Chapter 33: Illusions of the Dead

The executive boardroom of ARES Guild headquarters felt like a tomb. Tinted windows filtered the morning light into sickly amber streaks across polished marble. The air was thick with the scent of expensive cologne and barely contained violence.

Director Alwin slid a sleek black tablet across the conference table. The device scraped against the marble, producing a sound reminiscent of nails on stone. 

"He refused our invitation. Publicly. Said he'd rather rot than carry our badge."

Tobias Virell remained motionless in his leather chair, one leg crossed and fingers clasped beneath his chin like a predator calculating the distance to its prey. His pale eyes didn't even flicker.

"Good. Makes it easier."

The words dropped into silence like stones sinking into deep water. Alwin swallowed hard, his throat bobbing.

"There's more." The director's voice cracked slightly. "We ran arcane traces on your brother's corpse. His body absorbed residual dark mana. A necromancer killed him, Tobias."

Something shifted behind Tobias's eyes—cold fire that promised suffering beyond imagination. He unfolded from his chair with liquid grace, six feet of barely leashed destruction in an expensive suit.

"Find them." Each word carried the weight of a falling mountain. "Every single necromancer that stepped into that dungeon. I want profiles. Names. Faces. Today."

"We'll contact the Association for clearance and digital logs."

Tobias's smile was a blade wrapped in silk. "I don't want excuses, Director. I want blood."

The boardroom fell dead silent. Even the air conditioning seemed to hold its breath. Alwin's knuckles turned white as he gripped the tablet. 

Storm clouds gathered over the city outside the windows like an ominous sign.

Deep beneath the earth, Leon reached for the obsidian door. The entrance to the final chamber towered above them, carved from black stone that seemed to drink in the light. Runic symbols pulsed with blue fire along the door's frame, casting dancing shadows across the party's faces.

"Everyone ready?" Leon's voice echoed in the narrow corridor.

His fingers found the central rune, the cold metal burning like ice against his palm. 

The door groaned open.

Leon stepped forward.

The world dissolved.

Warmth flooded his senses. The musty scent of old wood and warm soap oil filled the air. Dust motes danced in golden sunbeams that painted everything in a honeyed light. Home.

His childhood home.

"Leon?"

His heart stopped.

A small voice from the doorway—soft, sleepy, and impossibly familiar. His little sister peeked through the frame in her nightgown, tiny fists rubbing at her eyes.

"Why are you shouting this early in the morning?"

Leon stumbled backward. His sword clattered to the floor that shouldn't exist. "No... you're..."

Dead. She had been dead for years.

Footsteps creaked on the floorboards.

His parents walked into the kitchen, younger than he remembered. His mother's hair was still brown instead of gray, and his father's shoulders were straight instead of bowed by grief.

"Sweetheart, who's Emily? And why are you crying?"

His mother's voice wrapped around him like a warm blanket—concerned, loving, and honest.

Leon's knees hit the wooden floor, the impact sending shockwaves through bones that should have been standing on stone. 

"This isn't real..."

But it felt real. It smelled real. The morning light streamed through faded curtains. The familiar squeak of the kitchen chair where his father read the morning news echoed in his mind. His sister's bare feet pattered across the linoleum.

Tears carved hot tracks down his cheeks.

Steps behind him in the dungeon, Emily crossed the threshold.

The graveyard materialized around her as if emerging from fog.

Cold wind bit through her robes. Rain threatened from gray clouds that pressed down like an accusation—the sound of weeping mixed with a priest's murmured words.

Black umbrellas. Black clothes. A black hole in the Earth is waiting to swallow the casket.

Her mother's photograph smiled from beside the grave, frozen in happier times before the sickness took everything.

"What the hell—?" The words barely escaped her throat.

Her brother stood to her left—solid, honest, missing for three years since the day dungeon monsters first broke into their world. Her father held the casket rope with hands that should have turned to ash in an urn.

This was the day. The funeral she had attended alone because everyone else was already gone.

"This... this is the day..."

The casket began its descent into the hungry earth. Someone whispered her name from behind.

Emily spun around. Nothing but more mourners with faces she couldn't quite remember. But something felt wrong. All wrong.

Her breath came in shallow gasps. The trauma she had buried so deep it had calcified around her heart cracked open like old wounds.

"Leon..." she whispered.

Back in the illusion, Leon stared at his family.

His father was reading him a story from the big book with pictures. His sister giggled from his mother's lap. Everything felt perfect, warm, and impossible.

Someone was calling his name.

Distant. Echoing. Like a voice through deep water.

"Leon... snap out of it..."

Emily's voice, but distorted—filtered through layers of reality that shouldn't exist.

Leon looked up. Through the kitchen window, the sky began to crack.

Fissures spread across the blue heaven like breaking glass. Behind the cracks, something darker waited.

"This isn't real..." His voice broke on the words. "And if it's, ot—then where's my team?"