This story is currently being rewritten and reimagined*
under a new title for the Webnovel Spirity Awards. The original version, *Unholy Ascension: Child of Dawn*, will remain published for now with no new chapters, but the updated and enhanced version—Child of Dawn—features improved pacing, deeper character development, and refined storytelling.
If you'd like to experience the new journey from the beginning, please check out Child of Dawn on my profile. Thank you for your continued support!
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Arthur couldn't move.
Not because he wouldn't.
Because the moment the creature looked at him—truly looked at him—his body forgot how.
It was like trying to breathe under an ocean of nails. Every cell screamed get away—but nothing listened.
From the frost, the thing emerged fully now. No longer hiding behind illusions or voices or Leo's memory.
It stood at least eight feet tall. Its skin was a blend of gray and purple, as if the flesh had been stitched from corpses dredged from frozen seas. Bone spines grew from its back like twisted branches, each one dripping something black. Six limbs in total—three on each side—moved in discord, as though they belonged to different beings forced into a single shell.
The torso bulged and split at the center, revealing a second head fused into its chest, eternally screaming without sound. Its actual face was worse: warped into a mockery of a Beastborn, complete with ears—but twisted. Melted. Its eye sockets were filled with swirling frostfire, and its grin was jagged with too many teeth.
At its feet, the mana crystals dimmed.
The dungeon itself recoiled from it.
And then—
It moved.
Arthur didn't register it lunging.
One moment it was there.
The next—he was airborne.
Pain flared across his side. He slammed into a jagged pillar of ice and dropped to the ground in a sprawl, coughing blood.
"ARTHUR!"
Olivia.
She leapt from the upper ridge, landing hard on the slick ground, sword already crackling with shadowy mana.
Her heart slammed in her chest. What the fuck is that thing? What the hell is it doing on Floor 75? This was supposed to be a garbage-tier dungeon. Where they could escape by beating some week mana breasts.
But when she saw Arthur crumpled, not moving—panic drowned logic.
She sprinted between him and the creature.
The beast halted.
It grinned.
Its voice sounded again—warped, layered with voices Olivia recognized and some she didn't.
But one of them was hers.
"...He's weak, Olivia... Let me take him... he's suffering... just like you did..."
Her stomach turned.
No. She didn't care what it was. Didn't care why it sounded like her or Luna or the third one she didn't recognize.
It was dying today.
She threw a barrage shadow slashes, followed by collapsing a icicle that was on the ceiling causing it to fall on it.
The creature screeched, the first true sound it had made—and Olivia heard dozens of voices inside it. Begging. Crying. Laughing.
"Arthur, get up," she hissed, grabbing him. "We have to go."
He groaned, barely conscious.
"You're not dying here, dammit!" Her voice cracked. "GET UP!"
The creature lunged again.
This time, she cast a shockwave so intense it shook the frost under them. Then she grabbed Arthur, slung his arm over her shoulders, and ran.
The creature followed.
It didn't chase like a predator.
It glided. Its limbs didn't match its speed. Its body bent around turns that made no sense.
This thing wasn't bound by this world.
They ran for the stairwell.
But the exit—the tunnel leading back to Floor 74—was sealed. Ice had crept over it, thick and alive, crackling with runes Olivia didn't recognize.
The dungeon was locking them in.
Olivia turned, wild-eyed. The creature loomed now, barely twenty feet away.
Arthur stirred. "...it's not… supposed to be here?…"
"No shit!" she barked.
"I mean the whole dungeon," he whispered, eyes fluttering. "is weird… everything below Floor 49… is just… weird." first the unnatural cold, second the fact that that cold came out of nowhere when we got to floor 50, third you said you heard the man that brought us here say that this is a dungeon is weak that it barely qualified to be called a dungeon but if that's true then how does it have so many floors and what is that thing doing here.
Her blood ran colder than the air.
Then Arthur reached out with his hands trying to touch the ice but he was too far. Olivia can you do me a favor and bring me a bit closer.
Sure
As he touched the ice it suddenly Combusted in a blazing beautiful flame that melted the ice almost instantly
And as Olivia watched this she felt something shift inside her but she quickly put it at the back of her mind they were in the middle of something
The ice melted
The way opened.
Olivia hauled Arthur through, casting a wall of darkness behind them.
The last thing she saw before turning away was the monster's face pressed against the tunnel's edge, unable to follow. Not yet.
Not today.
But it watched.
Its grin said soon.
They collapsed on the floor of 74.
Silence.
Only the sound of dripping frost and ragged breathing.
Olivia stared at the ceiling, heart still racing.
Arthur coughed once, then whispered, "I'm weak."
She looked at him.
He wasn't talking physically.
"I'm nothing here," he muttered. "That thing...
Olivia said nothing.
Because she'd thought the same.
This wasn't just a reminder.
It was a warning.
Terra wasn't fair.
It wasn't kind.
It was a place were only Strength was Acknowledged, a place were the everything and anything can kill you, the 9 seas, plants, the air everything and a place were everything was trying to get stronger.