Chronicles of Kharon Vol. 3: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (The Saga of Kharon) by Ravenscroft Daisuke

Author:Ravenscroft, Daisuke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Forging an Alliance of Shadow and Steel

The taste of ash is the first thing. A film of bitterness that sticks to your tongue and throat with every breath. It’s a fine, almost impalpable dust that rises with every step. The wind swirls it and pushes it against us; it gets under your clothes, into your eyes until they burn. It crunches between your teeth.

We move through the black stumps of what were once houses. Their charred beams are silhouetted like broken ribs against a sunless sky, an oppressive dome the color of lead. The wind doesn't just blow; it wails as it passes through the empty window frames, a sharp, desolate whistle that is the only sound in this place. There are no birds. Not the buzz of an insect. The silence that remains beneath the wind's lament is so thick it presses on your eardrums.

I walk past a stone chimney, naked and cold in the middle of a scorched earth floor. I stop. I close my eyes and I can almost feel a phantom warmth, smell the memory of baking bread. They gave us shelter here one night. A woman's face comes to mind, her flour-dusted hands offering us a piece of hard bread as if it were a treasure.

I open my eyes. The warmth is a lie. The memory is a ghost.

I look inside the ruins. There are no bones in the hearths. No dust-covered lumps in the corners. The cleansing has been absolute. It is an unnatural void, a neatness that chills the blood. There is no trace of the struggle, only the final result. The thought is a dull blow to the stomach, a knot of ice forming slowly: There are no bodies. They never leave bodies.

It's not a massacre. It's an eradication. An erasure. And the void it leaves behind is not peace. It is a silent howl that gets into your marrow, a vibration that resonates louder than a thousand slit throats.

Lisanne doesn't speak. She walks ahead, a resolute shadow gliding through canyons so narrow the walls brush our shoulders, and plunges into tunnels that smell of damp earth and forgotten time. Her back is a declaration of intent, every muscle tense beneath the worn leather. She doesn't look back. She knows we are following. The sound of our boots on the stone is the only rhythm in this dying world.

After days of this funereal march, the mountain swallows us. The entrance to Khazad-Dum is a wound in the rock, a mouth of broken fangs large enough to devour a dragon. The air it vomits is a physical thing, a damp, fetid blow that catches in the throat. It smells of wet stone, of mold, of the stale sweat of too many bodies huddled in fear. It tastes of iron and defeat.

Inside, the darkness is almost total, barely pierced by the trembling glow of a few torches. Their weak flames cast shadows that crawl along the walls, distorting the broken statues of dwarven kings.

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