The tunnels went into the depths of the catacombs in a zigzag, leaving a bunch of blind spots. The luminous mushrooms that used to be on the walls began to appear less and less, their place was taken by luminous blue crystals, around which not even a hint of vines grew, as if deliberately avoiding them.

Letting go of his concentration on the sun spell, Dan watched as the corridor plunged into shadow. Allowing his eyes to switch to "night vision," the teen continued on his way.

"Looks useful," he muttered, looking at the crystals on the walls.

Stopping at a fork in the tunnel, Dan thought for a moment, wondering where to turn, but he wasn't given time to make a decision. A wave of dizziness hit him at the same moment when the light from the crystals became hundreds of times brighter and then, his vision exploded.

Have you ever felt that everything around you is getting too much? The smells of rotten flesh and rusty metal, the light of a thousand suns emanating from the walls, dozens of small rustles and footsteps of unknown creatures rattled in Dan's skull in a terrible cacaphony of sounds and pictures. He staggered and grabbed the wall to keep himself on his feet.

'What the fuck?' the thought flashed through his mind, but sensory overload was only the first of his problems.

TSSSSSSSSS

A loud, angry hiss came from the left, causing Dan's heart to skip a beat. In reality, this hissing was no louder than a whisper, but, for him, it was louder than howling in the center of a hurricane. As soon as he noticed something green in the corner of his vision, he teleported back into the tunnel.

And he did it just in time. 

The explosion thundered, enveloping Dan in a wave of light, heat and sound that made him scream in pain and fall to the ground, his hands covering his ears.

Millions of bugs crawled under his skin, turning around, wanting to get out. His eardrums – if they hadn't already exploded – were aching like death, and his eyes were threatening to melt in their orbits. The only smell that remained in the air was the smell of burnt gunpowder and wet metal.

Dan didn't know how long he lay on the ground, hissing in pain and tossing in discomfort. Something wet was flowing from his nose, he guessed without any problems that it was blood.

After a while, when his own body stopped feeling like a ball of pain, Dan ventured to open his eyes. The light from the crystals on the walls became dim again, almost imperceptible. He no longer heard the bugs crawling on the walls, his senses returned to normal.

Slowly sitting up, leaning on the wall so as not to fall again, Dan looked towards the place where he had been standing quite recently, a lump in his throat. The passage was wrecked, there was a crater in place of a smooth stone and strict corners. 

Dan immediately turned to the side and threw up.

The human brain was a strange thing. Enderman's brain was even worse. 

Dan felt – he knew – that Acromantulas were beneath him. These pathetic critters didn't even deserve to be in his presence, so very the idea that they could've killed him? That one of his race could have died from some kind of spider? It was absurd. Subconsciously, he was confident of his survival, even if he didn't know it. 

So, he stayed and fought them. A huge part of his subconscious wanted to prove his superiority to the bastards.

But what about creepers? These creatures were just plants, at least physically. They didn't have self-awareness, names, or even deep thoughts. They were just animals. Even the Endermen weren't crazy enough to consider some dangerous plants beneath them. So the thought of danger wasn't absurd either.

The thought of death has never been as clear as it is now. Dan has already died once; he was intimately familiar with the sensations when your body simply refuses to continue working. But now he was alive and he refused to continue lying in self-pity.

"Suka..." he muttered as he wiped the vomit and blood from his face. "Son of a dead whore. What the fuck just happened?!" 

Yanking himself up from the ground, Dan went to the crater and looked at the ceiling, the only untouched part of the tunnel. Carved into the stone on the roof, there were magical runes written in familiar ever-changing language.

[Feelings To Strengthen] [Overload Of The Living] [Hypnosis Of Sensations] 

'Is this a magic trap? What kind of crazy bastard uses something like that?! This shit alone can drive a person crazy!' 

Spitting on the ground, Dan stared at the trap for a couple more seconds, but in the end, he built a ladder to it and took the block of stone along with the runes.

"... It might come in handy, I'm not a hypocrite," he mumbled to himself as he tucked the trap inside his backpack.

Looking at the passage from where the monster appeared, Dan decided not to go there, at least for a while. He was a little sorry that the bastard had exploded before he could get a good look at him. It would be useful to know exactly what they look like for the future.

Blocking the path on the left with several blocks, Dan turned around and just wanted to go further, but stopped. His head was still throbbing with mild pain, his leather armor was scratched and a little dented. 

'I'll only check the first floor today,' he thought and continued walking.

A few turns later, Dan came across the first door on the floor. Well, rather like the remains of the door, the wood was broken and rotten, allowing him to see fairly large room through it. 

Ducking to get through the frame, Dan looked around. The room was filled with old pipes, each second of which had a vent for regulating the flow. But judging by the fact that there was no sound of water moving through the pipes, Dan assumed that they were dry. In the middle was a round stone table, on which a book had once stood a long time ago. Unfortunately, now this book has long since turned into a paper pulp.

The second door to the dungeon was surprisingly intact. Dan turned the handle, but the door wouldn't budge. Raising an eyebrow, Dan waved his hand and muttered "alohomora," and the lock on the door opened. 

As soon as the door opened, four pairs of eyes immediately turned in Dan's direction. Four huge slimes were standing in the room.

"Fuck that." Quickly hanging the axe on his side and throwing his arms up, Dan took a short breath and intoned:

"Duro!" 

Two of the slimes immediately began to turn to stone, their gelatinous bodies losing color, becoming gray and hard. The third managed to make only one jump in his direction before the same fate overtook it. 

"Huh. I didn't know it would work… It's better than setting them on fire, I don't know, maybe they explode too."

Usually, the charm turned only non-living things into stone. Or at least it couldn't be used on wix, their bodies just rejected the spell. The same could not be said about the Slimes. 

Unfortunately, this meant that all the loot he could have collected from them was lost. It didn't bother him so much; he was already tired of fighting with endless slimes. Quickly looking around, Dan marked this room in his head as empty – except for the new statues of slimes – and went to the second door.

Another corridor met him outside the door, but this one was a little shorter than the previous ones. Dan wasn't even surprised when he saw a pit with spikes in the middle of the way. It wasn't even covered with a thin layer of earth or stone, so that an ignorant person would fall down and die. Just a spike pit. 

An ordinary person could jump over a pit of this size, but it was quite easy for Dan to step over it.

The rest of the way was quite empty, except for one corner. There, stood a chest, which Dan couldn't open or move by any means. It felt like someone had enchanted it with antimagic. The only other thing that seemed unusual to Dan was the red color of the keyhole.

"It looks like a headache and a half to break this open. I swear, if the key is inside some whackass puzzle room…" He muttered as he walked away from the chest.

After a while, he stopped at another door. This one was different from the others, causing any viewer to feel awe. Tall stone doors with gold cutouts around the hinges towered even over Dan. 

This room was definitely holding something grand.

"Or it's the Boss room." Dan said to himself and picked up the axe again. 

Slowly opening the gate, like a character from Dark Souls, Dan could only watch as bright magic crystals lit up on the walls of the room in turn. In the middle of the room stood a grand stone throne, on which sat a dusty black skeleton in full iron plate armor, a long claymore in his hands.

The armor looked old and a little worn, rust starting to claim it already. But the most important thing was the bright red key that hung around its neck.

The skeleton twitched as Dan stepped into the room, rising from his throne and taking a long sword in both hands. Dust rained down from his body, falling to the floor and creating a strange halo around the undead. Before he could take a step, Dan launched an attack.

"Everte Statum." Dan sent a spell at the skeleton, which only twitched, but continued to walk forward. "Figures."

Seeing that he only had time left for one more attempt, Dan pointed his finger at the uncovered face of the skeleton "Magicae Iaculat."

An arrow of mana flew off his finger and sped towards the skeleton, only to be repelled by a swing of the sword. His opponent pirouetted and slashed into Dan with a quick movement. Dan stepped aside, feeling off-balance, hearing the whistle of the blade inches away from his body.

The side of the skeleton turned out to be open and Dan jumped at the opportunity, hitting the gap in the armor with an axe, but his blade didn't reach the target, colliding with the claymore of the withered skeleton. A push, and Dan stumbled, almost falling to the ground. The skeleton immediately cut the teenager's chest. 

Knowing that an attack would follow immediately, Dan teleported to the other side of the room, avoiding a brutal wound. The blade sliced through his armor, but didn't reach the flesh.

The skeleton wasn't even surprised by his disappearance, it immediately turned around and walked towards him again.

"Incendio." The ball of fire was repelled by the sword just like the last spell, the burning blade illuminated the skeleton's empty eye holes.

Taking the initiative, Dan hit the skeleton's head with an axe, but the skeleton parried his attack to the side, hitting the teenager's jaw with an elbow. The blow was so strong that he sent Dan to the ground for the second time.

"Incendio!" The spell was cast again, but this time the skeleton's skull lit up in a bright flash of fire.

Thinking quickly, Dan pointed his hand at the skeleton and spoke his last spell.

"Oxygenium!" 

It wasn't really a traditional spell; it was the first Latin word that came into his head that was strongly associated with oxygenation. Dan wanted to quickly increase the oxygen levels around the fire so that the skull of the skeleton would burn more.

And burn it did.

Bright, blinding white fire engulfed the head of the skeleton. His rusty claymore fell from his hands, clinking on the ground. Now the iron-armored corpse was crumbling to the floor, its magic broken in death.

Panting, Dan rubbed the growing bruise on his jaw. He pulled himself to his feet and trudged toward the mountain of bones and armor, muttering "frigus," to cool the remains.

The monster boy flipped over the heavy armor, rummaging through the bones for the key. But when he found it, all he could do was swear.

The key was melted.