Igor and his team had decided to return to the dungeon, with one goal in mind: to recover what had been left behind.
Melki, a capable man, knew what they were looking for and the approximate location of the item.
"And what if what we find isn't worth it?" Melki questioned the others.
"Well, originally, it's just a matter of curiosity! And even if it isn't a valuable item, we'll have information, and that's worth a lot."
"Yes, you're right, but we shouldn't linger. This isn't an official BBM-sanctioned job."
"Yeah, that's true!"
The SOM artifact appeared to be a small transparent jar, its contents visible inside. At either end were two lids, the result of Walpurgis' craftsmanship, with Kris engravings on them.
The SOM literally spilled out of the bag it had been thrown into, yet the glass remained unbroken—testament to the object's robustness.
Inside, an organism pulsed faintly at an irregular rhythm.
Currently, we are on the fifteenth level of the Amon Dungeon. The SOM artifact, thrown into the Blood Gorge on the ninth level, had drifted along the currents, tumbled, and ended up on this floor.
It didn't take long for a monster to notice the strange object.
A gray wolf, one of the creatures that frequently harass adventurers on the fifteenth floor, needed only a single bite to break the SOM and make its contents its meal.
The gray wolf then moved on, searching for its next prey, wandering between the fifteenth and seventeenth floors. But soon, the wolf began acting strangely.
Its stomach churned, visibly writhing as if thousands of serpents squirmed inside. After a brief struggle, the wolf collapsed.
The wolf had died—from food poisoning.
Note to Readers: Be mindful of what you eat, friends.
The wolf's fur began peeling from its body, while the rest of its form regressed, reverting to what it once was—a fetus. But this time, something was different.
The fetus's translucent skin had gained a degree of resistance, enough that the conditions outside the SOM no longer put it in immediate peril.
But this state didn't last long. This was a dungeon, after all, and another monster soon appeared, devouring the fetus. After traveling through a few levels, the new host was in turn consumed by a more powerful monster. A classic case of "two birds with one stone"—poisoned. The negative varan, despite its supposed resistance to all toxins, soon regretted its meal and died in agony.
The fetus always reverted to its original state. However, each time, something imperceptibly changed. The process kept repeating.
By the time the fetus reached the 40th floor, the dungeon's configuration and the nature of its monsters had changed. Monsters like skeletons, lacking the means to consume a creature made of flesh, had no interest in it beyond killing it. Yet the fetus retained the presence of a monster.
It went unnoticed until a Soul Reaper Emeldon appeared. The Soul Reaper attempted to devour the creature's soul but was instead absorbed, along with the many souls of adventurers it had consumed, which were compressed and crushed within the fetus's body.
Normally, the Soul Reaper Emeldon would resist powers of the same affinity, but it was absorbed and assimilated, leaving no trace of its non-physical form.
The absorption of the Soul Reaper Emeldon transformed the fetus, awakening its instincts.
It evolved. Its form remained similar to a fetus, but it was now roughly the size of a puppy.
The fetus roamed the dungeon ceaselessly, guided by instinct, fleeing danger, only to be devoured repeatedly and returning each time. It even encountered adventurers who attacked it. Eventually, it reached the 99th floor.
There, it was devoured by the Abyssal Serpent, the floor's boss monster. Despite its immense power and vitality, the Abyssal Serpent also died after attempting to devour its prey.
The 99th floor was one of the dungeon's largest, roughly the size of a small town.
The floor trembled slightly as a pitch-black void opened near the Abyssal Serpent's corpse, sucking in everything around it.
Now, in complete darkness, all that had been swallowed with the Abyssal Serpent was gone—only the serpent remained. It began to transform.
Before the serpent, an enormous dragon bound in chains appeared in the endless void.
"What an interesting thing we have here," the dragon said.
The dragon opened its eyes. The sheer act of doing so unleashed an incredible amount of power, but it was useless here. In this state, even if the creature before it had intelligence or instinct, it would likely feel nothing.
"I can no longer see. The seal strengthens as time flows outside, while time here is frozen."
Indeed, in this place where the dragon resided, time did not pass. The dragon did not speak using its body but rather its power. Every restricted movement it made was merely an illusion created by its abilities.
"My power doesn't vanish, but it diminishes. I am slowly losing the foundation of my existence. And now you're here. Is this a joke? Something so unusual—a parody of a hero? You weren't supposed to be here. Who are you?"
The dragon had once used its power during the convergence to exploit an interstice and open a dimensional door for its own purposes. However, the result was far from what it had anticipated—it had expected something entirely different.
"You don't seem to have the power necessary to act in this place. And I sense that you don't understand. How unpleasant."
"Time does not flow here, and I barely have enough power left to maintain my consciousness. I can't make another attempt. I will take your body and escape this place."
The dragon compressed all its power. The chains binding it prevented it from fully unleashing its strength, but its energy still seeped out. This was why the dragon was drowning in its own power—the greatest factor in its imprisonment was itself.
By compressing its power, the dragon converted its being into energy, which entered the fetus's body, leaving behind an empty shell.
"Gaah!"
A cry echoed.
"This thing is resisting me?"
"Impossible."
The dragon realized it had made a grave mistake. It wasn't about to possess the fetus's body—the fetus was about to devour the dragon's very being.
"I see. So that's how it is."
The dragon race was supposed to be proud and arrogant, but this dragon was completely calm. Could such an existence truly be defined as a dragon? That is unknown—for now.
"But I cannot disappear like this. I understand your desire to live, but I cannot vanish. If I do, I will forget the hatred that drives me. I will etch part of my consciousness within you. So, please, do not devour it, do not assimilate it, do not notice it. Take everything that remains of my authority."
"I will return, and I will bring everything into the void."