Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 303

Dungeon Journal-303 (303/319)

# 303

Dungeon Journal

Chapter 304

106. Ruler of the Abyss

The moment Kim Jin-woo regained consciousness, disaster struck, as if it had been waiting for him.

The ceilings and floors dividing the layers collapsed, and countless labyrinths were swept away in the destruction.

The surviving nobles and labyrinth owners huddled within their labyrinths, enduring a nightmarish ordeal and praying for the disaster to end quickly.

In the process, even more labyrinths disappeared. The sacrifice was greater than any war they had fought, and the survivors were terrified, feeling weak and helpless against the immense evil they couldn’t resist.

They grew weary amidst the endless collapse and tectonic shifts.

*Is this what the end looks like?*

The word “end” began to take root in their minds. It was no wonder, as two-thirds of the 100,000 labyrinth owners had been swept away by the disaster.

The underworld, filled with masterless labyrinths and their remains, resembled a vast cemetery. That’s how devastating the third restoration was.

But perhaps the end hadn’t arrived yet. The underworld didn’t perish. As if mocking the survivors’ frustration and despair, the disaster suddenly ceased, as abruptly as it had begun.

So much had changed. The layers, finely divided since ancient times, became one, and the isolated underworlds of each continent merged, finally regaining their original form.

And in that unified underworld, a giant ash tree appeared—the Subterranean Tree of the Deep Layers that Kim Jin-woo had once seen.

However, the survivors didn’t even have time to acknowledge the change.

They had to pour all their energy into restoring the collapsed and damaged labyrinths, and they continued their desperate battles against the ominous gods that emerged from the ruins.

There was no strategy or negotiation between the ominous gods and the survivors. Only the law of the underworld prevailed: eat or be eaten.

A pure arena where life and death flickered, the primitive era had returned to the underworld.

Dozens of labyrinths disappeared every day, and just as many rulers vanished. Everywhere in the underworld was a battlefield.

But amidst all this chaos, there was one place untouched by struggle: Valhalla and the Great Labyrinth.

***

Kim Jin-woo had not yet awakened. He remained surrounded by the branches of the ash tree.

Dominique and the summons waited for their master, who was wandering somewhere in the past, present, or future. They didn’t want him to see a mess upon his return, so they worked tirelessly to restore the damaged Great Labyrinth and explore the surroundings.

But even after the Nagas rebuilt the Great Labyrinth and the Under Elves completely explored the vicinity, their master didn’t return.

Even though they were the only ones safe in the underworld, where the ominous gods were rampant, their worries deepened with each passing day.

“Recently, the ominous gods have been appearing more frequently in the vicinity,” Rickshasha said, delivering the bad news. “They haven’t dared to attack this place yet, out of fear of the master’s power, but the moment they realize he’s absent, they’ll rush here without hesitation.”

Rickshasha looked guilty, as if it were her fault.

“It’s still alright. We can hold on a little longer,” Dominique said, comforting Rickshasha—or rather, comforting herself. She repeated the words, reassuring the summons that they still had time.

But contrary to her words, the situation was dire.

The ominous gods, who had previously been hesitant to show themselves, were appearing more frequently, and occasionally they even loitered near Valhalla.

The Naga Queen, who had been delegated full authority, activated Mjolnir [Thor’s hammer] to chase them away, but as time passed, they would realize the master’s absence.

She could only earnestly hope that the master would wake up before that happened.

Perhaps Dominique’s wish came true. A small change occurred in the Throne of Truth, which had been motionless for almost 50 days.

The long branches seemed to dry up and then snapped.

“Ah….”

The Lord of Lamentation was the first to awaken. She opened her eyes wide, her face pale, as if she had experienced a nightmare.

Dominique, alternating between looking at the still-unconscious master surrounded by the ash tree and the Lord of Lamentation, gestured tensely to Angela.

She worried that Catherine might do something foolish while the master was unconscious.

But fortunately, Angela would be able to stop the Lord of Lamentation somehow. After all, she was a proud High Lord.

But something was strange. Angela’s eyes, as she looked at the Lord of Lamentation, trembled slightly, as if she were shocked. Dominique soon understood why.

“It seems that the truth he sought was heavier than I imagined.”

“You… your authority….”

Angela barely spoke, her face incredulous. In response, the Lord of Lamentation replied hollowly, “That’s right. The Throne of Truth took my authority as the price of consciousness.”

There was no trace of the High Lord’s former power in her voice.

“I feel terrible.”

The one who had once been closest to the pinnacle of the underworld had lost all her power in an instant and become an ordinary human. It was no wonder she felt empty and futile.

“But I thought I would get lucky and lose only an eye or an arm.”

Dominique didn’t answer. Although Catherine was an enemy, she sympathized with the despair in her voice.

“But you know what’s even more terrible?”

The Lord of Lamentation—Catherine, now just an ordinary human—asked in a low voice. No one answered, because it wasn’t a question she expected an answer to.

“It was all decided from the beginning, from a very long time ago.”

“What does that…”

“I didn’t even know that, and I was talking about being a king or something like a fool, making myself look ridiculous.”

A voice full of self-contempt and self-deprecation echoed quietly.

“You must have seen something through the Throne of Truth, too,” Angela said in a subdued voice. Catherine didn’t deny it, but she didn’t answer either.

“Ask your master such questions.”

What she saw didn’t matter anymore. The ritual was held for the master, and she had only glimpsed a small truth in its vicinity.

“But why isn’t Master waking up yet?”

“He’ll need a little more time. His dream will be several times deeper and longer than mine.”

As Catherine said, it was only a week after she woke up that Kim Jin-woo finally stirred.

“Master!”

“Your Majesty!”

The summons, who had been waiting for him to wake up, cried out in relief. But he still stared blankly into the air, his eyes dazed.

“Master!”

Terrified by his strangely empty appearance, Dominique screamed. At that desperate cry, light returned to his hazy eyes.

“Ah… ah.”

He spoke in a deeply submerged voice that cracked like metal.

“The Throne of Truth showed me many things.”

The summons, who had been making a fuss, fell silent.

“The One-Eyed Lord saw the end of the underworld in exchange for his eyes. But the end he saw was different from what the Lord of Depravity had said.”

The Lord of Depravity said that the end of the underworld would come from the invasion of the surface. But what the One-Eyed Lord saw through the Throne of Truth was something completely different.

The future that the One-Eyed Lord glimpsed after sacrificing an eye was of the underworld being destroyed by a monster, crouching down and waiting for its time.

And terribly, the monster that destroyed the underworld devoured not only the world beneath the ground but also the world above.

That was the Night.

The day the underworld and the surface merged into one, the crouching Night would finally reveal itself. That was the moment when the end of the world would come.

“So the One-Eyed Lord prepared for the future. He prepared a weapon to cut off the monster’s breath before it reached the surface.”

A spear made from a branch of the youngest mistletoe tree, the spear of mortality that even the mysteries of the underworld couldn’t avoid, was the arrangement prepared by the One-Eyed Lord.

But it wasn’t perfect. The monster was cunning and wouldn’t show its true form until the time came. To lure it out, bait was needed.

“That bait is the Wish Stone.”

The Wish Stone, which should have been kept in the deepest part of the deep layers, was leaked to the surface due to the usurper’s plot, but only recently was it able to return to the arms of the underworld.

It was a minor twist, but thanks to it, he could see that the One-Eyed Lord and the usurper didn’t have the same intentions.

“The usurper wants the end of the world.”

The usurper was waiting for the moment when the Night would rise, when the underworld and the surface would become one. He didn’t know why, but she wanted not only the underworld but also the surface to be destroyed.

It was an unexpected fact, but it didn’t matter. Either way, he didn’t want the world to be destroyed and had to stop it, regardless of whether the host was the Night or the usurper.

But what was really important was something else.

*Why was it me? Why me of all people?*

“Nothing was decided from the beginning. I just planted the seeds, and I couldn’t know what kind of sprouts they would produce.”

The Lord of Depravity told him it was just a coincidence when he asked why he had chosen him. But even that wasn’t the truth.

“Synchronization complete. The 18,230 Snake’s Nest, the Naga’s Labyrinth, recognizes you as its master.”

Kim Jin-woo recalled when he first discovered the Naga’s Labyrinth. At the time, he thought he was lucky to have found a masterless place.

But it didn’t make sense. He didn’t become the master of the labyrinth through an unengraved core [a core without a master’s mark].

“The liberator of the 18,230 snakes, the one who inherits the damp underground and sits on the throne of the Nagas.”

“You are too small and humble to bear the weight of the crown. But I am also not well enough to hold back the flow of time, so I will think of this as fate.”

“I wish you good luck.”

He clearly became the master of the labyrinth through the thoughts of the former Naga King.

“Dominique, do you remember the former Dragon King?”

“No, I don’t remember at all.”

“Then Quantus?”

“I don’t know him either.”

The Nagas, puzzled by the sudden questions, looked confused, as if they sensed something was off. Looking at them, Kim Jin-woo said to himself,

“It’s strange. It’s as if only the Nagas had fallen from the sky.”

It was strange. It wasn’t that the underworld didn’t record history.

Just as humans on the surface recorded their history in books and passed it on to future generations, the beings of the underworld also continued their history by passing on the memories of their clans.

That was why the numerous labyrinth owners and summons he had met hadn’t forgotten the origin of their existence.

But why were the Nagas like a newly born race, blank? The Throne of Truth showed him the reason.

“The Nagas are the people of the darkest and dampest underground world, the residents of the deepest abyss that even the underworld could not contain, and the prisoners who could not step out of the darkness in the first place.”

The parched voice dragged out the uncomfortable truth.

“You were initially called the Underworld Snakes, but the rulers of the Abyss who lost their true names after the Twilight [a cataclysmic event], the monsters that the old lords hated so much, are the Night Clan.”