A rumbling growl came from behind him, and Jonathan whirled around to see an undead Ash Prowler hissing at him, its body rotting away and its bones exposed. The creature seemed to be quite weak, and it was more wary of him than aggressive. Perhaps an Ash Prowler had become stuck down here, and had been warped by some strange magic after its death, turning into an undead like the other creatures within this city.

Jonathan snaked forwards, and closed the gap almost instantly, pulverizing the monster with his right fist. As he had suspected, it was very weak. He stepped over the corpse of the beast, and summoned a ball of mana to his hand, illuminating the passageway in front of himself. There were three hallways that extended outwards from this part of the pit, which seemed to be some sort of entrance. The middle hallway was the largest, but the other two seemed intriguing as well. Each of them had the same faint presence that Jonathan had felt from above dwelling within them.

He cautiously chose the middle path first, as he could simply come back if he needed to. Jonathan did not feel any fear in this place, which was a bit surprising to him, but he supposed that he had gone through much worse in his time in the Infinite Hells than a little bit of darkness and some undead. They just didn't hold the same fear in him anymore.

Jonathan started down the hallway, noting that there was a slight slope to it. The walls were lined with what looked like places for coffins, and most of them were filled. These coffins were made out of metal, and were inscribed with strange glyphs. Perhaps they were created so as to not let any undead out of them. In any case, nothing awakened as Jonathan walked by the coffins, which told him that whoever had lived here had been aware of the undead curse that had been placed over this place.

Jonathan swiveled his light around now and again, getting a better look at the coffins. There were words written on the bases of each of the coffins, which bore a name and some prosaic eulogy. Jonathan only spared these a few moments of notice, and did not stop walking as he went deeper and deeper into the pit.

The further he went, the colder it became, until his breaths came out like clouds of frost in the air. The cold didn't bother him, but it was still interesting to find. It shouldn't have dropped that much in such a short time. The coffins were beginning to grow larger and more ornate too, and some of the ones here had gold inlays on them. Wherever had been buried here had clearly been someone of import. Jonathan decided to check one of the coffins out in greater detail, and he walked over to a nearby one, shining his light on it. He made out a name and an expression carved into the base of the coffin, and he read it out to himself.

“Alnar Savern. Lost, corrupted, but never forgotten. Huh, I wonder what it means by that.” The last part of the inscription was a bit strange, but Jonathan assumed that it had something to do with the creation of undead within this place.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Jonathan left the side of the coffin, and kept on going, down further and further into the pit. By this point, the chill was arctic, and the coffins were all made out of what looked to be pure gold. Jonathan had no idea what the metal was worth in this place, but he wondered if it would be a good idea to take some of it back with him. From what he had seen, in movies and in books black on Earth, plundering the remains of the dead was a bad idea, especially in a world where they were perfectly willing to rise back up and kill you. Jonathan decided against it for now, and ignored the coffins from now on.

Eventually, he came to the end of the tunnel, which led into a large cavern, filled with strange ruins and with a pedestal at its center. There were monsters patrolling the area, vast undead creatures that did not look like any living creature of the Ash Heaps that Jonathan had ever seen. There was a twenty foot drop down into the cavern, which was barely worth noticing to Jonathan at this point. He studied the pedestal at the center of the cavern, and found that it had a small book on it, which was surrounded by a red force field. It was that relic that the monsters seemed to be protecting, seeing as there was nothing else within the area of any note. Jonathan studied the room, trying to see if it would be possible for him to get to the book and abscond before the monsters got to him. He decided to scan the creatures first and paled at what he saw.

Corpse Giant(Boss)

Level ???

He had never seen that marking before, which only meant one thing. These things were Tier 2.

Jonathan stood there for a moment, in abject awe and terror of the monsters in front of him. There were three of the creatures, each of which looked to be modeled after the skeletal structure of some quadrupedal beast. They were gigantic creatures, and they carried a weight that went beyond the physical variety. One of these monsters would be more than a match for Jonathan, let alone three of them.

He sighed, and prepared to leave, glad that he had not gotten the attention of the creatures. However, a sudden pulse came from the book in the center of the cavern, and Jonathan turned around, almost subconsciously. He could feel a beckoning call coming from the book, and he had to force himself to resist. It was as if there was something within that book that resonated with him on a deep, conceptual level, and he knew that he needed to get it. However, he wasn’t suicidal, and he managed to calm himself down before he leaped down amid the monsters. The feeling diminished, but it was still there. He waited for it to dissipate completely, but it did not. It seemed that until he claimed the book, there would be some sort of lure on his psyche until he was able to get to it.

Jonathan gritted his teeth, but he could sense no way out of this predicament. He tried to move further away from the book, going back up the passageway, but the itch quickly turned into a searing pain, and he capitulated, heading back towards the cavern. He was caught, body and soul, and the only way he could escape was to get to the book. Perhaps this was some sort of trap set by the creators of this place, but Jonathan doubted it. The book felt, for lack of a better word, right to him. It was as if he needed it in order to fully realize his potential. Jonathan had no other alternative but to get to it.