Before him, Percival saw a strange door.
The massive thing loomed out of the bog, enormous and sealed, its surface buried beneath layers of swamp vines thick as ship’s rope.
They weren’t random growth. From what Percival’s weary eyes could see; each vine was tensioned, braided, and anchored into the stone beneath, forming a living lock.
Dark sap oozed from the knots, dripping slowly into the mud below.
At the base of the door lay a sunken basin, half-swallowed by mire. Inside it, the vines converged into seven bound loops, cinched tight around a swollen core of root and bone.
Percival studied it, then stepped into the basin.
The mud swallowed his boots.
With as much energy as he could manage, he pressed his weight down.
The basin sank.
A deep, wet groan echoed and the pressure traveled upward through the vines.
One by one, the seven loops loosened, their tension released as sap burst from the seams like ruptured veins.
Then, the door responded.
Slowly, it dragged apart from itself.
Vines recoiled and slithered aside, retracting into the stone as massive root-anchors pulled back into the earth.
The center split vertically, vines peeling away like muscle from bone, revealing a dark, humid passage beyond.
The basin slowly rose again.
Percival stepped inside.
The place was just as he remembered. The air was as wet as water. It was dreadfully thick and had this smell of deep earth, rotting vegetation.
A profound, biological musk.
The light came from no source. It was dim, pervasive and oddly green, clinging to everything.
Percival took a few more steps deeper. He read the name of the Zone on the Gate World Map.
⸢The Festering Oubliette⸥
His eyes raised and he looked around the vast place.
Ancient tree trunks stood like pillars, almost like the ones in the Mangrove Battlefield. The floor was a solid mat of root, moss, and fungal flesh, spongy and alive underfoot.
The ceiling was lost in a gloom thick with drifting spores and the slow drip of condensed moisture.
Somewhere in the near distance, he could hear water dripping into a body of water. His Perception, depleted as it was, couldn’t point to him exactly where.
However, there was no confusion of where the roar that shook the entire Zone came from.
Percival froze.
His eyes found what he was here for in the center, resting in a lake of perfectly still, black water.
The master of this Lizard World.
A new message appeared on his interface.
⸢Quest: Kill the Swamp God Dragon (Lvl 110)⸥
It didn’t look like the usual dragons of Western myth, all wings and fire.
The Swamp God Dragon was a serpentine deity, a creature of staggering, coiled mass. Its scales were the deep, iridescent black of a beetle’s shell, edged in moss-green.
A mane of dripping fronds and bioluminescent fungi grew from its crested head, which bore four pairs of eyes—each a different, intelligent, and ancient amber.
It had two powerful clawed legs, resting on the bank, and wings attached to its front limbs. But these wings were for navigating the swamp. Never for flying.
The rest of its impossible length vanished into the dark water behind it.
It did not move as Percival entered. It had been waiting.
⸢Main Skill: ?????????⸥
After the roar, its voice filled the Oubliette. It was a deep, reverent thing, vibrating from the dragon’s maw.
"WANDERER! YOU HAVE TRAVERSED THE PROVING GROUNDS OF SCALE AND FANG."
Percival stopped, his boots sinking slightly into the soft flesh of the floor. He could barely hold his head up.
"YOU HAVE WITNESSED THE POWER OF THE LIZARD. THE NEVERENDING POTENTIAL FOR SURVIVAL IN THE SOULS OF REPTILIAN KIN."
It coiled its neck, the green in its eyes glowing deeper as it gazed into Percival’s soul.
"ARE YOU NOT YET AFRAID? DO YOU SEE NOW WHY THE LIZARD IS THE GREATEST CREATURE?" the Swamp Dragon clicked its sharp teeth.
"THE SANDS, THE SWAMP, THE SCORCH, THE COLD! WE HAVE PROVEN ADAPTAPLE. WE OVERCOME FIRE. WE OUTLAST ICE. WE LEARN AND THEY HUNT."
The great head tilted, the eyes regarding him not with malice, but with a terrible, patient curiosity.
"YET, WE HAVE NEVER ADAPTED TO THE MORTAL SWORD. THE WILL OF YOU PRIDEFUL BEINGS TO DARE THREAD IN LANDS THAT YOUR WEAK BODIES CAN NOT SURVIVE!"
Its eyes turned hateful now. Angry.
"LOOK NOW! CAN’T YOU SEE YOU ALMOST PERISHED IN OUR CLIMATES?!. DO YOU NOW UNDERSTAND THE GREATNESS OF THE CREATURES YOU DARE TO HUNT. TO KILL!"
Its wings expanded. It was large! Unbelievably large, a wingspan that stretched to almost the ends of the cavern.
"YOU HAVE HUNTED THE GREATER SPECIES LONG ENOUGH. FOR TODAY, YOU SHALL BE HUNTED!"
Percival stood still. He looked unimpressed even though he didn’t mean to. He was just that tired.
And worse, there was something in the air that was weakening him. Percival didn’t know the name, but he knew it was. He remembered it vaguely from before.
Which was why he knew from the very beginning that it was important he saved as much Mana as possible for this final Zone.
He reached into his Necromancer Core and activated ⸢Blood Sacrifice⸥ for the first time.
"Ugh!"
Immediately, a horrifying, intimate sensation struck him as he felt his own vitality tear from his muscles and bones, converting into a jagged burst of Necromancer mana.
Percival jerked his head back, veins stretched in his neck, pulsing as blue energy sucked out of his muscles and into his Soul Core.
The pain was acute, a violation he could not explain.
But... the reward was uplifting.
⸢Health: 13950/27350⸥
⸢Sacrificed: 3000 HP/1.5⸥
⸢Mana Output: 2000⸥
Percival’s knees buckled.
He didn’t try to catch himself. He let them go. He collapsed forward, one hand barely stopping his face from hitting the spongy ground.
He knelt there, feeling his Necromancer Mana fill up almost to the brim.
⸢Mana: 2995/3450⸥
The Swamp God Dragon grumbled, shaking the wet earth.
"YOU HAVE FALLEN ALREADY? RISE! SHOW THAT YOU CAN SURVIVE!"
Percival cursed. His eyes look over the strands of his fallen dark hair to the giant dragon before him.
"As much as I want this fight... Charizard..." he breathed, "...this is not my fight today."
He lifted his head, meeting the gaze of the monster’s ancient eyes. "I am tired. I want slumber."
The Swamp God Dragon was silent for a long moment. "I CAN NOT SQUASH YOU WITHOUT BATTLE. YOU MUST FIGHT. FIGHT, OR YOU WILL BE CONSUMED."
A ghost of a smile touched Percival’s bloodless lips. "What makes you think you’ll be killing anybody?"
The Dragon cocked its head in surprise.
Percival pushed himself back to sit on his heels.
"But... if it’s a battle you want..."
He raised a trembling hand, his fingers curling as if around a ghostly hilt. He focused on the contracted Soldier in his soul, the searing brand of a promise fulfilled.
"I have a Knight."