The Dungeon portal split open to reveal a colossal corridor that appeared less like stone and more like a solidified biological tissue. The walls were interlaced with calcified veins pulsing with a faint green luminescence, and the air hung heavy with the scent of oxidized metal and the vapor of corrupted mana.
Barely had the team taken their first steps when the sound vanished entirely. It wasn't an ordinary silence; it was an "absorption" of every sonic vibration. From narrow fissures in the organic ceiling, the monsters began to descend. They were grotesque entities—a fusion of arachnid anatomy and withered human features—their eight legs long and slender like steel needles, their skins translucent, exposing viscera that shimmered with unstable purple mana.
The creatures moved with a speed that relied on "vibration sensing." The moment JORIN drew his heavy shield, three of them lunged at him like black arrows.
"Formation! Don't let them flank us!" ELEANOR shouted, but her voice sounded muffled, as if coming from underwater.
The battle erupted. JORIN struggled to repel the monsters whose legs pierced his magical armor like drills, while ELEANOR and KYLE fired mana projectiles that partially evaporated before reaching their targets due to the dense atmospheric pressure of the dungeon.
Meanwhile, ADRIAN was moving in a different dimension of time.
«Rank C...»ADRIAN thought, leaning his body at a sharp angle to evade a pointed leg that nearly punctured his skull. «They move in a dull, linear, and slow pattern.»
ADRIAN pounced on the nearest beast and struck its third leg. With a lightning-fast slash of his dagger, he severed the creature's motor nerve, causing it to lose its balance instantly. In one fluid motion, he circled the entity's body and plunged his blade into the gap beneath the distorted human skull—the nexus where mana met its nervous system.
«First strike: Sever neural connection. Second strike: Discharge the core,»ADRIAN continued in his mind with mechanical coldness.
"ADRIAN! Cover the right flank!" KYLE yelled as he retreated.
ADRIAN did not look back, but he surged toward KYLE like a black shadow. He leaped over his head, and in mid-air, he grabbed the heads of two "Silence Eaters" and slammed them together with a force measured in tons. The sound of organic bones shattering echoed clearly amidst the oppressive silence.
«They are suffering,»ADRIAN noted, observing ELEANOR whose face was turning pale. «The mana at this level is so dense it poisons the bodies of unaccustomed mages.»
ADRIAN stepped back and took a deep breath. He felt the heat of the blue injections reacting with the adrenaline in his blood.
«Rank C is technically weak, but its danger lies in numbers and psychological pressure,» he continued his internal analysis while decapitating another monster with a precise circular motion. «KYLE consumes 30% of his energy just using the bow. ELEANOR burns mana relatively quickly. They are 'amateurs'—they possess powerful tools but use them inefficiently.»
With one final thrust, ADRIAN drove his dagger into the heart of a massive spider attempting to pounce on SELENA (the Healer). The beast convulsed and then dissolved like black ink on the floor.
A heavy stillness returned. The team members were gasping for air, sweat drenching their faces, while ADRIAN stood in the center of the corpses. His chest did not heave, and the blade of his dagger was perfectly clean, as if it had never touched a single body.
As the team struggled to catch their breath, their gazes toward ADRIAN were not those of gratitude, but of pure "terror." They had never seen a living being move with such emotional detachment, as if he were dismantling machines rather than living creatures.
The silence did not last. Suddenly, the "organic" walls of the corridor began to contract and expand in a sickening rhythm, and the green veins turned a deep, bruised black. From the depths of the darkness at the end of the hallway, something began to crawl... something that did not belong to this world.
The Emergence of the "Embryo Reaper"
From the gloom emerged a monster so hideous that SELENA gagged at the mere sight of it. It was a massive mass of twisted human flesh, standing over three meters tall, but it possessed no skin; its muscular tissues were exposed, leaking a viscous black mana.
What made it truly nightmare-inducing was its chest—an "open ribcage" within which grew dozens of small heads of infants, screaming in horrific, distorted voices. Its limbs were not legs, but dozens of withered human hands moving in unison like a centipede, producing a revolting sound like tearing paper. As for its head, it was nothing but a colossal jaw extending from the top of its skull to the base of its neck, filled with metallic teeth grown from the bones of previous victims.
The moment it appeared, it emitted a wave of black pressure that forced ELEANOR to her knees, while KYLE felt the mana in his veins begin to freeze.
«This is not Rank C...»ADRIAN thought, bracing his feet against the ground that had begun to soften beneath him. «This is a "Spatial Distortion"... a glitch in the dungeon's system that gave birth to this entity. It is absorbing life energy directly from the dungeon itself.»
The monster lunged with unexpected speed, using its hundreds of hands to sprint along the walls. It opened its giant jaw and unleashed a scream that emerged not as sound, but as a "shockwave" that shattered the mana crystals in KYLE's bow.
"Fall back!" ELEANOR screamed, attempting to construct a firewall, but the flames were instantly extinguished as the monster approached.
ADRIAN realized that ordinary daggers would not even scratch this monstrosity.
«Activating Protocol: Overload.»
ADRIAN's veins began to protrude, glowing with a brilliant blue light, and his body temperature rose so sharply that the sweat evaporated off his skin. He sprinted directly toward the EMBRYO REAPER. The monster tried to seize him with its hundreds of hands, but ADRIAN moved like red lightning, searing and severing any hand that touched his scorching body.
He leaped inside the monster's "Open Ribcage"—the most foul and terrifying place of all. Amidst the screaming infant heads, he found the "Black Core" that animated the creature. With mechanical coldness, he thrust his bare hand—which had begun to char from the heat—directly into the core.
The monster convulsed maniacally, its body melting into a boiling black liquid. One final shriek erupted from the small mouths before the creature exploded, leaving behind a cloud of toxic vapor.
The Aftermath of a Demon
ADRIAN stood amidst the black sludge, his hand burned and his clothes shredded, his eyes dull and hollow. He looked at his teammates, who watched him with a bewilderment laced with pure horror. They did not see a hero who had saved them; they saw a "demon" that had slaughtered a monster.
Before anyone could utter a word, the earth shook violently. The core explosion caused the "vital" corridor to collapse. The ground split open beneath their feet, and they all fell into an abyss that had never existed on any map.
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