“That is the symbol of Leviathan — the Last Dragon,” the shadow king replied.

Fenrir gasped as a sequence of memories assaulted him.

A fortress on a hill overlooking an invading army of magic beasts. A shapeless figure at their head that radiated an aura of limitless power.

The memory shifted.

Battle-hardened men and women looked towards him. Their faces betrayed no emotions. They were warriors. He felt pride.

Another memory took its place.

Bodies piled high around him. Men, women, and beasts. His hands gripped blades coated in blood. He sensed a weight in his chest. An unending sadness.

Another shift.

A roaring red dragon soaring above a broken fortress. The roar was full of sadness and loss. He watched the dragon pit fang and claw against steel as it shred through the army of beasts. The end of a civilization. Hopelessness.

Then the memories faded, replaced with blackness.

Evan opened his eyes, tears streaming down his face. “Fenrir, these memories. Are they of your life before you became a core?”

The core was silent for a long time. “I do not know, my King. They are less memories than nightmares. They speak to me. Of my failure. I do not know what they mean, but they feel like a part of me,” Fenrir whimpered. Evan could hear the agony in his voice. Confusion mixed with misery.

Evan remained silent as he mourned with Fenrir.

An hour passed before Fenrir and Evan felt ready enough to keep moving. There was a light drizzle of rain that fell as they walked and Evan drank the water as it filled his mouth greedily. Ever since he had bonded with Fenrir, he didn’t have a need to drink or eat. The core kept him alive by feeding him a constant stream of mana. But the liquid felt blissful as it soaked his parched throat.

He reveled in the moment as the water continued to hit his face. This was freedom.

The rain washed away the sorrow from earlier and replaced it with a grim determination. He would not let the Labyrinth claim this world. Not again. Fenrir roared his agreement.

The summoner turned his head towards the shadow king. “Tyr, why was the symbol engraved on the door to your throne room? Did you know this Leviathan?”

The shadow shook his head. “I do not know. I do not remember. I only know what my creator knew. That the dungeon it was given was not one that it had created. It was a piece of another world that the Labyrinth had carved out and made its own.”

“Perhaps a world-dungeon then?” the dungeon core asked.

Evan nodded, “it appears so.”

The shadow king opened its mouth like it was about to ask something but then decided against it.

He smiled at the king. “You do not have to be afraid to ask questions, Tyr. If there is something we do not wish you to know we will simply say so.”

“What is a world-dungeon?”

“There are several types of dungeons that exist within the Labyrinth. The most common type of dungeon is one that is created by the dungeon core itself. The type and size of these dungeons vary with the strength of the core. However, as you have said, it is not unusual for the Labyrinth to take pieces of the world it conquers as trophies. Usually areas of immense importance to the race it enslaves. When cores are imprisoned within these pieces of other worlds, they become known as world-dungeons,” Fenrir lectured.

Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of two shadows carrying a struggling woman. The woman slashed at the shadow’s arms and face with her hands to no avail. The shadows couldn’t feel pain.

The struggling ceased when she saw Evan. Her face turned bright red — like she had just been caught with her hand in a cookie jar.

“Oh … uh - uh … hi! Fancy meeting you here out in the middle of nowhere,” she stammered.

Evan smiled as Fenrir chuckled. “Hello there, little archer.”

* * *

Astrid had asked Mel to follow Evan after they had split up. She had this implicit urge to trust the man, but she didn’t know why and she needed to be sure they had done the right thing by releasing him. Perhaps it was because he had been chained to the wall of a dungeon and the enemy of my enemy was my friend. Or maybe it was because, as a healer, she understood the horror of the wounds that were the result of his imprisonment. She had healed most of the external ones, but she could sense that he remained broken on the inside.

Yet, despite all the reasons it could have been, it was his eyes. As blue as the ocean, and just as deep. On the surface, they were calm and honest. They reminded her of her brother’s eyes. She choked back a sob at the thought.

And beneath that surface, there was a sadness. A loss. Tempered by rage. A need for revenge that Astrid understood better than anyone else. And a power. She could see it in his eyes. A strength born from that need.

She and Jason looked over their ruined city as they sat down on a hill to wait for Mel to return. She tried to remember what it had looked like before the arrival of the dungeons, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t. What she could see was all that remained. A fragment of a world from another life.

Maybe Evan will make the difference. Perhaps he will save our world.

* * *

Mel grumbled as she followed Evan through grass that reached up to her waist and vegetation full of thorns and pointy branches that scratched at her arms and legs. She made sure to stay as far back as possible so he wouldn’t notice her — which was pretty far considering her [Ranger] class.

Rangers were excellent trackers and scouts. By combining [Silent Footsteps] with [Camouflage] she practically became part of the forest itself. [Far Sight] helped her keep an eye on Evan no matter how far ahead he got.

They had traveled an hour before the gray-skinned man stopped in front of a swirling blue portal. He seemed to hesitate for a moment before she realized what he was doing. Mel tried to shout at Evan before he stepped through the blue barrier but she was a fraction of a second too late.

Idiot! He’s going to get himself killed!

Even if blue portals were considered to be easier than others, it still required a fully equipped team to defeat the dungeon boss.

The ranger hesitated for a second. Should she follow him and help? Or should she run back and tell Astrid what had happened?

She shook her head. Surely the idiot would realize he was in way over his head at some point and come back out. She needed to stay hidden. Otherwise, there would be no way to know what his true intentions were.

So she waited.

Minutes turned to hours. At some point so much time had passed that she figured Evan had died.

She was about to take off when over a dozen black warriors in full sets of armor stepped out of the portal. A few seconds passed before Evan appeared, followed by a giant black knight. He was at least twice as tall as the other knights and had a crown on his head.

Her eyes widened as the clearing turned black with bodies in a fraction of a second and the portal winked out of existence.

She watched Evan close his eyes for a second before the bodies seemed to blend into the ground and disappear completely leaving behind only himself and the huge black knight.

A couple of seconds passed before she noticed two black blobs underneath her. She stared at them, puzzled by how they seemed to move around her. Almost like they were alive.

The shadows struck before she could react. An armor-clad black knight gripped her legs, making her stumble, while the other disarmed her. She tried to land a blow at the knight’s head, but it vanished before she made contact.

One of the knights hauled her over his shoulder and began walking towards the clearing while the other followed behind.

That same ancient voice from before whispered in her mind. “Hello there, little archer.”