seal was still out there.
And I was running out of time.