The Adventures of an Overpowered Knight in Another World Chapter 582- Hollow Earth: Level Two

Rewinding time just a moment.

This domain was gripped by darkness. Not just the mere lack of light, but a dense, choking gloom that invaded the lungs. Torches barely pierced it here.

Within this shadowy abyss, a young lad, barely ten or eleven, labored ceaselessly. His tiny hands fitted together pieces of a mechanical device in what resembled a factory.

Amid the enveloping blackness, only the factories glowed with light.

An irony indeed.

The boy tirelessly assembled the components. Crystal conductors, mana filaments—the essential parts that powered everyday life in Lunaris were forged here.

Indeed, this was the Hollow Earth. The infernal depths below Lunaris.

To be exact, this was Level Two of Hollow Earth. A domain of such brutality that its very existence was concealed by Lunaris's elite circle.

The surface world knew scant details of Hollow Earth, and what fragments they grasped were already terrifying. Yet they remained ignorant of its dual layers.

Level One confined the freshly enslaved, the newly impoverished, debtors, and the like. A nightmarish hell of torment. At least it offered a slim shot at survival.

Level Two offered no such mercy.

Descent here meant certain doom. It was meant for those judged valueless. Valueless in terms of profit.

In Lunaris, slaves belonged to the upper circle's members. They were investments, assets, or livestock, one might say.

When illness struck a slave, slashing their output and profits for the owner, they were deemed worthless and cast into the true earthly hell of Level Two.

Whole families vanished this way. Parents, children—none escaped.

Once marked as slaves, Hollow Earth awaited in Lunaris.

Such was their ruthless policy. Human exploitation pushed to its most extreme.

No one in Lunaris flinched at this. Profit alone drove them; they cared for nothing else.

The boy on the assembly line was one such survivor.

Watching his relentless toil with lifeless eyes, older slaves gazed at him with pity. So young, his youth barely begun. Yet doomed to labor here until death.

They could only sigh at the sight.

Level Two's horrors dwarfed even Level One. Poisonous air hung heavy, fed by vast pipes and mana conduits from the ceiling, spewing toxic waste and mechanical grit below.

Inhaling it meant inevitable death for all here. Human flesh endured only so much. They pitied the boy, yet it surprised them not.

This was routine for them. They'd witnessed it endlessly.

Families plunged into Level Two. Orphans bereft of parents.

Survivors rarely endured long.

The boy's longevity astonished them. But all knew his end loomed—he'd shatter eventually.

This pit consumed the mightiest spirits.

And they proved correct.

Something within the boy cracked—or transformed—right before their eyes.

He lingered too long on shadows, muttering alone as if haunted.

Up to this point, it signaled his impending breakdown. But then the tales emerged.

Each evening in the slaves' shared quarters, the boy gathered with other wretched kids under wavering torchlight, spinning his yarns.

"Hey, did you know, we have new friends?"

"What? Did more people get dumped here?"

The boy shook his head.

"No, they were always here, in the deep dark."

Chilling, disturbing tales.

Adults initially ignored it. Madness gripped everyone here. Visions were commonplace. Starvation and fatigue ravaged the psyche.

Yet the boy's narratives persisted.

Indeed, they grew ever more vivid, more palpable with each passing day.

"They walk like us. They talk like us, and even mingle among us."

At that instant, an eerie gust swept through, prickling the other children with gooseflesh.

"Ah, don’t worry about the wind, it’s only listening. So where was I? Yes, they, although they look like us, they are the perfect beings. They are the pinnacle of creation and the greatest of all salvation"...

"If you listen closely, you can even hear them talk. When they whisper, even the wind becomes silent."

Some kids swallowed hard, straining to hear, but only wind's wail reached them.

"Don’t worry, when the time comes, you will all be able to hear them and feel it in your marrow."

"You talk like you have heard them?"

One child challenged. Unlike the rest, he showed no dread of these entities.

"Hear? Yeah, I can hear them. I have seen them, in fact. Their dark crimson eyes... when they stare at you, they do not blink. They have mouths, but they don’t feel hunger. Isn’t it beautiful? They are just like us, but they are perfect; they are the final form"...

"We should be honored to be their mirrors. So, tonight, if you see someone smiling a bit too wide, or a friend whose shadow doesn’t quite match their shape, don’t run. Just try to talk with them, they are quite friendly." The shadow beneath the boy quivered unnaturally but went unnoticed.

The children huddled nearer, eyes alight with dread and allure.

Witnessing this, the adults could endure no more.

"Enough! All of you, go and sleep. We have to get back to work in three hours."

Though they halted the boy's tales of folly, the stories darkened further with each day.

.

.

"They’re watching us. Waiting for someone to talk to them. When the lights dim, that is when they appear. Take whatever deal they give you, because they are the final salvation. The most flawless beings."

A cold shiver slithered through the quarters. Even adults could no longer pretend; the boy's words rang too true to ignore.

Still, belief came slowly at first.

Even as kids and adults began mysteriously altering, fixated on his tales, no one dwelled on it.

After all, Level Two crushed souls. Death loomed everywhere, so mild insanity seemed normal.

But nightly, as stories enthralled more deeply, one by one, all transformed.

"There’s a shadow that doesn’t belong to anyone. It moves when everything else stands still. It stands behind you. Always, always behind you. And if you turn around, it steps closer."

"Shut up! Enough of your damn stories!"

At last, one adult, driven to fury, lashed out at the boy.

Yet to the adult's fury, the boy rose from the floor with a broad, eerie grin.

"I’m not lying. They’re real. They’re waking up."

That sinister smile and warped shadow unnerved them all.

.

The tales ceased, but oddities soon plagued the days.

A worker crumpled at his station.

Guards arrived to find his eyes crimson, flesh corpse-pale.

He perished. His end stirred no waves.

Guards hauled him to the underground incinerator, routine as ever.

Next day, two more fell.

Identical signs: crimson eyes, pallid forms.

Disposed of like trash they were.

Guards pressed on.

.

Subsequent days brought stranger horrors.

Slaves glimpsed the dead returned.

Recent casualties roamed the gloom, trailed by dark mist.

Word reached the guards.

Slaves faking death to shirk duty? Outrageous.

They plunged into shadow—and vanished without trace.

Chaos mounted from there.

Missing guards and risen dead lured more enforcers.

They too dissolved in the dark.

Adding terror, the vanished reemerged across Level Two.

Crimson eyes, ashen skin, shrouded in haze—these marked all who entered the abyss.

And this was merely the onset.

Such events erupted everywhere in Level Two.