Chapter 375: The Mysterious Dungeon Core

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"Gaaaaaaaahhhhh!"

The Puppet Master’s mocking voice became a scream of agony as Vladimir’s claws tore through him. His body collapsed into burning pieces, revealing that it had been made from wood and dried flesh beneath the colorful costume. Blackened strings curled around the broken pieces before burning away, and the few puppets still standing dropped lifelessly to the floor.

"H-Hah... hahaha... and with the Puppet Master’s death... the curtains fall... and the shadows rise... Hahahaha!"

The jester died with one last laugh, still treating his death as the conclusion of a performance. His head rolled to the side, its painted smile remaining even after the light vanished from his eyes. For a brief moment, nothing else moved within the ruined mansion.

"Well, it’s done," said Vladimir, shaking his claws.

"Yeah, I wonder where the Dungeon Core is though?" Riven wondered. "Maybe- Hm?!"

RUMBLE!

The floor suddenly trembled, and the scattered puppet pieces slid away from the center of the room. A wooden platform rose from beneath the cracked boards, unfolding like part of a stage and revealing a glowing, pink-colored Core. Thin lines of light moved across its surface, connecting and separating like countless dreams.

"Huh? This is the first time the dungeon just presents itself to me?" Riven was surprised.

"Indeed, that’s weird," Vladimir nodded.

"Hm, this Dungeon Core is... rather unique," Riven said, narrowing his eyes as he analyzed it more closely.

He noticed that the Dungeon Core glowed with a mysterious light and released a power that made Riven take a step back immediately. It was different from every Dungeon Core he had encountered so far, and the energy pulsing from it felt strangely... familiar.

"Psionic Energy?!"

It was the first Dungeon Core he had seen that contained predominantly Psionic Energy instead of Mana or Spirit Energy. The discovery only made him more curious about what kind of world this dungeon had come from. A Core like this should not have existed under the rules he understood, yet its power was unmistakable.

He did not have any time to waste. Using his Shadow Clone as an anchor, Riven conjured the Spirit Dungeon Realm Gate and teleported from the Endless Battlefield to the Macabre Forest. He appeared inside the mansion beside Vladimir, walked toward the platform, and placed his bare hand against the Core.

FLAAASH!

The moment he touched it, Riven felt something strange enter his mind. The entire dungeon began to tremble as the mansion and forest compressed around his head, turning ethereal and disjointed.

TRUUUM!

The walls stretched in impossible directions, the floor folded upward, and rooms overlapped one another. It was utterly bizarre, as if the dungeon had forgotten its own shape, what it was. Even Riven struggled to understand what he was seeing.

"Huh?! What’s happening?!" Daniela screamed as the floor tilted beneath her feet and suddenly became the ceiling. She fell toward the open space below, waving her arms as broken furniture and puppet remains tumbled around her. "Waaaah!"

"Daniela!" Label cried, stretching out her hair and catching her around the waist before she could fall any farther. She pulled with all her strength, but the shifting direction of the dungeon made it difficult to tell where the ground was anymore.

"What in the world is going on?!" Vladimir roared angrily. A pair of dragon wings grew from his back, allowing him to fly while the mansion continued twisting around them. He looked toward the Core and saw Riven standing at the center of the distortion. "Hey, Riven!"

As Vladimir roared, Riven seemed to fall into a coma, staring into empty space while his mind shook without pause. Countless images, dreams, and nightmares poured into his heart and soul. They came too quickly for him to understand, one vision crashing into the next until he could no longer tell where his own thoughts ended and the dream began.

"T-This is...! This Dungeon is...! A dream?! A nightmare?! What?!" Riven asked in disbelief.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He coughed and suddenly regained part of his consciousness, but his senses remained trapped between reality and the countless images flashing through his mind. Along with them came the "story" of this dungeon forced into him as memories that had never belonged to him.

What he saw wasn’t what he had expected. It was not a planet or another world, but something far stranger, something born beyond the Material Plane.

It was a Dream, an accumulation of subconscious thoughts and ideas, formed from the memories of countless people across the planet. Their fears, stories, and beliefs had gathered together until they crystalized into a single tear within the...

The Noosphere!

"How is this possible?! The Noosphere is creating Dungeons too?! This goes beyond what the system was doing, or... is the system malfunctioning? Is something else using it?"

As he realized the truth behind the dream, his sight reached deeper, searching for what had created it. The answer unfolded before him in fragments, each one connected to an old fear buried in the minds of ordinary people.

Horror stories whispered in the dark, puppeteers controlling lifeless dolls, grinning jack-o’-lanterns, and countless other fears had all left their mark on humanity’s collective consciousness.

These Legends, thoughts, and the beliefs of people across the world had gathered here. This was the origin of this bizarre "Dungeon"! It had taken those scattered ideas and given them form, creating something that felt alive despite having no true life of its own, nor belonging to any real world either, and yet everything inside was "real" and "material" somehow, as if a piece of the Noosphere itself had been fused with the Material Plane while abusing a loophole created by the System itself, turning idea and thoughts into material.

But what was even stranger was that someone had placed it here. It had not appeared by accident. And if Riven was right, there might be many more of these "seeds" hidden across the planet, waiting to awaken, or perhaps that had already awakened and expanded into large connections, becoming dangerous bridges to the Noosphere under everyone’s noses.

And when he kept trying to find the culprit behind everything...

Riven saw the black hand behind it all.

"That’s...!"

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