The Buried Temple
Despite the elf incident, nothing had changed between Dayton and Zeon.
They'd never been particularly close to begin with, so the detached atmosphere felt perfectly familiar.
Dayton walked ahead, with Zeon following behind.
Sometimes they went an entire day without exchanging a single word.
These days, Dayton no longer offered Zeon any advice.
It was his way of saying he'd done enough—he'd have to figure things out on his own now.
Zeon didn't ask Dayton anything anymore, either.
He pondered things himself, wrestling with how to make better use of his abilities.
He brainstormed countless ways to wield his sand and tested them against the occasional monster ambushes.
Low-grade monsters were no longer a match for him.
Boom! Boom!
Heads exploded one after another under Zeon's Sand Missiles.
Brains and blood splattered across the sand.
Zeon glanced at the corpses for a moment before moving on.
Dayton was already far ahead.
He knew Zeon was fighting the monsters but didn't even bother glancing back.
Dayton knew by now.
Zeon wouldn't die to trash like that.
Zeon never let his guard down anymore, no matter the situation.
That was thanks to Dayton's brutal training.
Then—
Dayton, who had been striding far ahead, suddenly stopped.
Zeon looked at him quizzically.
They'd spent quite some time together, but this was the first time Dayton had halted before sunset.
Dayton muttered to himself.
"Pretty sure it was around here..."
He scanned the surroundings briefly before pulling something from his pocket.
It was a compass the size of a child's palm.
Not your ordinary compass.
This one fused Neo Seoul's science and magic—a location memory device, of sorts.
You could save places you'd visited before and recall them later.
He had come here decades ago. It was so long ago that his memory was fuzzy.
The compass needle spun wildly before settling on a direction.
Dayton headed that way.
After walking some distance, he finally stopped.
"This is it."
Snap!
He closed the compass and tucked it away.
Zeon approached him.
"What's here?"
No matter how he looked around, it was just the same endless sand desert.
Identical to every other landscape they'd crossed.
Dayton gave him a pitiful look.
"You can't feel it?"
"Feel what?"
"You're still so far off."
A surge of anger welled up from deep in Zeon's chest. But he swallowed it down and calmly surveyed the area.
If Dayton was saying this, something had to be nearby. Yet nothing stood out, no matter how hard he looked.
Maybe under the sand?
Zeon raised his control and attuned himself to the sand.
Ten meters, twenty—nothing.
Still, he didn't give up. He probed deeper with his control.
Seventy meters, eighty, and at a hundred—
Finally, something.
"This is...?"
Something alien lurked inside the sand.
Dayton asked.
"Found it?"
"Yes!"
"How deep?"
"About a hundred meters underground."
"Deeper than I thought. More sand must've piled up since then."
It hadn't been that deep when he'd found it before. The years had buried it further under accumulating dunes.
"Dig."
"Got it."
Zeon responded by shifting the sand.
Shhh!
The mountain of sand parted and flowed aside.
Zeon shoved the displaced sand far away.
Thick beads of sweat formed on his brow.
Massive mana drain.
A hundred meters sounded manageable, but excavating it all would form a colossal hill.
Impossible in one go, obviously.
Zeon dug slowly, bit by bit.
Dayton didn't rush him.
He knew how grueling this was.
Sand lacked cohesion—once dug, it collapsed back in from the sides.
Zeon's sand mastery was the only reason progress was possible at all. An ordinary person couldn't do this in a century.
Dayton had no need to help.
He sat off at a distance, waiting for Zeon to finish.
The excavation dragged on for nearly three days.
Rest when mana depleted, dig when it recovered—repeat.
Pushing himself to the brink, Zeon finally reached the hundred-meter depth.
"What the...?"
Zeon furrowed his brow.
A hundred meters down lay stone architecture, utterly out of place in the desert.
More precisely, a stone door.
Weird enough to find such massive rock this deep in the sands, but shaped like a door? Even stranger.
Dayton descended to his side.
"You found it."
"What... is this?"
"A dungeon."
"Dungeon? So this door leads inside?"
"That's my guess."
"Guess? You don't know for sure?"
"Stumbled on it decades ago by chance. Vanished into the sand before I could enter."
"Why come back now?"
"To get stronger."
"You think you'll power up in there?"
Zeon stared at him incredulously.
Dayton shredded B-rank monsters like paper.
Estimated power: S-rank at minimum.
Already that strong, yet chasing more power in some ancient dungeon?
This went beyond shameless—it was inhuman.
Zeon couldn't comprehend Dayton's mindset with normal logic.
Not that he bothered trying anymore.
He knew Dayton was beyond judging.
Dayton caressed the stone door briefly.
Its surface was etched with indecipherable runes.
Zeon recognized them.
From the elves' books in his subspace.
Exact match, though meanings unknown.
Connected to the elves?
Then Dayton touched the door. A brilliant light burst forth, and it swung wide open.
Without a word to Zeon, Dayton stepped inside. He didn't tell him not to follow, either.
Leaving it entirely to Zeon's choice.
Fine! What's one more death after the last?
Even Dayton, plenty strong already, was diving into the unknown for more power.
No reason for Zeon—who'd resolved to grow—to hesitate.
He hurried in before the door closed.
Thud!
It sealed shut right after.
Entering the dungeon felt like plummeting through empty air.
But he'd entered one in the magistone mine before, so he adjusted quickly.
Zeon shook off the disorientation and scanned his surroundings.
Vast pillars of stone held up an impossibly high ceiling.
The stone walls bore those same runes alongside carvings that seemed to praise some god.
"A... temple?"
The scale and atmosphere screamed temple to some deity.
He'd never heard of a stone-built dungeon. But that wasn't weird.
Dungeons defied human logic by nature.
Then Zeon realized Dayton was gone.
"Did Dayton land somewhere else?"
Not everyone entering the same gate ended up together.
Sometimes you spawned in completely different areas.
"Guess I'll meet him at the boss."
Dayton had taught him that.
To reunite, head straight for the boss room.
Problem: which path?
His grand hall had four passages.
No clue which led to the boss.
"Tch!"
Zeon clicked his tongue.
No intel, no signs.
Nothing to base a smart choice on.
His least favorite kind of situation. But he couldn't dawdle forever.
Dayton was already marching toward the boss this very moment.
No time for hesitation.
"The smallest passage."
Of the four, he picked the narrowest entrance.
For a reason.
"Bigger passages mean higher chance of big monsters."
Bigger monsters were usually stronger.
And they needed space to maneuver. So he chose narrow.
Smaller passage, smaller monsters.
Zeon plunged into the tight corridor without pause.
It was pitch black inside.
No lanterns, not even a flicker of light.
He navigated the inky darkness by sense alone.
"Hoo!"
Even the magistone mine's depths hadn't been this dark.
It felt like the temple itself rejected all outside light.
Eyes useless here.
Even channeling mana into them revealed nothing.
"Vision's out. Rely on the rest."
Zeon ditched sight and focused on hearing, smell, touch.
Whoosh!
A faint breeze.
Stagnant air in a sealed space doesn't move.
Wind meant an open path somewhere.
Zeon followed it, pondering.
A temple dungeon? Why do these things even form?
He'd been an Awakener long enough, but dungeon origins remained a mystery.
He'd asked Dayton once, but the old man had clammed up.
His vibe screamed he knew something.
Is dungeon creation tied to whatever wrecked Earth?
Pure speculation. No solid answers.
Then—
Thump! Thump!
A heavy thud echoed.
Unmistakable: something massive on the move.
Zeon halted, ears straining.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
It kept coming, ponderous and relentless.
"What the hell?"
The answer was obvious.
In a temple dungeon, the only things that moved were monsters.
Zeon raised his control, bracing for combat.
"Shit."
Frustration crossed his face mid-mana flow.
No sand anywhere nearby.
He was a Sand Mage.
All his power stemmed from sand.
No sand? He was half the Awakener.
"Not a single grain?"
His control's range held zero sand.
First time this happened. Zeon panicked.
"Fuck!"
Thump! Thump! Thud!
The heavy footsteps closed in.
Then, in the dark, countless eyes gleamed.
Zeon backed away slowly.
But eyes lit the passage behind him too.
Their faint glow revealed silhouettes.
Humanoid forms.
Except their bodies were stone.
Zeon's height, but bulkier, rough-hewn.
Only one monster type fit.
"Golems?"
Stone golems, no less.
The worst matchup—even with sand, victory wasn't guaranteed.
Dozens had him surrounded.
"Goddamn it!"