The air inside the dungeon was not merely humid; it was heavy, laden with a stench of mold and something more rancid, like meat slowly rotting in the darkness. Darian felt the cold of his short sword's steel filtering through his glove's leather. Every step he took on the irregular stone floor resonated in his ears like thunder, despite his attempts at silence.

  "Left!" Aria's whisper was a lash of authority.

  Darian turned his head just as a scrawny silhouette detached from the shadows. It was a goblin, but not like those in storybooks. Its skin was a bilious green, taut over ribs that marked with every sibilant breath. It had eyes of a turbid yellow and a mouth full of chipped teeth that dripped thick saliva. The monster leaped with unnatural agility, wielding a sharpened femur as if it were a dagger.

  Darian activated his energy. The heat of physical reinforcement rose through his legs, but inexperience cost him: when trying to pivot, his boot sank into a layer of slippery slime. He lost balance and the world tilted. The goblin's blow only missed because the young man ended up falling shoulder-first against the damp wall. Before the creature could jump onto his chest, a sharp whistle cut the air. One of Aria's arrows pierced its throat, nailing it to the floor while its short legs thrashed in a frenzied dance of death that splattered Darian's boots with black.

  "Get up," Aria ordered, without taking her eyes from the tunnel. "In a dungeon, the floor is your first enemy. If you don't feel where you step, you're already dead."

  Darian rose, wiping mud and shame from himself. Three more shadows emerged from the cracks. This time, the young man didn't wait. He forced his heart to calm and channeled the flow of power to his arms. When the first goblin launched itself with a tearing shriek, Darian executed an upward slash; the steel vibrated as it clashed against the enemy's bone weapon, but the brute force of his physical reinforcement shattered the bone and continued the arc, opening the monster's chest in a deep cut that flooded the air with a metallic, sweet smell.

  Upon descending to the second level, the environment became claustrophobic. The ceiling lowered and tree roots from the surface pierced the stone like twisted fingers. The dripping of water was constant, a rhythmic sound that concealed any other noise. Darian advanced with hunched shoulders, feeling every muscle in his legs protest the tension. They faced a group of slimes, viscous and translucent masses that pulsed with a violet core. Darian had to move with speed, launching surgical thrusts to destroy the cores before the creatures' acid could devour his equipment.

  They reached a small grotto where the light of fluorescent mushrooms illuminated a bed of medicinal herbs. Darian knelt, but before touching the first leaf, a dull impact made the stone beneath his knees vibrate. It was a clash of metal against rock, heavy and dry. Aria froze. Her right hand, already seeking another arrow, stopped halfway. She turned toward the ramp leading to the third level and made an imperative signal to Darian for silence.

  They walked to the edge of the descent. A line of fresh blood, bright red, traced a macabre path downward. There were drag marks, as if something heavy had been taken by force.

  "That... sounds like steel," Darian whispered, his voice tense. "Are there other adventurers here?"

  "There shouldn't be anyone," Aria responded, and for the first time, Darian noticed a hint of doubt in her voice. "This trail is too recent."

  They descended to the third level, where the air turned icy. The chamber that opened before them was immense, but what captured their attention was the carnage. Several specimens of Cave Trolls and Armored Beetles, monsters that habitually dominated this floor, lay scattered across the ground. One Troll, a mass of muscles of nearly two meters, had been split in half with a single slash. There were no signs of prolonged struggle. The stone columns of the hall were cracked, with chunks of rock detached as if something with the force of a battering ram had impacted against them.

  Then, silence was replaced by the sound of horror: slow, heavy steps, and the constant scraping of a large metal blade being dragged through gravel. From the deep darkness emerged the Spectral Knight. It was a full plate armor, of an ashen gray that seemed to absorb light. Beneath the helmet there was no face, only a black void from which cold mist emanated. The sword it dragged was as long as Darian himself.

  "Darian, prepare to fight," Aria shouted.

  The Spectral Knight took a step forward. The sound of its metal boot against the gravel was not merely a step; it was a dull impact that vibrated in the pit of Darian's stomach. Without warning, the figure raised its colossal sword with a single hand and charged.

  "Move!" Aria shouted.

  Darian barely had time to throw himself to one side. The knight's steel struck the floor where he had stood a second before, splitting the solid stone as if it were crystal. The impact raised a cloud of splinters and dust that momentarily blinded Darian. The force was such that one of the nearby columns began to release stone fragments from the ceiling, threatening to collapse.

  Aria didn't stay behind. With a speed that justified her Silver rank, she nocked three arrows at once. Her fingers moved like lightning and the projectiles shot forth, wrapped in a faint energy aura. The arrows impacted the armor's joints, but instead of piercing them, they bounced with a dry sound, leaving only superficial scratches on the grayish metal.

  The knight ignored the archer and fixed its empty helmet on Darian. The young man, feeling panic threatening to paralyze him, forced his Physical Reinforcement to the limit. He felt his muscles burn, almost to the point of breaking, a sensation of extreme heat running through every fiber of his body. When the great sword descended again in a vertical arc, Darian didn't dodge: he interposed his own blade in a desperate block.

  The clash was brutal. Darian felt the bones in his arms creak under the pressure. His feet sank into the cracked floor, and the force forced him to kneel on one knee. The metal of his short sword began to emit an agonizing screech before the weight of the spectral blade. It was about to give way.

  "Darian, hold on!" Aria dropped her bow and drew her short knife.

  She ran along the lateral wall, defying gravity with precise jumps over the rubble, and launched herself onto the knight's back. With lethal precision, Aria sought a small opening in the armor's neck. Her knife penetrated, but found no flesh, only a gelid resistance. A bluish flash emerged from within the helmet.

  "The core!" she shouted. "Darian, in the chest, beneath the central plate!"

  The Spectral Knight released a shockwave of cold air that threw Aria against a column. Darian, seeing his supervisor fall, roared with pure adrenaline. Taking advantage that the knight had raised its sword for the final blow, the young man propelled himself forward. It wasn't a slash, it was a thrust with all the weight of his body and his energy concentrated at the steel's tip.

  Darian's sword found the crack in the chest armor. There was momentary resistance, as if piercing thick ice, and then something broke. A blinding white flash exploded from within the knight.

  The sound that followed was deafening. It wasn't the knight screaming, but the dungeon itself collapsing. The force of the destroyed core acted like an explosive charge in an already weakened structure. The column where Aria leaned split, and the chamber's ceiling began to give way in large granite blocks.

  "Aria!" Darian managed to shout, extending his hand as the floor beneath his feet disintegrated.

  The half-elf tried to jump toward him, her fingers brushing Darian's for an agonizing instant, but a huge fissure opened between them. The third level's floor disappeared completely, devoured by a darkness deeper than any map indicated. Darian fell into the abyss, watching the light from the crystals above become a distant point before disappearing behind a rain of debris.

  Darian woke in the middle of absolute silence, so dense he could hear the whistle of his own ragged breathing. The pain in his ribs was a sharp reminder of the fall and dust filled his throat, forcing him to cough with effort. He was alone. There was no trace of Aria, nor of the knight's remains, nor of the light from the upper levels.

  He rose with difficulty, using the stone wall to support himself. Unlike the rustic, damp walls of Low Mountain's upper levels, this stone was smooth and worked with an ancient mastery that didn't seem natural. In the center of the chamber, upon a pedestal of black stone, rested a book.

  Darian remained motionless. In his mind, like a distant echo, his father's voice resonated during his training years in Ravel:

  "There exist tomes, which are records of assimilable skills... and then there are Grimoires. Most think they are legends, myths about a power that fuses with the soul. Don't get distracted by stories now, but if ever the world sees one again, reality will shake to its foundations."

  There it was. The grimoire was imposing, a presence that filled the room. Its cover seemed made of polished obsidian, but with the texture of silk. It wasn't simply black; it was a void that absorbed light. At the edges, ancient silver reinforcements held the covers, engraved with runes that seemed to shift millimetrically if stared at.

  The most astonishing thing was the center. It had no title, but an amber-colored dark crystal embedded in the cover, carved in the shape of a closed eye. From within emanated a rhythmic pulsation, a faint heat that Darian felt in the pit of his stomach, synchronizing with his own pulse.

  Darian didn't step forward. He simply remained there, observing it with held breath. Despite his fear for Aria—who had been left behind facing danger with her bow and that short knife—he felt a primitive attraction. A mutual recognition. As if the book had been counting the centuries, waiting exactly for the weight of his footsteps.

  "It isn't a myth..." Darian whispered, his voice breaking the tomb's silence. "It's real."