Ash drifted in the wind, the memory of fire.
It didn’t burn. It didn’t cling. It simply was.
A soft, grey flurry dusted the treetops, the field, and the stunned adventurers now scattered across the edges of the forest clearing.
Nick sat up.
His back ached. His throat felt like it had been scraped with sandpaper, but the sky above was a deep, impossible blue, and the grass underneath his fingers was real.
Beside him, Ray was still laughing—half gasp, half wheeze, hands in her hair, blood and soot streaked across her face.
A world had ended.
And they’d survived it.
They sat like that for a while, letting the ash fall.
Voices rose around them. Adventurers appeared in bursts—some crumpled in pain, others shouted in confusion, coughing up dungeon smoke and fire-washed air. The outskirts of the Siege Vault camp were chaos incarnate.
A few looked around, dazed. One woman was screaming. Another threw up in a bush.
Nick sighed and sat up straighter.
This was a pivotal moment.
With deliberate calm, he stood. He dusted off his jacket, reached up, and adjusted the hood. A few of the nearby adventurers turned to look. Most of them didn’t recognize him.
Those who did knew he’d only been here for a few hours.
Yet after he arrived, everything changed.
Their gazes locked on him with a quiet, unspoken question:
Did you do this?
Nick answered it with a small shrug.
“That’s right,” he said, just loud enough to carry. “We broke the dungeon.”
The silence that followed hit like a pressure drop.
More heads turned.
Ray looked up at him with wide eyes. “You’re just gonna tell them?”
“No point in hiding it.”
She stood slowly. “Won’t that draw a lot of attention?”
Nick glanced at her. “Yup.”
Then he walked a few steps toward the center of the clearing and found a low, flat rock. He sat down like he had all the time in the world.
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t stand on a soapbox. He didn’t try to explain what had happened.
He simply sat.
Cross-legged, elbows on his knees, head tilted back slightly.
Waiting.
And across the field, the murmurs began.
Nick’s presence was a lodestone.
He didn’t move. He didn’t speak again. But the weight of what he’d said hung in the air like a thunderhead that hadn’t struck yet.
Around him, the adventurers shifted.
Some stumbled toward the camp, making their way toward healer tents. Others shouted for friends or screamed names into the wind. A few stared blankly into the middle distance, still waiting for their brains to catch up to what their bodies had already survived.
But more and more… they started to look at him.
Ray sat beside him, quiet. She kept glancing at him sideways.
“You’re really not gonna explain anything?”
“Nope.”
“…You don’t even look bothered.”
Nick opened one eye, glancing at her, and smiled faintly.
“Guess I’ve gotten good at hiding it.”
She blinked. Her mouth opened, like she wanted to argue, but then she didn’t. Her eyes softened. She looked down at her lap.
In the end, she just sat beside him, silent. A little too close.
“…Fine,” she said. “But you’re explaining later.”
Nick turned back to his interface.
Without speaking, he called it up.
===Status===
Name: Nicholas Draegan
Age: 26
Race: Overseer (Human*)
Title(s): Custodian of the Eternal Sin
Health: 97%
Mana: 83%
Magic Systems:
Lesser: Echelomancy, ???, ???, ???, ???.
Mind: 20 | Body: 20 | Soul: 20
->Echelomancy
->Unused Skill Points: 8.93
->Skills: Multi-Fireball (25/-), Infinite Wardrobe+1, Execute (2/100), Sinbound Flames (2/100), Flickerflame (15/100), Stealth+1 (2/100), Nimble Hands (6/100), Trap Perception (9/100), Enhanced Fire Magic (8/100), Ignite (13/100), Emberheart (4/100), Oath of Ash (1/100)
->Bloodline: Avatar Rank 1 (Hidden – Basic), Human (Pure)
->Traits: Faith Empowerment (Basic), Inspiring Presence (Basic), Rapid Growth [Avatar] (Basic), Rapid Growth [Human] (Intermediate), Heir of Twilight, Keeper of the First Flame
=Skill Point System=
-> You have accumulated (8.93) skill points.
…
=Available Upgrade Targets=
->Multi-Fireball (Rank 25/-):
+1: Enhance the efficiency, quantity, and potency of fireballs.
->Infinite Wardrobe+1:
+10: Gain remote access to all items bound to the infinite wardrobe.
->Execute (Rank 2/100):
+1: Execute becomes a passive ability. Slightly increase the Execute threshold.
->Sinbound Flames (Rank 2/100)
+100: Upgrade Sinbound Flames -> Sinbound Hellfire
->Flickerflame (15/100)
+5: Allow fire spells to teleport a second time.
->Stealth +1 (2/100)
+5: Become partially invisible while active.
->Nimble Hands (6/100)
+1: Further improve dexterity and enhance precision.
->Trap Perception (9/100)
+1: Improve detection range and speed for magical and physical traps.
->Enhanced Fire Magic (8/100)
+10: Increase base fire spell power and quality by 20% -> 30%.
->Ignite (13/100)
+5: Every fire spell now deals two instances of Ignite.
->Emberheart (4/100)
+10: Buff cap increased from 3 to 4 stacks.
->Oath of Ash (1/100
+100: [LOCKED]
->Avatar Creation +1:
+10: Increase Avatar Rank.
There were a lot more options than the last time he’d upgraded a skill. His build as a fire mage was coming together beautifully, though many of the upgrades were still out of his price range.
His build as Cain, though?
He needed to avoid using fire magic to establish himself with a different identity.
But his skill tree was dangerously weak if he removed fire magic—he only had one other combat skill, which he never found opportunities to use.
Execute.
Maybe if it became passive, he would be able to get more benefit out of the skill.
He invested one skill point into it.
=Execute +1=
-Passive Skill-
->Mana: N/A
->Rank: 2/100
->Description: Execute a wounded enemy.
->Threshold: 15%
The ending does not ask for permission.
On the skill point tree, the skill reflected the new change and advanced to the next level:
=Available Upgrade Targets=
…
->Execute +1 (2/100)
+5: Gain a significant burst of energy and speed after executing a target. Slightly increase the execute threshold.
…
The new skill seemed incredibly useful for both his Nick and Cain personas. Without hesitation, he invested five more points into Execute.
=Execute +2=
-Passive Skill-
->Mana: N/A
->Rank: 2/100
->Description: Execute a wounded enemy and gain a burst of energy and speed.
->Threshold: 20%
One ending feeds the next.
His fingers hovered over the skill list.
Two more points that he could spend.
He hesitated for a moment, then scrolled up to the top.
Multi-Fireball.
His signature move. It had carried him through more than a few scrapes already.
He smiled faintly.
“Alright, old reliable.”
He spent the point.
=Multi-Fireball +1=
-Active Skill-
->Mana: 20%
->Rank: 25/-
->Description: Throw one or more f*cking fireballs.
Fireball.
There were no visible changes on the skill description, other than the new ‘+1’ modifier in the name.
That wasn’t unexpected, though.
His Fireball skill clearly didn’t follow all the normal rules, and the system seemed to have some difficulty classifying it.
=Available Upgrade Targets=
->Multi-Fireball +1 (25/100)
+10: Grants all fireballs a chance to spawn a chain fireball that seeks the next target within range.
…
And the next tier of upgrade seemed incredibly good.
“I need to find a way to farm a ton of skill points,” he muttered to himself.
He was going to need hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands if the numbers kept scaling upward.
There had to be a more efficient way than killing a handful of monsters for fractions of skill points or buying them off the market for buckets of gold.
He still had one skill point left to spend, but he wasn’t particularly interested in upgrading Nimble Hands or Trap Perception at the moment.
His hand hovered over Oath of Ash briefly, just long enough to feel a phantom heat pulse behind the lock.
He didn’t know much about this new skill yet, but it needed a full hundred skill points to upgrade anyway. He had time to figure it out.
He closed the interface with a thought. The light blinked out in the corner of his vision.
A breeze drifted across the field, catching in the folds of his jacket.
“Done?” Ray asked.
“For now,” he said.
She leaned back on her hands and watched the sky with him.
The stillness lasted maybe ten more seconds before the mood shifted.
Ray sat up straighter.
Nick followed her gaze.
Footsteps. Four sets.
“Company,” Ray muttered.
“Right on time,” Nick said.
He didn’t rise.
A shadow fell across them as the first of the newcomers approached. The others formed a loose semicircle around him, expressions ranging from grim to impatient to outright furious.
Nick had met two of them before, and he knew of the other two from listening to people talk.
At the center stood Duke Jantzen Rovar, looking with all the casual weight of a fortress on legs. Sunlight caught in his golden hair and glinted off the reinforced buckles of his coat. His arms were crossed, sleeves rolled up.
To his left stood Resh Collings, the Guildmaster of the Cairel Adventurer’s Guild. His coat bore the insignia in silver thread, but it was the man himself who drew attention—towering, dark-skinned, bald, and built like the kind of general who could win wars with a glare.
On the Duke’s right was a woman in a long, red-lined coat and scuffed boots, one gloved hand twitching with restrained impatience. Her cropped, copper-brown hair was slicked back in angry strands, and her eyes carried the weight of two sleepless nights and a heavy grudge.
Vanessa Corlin, Cairel Branch Head of the Mercenary Guild.
She looked like she’d rather be anywhere else.
“You’re the one who said you broke the dungeon?” she asked coldly, tone flat as dry gunpowder.
Nick met her eyes and nodded once. “That’s right.”
She clicked her tongue and looked away. “Waste of my time,” she muttered. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The last man was a head shorter than the rest, broad like a barrel, and twice as jolly. His hair was iron-grey and braided into rings that looped down over his temples. His robes were surprisingly plain—charcoal linen with gold-stitched cuffs and a crest Nick didn’t recognize. The heavy wooden staff in his hand suggested that he was a magic-user.
Thordran Mork, Cairel Branch Head of the Acolyte’s Guild.
He adjusted his spectacles and peered at Nick like he was inspecting a suspiciously phallic mushroom.
“Did you do it?” Thordran asked.
Nick smiled faintly. “Depends. What are the implications of breaking a dungeon?”
Thordran blinked. “…Considerable.”
“Then yes,” he replied. “I’m responsible.”
Duke Jantzen laughed. He stepped forward until his boots met the stone Nick sat on and looked down with a slight tilt of his head.
“Nick,” the duke said, “what the hell did you just do?”
Nick met his gaze evenly.
“Something new.”
The duke’s brow furrowed. He turned slightly, speaking more to the group than to Nick.
“Never before, in the history of mankind, has a pseudo-dungeon been permanently cleared. Without a dungeon core, there is no anchor to terminate the dungeon. Yet this one collapsed after Nick here reportedly cleared the dungeon.”
“I was there, too,” Ray interjected.
He glanced at her. “After these two cleared the dungeon,” he amended.
Resh stepped forward, arms crossed over his broad chest. “I had a feeling that investing in you was the right choice. But still, how did you do it?”
Nick lifted one hand and turned it, palm up. “Can’t say for sure.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on—”
“Let him finish,” the duke interrupted.
Nick continued. “All I know is, I used a skill. One I’ve only recently acquired. It interacts strangely with dungeon spaces. Under the right circumstances, it might allow me to… resolve them. Permanently.”
There was a long silence.
Resh’s voice was the first to cut through it. “Resolve? You’re saying you didn’t clear the dungeon.”
“No. I had the opportunity to, but…” He glanced at the duke, the only known person to have ever cleared the Siege Vault. “I chose to end the dungeon instead.”
Thordran made a low, thoughtful sound. “You chose to end it? And you can replicate this?”
“Maybe,” Nick said. “Not easily, I’m sure. But yes.”
Vanessa folded her arms tighter. “Great. A miracle no one understands performed by a nobody with a grudge against subtlety.”
“Not a nobody,” the duke said quietly. “Not anymore.”
His eyes hadn’t left Nick once.
“You said this skill interacts with dungeons. What else can it do?”
Nick smiled faintly. “I’m still figuring that out.”
Ray gave him a sidelong glance.
Thordran cleared his throat. “Do you have any documentation? Record of its effects? System feedback or descriptions?”
Nick shrugged. “Give me a piece of paper and I can write down everything I have.”
Vanessa scoffed. “As if you’d reveal your secrets so easily.”
Duke Jantzen looked to Resh. “What’s your assessment?”
The guildmaster didn’t answer right away. He studied Nick for a long moment, then turned and looked out across the field—at the scorched patch of dirt where a dungeon entrance used to be. At the adventurers, many still wandering around in shock. At the slowly falling ash.
Finally, he said, “This isn’t going away. Word’s going to spread. Every important person on the continent will know by the end of the week. The only way to contain the aftermath is to control the narrative.”
“Which means?” Thordran asked.
“Which means we support his story,” Resh replied, nodding toward Nick. “Even if we don’t understand it. We say it was intentional. Authorized. Controlled.”
Vanessa looked like she wanted to punch someone.
Duke Jantzen just chuckled under his breath.
“Of course,” Resh added, “that hinges on whether or not you want to play this game with us. Considering how you drew us all out here, I have a feeling I know your answer.”
Nick leaned back on the rock, arms behind him, relaxed as ever. “Depends on what kind of game you’re playing.”
The duke grinned. “I see you’re already playing it.”
Ray, watching all of this, finally spoke up. “You’re seriously going to let us walk away with a secret like this?”
Vanessa bristled. “He’s not walking anywhere until I get some answers—”
Nick held up a hand. “You’ll get answers. Just not all of them. Not yet.”
Resh raised a brow. “And what do you want in exchange?”
“Recognition,” Nick replied. “I want seats at the table, even if I haven’t been invited.”
He stood now, dusting ash from his sleeves.
“I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to watch.”
The wind shifted.
Ash spun in the light.
Duke Jantzen gave a slow nod, like a man who’d just decided to bet on a dice roll.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve certainly got our attention.”
Before anyone could speak again, a runner arrived—a young boy wearing the crest of the mercenary guild, out of breath and wide-eyed.
“M-madam! Master! There’s a message from the city. Something’s happened.”
Resh tensed. “What sort of something?”
“The fire. They have a lead on who did it.”
All heads turned to Vanessa.
Her jaw clenched.
“About damn time.”
Nick didn’t say a word.
But he did smile.
Just a little.
Project Knightfall 