Deepest in the labyrinth lay the 11th floor of the Abyss.

  It was the worst place in the continent—a place where the living were rare and the dead were plenty.

  Buried amidst a graveyard of monster and human bones lay the only living man.

  With raven-black hair, pale skin, and an old, grayish-brown robe, he blended right in, looking like just another macabre ornament decorating the skeletons.

  Faintly, the bones began to rattle.

  Twitch. First, it was a finger. With the sound of dry bones crumbling, a fingertip moved.

  Next, his stiff eyelids fluttered, a cold gleam leaking through the long eyelashes. His eyes were deep and sunken, like an onyx. Finely shaped, as if drawn by a delicate brush, they narrowed sharply in the darkness.

  The man, Asterion, slowly pushed himself up.

  His cold gaze looked around his surroundings. As if he was preparing a powerful spell to cleanse the dark dungeon, he took in a deep breath—

  “Cough, cough!”

  Then he broke into a coughing fit.

  “What the—cough—is this…?”

  He wasn’t actually choking from the dust. His body had transcended mundane inconveniences years ago, but the musty smell triggered the reflex out of sheer habit.

  As he stood, the pile of skeletons collapsed with a loud clatter.

  Asterion pinched the throbbing bridge of his nose and looked around.

  …Where am I?

  Was his life flashing before his eyes? Or was this the afterlife?

  His senses were sharp, but his mind felt incredibly foggy.

  He frowned at the mana density in the air of the 11th floor, which would have crushed a normal person in seconds and the all-too-familiar miasma.

  It was pitch black; he couldn’t see an inch in front of his face. Asterion murmured under his breath.

  “[Light].”

  He summoned four invisible mana cubes that would hold a single spell around him. Glowing spheres appeared inside them, illuminating the thick clouds of dust sparkling in the air.

  And what he saw wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Skeletal griffons that had been hanging upside-down from the ceiling plummeted toward the light, joined by a horde of undead medusas and a mountainous bone dragon.

  “Shreeeech!”

  “Graaaaargh!”

  Ear-splitting shrieks erupted from all sides.

  Undead?

  They were top-tier monsters. It was no exaggeration to say each one was capable of wiping out a small country.

  Just before their hideous teeth and claws could reach Asterion, his obsidian eyes half-closed in annoyance.

  “[Black Hole.]”

  He lightly snapped his fingers. Immediately, dozens of mana cubes had latched itself to the monsters’ heads or hearts.

  Crunch!

  As space itself folded inwards, the rushing monsters crumpled like tissue paper. As Asterion moved the cubes to stack over each other, the griffons, the medusas, and the bone dragon were crushed together into a tight ball.

  Bone fragments, venom, shattered scales, and the thick miasma in the room were all sucked into the void.

  “……Finally, some quiet.”

  Pressing a finger to his ringing ears, Asterion let out a heavy sigh.

  Guess it’s not the afterlife after all.

  It seemed he was still in this world—the otherworld he had first warped into in the past. At least he hadn’t crossed dimensions again, judging from the monsters’ familiar faces.

  Am I inside the labyrinth?

  He remembered that the final battle was in a giant labyrinth, but the place he woke up looked unfamiliar. Judging from the results he got as he spread his mana thinly in all direction, he was definitely somewhere deep underground.

  Asterion sighed.

  At least with the dust and smell sucked away by the spell, he could breathe easy. He tried pulling himself fully upright, but his joints popped loudly like a machine that hadn’t been greased for a thousand years.

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  “I’m getting too old for this.”

  Instead of standing up, he summoned two mana cubes and stacked them together.

  “[Cloud]. [Solidify].”

  He planted his face and stomach on the soft and plush cloud floated above ground. This was life.

  How long was I sleeping?

  Not enough, that was for sure.

  Raising his face, he rubbed it roughly with dry hands.

  His mind was still dazed, completely fogged over. Or was he refusing to wake up completely?

  “[Ice].”

  Creating a foot long mana cube, the moisture in the air instantly froze inside it, forming a smooth mirror of ice.

  Asterion checked his reflection while keeping his chin on his arms.

  The guy staring back at him was truly a sight to behold.

  “……I look like a total wreck.”

  A self-deprecating chuckle escaped him.

  It was his usual face, sure. But his pitch-black hair was tangled into a bird’s nest, and his robe was nothing more than a blood-and-dust stained rag that lost its original color ages ago.

  Seeing himself in such a wretched state brought back memories of the day he first dropped into this world,

  130 years ago. He’d been twenty.

  A blue-collar worker grinding himself to the bone. The headlights he saw when he was hit by a truck on his commute home were his last memory of Earth.

  When he opened his eyes, what greeted him wasn’t a hospital ceiling, but an alien forest crawling with monsters.

  And a white text floating in front of his face.

  [You possess a natural talent for Magic.]

  After that, Asterion had no choice but to accept the crazy reality: he he had fallen into another world.

  And thanks to that strange status window only he could see, he had become a mage.

  Just like a litrpg novel.

  Adventures, battles, magic research, and countless encounters followed.

  Over the years, he grinded his way up to Archmage. Everything was going relatively fine…

  Until the Goddess of Night threatened to destroy the world.

  The Dark Lady had started tainting the land with demons, leaving him—the sole Archmage—and his party with no choice but to take the Dark Lady down.

  But why am I alive? I’m certain I went down with the Goddess during that time.

  Why did he wake up, and how much time had passed?

  Checking his status could give him a clue.

  He just needed to check his active buffs and debuffs.

  He muttered the word he always recited.

  “[Status].”

  What? Level 3000?

  Asterion widened his eyes as soon as he saw the status window.

  His total mana had hit “Overloaded” status, too. This usually happened when a mage failed to discharge the excess mana that they naturally absorbed. The stronger the mage, the more they needed to periodically discharge. Or else, spells could go wild or have greater effect than the user intended, putting both the mage and the people around them in danger.

  But right now, his mana was practically double its usual max capacity.

  He was a walking time bomb at this rate.

  He had no idea why he had suddenly become this strong. A few weeks or months of sleep wouldn’t cause a massive spike like this.

  He couldn’t figure out why he woke up, even after scanning the status window. There were no quests or explanations for his current situation visible.

  If any other person had been in his shoes, they might have been thrilled.

  But instead of excitement for another chance at life, Asterion felt pure exhaustion.

  Sure, if he did some digging, he’d probably figure out what happened.

  His power had increased, and with a little grinding, he could take in the excess mana and spike his mana capacity, easily surpassing his past prime.

  He might be able to see the true end of magic, beyond what he had seen.

  But honestly? What was the point?

  His party was dead.

  He had already gone on far too long a journey once.

  He’d suffered through the brutal learning curve of adapting to this new world, and then through the soul-crushing campagin to defeat the Dark Lady.

  In his long life, Asterion had realized one thing: There’s no meaning in life.

  You get your hopes up, things go south, you grind to fix the problem, rinse, repeat.

  He didn’t hate this world, or the act of living.

  But looking back at the effort it took to get here… he felt a mild nausea rise up in his throat. He was tired and totally sick of everything.

  What was the point?

  …Did his comrades’ sacrifices even mean anything?

  Stop yapping to yourself, old man.

  Thinking too much was definitely a habit he’d gotten with age.

  “I should just go back to sleep…”

  But hitting the snooze button wasn’t going to be that simple.

  First, he needed to seal himself away so that he wouldn’t wake up.

  Second, he needed to keep grave robbers away from the remnants of the Dark Lady that was buried underneath him.

  Finally, he had to throw up a heavy-duty barrier, not to protect from the outside, but the inside. If his mana kept overcharging in his sleep, he might accidentally nuke the surrounding environment.

  Well, he’d leave an alarm to wake himself up if things got that risky.

  The casting conditions would be incredibly strict, but thankfully, he had a stash of legendary relics in his inventory from his adventuring days.

  With those, he could safely lock himself down and catch some Zs.

  “[Inventory].”

  The moment the word left his mouth, his eyebrows twitched.

  “…You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  His hands started shaking.

  “What is this? Why is it completely empty?”

  Where did his precious god-tier loot go?

  Most of his abilities and spells were intact, so had he really burned through all his items during the fight? Fuck, he couldn’t remember.

  [Inventory]

  -Empty Potion Bottle x999

  -Carriage Cogwheel

  -Broken Legendary Staff

  His inventory was practically barren.

  “…And the one staff I have left is busted.”

  He could fix it if he found a master dwarf, but… Asterion tapped his finger, thinking hard.

  He needed to stay calm. Scout the area. Yes, that was what he needed to do.

  If he scoured his surrounding area, he might find some leftover relics to use as a catalyst for his spell.

  Asterion lightly patted his tattered robe to trigger the spells ingrained in it and muttered, “[Repair]. [Camouflage].”

  The fabric that had worn out over the years reformed, looking fresh off the loom.

  Good.

  Out of everything he owned, at least this one wasn’t broken.

  The reason he brought it to the fight with the Dark Lady was simple.

  [Camouflage] was a spell that let you blend in flawlessly, no matter the environment. Since it blurred his presence to the background, it was a huge part of how he’d managed to survive the final battle for as long as he did.

  Though even a graze would break the spell, it had been years since anyone had been able to catch him off guard.

  Well, except for the Dark Lady.

  Regardless, he didn’t want to attract any attention, whether it be monsters or people.

  But without his relics, how was he going to finally rest in peace?

  As if reading his mind, a System notification chimed.

  [Congratulations! You have defeated the final boss of the Abyss!]

  [Title: Master of the Abyss]