I'm Not Your Husband, You Evil Dragon!

The ancient temple trembled as a deep rumble spread throughout the endless halls.

Countless years of dust rained from the ceiling while the mysterious patterns carved across the massive stone gate began glowing one after another.

The light traveled through every ancient engraving like veins awakening beneath dead skin, until the entire entrance pulsed with an eerie crimson glow.

Yuuta instinctively stepped backward, staring at the gate with disbelief written across his face.

"...It worked."

Before he could enjoy the small victory, a deep cracking sound suddenly echoed from within the wall.

The enormous gate began opening inward, its ancient stone mechanisms grinding against one another with enough force to make the entire chamber shake.

Dust exploded outward from the widening entrance, completely swallowing Yuuta before he could see what waited on the other side.

"Cough... cough! Damn it..."

Yuuta quickly covered his mouth and nose as the ancient dust entered his lungs. His eyes burned, forcing him to keep them shut while the deafening grinding continued ahead of him.

Only after several moments did the sound finally stop, leaving behind an uncomfortable silence that somehow felt even more frightening.

Yuuta slowly lowered his arm.

The dust began settling.

He narrowed his crimson eyes, desperately trying to see through the remaining cloud until vague shapes gradually became visible beyond the entrance.

The moment his vision completely cleared, however, Yuuta stopped breathing.

The chamber beyond the gate looked nothing like the previous sections of the temple.

It looked like a battlefield.

No...

A massacre.

The destruction was beyond anything he had encountered outside. Enormous axes remained buried deep within the stone walls, some so large that Yuuta couldn’t imagine what kind of creature had once wielded them.

Broken weapons covered the floor in every direction, while several swords had been bent almost completely in half.

Massive pillars were covered with deep cuts and impact marks, and ancient bloodstains had dried across the floor, walls, and shattered pieces of stone.

Whatever had happened here...

It hadn’t been an ordinary battle.

Yuuta cautiously stepped inside, his footsteps becoming increasingly hesitant as he studied the destruction surrounding him. Every few meters revealed another horrifying detail. Some weapons had been driven so deeply into the stone that only their handles remained visible, while others had shattered completely from the force of whatever they had collided against. The scale of the battlefield made the damage he had seen in the previous chamber look insignificant.

Yet none of those things held Yuuta’s attention for long.

Because at the far end of the chamber...

Something was waiting for him.

An ancient altar stood untouched among the destruction.

And resting upon it was an orb.

Yuuta’s crimson eyes immediately locked onto it.

The orb was almost completely black, darker than the shadows surrounding the altar itself. Deep crimson cracks spread across its surface like wounds, occasionally pulsing with a faint red glow from somewhere within. Unlike everything else in the chamber, there wasn’t a speck of dust upon it.

It looked untouched.

Preserved.

Waiting.

Yuuta unconsciously took a step toward it.

"...What is that?"

The orb pulsed.

His heartbeat responded.

Thump.

Yuuta stopped.

A strange sensation spread through his chest, followed by an emotion so powerful that he almost mistook it for his own.

Anger.

No...

It was far beyond anger.

It was wrath.

An ancient, unbearable hatred toward something Yuuta couldn’t see or understand. The emotion poured into him without warning, carrying resentment so deep that his fingers instinctively curled into fists. For several seconds he couldn’t even understand why he suddenly felt so furious.

Then another feeling appeared beneath the wrath.

Loss.

Pain.

A desperate desire to take back something that had been stolen.

Yuuta’s breathing gradually became heavier.

"...What..."

He pressed one hand against his chest.

"...What am I feeling?"

The orb pulsed again.

Thump.

Yuuta’s heart answered with another violent beat.

His feet began moving before he consciously decided to walk.

One step.

Then another.

The closer he came to the altar, the stronger the strange connection became. The destruction surrounding him slowly disappeared from his awareness. The broken axes, bent swords, bloodstains, and ancient battlefield no longer mattered.

There was only the orb.

Something deep inside Yuuta recognized it.

Not his memories.

Not his mind.

Something deeper.

Something buried so far within his existence that he couldn’t even give it a name.

Mine.

Yuuta’s eyes slowly became unfocused.

"...Why..."

His trembling hand gradually rose toward the orb.

"...Why does it feel like it belongs to me? or I am imaginig in it..."

Every instinct inside his mind screamed for him to stop.

His body remembered the fear he had experienced when facing the shadow figure. That same warning returned now, only far stronger. Every part of him begged him to turn around and run before he touched whatever was resting upon that altar.

Yet another instinct fought against it.

A much older one.

A voice without words that demanded he reclaim what had been taken from him.

Yuuta finally reached the altar.

His hand hovered only inches above the black orb.

The crimson cracks across its surface began glowing brighter as though responding to his presence. His fingers trembled violently while his heartbeat became so loud that he could hear nothing else.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Yuuta’s crimson eyes gradually became unfocused as the distance between his fingertips and the orb disappeared.

"It..."

His breathing became uneven.

"It really belongs to me."

The crimson cracks across the orb suddenly brightened.

Yuuta’s trembling fingers moved even closer as an inexplicable certainty overwhelmed every warning inside his mind.

"I don’t know why..."

"...but this is mine."

His fingertips were now only inches away from the orb.

"I have to take back..."

"...what belongs to me."

Yuuta whispered those words as his trembling fingers moved closer to the mysterious orb. His heartbeat continued pounding violently against his chest, but he refused to pull his hand away.

Whatever secret this place was hiding, whatever connection existed between him and this strange object, he was finally going to uncover it.

Perhaps this orb contained the answer to his origin, or perhaps it would explain why the shadow figure had brought him into this terrifying temple in the first place.

His fingertips were only moments away from touching it when the orb suddenly vanished.

Yuuta’s hand passed through empty air.

"...What?"

He froze in confusion, staring at the empty altar where the black orb had been resting only a second earlier. There was no flash of light and no explosion of energy.

The object had simply disappeared into thin air, leaving absolutely nothing behind.

Before Yuuta could even understand what had happened, an unfamiliar voice echoed throughout the enormous chamber.

"Weak."

Yuuta’s crimson eyes widened.

A tremendous force struck his entire body before he could react, throwing him backward like a rag doll. His body slammed against the stone floor before violently rolling several times, finally crashing near the base of the altar.

Pain immediately spread through his back and shoulders as Yuuta struggled to understand where the attack had even come from.

"What the hell was..."

An unbearable pain suddenly exploded inside his head.

"ARGH!"

Yuuta immediately grabbed his skull with both hands as his entire body curled against the floor. This wasn’t anything like the headaches he usually experienced whenever he tried remembering his forgotten childhood.

Those headaches were painful, but this was something completely different. It felt as though something inside his mind was violently tearing itself apart, punishing him merely for coming close to a truth he wasn’t supposed to touch.

"Why... now?!"

Yuuta clenched his teeth while pressing both palms against his head.

"Stop... damn it... STOP!"

The pain only grew worse.

Unable to endure it anymore, Yuuta slammed his forehead against the stone floor.

Bang!

Nothing changed.

He struck it again.

Bang!

The unbearable pressure continued tearing through his mind.

"Stop...!"

Yuuta slammed his head against the floor for the third time.

BANG!

Silence.

The pain disappeared.

Not gradually.

Not slowly.

It simply vanished as though it had never existed.

Yuuta remained on the floor for several seconds, breathing heavily while his trembling fingers continued gripping his hair. Sweat covered his forehead as he tried to understand what had just happened.

Never before had one of his memory headaches reached such an unbearable level. This felt less like his mind struggling to remember something and more like he had crossed an invisible boundary and something had immediately forced him back.

"...What was that?"

He slowly pushed himself upright while trying to steady his breathing.

Then he remembered the orb.

Yuuta’s head immediately snapped toward the altar.

"Wait..."

His crimson eyes searched its surface.

"Where is it?"

The altar was completely empty.

The mysterious black orb covered in crimson cracks had disappeared without leaving even the slightest trace behind.

"Where did that thing go?"

Yuuta forced himself onto his feet and approached the altar again, checking behind it and even looking across the surrounding floor. Nothing. The object that had filled him with such overwhelming wrath and familiarity had simply ceased to exist.

"What the hell is happening here...?"

Before he could search any further, a low rumbling sound traveled beneath his feet.

Yuuta froze.

The entire temple suddenly began trembling again.

The vibration started beneath Yuuta’s feet before spreading throughout the ancient chamber, causing dust and tiny fragments of stone to rain from the ceiling.

His attention immediately returned to the altar as a deep grinding sound emerged from somewhere beneath it.

Before Yuuta could understand what was happening, the stone floor surrounding the altar split apart, revealing a massive opening hidden underneath.

Yuuta’s crimson eyes widened as an enormous hand slowly emerged from the darkness.

For several seconds, it hovered blindly through the air as though searching for something to grab before its fingers finally found the edge of the opening.

The hand was unbelievably muscular, far larger than anything belonging to a human, with each finger thick enough to wrap around Yuuta’s entire arm.

BOOM!

The massive palm slammed against the stone floor.

Cracks immediately spread beneath its fingers.

Yuuta continued backing away, unable to take his eyes off it.

"...No way."

Another enormous hand emerged from the darkness.

BOOM!

It grabbed the opposite side of the opening.

Both arms suddenly tightened.

The muscles across them bulged as whatever existed beneath the altar began pulling its enormous body upward

Yuuta’s face slowly lost its color.

Something wasn’t merely hidden beneath the altar.

Something had been waiting there.

And now...

It was climbing out..

Then a voice rose from the darkness.

"Ahhhhh..."

The sound resembled a long, lazy yawn.

"It’s been a while since someone woke me."

Yuuta froze.

That wasn’t the roar of a mindless beast.

It had spoken.

The creature slowly dragged itself from beneath the altar before rising to its full height. Dust exploded throughout the chamber as its enormous body disturbed centuries of debris, temporarily hiding its appearance behind a thick gray cloud.

Yuuta’s eyes widened as he stared into the dust.

At first, he couldn’t see what had emerged from the darkness.

Only its shadow.

A colossal silhouette stood beyond the cloud, so enormous that Yuuta had to slowly raise his head just to comprehend its size. Two crimson lights burned within the darkness where its face should have been, remaining completely motionless as they stared directly toward him.

Yuuta’s breathing gradually stopped.

Those weren’t lights.

They were eyes.

And they were looking directly at him.

The creature moved one of its arms, causing something enormous to drag across the stone floor. The horrifying sound of ancient metal scraping against rock echoed throughout the chamber as Yuuta finally noticed the massive object hanging from its hand.

An axe.

No...

The weapon was far too enormous to be called an ordinary axe. Its blade alone looked large enough to split Yuuta’s entire body apart without the creature even needing to swing properly. Before he could process that, another shape emerged through the dust on the opposite side.

A second axe.

"...You’ve got to be kidding me."

Yuuta instinctively stepped backward as the dust slowly began settling around the creature.

Its enormous feet became visible first, each one large enough to crush Yuuta beneath it without effort. Above them were thick, grotesquely muscular legs covered in rough gray flesh resembling cracked stone. Ancient chains wrapped around parts of its body while broken pieces of armor hung loosely from its waist and shoulders, accompanied by what appeared to be old bones belonging to creatures Yuuta couldn’t recognize.

His gaze continued upward.

And the higher he looked, the more ridiculous its size became.

The creature stood nearly eleven meters tall.

Its body looked less like flesh and more like a mountain forced into the shape of a living being. Every muscle appeared unnaturally developed, while the two gigantic axes resting within its hands seemed designed for executing giants rather than humans.

Yet none of that was what truly disturbed Yuuta.

It was the creature’s head.

There was no human face waiting above those enormous shoulders. Instead, a grotesque octopus-like mass covered its entire head, with thick gray tentacles hanging across its chest. Some slowly twisted around one another while others curled over its shoulders, moving with an unsettling life of their own.

Between those tentacles, two crimson eyes remained fixed upon Yuuta.

They weren’t wild.

They weren’t mindless.

The creature was studying him.

Yuuta’s fingers began trembling as the final layer of dust disappeared. He had witnessed horrifying things throughout his life, especially within the nightmares connected to his experiments, but this creature felt different. It looked as though someone had reached into the darkest corner of a person’s imagination, found the most horrifying thing hiding there, and somehow given it a physical body.

The monster slowly lifted one of its enormous axes. Ancient metal dragged across the stone before finally rising from the floor, and hearing that sound caused Yuuta’s attention to suddenly shift toward the carvings surrounding the chamber.

The octopus emblem.

The gigantic symbol carved upon the first gate.

The countless tentacle-like patterns decorating the ancient stone.

Yuuta finally understood.

Those carvings had never been decorations.

They had been warnings.

The creature took a heavy step toward him, causing the entire chamber to shake beneath its weight. Yuuta remained frozen as he stared upward, every instinct inside his body screaming that whatever stood before him was far beyond anything he was prepared to face.

Then something changed.

The tentacles covering the creature’s face slowly shifted.

Yuuta couldn’t properly see its mouth beneath them, yet somehow he knew exactly what had happened.

The monster...

Was smiling at him.

And for some reason, that smile frightened Yuuta far more than either of the axes in its hands.

To be contiuned....

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