I hadn’t a bloody clue what was happening. Not a single one.

That gnawing unease had followed me ever since I stepped foot in this damned place. Ever since I became a dragon. Hunted. Hunting. Infiltrating. Killing. Disrupting. Every move I made, every breath I took—it all carried the same thrumming disquiet.

But here, now, wrapped up in this grotesque mess? I still couldn’t make sense of it.

Sure, the context was plain as day. The Elves had pranced about with their precious little ritual, aiming to ascend some puffed-up noble prick to Lowgold. I’d tried to stop them. And, like a proper fool, I’d cocked it all up.

And now? Now I was bound, these bastard vines coiled tight, digging into my scales like serrated knives. Each new jab made my blood boil hotter, but what really stumped me—what really got under my scales—was how the hues were behaving.

Something was here. Something wrong. It reeked of rot and pus, like the very essence of decay had taken a stroll into my world. I couldn’t describe it better than that. The sheer wrongness of it was maddening, almost feral in its provocation. A primal hatred surged through me, unbidden, and I had no clue where it had come from.

But I felt it. Felt it as clear as the ache of those vines. The hues—this prana, this lifeforce of the dungeon—had gone utterly berserk the moment that thing arrived. Its foul, rancid presence lingered, seeping into the man standing over me, the one who had me tangled up like a hapless fly in his wretched web.

And now it was happening again. The prana’s rainbow brilliance was swirling, congealing, collapsing around him. And as I watched, it turned into that same rotten, festering muck—black and oozing, like rot itself had taken a corporeal form and decided to stick around.

A guttural growl clawed its way out of my throat as another vine plunged deeper. For some reason, the bastard vines kept missing anything vital. Was he doing that deliberately? No. Didn’t matter. What did matter was that I was utterly, infuriatingly stuck. Bollocks!

The moment I laid eyes on this freak, I knew something was fundamentally wrong with him. What the hell was he? What was that rancid, stinking thing that slithered into the world for a moment before vanishing? And why was the prana itself warping, turning into that vile, putrid filth around him?

Whatever it was, it was doing something to me. Something beyond driving me furious. The wrongness of it crashed over me like waves of filth. Relentless. Nauseating.

I needed to kill him.

No—eliminate him.

No, not enough—annihilate him.

INTRUDER. INTRUDER. INTERLOPER! KILL! KILL! KILL HIM! RIP HIM APART! MURDER HIM! KILLMURDERKILLMURDERKILL!

Another sting of pain dragged me back to reality, the blinding rage retreating into a simmering, lurking beast within. It wasn’t gone—just waiting, coiled and ready. Whatever he was, this freak didn’t belong here. I should’ve seen it the moment I overheard those pointy-eared twats talking about that ritual, trying to ascend one of their own to Lowgold. Whatever they’d done to him, my dragon instincts were losing their damned minds just looking at him.

LOWLIFE. PEST. The words burned through my thoughts. The urge to bite his smug head clean off? Never far from the surface.

Yet here I was, bound and powerless, a stark contrast to the seething beast within. If he truly was Lowgold, I didn’t stand a chance in a straight fight. Worse, I’d been covertly weaving proper lightning magic within the shadow dimension, only for this bastard to somehow sense it. He’d attacked me outright, his vines pulsing with light magic. Light! Of all the blasted luck. I wasn’t even fully intangible anymore.

But I couldn’t afford to give up.

Iron-hard vines wrapped around me, constricting with cruel precision, digging into my flesh like serrated traps. Even my strength wasn’t enough to snap them. Phasing through? Out of the question—not if they still carried light magic. But were they still imbued? I couldn’t tell. There might be a chance.

I forced some dark mana from my wraith heart into Dimensional Lamina. Resistance. Tsk. Still on cooldown. Think, Jade. Think!

As I struggled to piece together a plan, the pest at the center of all this madness tightened his grip on the ritualist, Heralas, yanking the trembling elf closer.

“Ah, Arcanist Heralas, seems you were right,” he drawled, his tone thick with condescension. “A bit of experience with these dungeon pests wouldn’t go amiss.”

With a casual flick, the thorny vines slackened from Heralas’s throat, letting him collapse in a pathetic heap.

“Your little oversight in security is forgiven,” the abomination continued, his grin spreading as he turned to me.

“Now then,” he sneered, his gaze roving over my bound form, “I need proper monsters to test my powers. To see if anything can stand against these new abilities of mine.”

The vines shifted, lowering the twisted figure wearing an elven face as he strode toward the cave entrance.

And me? I was dragged along like some trophy, my bound body jerking behind him. By the time he reached the cavern’s edge, Dimensional Lamina’s cooldown had finally ticked down. My wraith heart thrummed as I pumped it full of dark mana, readying my body for the moment I could act.

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I wouldn’t waste it. Not this time. No matter how much my instincts screamed at me to obliterate this pest’s very existence, I knew better. He was stronger. Much stronger. Wounded pride was a small price to pay for survival. A dead dragonling can’t take revenge.

Even outside, the dungeon’s lifeforce—its prana—continued to spiral towards him, corrupting into that same vile, rotten essence. The air reeked of decay, and his aura was only intensifying. What the hell was he doing?

The mission brief had warned the biome would be doomed if the elves succeeded. But this? This was something else entirely. Other than the corrupted hues rushing to him, nothing seemed to be happening. Yet.

Frowning, I attempted to pull up my stat screen.

It fizzled and glitched, static crackling before vanishing completely.

Whatever was happening, the reason was becoming sickeningly clear.

Once we emerged outside, Heralas’s eyes widened, his ashen face betraying something between horror and guilt. It seemed my earlier efforts hadn’t been entirely in vain. After baiting Elnor out, their forces had taken some rather nasty hits—my poison ensuring both beast and elf alike paid a heavy toll. Bodies still twitched and convulsed on the ground, some writhing in agony as fatigued healers shuffled among them, their exhausted eyes betraying desperation.

But the moment the abomination stepped out with his entourage of cultists? The atmosphere shifted. The battered elves, who should’ve been groveling at death’s door, suddenly heaved sighs of relief. A few even started singing praises to that smug divine fraud.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Goddess Selene? Really? Were they blind? Deaf? Nose-dead? Couldn’t they see it? Smell it? This thing wearing an elven face, reeking of putrid rot and death, was no divine blessing. It was a festering tumor on reality, and if I could’ve covered my nose, I would’ve. The stench was overwhelming, clawing its way down my throat like bile.

At first, I’d thought the bastard was unhinged—the way he clutched Heralas by the throat like a half-mad tyrant playing with his food. But no, I was wrong. Oh, how wrong I was.

With a theatrical flourish, vines wrapped around him once more, hoisting him up into a pose so grandiose it bordered on parody. The bastard clearly fancied himself some divine messiah. As if to add insult to injury, a garden of flowers bloomed around the battlefield, their petals glowing.

Lilies and willows. Imbued with light magic. Wounds healed, poison eased, pain soothed. And, one by one, the soldiers stopped screaming. Their twisted faces softened as the flowers did their work.

The cultists roared louder now, their praises swelling.

The bastard had the audacity to laugh, a deep, resonant sound that dripped with smug satisfaction. He raised a hand to acknowledge their praises.

INTRUDER! PEST! IMPOSTER!

The words slammed through my mind again, white-hot and unrelenting. Aggression surged, my claws twitching as the urge to strike screamed through my every nerve.

But I smothered it. Smothered the rage, the instinct to pounce, to rip, to tear.

Instead, I held firm, keeping my metaphorical claws on the trigger. Dimensional Lamina was ready now, waiting at a moment’s notice to drag me far into the shadowy embrace of the 4th dimension.

The abomination began to pivot when a thunderous rumble split the air ahead. Oddly familiar, it sent a shiver through me. My gaze darted to the source, where trees toppled like dominos and smoke trailed in thick, ominous lines. Something colossal was barrelling our way, and flanking it was a rolling mist, surging forward with alarming speed. Then, through the haze, glimmered white scales. My breath caught. That behemoth and that serpent—the ones locked in combat earlier—they were heading directly for us!

And they weren’t alone. Monsters from every direction were stampeding toward this very spot. Had the System declared a mass quest for the lot of them at this very moment? Typical. I tried accessing it, only for static to sizzle in response.

I turned back to the monstrous horde, a scowl on my face. Of all the rotten luck—if they’d only arrived before this wretched ritual reached its crescendo, perhaps we’d stand a fighting chance. But the smirk on the abomination’s grotesque visage said it all: he’d been counting on this.

As the first beast charged in, a vine erupted from below, consuming it whole. Flesh, bone, everything—disintegrated in an instant. More followed, and more turned to ash. It was Gold-rank magic at its most horrifying—utter annihilation. Stage 3s, Stage 4s, none were given the courtesy of a fight. Even airborne monsters weren’t spared; vines snaked down from the dungeon ceiling like writhing vipers, snatching them from the air and obliterating them without ceremony.

Yet still, the monsters came, hurling themselves into oblivion with reckless abandon. It was futile, a slaughterhouse masquerading as an opportunity.

Then, at last, the heavyweights arrived. The mist serpent and the behemoth.

The mist serpent struck first, lunging forward in a writhing dance of scales and fog. The air grew heavier as the mist thickened, choking visibility down to a scant few meters. Yet, the proximity of that slithering fiend was undeniable, especially when its massive hood materialized closer, jaws agape and primed to devour the abomination whole.

The abomination, however, remained unperturbed. With a snap of his arm—a grotesque amalgam of blackened bark and pulsating vines—he met the serpent’s charge head-on. Mist recoiled and hissed where the monstrous appendage clashed with the creature’s maw. A chilling shriek tore through the mist, and then, just like that, the serpent vanished. Its presence lingered, a whisper in the haze, but its location eluded the senses.

“Petty tricks,” the abomination sneered. “I’d hoped for a challenge, but it seems these pests are as worthless as they look.” With that, a massive vine erupted from the ground, spearing upward with ruthless precision. Another shriek split the air as the serpent materialized once more, writhing in agony, impaled yet alive.

Its gaping maw still managed to muster one final act of defiance, unleashing a beam of icy blue death. The abomination’s vines reacted instantly, weaving into a barrier that absorbed the frozen onslaught. Before the serpent could recoil or escape, another vine struck like a striking cobra, driving clean through its head.

And just like that, the battle was over before it had truly begun. The dungeon’s supposed apex predator, dispatched with all the ceremony of a butcher trimming fat.

But the carnage was far from over. The Behemoth, next in line, lumbered forward—a juggernaut of muscle, menace and flames. The abomination, unimpressed, stifled a yawn and shook his head as though enduring a particularly dull conversation. With a whisper of effort, a vine shot upward beneath the Behemoth, its razor-sharp edge finding purchase. The creature’s momentum betrayed it, tearing itself apart on the abomination’s trap before it could land a single blow.

Hope, fragile and fleeting, turned to ash in my chest. Nothing could stop this monstrosity. Nothing. I almost activated my dimensional lamina to escape right then.

But then, a rumble. My gaze snapped to the source—a figure stalking through the haze just beyond the Behemoth’s ruin. Red-scaled, serpentine, with a pair of wings and legs to match. It moved with an unsettling familiarity, and in the dim hues, its silhouette struck a nerve. The creature looked like me—a twisted, handless, winged reflection. Its abyssal maw gaped wide, drooling as it crept forward.

The abomination grinned, the expression almost welcoming. Perhaps, at last, a final challenger worthy of his disdain.