Absolute Cheater

While moving toward the next dungeon, Asher and Valeris made a brief pit stop—they stopped by the nearest city hidden away near the dungeon's location.

The city's name shimmered in the air like magic itself: Fabst.

"I wonder what that name means," Valeris asked as they walked through the gates.

Asher glanced around and nodded. "This used to be the entry point to the Tier IX Dungeon—Fantasy Island. It's sealed now, but the name stuck."

He was still looking around when he noticed Valeris pushing something behind her back.

"What are you hiding?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She turned away, trying—and failing—to look innocent. "Nothing! I just thought… maybe we could try some local food before heading in again."

Asher smirked. "You just want to taste their desserts again, don't you?"

She flashed him a grin. "Guilty."

They shared a rare moment of lightness, walking together through the quaint streets of Fabst, unaware that even here, shadows of greater trials were beginning to gather.

They wandered through Fabst's winding alleys, cobbled streets lined with colorful banners and glowing lanterns that never went out—even in daylight. The city had a strange charm, as if it had been plucked from a dream and stitched into reality. Magical aromas drifted from stalls—spiced fruits that shimmered, bread that sang softly when broken, and teas brewed with star-dust infusions.

Valeris stopped at a vendor selling pastries shaped like phoenix feathers.

"These," she said, her eyes lighting up, "were amazing last time."

Asher chuckled. "You remember every sweet we've eaten since the Western Realms."

"Obviously," she said with mock seriousness. "Victory tastes better with dessert."

He bought her one without a word, and she leaned against him while nibbling on the warm, flaky treat, her gaze lazily tracking the drifting clouds above the city.

Asher, meanwhile, kept his senses extended—not out of fear, but habit. Even in places that felt peaceful, power could sleep beneath the soil.

And here… something was slumbering.

Valeris noticed his expression shift. "You feel it too?"

He nodded. "Beneath this city. Deep—very deep. Something left behind. Sealed or maybe forgotten."

Her tone dropped into readiness. "Another dungeon?"

"No. Older. This one feels like a… vault. A memory buried in stone."

"Do we go after it?"

He looked down at her, thoughtful. "No. Not yet. Let's let this city be a city—for now."

Valeris smiled softly. "Merciful Sovereign."

"Greedy Dragon," he countered.

They wandered into a bookshop next, enchanted tomes gently fluttering their own pages like birds stretching wings. The owner—a blind sage with a third eye etched into her forehead—greeted them as if she'd known they were coming for centuries.

"The one who walks without being," she whispered to Asher, placing a feathered bookmark in his palm. "And the soul who keeps him from becoming undone. Take this. You'll know when to use it."

Asher looked down at the bookmark—it pulsed faintly with void-thread and soul-ink. Neither of them knew what it meant.

But they both felt it mattered.

By dusk, they reached the outskirts of Fabst. The Dungeon lay eastward, through the whispering woods where illusions and forgotten dreams made the path twist and loop.

Valeris stretched. "Alright. Fantasy Island, huh? Think we'll find anything real in there?"

Asher's eyes shimmered faintly. "Sometimes the deepest truths wear the skin of dreams."

She rolled her eyes. "You've been reading poetry again, haven't you?"

He grinned. "Just living it."

They stepped into the trees—toward the next trial.

And behind them, in Fabst, the blind sage closed her doors. Her third eye flickered open again—watching not them, but what followed.

The whispering woods lived up to their name.

Trees bent not with wind, but with breath—soft sighs echoing like forgotten lullabies. Light filtered down in strange patterns, casting illusions of paths that didn't exist. Every step Valeris and Asher took was countered by a thousand phantom footsteps, echoing just out of sync.

Valeris brushed her fingers against a vine-draped trunk. It shivered under her touch and whispered:

"Do you dream, soulbound one?"

She pulled her hand back, frowning. "The forest is alive."

"It's testing us," Asher murmured, eyes scanning the shifting trail. "Trying to see if we belong."

"And do we?"

He smirked. "We never belong. But we always conquer."

The illusion finally broke when Asher sent a pulse of his Soul Sense forward. A shimmering wall—hidden in thought and light—peeled away like burning paper, revealing a spiraling descent of ancient stairs made of obsidian and silverroot. Floating sigils hovered above the entry, speaking one word in a dozen languages:

"Fantasy."

Valeris exhaled. "The Ninth Dungeon."

And from deep within the stairwell, something stirred.

It didn't roar. It breathed. Slowly. Purposefully.

A pressure rolled upward, like a dream awakening after eons of stillness.

"It's evolved," Asher said, his voice low. "Over the years of being left unconquered… it's now a Void Rank dungeon."

Valeris glanced back at him, leading the way down the spiraling path. "Don't tell me this is the one we were gunning for back then—one of the first places we marked."

Asher smirked, clearly amused. "It is. The one."

Valeris rolled her eyes. "Of course it is."

"So it was the one," she muttered, shaking her head with a small, reluctant smile.

Asher nodded. "Yeah. We were aiming at it from the start," he said, his gaze fixed on the distant entrance veiled in mist and ancient warding sigils. "This was the dungeon I was heading for when we made that pit stop in the city."

Valeris glanced at him, her expression shifting between curiosity and amusement. "So all that detour talk was just you pretending not to be on a mission?"

He gave her a crooked smile. "Wasn't pretending. Just… letting the path unfold naturally."

She snorted. "You mean you got distracted."

"Semantics," he replied, already stepping toward the edge of the dungeon's threshold, where the ground crackled with spatial pressure. "Let's see what kind of evolution this place went through. If it's Void Rank now, it won't be anything like the old map we had."

Valeris followed, blades at her hips and her soul pulsing gently in sync with his. "Good. I was starting to miss the taste of impossible odds."