Surviving These Unfair Scenarios [LITRPG - DIMENSION HOPPING]

The sudden, brilliant flash of white light that erupted from the runic door was a violent event that instantly canceled all external reality, and when their eyes could finally register sensation again, the light was gone, replaced by an absolute, profound darkness that pressed in from every direction, suffocating the senses and absorbing all sound into a dense, unsettling silence. Kazue let out a raw, terrified gasp that was instantly swallowed by the void as she stumbled backward, and the sound of her fear was immediately followed by Chloe's desperate, choked whisper.

"I can't see anything!"

The girl cried out, her voice a thin, panicked thread that was immediately followed by Nikolai's sharp, alarmed intake of breath.

However, Drake's voice instantly cut through the terror, a low, urgent hiss that commanded the fear to cease.

"Silence! Not a sound, not a single breath!"

From the opposite side of the huddled, invisible group, alter Drake's equally demanding whisper reinforced the order.

"Hold your positions! Do not move! We do not know where we are, and we cannot afford to give away our presence."

The deep darkness was so complete that their human eyes were entirely useless, and the only certainty they had was that the agonizing time required to adjust to the gloom would be their greatest enemy. They began to tentatively raise their hands, their cautious, searching fingers finding only the cold, smooth surface of colossal rock slabs, a sensation that immediately heightened their fear and confusion.

"What is this place? It feels like we're inside a mountain."

Alter Li whispered, the confusion palpable in his low voice.

"A mountain? I'd say we're inside a damn well."

Teo said, a sarcastic, hushed murmur that came from somewhere in the blackness.

"It's too cold…"

Kazue whispered again, her fear only growing. The sheer scale of the space and the bizarre, colossal construction fueled the whispered questions like a desperate, hushed cacophony of fear in front of the terrifying unknown they faced.

Li, however, had not moved an inch from the moment the light faded, a figure of complete calm in the pandemonium. He spoke after a few seconds, his voice dry and flat, instantly commanding the attention of the entire group.

"Silence! I can see our surroundings... Everyone, stop talking."

He waited for the sound to completely die away, allowing the fear to serve its purpose of emphasizing his own control.

"We are inside what I can only describe as an extraordinarily enormous building, constructed entirely of dark rock or something similar… I can see gigantic corridors stretching away in every direction; everything is scaled for something immense. It was clearly built not with humans in mind, but for beings of colossal size."

A fresh wave of shock and hushed commentary rippled through the group, but Drake and alter Drake immediately seized control of the group again, their voices blending in a sharp, unified command.

"It is beyond doubt that Arion's information was correct."

Alter Drake whispered, his voice holding a grim certainty.

"We have appeared directly inside the 'Great Palace of Vharzun'."

Drake reinforced the statement.

"The situation could not be more dangerous. We move with extreme, painstaking care, all together, as a single, unified group, and we proceed only under the guidance of Li until everyone's eyes adjust to this gloom."

They quickly reformed their ranks, pressing close together in a tight, fearful cluster with Li at the very front, and with a shared, silent nod of grim acceptance, they began their unnerving trek into the black heart of the Dragon God's domain.

For what felt like an eternity, they moved in silence so profound that their own labored breathing was a deafening sound; the darkness remained absolute for most of them, a sensory deprivation that warped all spatial awareness and created a constant, unsettling sensation of falling through empty space. They were truly blind, relying entirely on the slow, deliberate guidance of Li, whose mechanical eye offered the only clear view of the terrifying architecture, and Arion, whose elven vision was slowly beginning to pierce the edges of the void, could start to make out the colossal size of the obsidian structure.

The Great Palace was a terrifying maze of black stone, a network of hallways and gargantuan chambers built to accommodate dragons, and the utter lack of life or movement in the colossal space only amplified the terrifying emptiness of the place.

The crushing oppressiveness of the environment began to take a severe toll on the weaker minds. Chloe's body began to tremble uncontrollably as the world seemed to fall away from her, and in a moment of pure, blinding terror, she blindly flung her hand forward, clutching tightly onto the person nearest to her, whom she remembered to be Adam. She held on with a desperate, white-knuckled grip, letting out a choked, tearful whisper.

"Please, don't let go of me…"

Chloe begged, her voice raw with fear.

"I can't bear this place otherwise."

Adam's voice, dry and slightly annoyed, cut in from the space behind her.

"I understand how you feel, but you need to keep your voice down."

Chloe froze, the blood draining from her face as she looked down, instantly realizing the hand she was clutching was far more slender than any man's, and the nails were long and sharply filed. Before she could even let go, the owner of the hand gripped her wrist with a sudden, painful force and dragged her violently to her side. The pink-haired girl slammed into a body, her cheek pressing against the soft fabric of a jacket, and the terrifying yellow eyes of Solène that were barely visible in the blackness, fixed on her with a predatory gleam.

"You asked not to be separated from me?"

Solène whispered, her voice a low, mocking rasp, tight against Chloe's ear.

"Well, who am I to deny such a desperate request?"

Chloe tried to protest, a strangled squeak of fear and shock escaping her, but the redhead's grip on her wrist was an iron vise, and she was instantly dragged forward, stumbling and reeling, carried along by the much stronger Dragonkin like a discarded handbag.

They continued their tense progress for several more minutes, the silence broken only by the hushed voice of Kazue.

"Why is there nothing here? It's so empty."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She whispered, her fear mixed with a deep, unsettling curiosity. Charles offered the grim answer.

"If this truly is Vharzun's Palace, then it's likely a domain unique to him and his immediate sons, not a general gathering place for all Draclings."

Kazue's eyes widened, and she immediately asked the question that had been on everyone's mind.

"Then… is it possible Vharzun himself is here?"

Teo immediately dismissed the notion, his voice flat with certainty.

"Don't be an idiot. If someone like Vharzun, who is essentially a god, were in this place, we would have felt his presence the moment we arrived. Worse, he would have felt ours, and we wouldn't be alive to have this conversation."

The cold, but sound, logic of his answer settled the fear in their minds, and they continued their slow, tense movement. Slowly, painstakingly, the eyes of the group began to adjust, allowing for slightly more fluid movement, though the vast, dark corridors still felt like an unending, oppressive maze. After a while, Nikolai quietly muttered that he could swear they had been walking in circles.

"We haven't."

Adam said from the back of the group, his voice sharp and direct.

"We haven't doubled back once."

Nikolai turned his head in the dark, his expression one of confusion.

"How can you be sure? We've been walking for nearly half an hour now, and we can't even see properly."

Adam's reply was delivered with simple, cold fact, betraying no sign of effort or pride.

"I simply memorized the entire route. By keeping the same wall on my right side the entire time, it was easy to track every corner and form a perfect mental map. It wasn't difficult; it's just memorization."

The revelation of his cognitive ability left many momentarily speechless, a strange island of awe in the sea of fear, and they continued to follow his certainty.

As they continued to move forward, a profound, bone-deep chill suddenly shook the majority of the group, so intense that it felt like an icy hand squeezing their hearts. They stopped instantly, every muscle seizing up in a paralysis of raw, primal fear, and then they saw it… Further down the gigantic corridor, a colossal shadow, moving with an impossible speed, shot past one of the immense intersections.

The body was massive, fleeting, and yet instantly recognizable: Dravhark. The Darkness Dragon rushed through the palace in a blind, rapid motion, so focused that he entirely failed to notice the small cluster of mortals, even though they were relatively close. The entire group was instantly paralyzed by terror… Dravhark was here, and they were in his home, the worst possible combination.

They began to slowly, cautiously, turn to flee, attempting to melt back into the shadows they had just emerged from, but before they could move more than a few steps, the dragon's earth-shattering roar echoed through the massive stone halls. The sound was one of immense power, so loud that some of them had to cover their ears, yet it was not the roar of battle or fury. The absolute silence of the palace magnified the sound, allowing them to hear the words clearly, and the great dragon was screaming in raw, unadulterated pain.

Dravhark's colossal voice, broken by profound suffering, echoed through the vast stone halls.

"I will have my vengeance! My brothers will pay for this humiliation in front of our Father! I will tear them limb from limb and crush their skull!"

He continued his agonizing, raw cries, the sheer volume of his suffering unmistakable.

"I will not forget this pain! Never! Never!"

The agony in his voice was undeniable and confusing. The wounds the users had inflicted would have long since regenerated for a dragon of his power; something else had happened to cause such lasting, profound pain. He paused his screaming, and then, clearly audible in the unnatural silence, they heard a horrific, wet sound, followed by the heavy, sloshing impact of something thick hitting the stone.

The dragon was vomiting, and the implication was clear: he was vomiting blood.

It was then that Solène's body stiffened. She finally released the terrified Chloe, whose wrist was now red from the crushing grip, and began to rapidly sniff the air, her face contorted in an expression of intense shock.

"What is it?"

Adam asked, noticing that the girl stopped abruptly. Solène replied, her yellow eyes wide with grim certainty.

"I can feel it. That smell… I know that smell. I only sensed it once before, in the scenario where I acquired the genes for my race change... It's the undeniable smell of burned dragon flesh."

The words were so strange, so unbelievable that no one could process them.

"Burned dragon flesh? Is it even possible for a dragon to suffer burns?"

Adam said, clearly confused by such weird contradiction since dragons, in all fantasy, were capable of producing fire themselves. Arion answered immediately, his voice somber and absolute.

"No, it is not. The Dragon race is immune to all fire, regardless of its origin."

Solène completed the grim deduction, her voice a low, dark growl.

"Exactly. The only way for a dragon to receive a burn is if another dragon with absolute authority over its entire race inflicts it... It is an absolute, internal punishment among their race. The burn mark remains as long as the punishment lasts, drastically reducing the dragon's abilities and causing permanent, unyielding agony until the marked one can atone… I know it, I see the dragon that helped me being marked like this by 'Hellfire Dragon Emperor Mal' Zharion'."

A heavy silence of profound, terrible realization fell upon the group once more. The pieces of Dravhark's screams of agony snapped together, forming a clear picture: his brothers had ridiculed him before Vharzun, probably for the unforgivable dishonor of fleeing from humans, and the Dragon God had branded his own son with the mark of shame... It was a cold, cruel logic, but it was the only conclusion that fit all the information they had.

The group immediately broke into hushed, intense debate, their conflicting arguments splitting the two teams. Alter Drake, speaking for 'Black Phoenix' and supported by Arion's nod, argued that this was the greatest opportunity they would ever receive.

"If he is this weakened, we must attack now."

Alter Drake hissed, his voice filled with urgency. Drake, the voice of 'No Name', instantly countered, his fear and caution absolute.

"That is senseless! We should use his distraction to flee and continue our search for Sebastian without his interference!"

The deadlock was absolute, their whispers tense and angry, until Adam placed a firm, steadying hand on Drake's shoulder.

"Drake, what he is proposing is, in fact, the most logical course of action."

Adam stated, his voice a calm, dry whisper that instantly commanded attention.

"Why? We should be searching for Sebastian. Dravhark is in no condition to be an immediate danger to us!"

Drake looked at him with an expression of profound confusion and disbelief.

"Do you remember that Dragons can sense the presence of others?"

Adam asked, his red eyes piercing the darkness.

"The only reason Dravhark has not detected us is that his pain is immense enough to cloud his senses... If we let him recover even slightly, he will sense us due to Solène's presence and hunt us down."

Adam then turned to Solène.

"Just how much do you think Dravhark has been weakened by this mark?"

He asked, waiting for the girl to think for a bit.

"Massively."

Solène confirmed after a while, her voice dark with grim certainty.

"I would not be surprised if he couldn't even use the authority to seal skills that he showed in the last combat."

Adam turned back, facing both Drakes, his demeanor resolute. Alter Drake watched him with a look of grim suspicion crossing his face, but he let the argument continue, knowing it was the only one that made sense.

"This is the best opportunity we will have."

Adam insisted.

"We can even launch a surprise attack, and the location itself grants us the greatest possible advantage, even here, in the Dragon God's palace."

Alter Drake leaned forward, his curiosity piqued.

"What advantage?"

Adam answered with a dry, single-sentence truth that struck the blond with the force of a physical blow.

"The place itself… We are in an enclosed space. Dravhark is nothing more than a giant target that cannot fly."

Alter Drake's eyes widened, and a slow, terrible grin stretched across his face as he turned to Drake, finally convinced. Drake, however, remained hesitant, his jaw clenched, but he looked at his team resolute expression, even in the darkness and limited visibility, he could tell, and knew he could not deny them. Adam looked directly into his eyes, his voice softening, holding an echo of command.

"This time, it will be different."

He whispered.

"We go all together, with everything we have. It is the most dangerous path to finding Sebastian, yes, but unfortunately, the best we have."

Drake closed his eyes, took a single, deep, steadying breath, and when he opened them again, his expression was one of fierce, unyielding resolve. He nodded once, a final, decisive movement, and spoke the word that set their fate in stone.

"Okay… Let's do it."