Chapter 33 – The Divine Lineage of a Pathetic Coward

The world solidified from a blur of blue light into the oppressive dark of a dungeon.

The air was stale. It tasted of dust and forgotten magic, thick and heavy in my lungs. The stone walls around us were slick with a weird, green moisture, and they were covered in ominous, faintly glowing runes. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, a slow, steady rhythm that echoed in the heavy silence.

“What is this place?”

Siegfried’s voice was a ragged gasp. He scrambled backward, putting as much distance between us as the narrow corridor would allow.

“What have you done?”

Yes. Oh, yes. This was perfect. A classic teleportation trap. The perfect betrayal stage.

He was trapped down here with me, the party’s “useless baggage.” There were no witnesses. No townsfolk to impress. Just cold, hard survival. He’d have to get rid of me to conserve resources. It was the only logical move.

My revenge arc was officially back on schedule. Time to act pathetic.

“I… I don’t know!”

My voice was a masterful performance of pure, uncut panic. I made my eyes wide, my body tremble.

“I think we fell into a trap!”

Siegfried didn’t answer. He just stared at me, his face pale in the faint glow of the runes. He drew his sword, the rasp of steel on leather unnaturally loud in the silence. His hand was shaking.

He was terrified.

He thought I was the trap.

“Stay back!”

His shout bounced off the stone walls.

“I know what you are!”

Perfect. He was already hostile. He hated me. He was probably already planning how to dispose of me and make it look like an accident. The pressure was getting to him, making him paranoid. This was going to be so easy.

A low, grinding sound echoed from the darkness ahead.

A hulking statue of a forgotten knight detached itself from the wall, its stone eyes glowing with a malevolent red light.

It was massive, at least eight feet tall. Its movements were slow but impossibly powerful. It wielded a stone greatsword that scraped against the floor, kicking up sparks with every step.

Its target was clear. It was walking straight toward Siegfried.

A random mob? No, this was a plot device. An event designed to test the party and force the “strong” to abandon the “weak.” This was a classic for a reason.

Siegfried raised his shield, bracing for impact. But his eyes kept flicking toward me. He was still convinced this was my doing. He thought I had summoned this thing.

“Call it off!”

He screamed the words, his voice cracking with desperation.

“I’ll do whatever you want! Just call it off!”

Call it off? What was he talking about? This guy was legit losing his mind. Good. Let the paranoia consume him. It would make his eventual betrayal all the more believable.

The statue didn’t wait for an answer.

It raised its massive stone sword and brought it down in a crushing overhead swing. Siegfried met the blow with his shield. The sound was a deafening crack, like a mountain breaking in half. He grunted, his boots digging into the stone floor as he was forced back a step.

He was skilled, I had to give him that. He dodged a follow-up horizontal slash, the stone blade scraping a deep groove in the wall where his head had just been. He tried to counter, thrusting his own sword at the statue’s chest. The steel point just skittered off the magical stone, doing nothing.

This was a high-level mob. Way too high for a starter dungeon.

Siegfried was being beaten back, step by agonizing step. He was a professional, but the golem was a relentless wall of pure force. He parried another blow, the impact sending a tremor through the floor. He was getting tired. His movements were becoming frantic.

The statue sensed it. It reared back, its stone arms raising the greatsword high above its head. The red light in its eyes intensified. This was a charged attack. A finisher.

The kind of attack that would kill him.

Damn it.

No.

He couldn’t die. Not yet. Not now.

He was my designated betrayer. He was the star of my entire revenge arc. He was the chosen one, destined to cast me into the abyss of suffering so I could climb back out, all cool and powerful.

If he died here, my entire plot died with him.

I couldn’t let that happen.

My magnificent, selfish, perfectly crafted story was at stake.

I had to save my villain.

Fueled by a desperate need to save my own narrative, I broke from my cowering position behind a pillar.

I threw myself between the descending stone sword and the terrified Siegfried.

Time seemed to slow down. I could see the terror in Siegfried’s eyes, the disbelief that I would do something so suicidally stupid. The rough, chiseled surface of the stone sword filled my entire vision. It was inches from my head. My life didn’t flash before my eyes. My plot did.

A shimmering text box materialized in the air, visible only to me.

《Threat Detected. Activating Dormant Protocol. Class Unlocked: Divine Lineage》

A blinding, golden light erupted from my body.

It wasn’t the warm, holy light of a hero. This was something else. Something older, more powerful, and utterly overwhelming. It filled the entire corridor, washing out the shadows and the faint glow of the runes. It felt like standing in the heart of a star.

The statue’s greatsword, which had been about to cleave my skull in two, simply ceased to exist. It disintegrated into a fine, glittering dust that was instantly vaporized by the light.

The red glow in the statue’s eyes flickered once, then died.

The entire golem froze. Cracks spiderwebbed across its stone body. Then, with a low, final groan, it crumbled into a pile of rubble and dust.

The golden light faded as quickly as it had appeared, plunging the corridor back into a heavy, silent darkness.

Siegfried was on the ground. He was shielding his eyes with his arm, his entire body trembling. He had just witnessed what he believed was a god revealing its true form. His terror had reached a new, cosmic level.

I stared at my own hands. They were still glowing faintly, a soft, golden aura clinging to my skin. I looked at the system message, which was still hanging in the air like a ghost. My mind was a blank slate of pure, unadulterated shock.

“What the hell is this?”