Immortal Paladin

455 Mystery of Dungeons

“Piece of shit.”

I brought my heel down and crushed the goblin’s skull into the cavern floor. It had strength roughly equivalent to the Seventh Realm, which would have been impressive anywhere else. Here, it was just another noisy pest.

“This is just weird and wrong,” I muttered. “How in the world was this even possible?”

Behind me, the dungeon core cracked with a shrill sound. Veins of crimson light spread across the cavern walls before the entire structure began collapsing inward. The artificial ecosystem sustaining the monsters destabilized instantly, turning into dissolving motes of light.

I exhaled and dispelled Starshroud.

The full plate armor melted into liquid starlight before reforming into dark robes with faint blue accents. The sentient armor had become surprisingly cooperative. It could rest as fabric, harden into protection, or flare into full regalia at a thought. I was starting to appreciate the convenience of having a loyal eldritch companion that no longer tried to crawl down my throat.

The cavern shook violently as the dungeon imploded behind me.

The earth burst open.

Dave shot upward from the collapsing depths, Joan held securely in his arms. They hovered briefly before descending lightly beside me. Dust swirled around us.

Dave blinked in surprise. “My lord, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

He released Joan gently. She straightened her robes and offered a polite nod. “We were surveying points of interest Dave marked earlier. Before we leave. Is it time already?”

I shook my head. “Nope. The transportation isn’t ready. I was just curious about your preparations.”

In gaming terms, they had been grinding hard.

Dave’s equipment had improved dramatically. His armor was layered and refined, glowing faintly with enchantments far superior to the old prototype paladin set Gu Jie once crafted. His sword hummed with contained power.

“It’s nothing special,” Joan said. “We stocked up on reagents, scrolls, and emergency charms. Sadly, the dungeon drop rates here are terrible.”

I snorted. “Tell me about it.”

The first dungeon I ever encountered in this world had practically summoned me through my Human Soul. It had been a memorable experience.

I folded my arms. “What do you think about these dungeons being signs of Losten descending into this world?”

It was a sensitive topic.

I had avoided pushing Joan too hard on it before. Perhaps I subconsciously treated her more delicately than necessary. Maybe I projected Karen onto her sometimes.

Joan, however, was not fragile.

“We investigated as thoroughly as possible,” she replied calmly. “At first, I suspected the same. That Losten was merging or descending.”

She glanced at Dave before continuing.

“However, the evidence doesn’t fully align. There are no historical records in our world indicating such a phenomenon. As far as we know, dungeons are born from wild mana. However, this world doesn’t have anything like that. Moreover, some items found here resemble artifacts from Losten, but others are completely unfamiliar. That inconsistency is concerning.”

Dave nodded. “We cross-referenced Adventurer’s Guild records, testimonies from the Eternals, and our own field studies.”

By Eternals, he meant the players.

They had accumulated many titles lately. Eternals seemed to be the one that stuck for now.

“We’ve noticed recent changes,” Joan continued. “These dungeons appear suddenly, but they contain archaeological markers suggesting they originated elsewhere entirely.”

“Elsewhere?” I asked.

Dave reached into his inventory and handed me a journal. “We believe they came from a different world. One that shares Losten’s culture and historical framework almost identically.”

He hesitated.

“Except for the language system.”

That caught my attention immediately.

I flipped the journal over in my hands. The script etched across the cover looked eerily familiar. It resembled the written system of the Hollowed World, yet its structure was different, more refined, almost systematic.

The title read:

Records of the Age of Divinity

Author: Enlightened Scholar

I felt a faint chill run down my spine.

“Been busy sparring with Ru Qiu,” I muttered absently. “So what is this supposed to be?”

Joan’s voice lowered slightly. “We believe these dungeons are fragments.”

“Fragments of what?”

“Of a civilization that shouldn’t exist in our records,” she said. “One that mirrors Losten almost perfectly, yet is not Losten.”

The Enlightened Scholar.

I stared at the name again.

That was one of the Yellow Emperor’s pseudonyms.

For a brief period, the Supreme Void had also used it, or rather borrowed it, if my understanding was correct. That alone made the journal feel heavier in my hands.

Thanks to my Linguist Subclass, the script posed no difficulty. The unfamiliar structure unraveled itself almost instantly in my mind, converting into meaning as naturally as breathing.

I flipped to the first page and read aloud.

“If you are reading this, I am either dead or suffered a fate worse than death.”

I snapped the journal shut.

Joan blinked. “What’s the problem?”

I did not answer immediately.

Instead, I looked up at the sky.

It darkened.

Clouds gathered unnaturally fast, spiraling inward as if some invisible hand stirred them into a vortex. The air grew heavy and charged.

Heavenly Tribulation was notoriously inconsistent. Sometimes it struck for breaking cultivation bottlenecks. Sometimes for meddling with fate. Sometimes for reasons no one could clearly define.

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But this?

“I just expended the little quintessence I could generate,” I said slowly. “From reading that single line.”

Dave stiffened. “What?”

“This thing is dangerous.”

Back when I could manipulate natural qi freely, I could force collisions between qi and mana repeatedly, generating quintessence in large quantities. It was inefficient but reliable. Now my dantian was locked. My control over quintessence was minimal. Most cultivators at my realm could not even touch the stuff.

And yet a single sentence drained what little I could muster.

That was not normal.

Dave and Joan both sensed the change in the atmosphere. The wind shifted violently around us.

Joan’s expression tightened. “This is bringing back unpleasant memories.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered.

I used to think the worst Heavenly Tribulation I would ever experience was that enormous fireball back on False Earth when I broke through a cultivation cap.

Then there was the Tribulation Heavenly Eye.

Yuan Shun.

A cultivator who somehow weaponized Heavenly Tribulation itself as a trap against me.

Even after I beat her, I still did not understand how she achieved that. The more I reflected on it, the more I suspected the Origin’s influence. Memories of the Origin vanished after contact, which meant there were gaps I could not account for.

Yuan Shun might have been under its control longer than anyone realized.

And if that was possible, then so could I.

The thought lingered unpleasantly.

Dave broke the silence. “My lord, this might be too good an opportunity to pass up.”

I glanced at him.

“From what I understand of Losten—or LLO, as you called it—it was a world placed inside a game,” he continued. “A sandbox, you said. A place players could enter and interact with freely.”

He hesitated.

“Doesn’t that make it artificial?”

Joan’s gaze flickered slightly. I knew she was recalling her encounter with the so-called memory of the Game Master.

Dave pressed on. “You implied before that it was a creation of the Game Master.”

I rubbed my temple.

“I believe the world LLO was based on was artificial,” I admitted. “But beyond that, I don’t know what to believe. Speculation won’t get us far. Heck, we have our own version of players now, don’t we?”

The clouds above churned faster.

“I personally subscribe to the idea that worlds form spontaneously. There are scientific explanations for it. The Big Bang. Cosmic expansion. I don’t fully understand the mechanics, but the framework makes sense to me.”

I shrugged lightly.

“Yeah, I’m biased. I’m not nearly smart enough to compete with actual scientists who can explain cosmic origins. Even with my Intelligence stat boosted to absurd levels, it’s just a measure of processing speed, memory retention, and analytical capacity. It doesn’t automatically grant comprehension of everything.”

Dave did not back down.

“I still believe you should read it, my lord. The more we know, the better we can prepare.”

Joan remained visibly conflicted, but she did not refute him.

He had a point.

Compared to what waited in the Greater Universe, the Hollowed World was practically easy mode. Out there, Supremes existed in their entirety. I was not eager to pick a fight with one anytime soon.

The memory of confronting the Supreme Void through my Ghost Soul still lingered like a scar. That was only a fragment, and it folded Ru Qiu and me like laundry. The only reason the Supreme Void was reduced to its current state was because I weaponized Origin Qi in a way he did not anticipate.

If we met again, I doubted he would be so lenient.

“Summon: Holy Spirit.”

Ezekiel manifested beside me in a shimmer of pale light.

The skeletal Holy Spirit stood tall, silent and faintly radiant. I handed him the journal.

He looked at me.

Then at Dave.

Then at Joan.

Then back at me.

“Read it,” I ordered.

If a skeleton could sigh, he would have.

Instead, he conjured a monocle over one empty socket. It shimmered into existence through his innate Holy Spirit abilities. I stared at him for a moment.

This skeleton was developing a rather ‘fun’ personality.

Ezekiel opened the journal.

I turned to Dave. “You inherited my Linguist Subclass too, didn’t you? Same as Zeke here. Why aren’t you reading it yourself?”

Dave laughed awkwardly. “Ha ha ha. I already tried. I died seven times just attempting the first line. As a Holy Spirit, I resurrects more easily.”

Joan corrected him calmly. “It was nine. You likely forgot the other two because the backlash was severe.”

Lightning crashed down.

Heavenly Tribulation struck Ezekiel the instant his gaze settled on the page. He was erased in a pillar of divine judgment, reduced to drifting motes.

The journal slipped from nonexistent fingers and bounced against the ground.

Silence.

I massaged my brow. “You should have started with that. Poor Zeke.”

The clouds churned darker overhead.

I bent down and picked up the journal.

Should I read it?

Temptation gnawed at me.

Dave resurrected repeatedly. I had Starshroud. I had the Hollow Star and the Dark Veil. If things went wrong, I had layers of protection. Probably.

I manifested Starshroud fully.

Dark armor encased me in layered starlit plate. The Dark Veil flowed behind me as a cape of living night. The Hollow Star descended and reshaped itself into a helm, merging seamlessly with the armor. The artifacts fused together as if they had always belonged that way.

I opened the journal.

This time, I read silently.

“If you are reading this, I am either dead or suffered a fate worse than death. This is the documentation of the history of my people, the Shén (神), and the Age of Divinity they brought with them, and ultimately, bringing forth the Age of Supremacy.”

Quintessence drained from me rapidly, per word.

I felt it being consumed with each unit of meaning processed. It did not matter how fast I read. The cost remained proportional.

Realizing this, I skipped the introduction and flipped to the final page.

If this mentioned the Era of Supremacy, then I likely already suspected what it referred to.

I read.

“The war was lost. My people were destined to return to the Origin. When all hope seemed gone, they discovered the counterpart that began their tragedy: the Source. From its existence, they summoned the first Supreme, one who wielded the space between worlds and granted the Gods a fighting chance once more. Imagine the irony if it is this same existence that ultimately brought their ruin.”

My grip tightened on the journal.

The first Supreme, wielded the space between worlds.

That was the Supreme Void.

The sky above roared violently. Heavenly pressure intensified as if something immense had noticed my understanding.

I refused to stop.

If quintessence was the price, then I would pay it.

I reached outward and drew from the near-infinite reservoir within the Hollow Star. Quintessence answered my call like a tidal wave, pure creation pouring into me in controlled streams.

I forced my eyes back to the page.

Something snapped.

It felt like I had violated an unspoken law.

Pain detonated in my skull. My vision turned white, then red. I smelled char before I even realized what was happening.

My eyes were burning.

Heavenly Tribulation descended without warning. Lightning did not fall from above. It erupted from within the words themselves, striking directly into my perception. The backlash was catastrophic. Starshroud shrieked around me.

“It hurts! It hurts!”

The armor spasmed, its starlit plates cracking with lines of molten light. For the first time since naming her, I felt genuine fear for the sentient existence clinging to my body.

If she died, could I resurrect her?

I did not know.

I poured more quintessence into us, ignoring the strain. Quintessence was creation itself. If something was damaged, I would recreate it.

“Divine Word: Life.”

Divine Qi erupted from my core in a brilliant surge, flooding through flesh and armor alike. The energy no longer felt fragmented like before. It moved as a unified current, powerful and clean. Divine Qi had become the convergence of everything I could wield. Cracked armor sealed. Burned flesh regenerated. My vision stabilized.

The Heavenly Tribulation raged for several seconds more before finally receding, as though satisfied it had delivered its warning.

When the storm cleared, over a kilometer of land around me had been scorched black. The ground smoldered in silence.

In the distance, I saw Dave and Joan standing at the edge of the destruction, wary but unharmed.

I lowered my gaze to the journal.

It was pristine.

Not a single scorch mark.

I tried to read again.

Pain flared faintly in my eyes, a lingering reminder. I invoked Ophanim carefully, sharpening perception without directly consuming quintessence.

The pain vanished.

But the text blurred.

Not physically blurred. Conceptually blurred. As though meaning itself refused to crystallize.

It became clear.

Quintessence was required to read it properly.

I dismissed Ophanim.

Lately, I had been experimenting with those eyes more frequently, but ever since memories of the Origin resurfaced, suspicion gnawed at me. The thought of being manipulated by the Origin through it, drove my paranoia to uncomfortable heights. Of course, I was probably just overthinking.

Fighting the Origin was meaningless. It was not a being in the conventional sense. It was closer to a principle.

And Supremes?

I was not even confident in facing one head-on yet.

Ru Qiu appeared suddenly, landing in front of me with casual ease. Dave and Joan approached more cautiously behind him.

“How is it?” Dave asked.

Ru Qiu frowned at the charred landscape before looking at me sharply. “What’s this about? I look away for a few seconds and you’re already provoking fate?”

Joan’s tone turned icy. “Don’t butt in. It’s not your business.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

That was a lie.

I was far from fine.

I had glimpsed something in that journal. Something that shifted the ground beneath everything I believed.

I turned to Ru Qiu. “Have you ever heard of dungeons?”

He blinked. “Like in games?”

“More like the ones appearing across the Hollowed World lately. Did anything like that exist in your era?”

He rubbed his chin. “Hard to say. Aren’t they just hidden realms? If I had to choose, I’d say no. They didn’t have those dungeon cores you keep mentioning. Why?”

“I couldn’t say,” I answered.

Another lie.

The final line I had managed to read lingered in my mind, faint and nearly illegible, as if it did not want to exist. ‘Reality is a prison, a massive dungeon, and none of us truly matter—only specks of dust in the infinite.’ Or something like that. Of course, no amount of euphemism could make it sound any better.

I closed the journal slowly.

“I’m going to need some time to myself, so I guess I’ll see you again when it’s time to depart. Keep in touch.”