Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 158: Ch156. [World Quest] (16) - Descent

Chapter 158: Ch156. [World Quest] (16) - Descent

The tremors ceased for a while, giving off a feeling of calm before a storm.

The silence that followed was heavier than the shaking had ever been. It pressed against their eardrums and sank into their bones, an oppressive stillness that made everyone glance around as if expecting something, anything, to lunge from the darkness.

Sarissa’s fingers curled tighter around the shard.

"You’re serious..." She said after a while. Her voice was lower now, touched with something almost reverent as she looked at the fragment. "You’re really asking me to come with you to the bottom of that dungeon..."

"I’m not just asking. I’m trusting." Miles didn’t blink.

Sarissa turned the shard over in her palm. Now that she’d attuned to it, after the temporary transfer was truly complete, however briefly, she could feel the weight of it, like a lock waiting for its key.

Like a door that Miles had already begun to open.

"I need to think." She said.

"You’ve already decided." Miles replied softly. "But take the moment, I’ll wait."

Sarissa gave him one last unreadable look and walked to the far end of the study, where the flickering lights didn’t reach. There, she sank to a knee beside one of the ancient shelves and ran her fingers over the dusty spines, not seeing the books at all.

Diego looked back and forth between the two of them like a spectator at a tennis match.

"Uh... Should we be worried about, you know, the apocalypse, or something?"

"You should always be worried about the apocalypse, or something." The Archivist tilted her head.

"Cool, cool." Diego nodded fervently, and sat down cross-legged on the floor with a defeated sigh. "Just making sure we’re on the same page."

Miles didn’t move, his thoughts were already miles away, as if tracking the pull beneath his feet. The way the dungeon had called to him.

It hadn’t just reacting to the shard like he thought at first.

It had recognized him.

It knew him.

That was the part that stuck with him more than anything.

The moment he came back under the system’s domain, it felt like he had not just received a new system that overwrote the original one.

Even more after the duel... It felt like the return of something that the world thought it had lost.

And now, everything made more sense, in a way. His awakening, the hidden quest, his trip to the Horizon, the [Bounty Quest] on his head...

The system was watching him.

He was sure of it now, but...

’Hm, now that I think of it...’ The spark of an idea flickered in his head, and he opened the quest tab, scoffing at what he saw.

[Quests: The end and the Beginning]

There was no [Bounty Quest] anywhere to be seen, and after Miles thought for a second, it made sense.

"She did kill you, you know?" The Archivist stepped closer, hands folded behind her back. "The old you, that is... The one caged by the rules of the system."

"What does that mean?" Miles frowned.

She said nothing in return, only holding his gaze for a moment longer, then turned her attention to Sarissa, who had returned to her feet, and finally broke the momentary silence, her voice barely above a whisper.

"This is for you to find out, with the new strength you awakened within yourself."

"I’m in." Sarissa said, dismissing the [Ascension Fragment] into her inventory. "Not because you asked me... But because I, too, need to see this through. For all of those who won’t."

"Then, that’s it." Miles nodded once, and a message blinked in the air between them.

[You have accepted the quest]

[First stage Objective: Clear the dungeon – Mouth of the Abyss – and retrieve the second half of the – Ascension Fragment]

[Reward: ???; Ascension Fragment - Half]

[Failure: Catastrophe]

The moment the message vanished, the ground trembled again, but this time, it wasn’t chaos.

It felt more like a signal.

A path opened in the floor behind the Archivist, like the hungry mouth of a beast, with a spiral staircase etched in glowing lines of blood-red and darkness, descending deeper than any of them had ever seen before.

It was not part of the Black Market. They were sure of it.

"This is new..." Mara said, leaning over the edge. "I don’t suppose this is a secret emergency exit?"

The Archivist didn’t respond, watching Miles with quiet fascination, as though he’d turned into something unrecognizable.

"Are you coming?" Miles asked her.

"No. My place is in the archives. But I’ll be watching." She gave a soft laugh.

Of course she would.

"You ready?" Miles turned to Sarissa, Mara and Diego.

"Let’s find out what’s been waiting for you." She rolled one shoulder, her bruises now long gone, the absurd pain of their duel, now less than a memory.

"Let’s go." Mara and Dee said almost in unison.

And they descended.

***

The staircase was longer than it should’ve been. With each step, the walls widened, revealing murals and carvings that looked older than language.

Abstract shapes and spirals, constellations no one recognized, and a central figure appearing again and again.

A figure wrapped in shadows, standing before a broken gate.

Miles touched one of the carvings as they passed, and the moment he did, it felt like a jolt of energy surged through him, and a vision struck like lightning behind his eyes.

An empty throne, with a sword plunged into its base, rusted and cracked. Chains falling from the sky...

"Big bro!" Dee’s voice broke through the haze. "What happened?"

"Sorry. Just... This place is full of echoes." He shook his head, the vision fading.

But the memory of it remained.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and emerged into a vast chamber lit by bioluminescent crystals embedded in the ceiling. The air was thicker here, old and heavy, like the breath of something slumbering.

The door split down the center and peeled open like a blooming flower of stone, revealing a descent beyond reckoning.

The darkness inside wasn’t empty, it shimmered faintly with stars, as though the void itself was watching.

"This is... Not part of the original dungeon." Dee whispered. Mara shuddered, but Sarissa kept quiet, paying close attention to their surroundings.

"No." Miles said. "This is something deeper."

Together, they stepped through.

The moment their feet touched the ground beyond the gate, the atmosphere shifted. There was no longer a dungeon interface. No map, no markers.

Even the system’s messages had gone silent.

"This feels... Like the Horizon." Miles said, and a shiver ran down his spine.