Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

The dungeon core was a golden object the size of an infant’s head. Every square inch of the core was covered in runes that seemed to reach out to every inch of the small landmass floating in the deadness of space.

Claim the core?

A prompt appeared the moment Sorin touched the golden object. “Claim the core,” Sorin confirmed.

Assign to a faction or claim directly?

“Assign faction: The White Tower Group,” Sorin replied.

Affirmative. Submission has been recorded and notarized. Proceed to the White Tower Group to claim associated rewards.

Calculating.

The dungeon world held its breath as white flames erupted around the core. White lines emerged from the burning core to envelop the three peaks, including the damaged temple and the twin peaks where the harpies had once resided.

Compressing dungeon. Fragmenting Realm. Rewards have been calculated as follows:

Shattered History Tablet (1)

Suitable Dao Vision (Local)

Suitable item according to cultivation needs. (7)

Seven motes of white fire broke off from the burning core and shot at each member of Sorin’s party, including, to Sorin’s surprise, Lorimer. Sorin looked down to find a large pink crystal. A hunger erupted from his body, urging him to devour it, but Sorin overruled the sensation and stored the crystal in his hero medallion before he could give into his base urges.

The rewards to his party members were varied. Daphne gained a spell book, while Astley gained a locket. “Haha! I win again!” said Lawrence when he obtained a ball of silver thread that turned out to be a blood-bound treasure. “Did you seriously get a lump of coal, Stephan?”

“For your information, this isn’t just any lump of coal,” corrected Stephan. “I’ve been looking for a way to produce hot enough fire to melt an alloy I collected. This might be just the thing I need. What about you, Gareth? Why only get a single arrow?”

Sorin shivered when he saw the item that had appeared in Gareth’s outstretched palm. The arrow was white and burned with an unseen flame. Every inch of him screamed that this arrow was meant for only a single target: himself. A powerful energy reminiscent of the bow-wielding harpy guardian was barely contained within its shaft.

Intimidated by the arrow, Sorin turned to Lorimer and was shocked to see that he’d received exactly the same item as Sorin: a pink crystal filled to the brim with corruption. The rat was already gnawing on the crystal and had bitten away from than half of it before Sorin could restrain him.

“I told you not to eat anything containing corruption without my permission,” said Sorin, snatching the half-eaten crystal from the rat.

“Reeee!” Lorimer hissed aggressively. He launched himself at Sorin and bit into his arm.

“Lorimer, what’s gotten into you?” yelled Sorin. He grabbed the rat by the neck with lightning-fast hands and pinned him to the ground.

The corruption in his body is unusually active. The balance has been destroyed and is finding a new equivalency point. Corruption identified: Jealousy. Jealousy is aligning with Violence and Madness, breaking the initial tripartite balance. Strife is still dominant. Clash of corruption is inevitable.

“What’s going on?” asked Gareth as he appeared beside Sorin. “He looks like he’s lost control.”

“Give him time,” said Sorin.

“I’m sorry to say this, Sorin, but I’m going to need to put him down,” said Gareth, drawing an arrow and aiming it at the rat.

“Just wait a second!” snapped Sorin, placing himself between Gareth and the rat. “This happened because of that pink crystal he got as a reward. It seems eating half of it caused this situation. Maybe eating the other half will solve the problem?”

“That literally goes against everything I’ve been taught,” said Gareth. Ultimately, however, he relented. “Just try it out. If we’re lucky, he’ll pull through.”

Sorin nodded and pulled out the crystal. Lorimer perked up. Sorin handed him the crystal and immediately gobbled it down. The infusion of corruption in his body brought balance to the conflicting forces, but it soon became clear that no ceasefire was to be had.

The forces were at war and continued to rage, but fortunately, the competition was more controlled. Lorimer’s body was strong and could endure.

“I think it’s helping,” said Sorin after observing the forces inside the rat for a few minutes. “Unfortunately, the process is very taxing on Lorimer, and he’ll be out of commission for the foreseeable future.”

Sorin picked the shrunk-down rat by the tail and put him in his front pocket. “Who knows. Maybe this approach of fighting poison with poison is what I’ll need to stay in control going forward.”

Gareth nodded slowly. “Fine. But report to me on his progress at regular intervals. Lorimer isn’t a normal demon, Sorin. If he loses control inside Olympia proper, the consequences will be catastrophic.”

“I am aware,” said Sorin, buttoning Lorimer’s pocket.

He turned his attention to Astley next. The woman had already donned the necklace and was inspecting a pile of rubble. “I take it that this is the shattered history tablet?”

“It is,” said Astley. “Unfortunately, I’m unable to decipher it in my current state. I’ll need to return it to the Order of Phantasia for refurbishment before it can be analyzed and merit can be issued. You have my word that we won’t be cheated.”

“That just leaves the Dao Vision,” said Sorin. “Does anyone have any idea what that is?”

“Not a clue,” said Stephan. “Maybe it has to do with the last part of the reclamation process?”

The dungeon rumbled as the last of the white lines from the core overlapped with the three mountain peaks. The mountains suddenly bent as they were drawn into the tiny core at the center. Pieces of land broke off from the land mass as the mountains were literally ripped out from the ground, leaving gaping voids that could no longer support the integrity of the floating realm.

Sorin wondered if they would float off into the void of space or if they would be repurposed somehow, but the answer soon revealed itself. Tiny chains reached out from beyond the inner city and dragged the larger fragments of the broken realm towards the Pandoran Continent.

Their destination was, surprisingly, the wilds surrounding Olympia. No wonder they call Nightmare Forest ever-expanding. We just keep adding on every time we claim a new dungeon.

Sorin now understood that the main part of the dungeon was kept in the inner city to be harvested by whichever faction it was offered by. The scraps were sent back to the mainland, and the divinity, as far as Sorin understood, went straight to Lord Hope. Just what was that fox planning?

He would have liked to watch the process for longer, but a spatial fluctuation soon enveloped their group. Darkness temporarily took Sorin. When he opened his eyes, he could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

An army of darkness descended upon the world. The tide was endless and reeked of an energy that did not belong. Twelve entities, half of them humanoid and half of them animalistic, presided over the horde as it clashed against humans and myths alike.

Hundreds of deities burning with golden energies threw themselves at the twelve figures, trying their best to whittle down these titans’ impenetrable defenses. They were led by thirteen other figures, eleven of which were familiar to Sorin but two of which were completely foreign to him. Both unknown figures were far more powerful than the rest. One smelled of thunder, while the other glowed with the darkness of death.

The sight of these fighting deities was overpowering. Sorin could only avert his eyes lest he lose his eyesight. His gaze looked around the battlefield and soon found a conspicuous battle where lesser deities fought amongst mankind’s demigods.

Two of these lesser deities stood out to Sorin. The first was a massive, coiling serpent eating its own tail. The second was actually a group that seemed to count as only a single deity, three harpies wielding a bow, a whip, and a deadly spear.

Sorin tried to nudge the vision to focus on the tail-biting serpent but was disappointed when it instead focused on the three harpies known as the Erinyes, the Furies that enacted the punishment of the gods upon mortals.

One of the Furies took out her bow and shot a void-crushing arrow at a section of the fiendish horde. The arrow had one goal: annihilate rule-breakers. Destroy what doesn’t belong.

The vision dimmed as a second fury lashed out with her whip. The whip passed through allied forces but banished any outsiders it touched. She was literally whipping away offenders from existence, a cruel punishment for creatures such as them.

The world turned hazy as the third Erinyes hefted her spear at the exposed enemy general, which, to Sorin’s surprise, was human. Or at least, he had once been. Horns grew out of his head, and tiny scales could be seen on his body, empowered by aggressive foreign energies. Still, there was no mistaking his origin as it was in active conflict with the rest of his being.

The First Step: Identify. The world split into black and white as the Erinyes pulled back her spear.

The Second Step: Isolate. A cage of void appeared around the target as the spear shot forward with divine speed.

The Third Step: Annihilate. This was a spear of judgment that brooked no dissent. Once the target was singled out as harmful and beyond redemption, wiping it out was the only surefire way of protecting the whole.

Sorin’s mind was trained on that spear point as it connected and unleashed punishment upon the enemy general. The fiendish human’s body broke apart starting from the point of impact and spreading to every corner of its being.

In that moment, Sorin, remembered something his father had told him. Physicians were deciders and killers. They chose who lived and who died. They destroyed illness and pestilence and even individual limbs. All of this was done with a single goal in mind: protecting patients and protecting society.

It seemed incongruous to think of medicine at a time like this, but to Sorin’s surprise, his thoughts resonated both with the Erinyes’ dreadful spear and his soul-bound treasure, Nemesis. He’d always wondered why his soul-bound treasure was so sinister when his profession was not. He’d initially thought it was due to his being an adventurer, but now, he wasn’t so certain.

Dao insight quantified. Soul-Bound Skill Acquired: Excise.

The terminology assigned by the dungeon’s system brought the point home.

Nemesis was not a weapon; it was a surgical tool. Its purpose was to remove harmful elements in whatever flavors they came.

Sometimes, it was demons. Other times, it was diseased limbs or body parts.

Mankind was plagued by an endless number of ills, and Sorin’s soul-bound treasure was a weapon that identified these enemies and excised them before they became a real problem.