The door opened and let the party through. Beyond the door lay a large chamber; the ceiling was fifty meters above the ground, and the chamber was seventy meters long, and thirty wide. At the center of the chamber was a stone stele.
Even though this was supposed to be the final room in the dungeon, there was a door at the end of the chamber, and it was unlike any other door. Ancient symbols were carved into the surface of the massive door, and they pulsed with a sinister, dark-red glow.
Alessia was the only one to understand the profound scripture. These were the Gates of Hell.
The other adventurers did not pay so much attention to the door. Though half of them were Heroes, only few knew about the particularities of dungeons. None of them, not even Alessia, had ever reached the end of a dungeon. To most, it was a natural assumption that dungeons were not infinite, but very few people knew the true answer. Alessia knew that the final room existed and that dungeons had an end. She did not know that beyond that point was the Realms of Hell.
This realization shook her heart.
No, the other adventurers were interested in the mirror-skinned creature laying around the stele. They had never seen anything like it. It smooth skin reflected the world around them with such vivid detail and distorted sharpness that they questioned whether it was truly a creature, or an anomaly in space.
"Is that the Dungeon Lord?" One of the adventurers asked, his glows rattling with a metallic sound as he shakily held his sword.
"Identify," a blonde-haired female called out, quietly, and then her staff fell on the ground. The blood drained from her face and she fell to her knees.
"It is the Calamity?" Rium asked.
The blonde nodded. "Class... K."
Hope vanished. In the void it left behind, there was only dread. True, unbound dread. The kind of terror that worked itself into the bones. Into the marrow of the bones. Class K. This was an existence that loomed over the world. It was the progenitor of myth and legend; The end of eras. Even such creatures like the Calamity God Zalazar were nothing more than minor inconveniences compared to that existence.
"Level 2!" the blonde added suddenly, climbing to her feet. "We stand a chance!"
Not all hope vanished. Those words forced life back into the expressions of the adventurers as they steeled their minds for their task. Level 2, Class K. Such a scenario was unthinkable. It was providence. They were not abandoned by the muses and the weavers of myth and fate. If they could kill a mere level 2 Calamity God, and they believed they could, the songs of their heroism would never fade out.
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"Greater Divination," the blonde whispered, and her eyes flashed with magical symbols as it peered at the creature.
The creature had not made even a single motion, as if unaware of the presence of the adventurers.
"Ordinary elements cannot touch it," the blonde said. "Only forces of the third Order can penetrate its defenses. Who has Amalgamated Domains?"
"I have ash-blaze," an adventurer said. A few more raised their hands, but didn't say anything.
"It won't matter," Alessia said, as she considered the creature. "Calamity Gods cannot be killed so easily. Third Order, huh? So even my plasma Domain cannot harm it?"
What they did not know was that until not so long ago, the Calamity had been in the atmosphere of an artificial star. Of course ordinary elements could not harm it. A domain was a rare thing, obtainable through bloodline or hard work. It was the combination of elements. An Amalgamated Domain, a force of the third Order, was a combination of a Domain and a Foundational element, such as energy, entropy, life, death and more. Amalgamated Domains were extremely rare.
"You don't think we can kill a level 2 Calamity?" Rium asked.
Alessia shook her head. "That's not what I meant. Killing a Calamity God requires ritual and sacrifice. You can slay its body, but it will reform if its soul remains intact. I know how to do it."
"What should we do?" one of the adventurers asked.
"Act as you usually would, but do not kill it. Let me perform the finishing blow. Go!"
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[Dataframe captured.]
[Signal: 0B97YC.]
[Decryption: Intruders detected.]
[Interrupt sent.]
[Navigation: Pattern mismatch. Source unknown.]
[Anomaly logged. Mapping new location.]
[Radar: Ping sent.]
[Navigation: Setting new origin.]
While Halas was asleep, the world around it crumbled. It was the manufacture of the butterfly, after all. Once it was dead, it made sense that the world would eventually disappear, and be replaced by what had been here since ancient times. Though the environment was no longer hostile to Halas, the change must not have triggered Halas's conditions to be woken, or somehow miscalibrated the sensors.
In fact, had the adventurers not sought Halas out, and roused it from its sleep, it could have, theoretically, remained asleep forever.
While the adventurers analyzed Halas, and strategized against it, it watched them, forming its own strategies and schemes. Halas did not dare to be careless against these creatures. Though its final layer of armor was superalloy, it was designed to withstand directed energy weapons, not physical punishment. Even at its best, the superalloy was extremely brittle and fragile, but after undergoing chemical changes induced by heat, it could fall apart at the slightest shock. At that time, Halas was far from the unkillable being they imagined it was. It was vulnerable. Extremely vulnerable.
Halas considered diplomacy and intimidation, but things like these always have a small chance of backfiring and having the opposite effect of the intended one. Halas could not afford even a 1% chance of failure. No, it had to act in a ruthless and determined way.
It could only rely on the principle of its function: Destruction.
One of the adventurers traced a finger vertically through the air, and then slashed diagonally twice, as if drawing a symbol.
"Vessel of Annihilation!" A pulse of black energy emitted from the symbol, like a crescent trail of a sword's edge.