Cradle of legends

In the beginning, there was chaos. A fierce battle was taking place inside the deepest part of a dungeon called the Frozen Abyss.

I barely existed at that time, and I could only observe the battle through a thin shell.

People fought against monsters.

Then, the battle paused. It was a sudden turn of events where neither of the sides knew what to do. Nevertheless, a short timeout was very welcome after a long battle.

A group of what used to be sixty-one people against two monstrosities stood on the opposite end of the battleground.

They did not move as everything was bathed in blinding light that appeared out of nowhere. The light cast no shadows and was impossible to cover your eyes from it. While the light was blinding, looking at it did not hurt.

She then emerged from the light. Her movement was soundless, her form translucent. She stepped on air to stand above all.

She looked young but not childish. Her loosely flowing blond hair reached her slender waist. Her voluptuous, divine-like figure was simply perfect. Her face even more so. Delicate, yet strong. The skin was completely spotless. She was so beautiful, it was as if it a goddess of beauty descended.

Her eyes however were hidden behind a blindfold. She spoke in a serene voice.

"My one and only friend and soulmate, I'm so sorry for leaving your side. With the last bit of my remaining power, regrets turned into a reality and I am able to see you once again. Alas, transcending death comes with a great price. While I am joyous of our reunion, it is also our last moments together, which we were deprived of. With my dying breath, I managed to keep this remnant of my soul dormant within your opponent to pass you a message at all costs.

In life, I would have prophetic dreams which I had mistakenly thought of as just nightmares. I was not able to understand, for that was my curse. Only at my last moment, I managed to glimpse at the meaning of my visions. Now, I shall show you too the current fate of the world."

The goddess took off her blindfold. Her eyes sockets were vacant and pitch-black as if they absorbed all light. Then, the blinding light faded, but all the people that stood on an icy arena now stood on muddy soil.

A lone warrior stood on a battlefield. Beneath his feet lied mountains of corpses of countless people. Some even looked like the ones witnessing the oracle.

A crimson sky, rivers of blood, and thick smoke covered the horizon all around them as if a war consumed the whole world just finished its last battle, with only one survivor.

Then, when the last of the enemies of the lone warrior ceased breathing and their eyes turned lifeless, he too fell to his knees. Tears started pouring without end to all whom he lost. There were no winners to this massacre.

The entire area was in dead silence, except for the sobbing of a man.

Suddenly, two armies appeared. One encroaching from the east, led by the darkness of night. The second army paraded with the guidance of the evening sun from the west. Neither of them was human, and both were joyous at the sight of the great slaughter that just took place. The first consisted of horrors straight out of nightmares too terrifying to describe. All looked vile, and their common trait was an additional pair of limbs protruding from their backs, be it as tentacles, claws, or most commonly wings. The other kind stood tall above the tallest of men and was prideful in their magnificent crowns of horns. One side raised into the air and savagely rushed into the fray. The other hastened their monstrous steeds in a flawless formation and clashed head-on.

Both armies attacked the last man and each other in a brutal battle, and the pure hatred of one towards another surprised the observers.

Then, the blinding light transported them back to reality and faded once again. Then, the oracle appeared with a blindfold once more and spoke.

"The present fight is hard, but in reality it's but a herald of what is to come, for this is not the true final boss. You must unite mankind to survive. Please, survive. I trust that whatever stands before you, you will overcome. Fate will favor you.

I feel death creeping up to me. I don't know what's beyond death, but surely we will never meet again. I always regretted being unable to say my goodbyes to you, Arthur… I, Aurora, have always loved you. Always will have. Don't forget me."

"..."

"Not even going to reply, Arty?"

"Um, sorry ma'am. There's nobody named Arthur here."

"Wh-what?"

Oho, the goddess trembled. If ghosts could sweat, she would.

"Oh my God I literally defied death to be here and pass this message to the hero and he's not even here."

"What hero? Do you mean the Dragon Knight that recently surfaced? He appeared a few times and did some impossible deeds but not that many people know of him. He is strong, sure, but he's only gold rank at the moment."

Another adventurer chimed in.

"Why is he the hero. Aren't like half of us stronger than him?"

"What?!? No! You guys are meant to stand by his side, be his sidekicks or something."

"He's got potential to grow… He might grow into the hero you want him to be… in a few years… maybe."

She was speechless.

"W-What… what year is it?"

Nobody dared to talk. answered

"Its year 524, Day is January the 17th"

The goddess stopped floating and fell to her knees. She looked really pitiful right for a god.

"524. 525. 526. 527… YOU FUCKERS! I can't believe it"

"God-Goddess? What's wrong?"

Oh boy, she was seething.

"What's wrong? WHAT'S WRONG YOU ASK? Everything! You *beep* *beep* *beep**beep*!

You raided this dungeon three years too early. Do you have any idea what you have done? Of course, Arthur is not here. He did not have the time to grow strong. Look, even this place is nothing. The guards of the final boss have only one piece of armor each, no proper weapons. The pile of loot after beating the boss is… why is it so big?!"

I swear at this moment I felt someone closeby smirking. Which was odd, as none of the adventurers stood near me.

This is so messed up. Look, even the final boss is…"

Oho, she pointed at me. Wait. Did she point at me? What did I do?

"This damn dungeon core couldn't even create the boss vessel yet! There is no final boss. It is a pathetic goblin-looking *beep*. It's supposed to be all grown up and jacked more than all of you combined, and most importantly look like me! The last is the most crucial part!

It was supposed to be an impossible battle where the hero struggles to fight the demons of the past and has to get over his trauma and kill his loved one once again and accept that I am gone at once and come to peace of mind and blah blah character development… but nooo, some smarty-pants decided to make this vessel piss-weak thin, and ugly as hell. The final boss cant go down in one shot! Useless incompetent re*beep*ards!"

Then, some other voice could be heard. It was male and was fuming.

"You god damn parasite, why can't you die! Not only you refuse to kick the bucket after I promptly kill you, but you also hide a part of yourself inside me waste my time and resources just to insult me. I already deal with another useless, completely mad existence inside me that that calls itself the demon god."

"ROAAAAAAAAR" - The demon god shard felt insulted too.

"You think you're some sort of god too, shiny face? Gods - hah, little wimps, thats what you are. And you still have the audacity to show up spewing bullshit left and right. The only reason I didn't delete you is because I thought something interesting would happen."

"Holy shit, the dungeon core can speak!" - one of the adventurers shouted, terrified. Everyone looked as if they saw a ghost. Even the literal ghost of Aurora was just as shocked.

"Spewing bullshit? Sure, gods can do that, but I ain't one. I was an oracle and a witch of light when I was alive. I saw the future so you can shove your retorts up your ass."

"So what? You're dead now. If you really saw the future you should have not gotten outsmarted by me, or better yet never come to this dungeon. Look at you, can't even do the basics of an oracle.

Moreover, you dare call my artwork, my magnum opus, my lives' work 'ugly'? Bitch, no wonder it turned out ugly as hell, I made it reflect your personality, not your looks. Sheesh. To think I fell for you at some point. Never judge a book by its cover."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Who even are you!? This dungeon core is supposed to belong only to the demons. "

"Name's Ben. I reincarnated into this body. Used to be human at some point tho."

"But you are just as dumb ass that beast you share that sphere with"

The demon god's shard growled. It was also angry. I got the feeling it hated everything, but at the moment it hated Aurora the most.

"Reincarnated?" - A slave girl perked up her head "Like… you remember your past life?"

"Yea. From another world at that. I was a lead researcher in uh… something militaristic, but the confidentiality clause is over with my death. I made genetically engineered humans. At some point, I went for holidays abroad in uh… Poland! Not only was I robbed there, the earth literally cracked open and split apart below my feet when I was hiking. I died from falling. Surreal, I know. I managed to get over it after a long time since appearing here, I used my knowledge to change the structure of the dungeon core closer to a computer so I could kill some time emulating games and running simulations. I also did apply all the knowledge of mine the vessel I am making to create something stronger than weapons of mass destruction. The plan was to move my consciousness into it so I could walk out of this place but it's quite difficult to do at the moment. Tho I'm sure in three years I'd succeed if not Mrs. Spoilers didn't make a major fuckup right now. Good grief. Why are you so bloody useless."

Aurora was fuming.

"You! You messed up the whole timeline You should not exist. The imbalance in power of this dungeon, the huge pile of gold that attracts adventurers. You even killed me too early! That weaponized shrimp! Did you make that? Idiot, that monster shouldn't have existed-"

"You get what fucking you deserve~!"

"Um-, I am also a reincarnate!" - The slave announced. Hearing that, all the adventurers pointed their swords at her. Not only was she a witch, a criminal slave that was meant for execution if not for a certain somebody's whim to keep her as a plaything, she also found kinship with the intelligent monster.

"Noone cares! You're an expendable background character. Just go die." - Aurora shouted.

Adventurers nodded.

"I care! I care more about that girl than your whole hero loverboy and his whole plot." - The dungeon core protested.

While that was happening, my headache grew strong. I also felt hot. Something was flowing into me, rapidly.

Accusations were thrown left and right. The two of them were indeed worthy of each other. Truths were revealed one after another as major plot points came out of Aurora's mouth which seemed to never shut up. On the other hand, Ben's sharp remarks and a seemingly infinite stockpile of insults continued to escalate the argument.

"And you, what the hell are adventurers doing here this soon?! Dumb idiots, wanna die? Where the hell is my hero!?" - Aurora shouted through tears.

Some flipped her off, others joined the shitstorm and teamed against her. Once they learned she was not a god most of them stopped fearing her.

"Oh, how foolish of you, our wise oracle Aurora. To turn a free-for-all into a two versus one. You must really learn to cope with anger. Otherwise, you might end up embarrassing yourself again!"

The ghost of the past that knew the future broke down into tears. Even her radiant glow now only flickered like a lightbulb about to burn out.

"W- we…" one warrior who could not comprehend the situation, who was fearful to a point of wetting himself struggled to speak. The situation where two extremely powerful entities clashed in a ruthless verbal battle of annihilation was too much for the weak-willed to handle.

"We are here to merely gather wealth and merits to be recognized. Many of us want to use it to join the Dragon Knight's party…"

'That explains why the lot of you could be seen in the vision. As corpses but nevertheless you were there.' I thought

"Hey! Fuck off, this gold is mine!" - The dungeon core would not stand by as they attempted to rob him.

Then, the two guards of the dungeon boss moved. one being a two-headed snow wolf, the size of a truck, the other one a giant, shield-wielding ice golem. This pair tormented the team for over three hours of constant combat with their perfect coordination and coverance of each others weaknesses. Impenetrable defense, AoE magic, but slow speed of the golem matched with agility and huge single target damage capabilities of the wolf, while the latter lacked defense on its own. The core ordered them to continue massacring these fools. Like a chain reaction, the frozen adventurers also sprinted to action. Some leaped at the monsters, some at the slave girl.

"Don't touch the girl tho…"

*Clang*

The dungeon core used the only skill it was equipped with - create matter from mana at an extremely slow speed paired with its cheat upgrades to a supercomputer - concurrent casts in millions of thought processes at the same time. to create a metal dome around Alzena in a fraction of a second to protect her.

"My name is Alzena, mister dungeon core! I used to be a doctor and a writer"

"Kill Alzena!" The leader of the raid and Alzena's master, IV Prince of the Argent Kingdom shouted and charged at her.

"Kill the monsters!" - The vanguard shouted.

"No! Kill the dungeon core! The monsters will weaken. The slave will loose protection too! The core doesn't even have any protection. Ha. haha" - Aurora, almost maniacally laughed through tears as she exposed the weakness of the two bosses.

"You idiot! You will die too!" Ben's voice resounded.

Almost immediately after a man wielding a huge crescent axe dashed towards the unprotected dungeon core. The core tried to make a shield out of metal, but the strike was too strong and too fast, and it managed to pierce the shield and barely, just by a millimeter, touched the outer shell of the core.

Cracks spread throughout the exterior at a rapid pace.

The crying, laughing, and insane Aurora disappeared. Ben's insults no longer echoed in the room.

[Dungeon Core entering crisis overclocking mode. Sustaining this for long periods will cause permanent damage.]

Several warnings flashed inside my head as death was approaching before I was even born.

Time felt sluggish, nearly coming to a halt. I watched as my shell, no, the dungeon core fell apart.

My headache was getting stronger by the moment.

Then it struck me. Time did not slow down. It was me who started thinking faster. A lot faster. My mind was being strained

However, this did not last long, as a singular notification was announced.

[Emergency procedures finished. Transfers complete. Defibrilating vessel in 3… 2… 1…]

My whole body ached as lightning surged.

[Success. Initiating self-destruction with the remaining energy]

Boom.