I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1217: Sixty

The tension slowly eased after Erend’s words settled between them.

None of them lingered on how strange Khepra-Ankh’s power sounded, or how unnatural the title Psychopomp Dragon might have been in any other moment. After all, for Dragonborns like them nothing was strange anymore.

What mattered was simple and clear now. He could act. Even if only for thirty seconds, he could step outside this Dungeon World and stand with them.

That alone lifted the pressure from their chests.

Eccar let out a long sigh and leaned back.

"Doesn’t matter how strange your power is," he said. "If it works against necromancy, that’s enough for me."

Aesa nodded in agreement. "We don’t need to understand everything right now. Just knowing we won’t face Zerathul alone anymore already more than I expected."

Khepra-Ankh watched them quietly, his expression calm but attentive.

Erend nodded to himself as if already set on something.

"There’s something else we should do now," he said. "If you’re going to manifest your power alongside us later, we need a connection. A bond. Something that lets our powers recognize each other."

Khepra-Ankh inclined his head.

"Ah, synchronization," he said. "Yes. That would reduce resistance and raise our coordination when the time comes."

They moved the mugs aside and stood, forming a loose circle inside the ruined house.

The air shifted as Erend extended a thin thread of his Magic outward, careful and controlled. It did not dominate or pull. It simply opened itself.

Eccar followed, grounding the flow with his own strength, stabilizing it like an anchor driven into stone.

Aesa added her presence last, softer but precise, weaving intention and focus into the forming link.

Khepra-Ankh closed his eyes.

A pale, quiet Magic thread spread from him. This felt so much different from necromancy they had felt from Zerathul or usual Magic energy. It felt clean. Like the calm at the end of a long journey.

The boundary between them thinned, and for a short moment, Erend felt the power behind Khepra Ankh clearly.

Not death. But the power of releasing.

The bond locked into place.

When it ended, none of them spoke right away. The connection remained, subtle but firm.

Erend finally nodded. "That should be enough."

"With this, when the time comes we will be able to use the power better," Aesa said.

Erend turned to Khepra-Ankh.

"I’ll call you when the battle begins," he said. "After Zerathul is dealt with then we can talk about everything else. Like the the Void Architect and the future."

Khepra-Ankh smiled faintly. "That is acceptable."

They stepped closer, and Erend extended his hand.

Khepra-Ankh took it without hesitation. The grip was firm, solid.

Eccar and Aesa followed, each placing a hand over theirs in turn, sealing the understanding without further words.

Then Erend spoke again.

"We’re heading deeper to Level 60," he said. " There’s a corruption point down there that needs to be destroyed."

Khepra-Ankh’s eyes narrowed slightly. "I suspected as much. I felt that this Dungeon World had carried a wrongness beneath its structure from some time ago. That corruption point explains it."

"You want to go there together?" Erend asked.

"Yes," Khepra-Ankh replied. "I will help you destroy it."

More optimism settled fully into them then.

With their path clear and an unexpected ally bound by purpose, they turned toward the double black door that appeared a second later.

—

The moment they crossed the double black door, the world changed violently.

The putrid air slammed into them first. It was thick and wet, carrying a stench so sharp and rotten it burned the back of their throats.

Erend scowled instinctively as he drew a breath, his hand tightening at his side.

The ground beneath their feet was no longer sand or cracked stone. It was blackened earth, slick, uneven and pulsing as if something beneath it still lived.

The sky above them had collapsed into an endless ceiling of darkness. Heavy clouds churned slowly and then the rain began to fall. Not water, but blood.

It pattered against their skins and stone with a sickening sound, warm and sticky as it soaked into everything it touched.

They did not have time to take another step.

Figures moved all around them.

Living corpses staggered forward from every direction, their bodies mangled, torn, and decayed beyond recognition.

Some had once been humanoid like the Elves with hollowed eyes and split jaws, humans missing entire sections of their torsos yet still walking.

Others were beasts twisted into grotesque shapes with their bones jutting through rotted flesh and limbs that bent at impossible angles.

There were creatures Erend could not even name, things that should never have existed, stitched together from different forms, still functional despite being clearly dead.

Their eyes glowed with corrupted Magic as they turned toward the four of them.

"So this is how we’re greeted," Eccar said, his voice heavy with disgust. "Just the moment we arrive."

A low growl echoed from somewhere deeper within the ruined landscape, followed by wet, dragging footsteps. More of them began to crawl out from broken ground and shattered structures.

Even Khepra-Ankh reacted.

His calm expression tightened, and his eyes narrowed as he took in the scene. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

A faint tension passed through his posture, subtle but unmistakable. The pale Magic around him stirred, as if repelled by what it touched.

"This is not death. This is desecration," he said quietly.

Erend looked past the approaching corpses and felt a chill settle deeper in his chest.

The desert and ruined city they had seen before were gone completely. In their place stretched a twisted landscape that looked like another world entirely.

Broken towers leaned at unnatural angles in the distance with surfaces fused with flesh and bone. What might once have been streets had collapsed into trenches filled with black sludge and crawling remains.

The horizon warped and bent, as though reality had been damaged here.

It felt less like a Dungeon level and more like a gateway to hell.

Aesa steadied her breathing, her eyes hard as she watched the corpses draw closer.

"It turned out that this corruption point wasn’t just a point," she said. "It was the whole level."

But at that moment Erend felt the bond between them tighten, responding to the threat instinctively.

His Magic moved, heat and lightning already coiling beneath his skin as the blood rain continued to fall.

"Let’s just move. We burn them out," he said. "Every last trace of this."

The corpses lurched forward as one.

—