The creature stood transfixed, Lothras's sword buried in its chest, that horrible smile still fixed on its face.

  "Well done," it whispered. "Well done indeed."

  The dark energy surrounding it began to dissipate. The braziers flickered and died.

  "Two centuries," The Sacrificer continued, its voice growing weaker. "Two centuries I've waited. For death. For release. For someone strong enough to grant me the peace I was denied."

  Its blade-fingers relaxed, the threat draining from its posture.

  "The immortality I sought was a lie. Eternal consciousness without rest, without dreams, without the mercy of forgetting. I remember every face. Every scream. Every drop of blood spilled on my altar."

  The creature's form began to waver, edges blurring like smoke in the wind.

  "You've freed me. And for that, I thank you."

  It looked directly at me.

  "But be warned, young ones. What lies below is far worse than I ever was. The high priest didn't just seek immortality. He sought apotheosis. Godhood. But alas, that was also a lie."

  The Sacrificer's body crumbled, collapsing like a sand sculpture caught in the tide.

  Within moments, nothing remained but a pile of ash and bone, and glowing items amidst the remains.

  The Sacrificer's final words echoed in my mind.

  The high priest sought apotheosis. Godhood.

  What exactly were we walking into?

  Kara returned to the once again unlocked chamber and immediately sat down heavily on one of the remaining platforms, her face pale with exhaustion. "Good job, guys."

  “Can we even finish this dungeon?” Lothras asked abruptly. “Anything stronger than this, I don’t think we can clear.”

  “This encounter was not favoring our team comp,” I stated. “Maybe the next one will be easier.”

  "Let's hope so." Athos sheathed his sword and walked toward the loot drops. "In the meantime, let's see what we got."

  I joined him, pushing aside my concerns about what lay ahead. We'd deal with the high priest when we reached him. For now, we've earned these rewards.

  The Sacrificer dropped four items, all pulsing with the light of quality loot.

  Time to see if the fight had been worth it.

  I reached for the first item.

  "A set item," I read aloud. "Too bad it’s not for us."

  "Let's hold onto it," Lothras suggested. "It's valuable. We can sell it or trade it to someone who needs it."

  The second item was a cloak, dark fabric that seemed to absorb the ambient light.

  "Same armor set," Athos observed. "The set bonus is interesting. It's basically the debuff The Sacrificer used on Kara."

  "Just a weaker version," I noted. "There must be more pieces somewhere. Maybe from the final boss, or hidden in the dungeon."

  "Still Cleric or Acolyte restricted," Kara said with a sigh. "Bards get no love."

  "Maybe this will change your mind." I reached for the third item, and my eyes widened as the description appeared.

  Kara's jaw dropped.

  "That is… can I have it?"

  I handed it to her, watching her expression shift from disbelief to wonder as she read the stats.

  "Seventy-five attack power. Twenty-five percent reduced mana cost on continuous songs. And this skill..." She looked up at us, her eyes shining. "Do you understand what this means? My biggest problem has always been mana management during long fights. This helps with that a lot."

  "The weapon skill is impressive too," Athos added. "An AoE disorient that works on bosses? That's crowd control we desperately needed."

  "Four seconds on bosses," Kara murmured, still staring at the lute. "Plus a twenty percent damage reduction. This is... this is incredible."

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  She equipped it immediately, her old instrument disappearing into her inventory as the Lute of Abstraction materialized in her hands.

  It was a beautiful weapon; dark wood inlaid with silver patterns that seemed to shift and move when viewed from different angles.

  "How does it feel?" I asked.

  She strummed a few notes experimentally. It sounded beautiful, mostly because she was a talented musician, but the instrument itself was quite high-quality as well.

  "I’m going to enjoy this so much."

  The fourth and final item was simpler: a gemstone that glittered with deep green light.

  "Vendor trash," Lothras said. "Well, expensive vendor trash. Should fetch a decent price."

  I stored it in my inventory alongside the Unholy Rites pieces. We'd sort out the loot distribution properly once we were back in town.

  "Everyone take a break," I said, finding a relatively dry spot on one of the remaining platforms. "We need to recover before pushing deeper."

  Nobody argued.

  We rested for about five minutes, long enough for our health and mana to regenerate fully and for the adrenaline of the boss fight to fade.

  Kara spent most of that time experimenting with her new lute, testing how her existing songs sounded through the upgraded instrument.

  "Ready?" I asked eventually.

  Three nods answered me.

  "Then let's move. The Sacrificer mentioned a high priest. That's probably the final boss. We need to find him."

  The chamber had a single exit beyond the altar: a doorway that led to another descending staircase.

  The architecture down here was different from the labyrinth above. Less clean, less ordered. The walls were rougher, older, and strange symbols had been carved into every available surface.

  "We're getting closer to the original cult's sanctum," Lothras observed. "This is older construction."

  "And creepier," Athos added grimly. "The church probably renovated the upper levels. Down here, we're seeing what the cultists actually built."

  The corridor twisted and turned, occasionally opening into small chambers that might have served as living quarters or storage rooms. Most were empty now, their contents long since rotted away or removed.

  Except, of course, the monsters.

  "Mobs ahead," I called out as three elementals materialized from the shadows ahead. Two fire, one ice, levels 19, 20, and 19 respectively.

  We fell into our standard formation without needing to discuss it. Lothras engaged the ice elemental, while Athos took on one of the fiery mobs.

  I focused the other with ranged attacks.

  The elementals fell in under a minute.

  "Efficient," Lothras commented.

  "We're getting better at this," Kara agreed, a satisfied smile on her face.

  We pushed deeper.

  The next group was golems, four of them, guarding a junction where the corridor split into three separate paths.

  They were tougher than the elementals, their stone bodies requiring sustained damage to bring down, but we'd fought enough of them by now to know their patterns.

  Dread Cry slowed their attacks. Arrow of Ash & Flames dealt massive damage, and Kara's Tune of Death stripped their remaining HP.

  Lothras and Athos carved the survivors apart piece by piece.

  No map fragments this time, but one of them dropped a minor health potion and some silver coins. Every bit helped.

  "Left, center, or right?" Athos asked, gesturing at the three passages.

  I studied each one. The left path sloped downward, disappearing into darkness. The center continued straight, its torchlight steady and consistent. The right curved away, its destination unclear.

  "Left," I decided. "We want to go deeper. The high priest will be at the lowest level."

  We took the left path.

  Strange sounds echoed from somewhere ahead, like something was struggling to breathe.

  "Stay alert," I murmured.

  The passage opened into a larger cavern, natural stone formations mixing with carved architecture.

  And the creatures waiting for us were unlike anything we'd seen before.

  They might have been human once. The basic shape was there: two arms, two legs, a head. But everything else had been twisted, corrupted, transformed into something nightmarish. Their skin was grey and translucent, revealing dark veins pulsing beneath. Their faces were featureless except for mouths filled with too many teeth. Their limbs bent at wrong angles, allowing them to move in disturbing, spider-like patterns.

  There were dozens of them.

  Corrupted Acolyte

  Level 21

  "What the hell are those?" Kara breathed.

  "The cult's followers," Lothras said grimly. "Or what's left of them."

  The corrupted creatures attacked ferociously, and in weird patterns that made it especially hard to hit them.

  But they were fragile.

  My arrows tore through them with ease, each shot dropping one outright. Athos's blade work was devastating against their unarmored bodies. Even Lothras, primarily a defensive fighter, was cutting them down with single strikes.

  "They're glass cannons," I analyzed as the last one fell. "High damage, low health. We need to kill them fast before they can get to us.”

  "Noted," Athos said, wiping blood from his blade.

  We continued through the cavern, encountering more groups of corrupted acolytes mixed with elementals and golems. The fights were not much of a challenge.

  Then we reached another junction.

  This one was simpler. Just two paths, left and right. The left passage was wider, better lit, clearly the main route. The right was narrow, dark, almost hidden in the shadows.

  "Left looks like the way forward," Kara observed.

  "Agreed," Lothras said. "Let's go."

  He stepped toward the left passage and passed through without issue. Kara followed, then Athos.

  I moved to join them.

  And hit an invisible wall.

  "What the—"

  I pressed my hand against the barrier. It was solid, unyielding, completely blocking my path. I could see my party members on the other side, already several meters down the corridor, but I couldn't reach them.

  "Orion?" Kara turned back, confusion on her face. "What are you doing?"

  "I can't get through. There's some kind of barrier."

  Lothras returned to the junction, reaching his hand toward me. His arm stopped on the barrier.

  "Strange," he said.

  "A class restriction?" Athos suggested.

  "No." I was pretty certain about what was happening. “Dungeons are for 6 players. It wants to split us evenly.”

  But there were only four of us; we couldn’t go as two three-man teams.

  I looked at the right passage.

  "I’ll meet you on the other side."

  "You’re going alone?" Kara's voice was sharp with concern. "That's insane. We're not splitting up."

  "I’m not sure we have a choice." I pressed against the barrier again. Still solid. "Can you three come back through?"

  Lothras tried. He couldn't return to my side.

  "It's one-way," he reported. "Once we passed through, we were committed."

  "So we're separated," Athos concluded. "The dungeon is forcing us apart."

  I studied the situation, trying to find a solution.

  The barrier was absolute, and the dungeon's design was clearly intentional.

  “Good luck, then,” I smiled.

  "And if the paths don't reconnect?" Kara demanded. “If this means we fail the dungeon, we might fail the whole questline.”

  “We won’t fail. I don’t fail.” I was confident. With my new bow and skills, there was no way I wouldn't succeed.

  "I don't like this," Lothras said.

  "Neither do I. But standing here arguing won't change anything." I stepped back from the barrier. "Go. Clear your path. I'll handle mine."

  Kara looked like she wanted to argue further, but Athos put a hand on her shoulder.

  "He's right. The dungeon is dictating terms. We either play by its rules or we don't play at all."

  "Fine." She fixed me with a fierce stare. "Don't you dare die, Orion!"

  "Noted." I managed a smile before repeating myself. "I'll see you on the other side."

  They turned and continued down their path. I watched until they disappeared around a corner, their torchlight fading into the distance.

  Then I faced the narrow passage that awaited me.

  "Alright," I muttered to myself. "Let's see what you've got."

  The right path was cramped, forcing me to walk with my bow held at an awkward angle.

  The torchlight was sparse here, with occasional sources breaking the darkness.

  The first enemies came almost immediately.

  Corrupted acolytes poured from side passages, their twisted bodies crawling along walls and ceiling as easily as the floor. At least ten of them, maybe more, an endless tide of corrupted flesh.

  Creepy.

  But they were weak. And in a narrow corridor like this, they could only approach me from one direction.

  "Piercing Shot."

  The arrow tore through three of them in a line, their bodies dissolving into ash.

  I followed up with Burning Arrow, the flames spreading through their tightly packed ranks.

  They kept coming. And I kept killing them.

  Fan of Arrows scattered a group that tried to rush me. Quick Step repositioned me when the corridor widened enough for them to flank. Web Trap caught a cluster of them, holding them in place while I picked them off one by one.

  It was almost meditative. Draw, aim, fire. Draw, aim, fire.

  The monsters fell in waves, their numbers meaningless against my sustained damage output.

  The corridor twisted and turned, occasionally opening into small chambers filled with more corrupted creatures. I cleared each one, conserving my major cooldowns for when I might actually need them.

  Arrow of Ash & Flames remained unused. Whatever the dungeon had planned for me, I doubted these fodder mobs were the main event. At least they’re giving good experience.

  Thanks to the grinding and the bonus EXP from my Dungeon Pioneer title, I was already halfway into level 21.

  After what felt like an eternity of killing, the passage finally widened into a proper chamber.

  It was spacious. The walls were lined with suits of armor; old, rusted, clearly decorative rather than functional.

  Except for the one blocking the door.

  That armor was pristine.

  Gleaming white plate mail, untouched by the centuries of decay that had claimed everything else in this place. A tower shield rested against one arm, a longsword in the other. The helmet's visor was down, but I could see light burning behind it.

  A paladin.

  Or rather, a paladin’s animated suit of armor, probably belonging to one of the knights who'd tried to cleanse this place centuries ago.

  And my next opponent.

  For a moment, I felt the weight of the situation. No Lothras to tank. No Athos to share the damage dealing. No Kara to heal me when things went wrong.

  Just me, my bow, and a level 23 elite.

  Then I smiled.

  I knew I was a bit rusty.

  Deep in my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder why there were so many players on my level when I was clearly at the top of the world before.

  I knew that MMORPGs were different; I was limited by stats, equipment and levels.

  But the game was opening up. More skills, higher attributes, better items.

  Solo encounters?

  This was what I was built for.

  I rolled my shoulders and raised the Emberwood Longbow.

  "Alright, Sir Knight," I said. "Let's dance."