Glosum's Maw was no longer just a bar; in an instant, it mutated into a suffocating, blood-drenched slaughterhouse. The mysterious young man—Tiger—stood tall amidst a blockade of dozens of bloodthirsty executioners and survivors. Yet, something was fundamentally wrong with reality itself. Tiger's shadow seemed to elongate, crawling along the decaying wooden walls and merging with the tavern's absolute darkness. It created a stifling silence, as though the very oxygen in the room had been forcefully sucked dry.
"Damn it! Why isn't it reading?!" snarled one of the executioners, who was clad in a Dominator V2 Helmet.
Behind his digital visor, his HUD—Heads-Up Display—was going haywire. The thermal sensors, normally capable of detecting the body heat of a rat from a kilometer away, now displayed nothing but a completely dead, static screen. The radar failed to capture Tiger's body temperature, and even the vibration of his footsteps had vanished from the seismic sensors. To this pinnacle of advanced technology, Tiger was an anomaly—visually present, yet digitally nonexistent.
The temperature inside Glosum's Maw plummeted drastically. The breath of the Abyss dwellers began to evaporate into white mist in the suddenly freezing air. It was at that exact moment that Black detonated his smoke grenade.
Pshhhhhhh!
A thick, ashen-gray fog spewed forth, swallowing the flickering neon lights. Within the dim obscurity, Black's maniacal laughter exploded, echoing sharply between the bar's walls.
"Tiger! You will DIE here!" Black roared, his voice raspy and fueled by a forced provocation, meant only to mask the violent trembling of his fingers. "Do you think you're still up 'Above' with all your authority? You're about to learn that chasing me into the depths of this hell is the absolute last mistake of your life!"
Black continued to jeer, desperately trying to bait a reaction, hunting for any sound or movement from within the smog. Yet, Tiger remained dead silent. His silence was far more terrifying than the detonation of any bomb. Amidst the smoke, Tiger was not hiding—he was waiting.
Suddenly, a dark silhouette sliced through the thick smoke at breakneck speed.
Ting!
A sharp, metallic clang echoed, piercing through the stifling, heavy fog. Black, with the remnants of a breath that felt like shattered glass in his lungs, managed to shift his black dagger just in time. He deflected the "faceless" strike—an impact so precise he couldn't even tell which direction it came from.
His hands shook violently. The clash of steel sent a painful, electric shockwave rippling all the way to his shoulder. Black couldn't see his opponent's face, but he could feel the radiating dread bleeding from the tip of the weapon locked against his own.
Behind the fog, Tiger remained a mere shadow. His attacks were formless, yet their impact was devastatingly tangible. Black knew this brief clash was merely the opening act. He was standing on the precipice of his own execution pit, holding off a single point of assault amidst a darkness that was ready to swallow him whole.
For a fleeting moment, silence descended once more, carving a stark warning through the sweat dripping down their faces.
"Aagghh..!"
A piercing shriek sliced through the still-dense smoke. Everyone's vision was completely blocked, leaving nothing but a suffocating, ash-gray void.
Kretek...
"Aghhh!"
The sickening sound of bones snapping followed, cold and surgical. The atmosphere instantly turned profoundly macabre. It was as if their eyes had been violently ripped out; now, the agonizing screams of their comrades and the whistling slashes of Tiger's strikes became the only reality their ears could perceive.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Why are you guys screaming?! Where is he?!"
"Shoot! Shoot toward the sound!"
"Stop, you idiots! Don't just shoot blindly, we'll only end up killing our own men!"
The commanding voices overlapped, fracturing into uncontrollable chaos. Amidst the fog, Tiger was no longer human—he was a phantom dancing through the muzzles of their guns. Every single time that "Kretek" sound echoed, another life in the Abyss was guaranteed to have lost its function.
They held the most sophisticated weapons, but before the invisible Tiger, they were nothing more than sheep inside a pitch-black slaughterhouse.
Behind the veil of fog, Tiger smirked. To him, this chaotic mess was nothing short of a playground. Wielding a pitch-black blade, its edge fitted with serrated teeth that spun like a meat-cleaving engine—the wheel of doom. Tiger hid seamlessly, fully synchronized with the darkness that Black had created.
"Nobody make a sound! Don't even move, or you're dead!" Black screamed in sheer desperation.
"Black, even your breathing is far too loud for someone pretending to be calm while barking orders!"
Tiger's voice didn't originate from a single direction; it reverberated, as though the concrete walls of Glosum's Maw itself were speaking. The remaining courage of the executioners withered instantly. They realized that in this absolute darkness, Tiger was not using his eyes—he was using the rhythm of their terror as his navigation system.
"Damn it!" Black cursed under his breath. He glanced down at his wristwatch—the seconds ticking down toward the detonation of the magnetic bombs he had personally planted were rapidly thinning. The smoke screen was slowly being eroded by the poor ventilation, thinning out and revealing the silhouettes of collapsed bodies. Black began to crawl backward, utilizing the shadows of the structural pillars to reach the exit. He no longer cared about the men helping him fight Tiger; to him, survival was the only mission left.
***
Far from the mounting tension in The Abyss Glosum, the room that usually carried a fresh scent of oranges now felt incredibly stifling. That citrus aroma was completely overpowered by the radiating heat of a soaring wrath. Files that were typically immaculately organized on top of the desk were now scattered across the concrete floor like fallen, dried leaves.
Lion gripped a piece of paper containing leaked mission data. The paper crumpled completely in his fist, crushed along with the trust he had bestowed.
"Tiger... that Predator ignored his mission. He's actually down in The Abyss Glosum," Lion hissed. His jaw clenched, carving a terrifying, rigid line across his face. "Lina, go retrieve Tiger. Bring him back alive... or leave him as a nameless corpse if he refuses."
Lina, his assistant, stood poised in a tight, orange tactical suit that accentuated her stunning yet lethal curves. She didn't ask questions. In their world, a question was a sign of weakness. Lina merely bowed her head slightly, offering a silent salute, before her body seemingly faded and vanished without a trace, leaving behind a citrus aroma that now tasted bitter.
***
Back inside the bar, Tiger sensed another presence. His predatory instincts caught a foreign vibration lingering at the threshold of the entrance. He halted the rotation of his wheel of doom for a brief second. His eyes darted toward Black, who had almost reached the brink of the exit.
"Do you truly believe that door leads to your freedom, Black?" Tiger materialized from the remnants of the fog, standing right behind the frozen Black. "In the Abyss, an exit door is merely the beginning of an even deeper grave."
Right at that moment, the alarm on Black's wristwatch blared sharply.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
"Goodbye, you Demon!" Black screamed as he leaped outward, triggering the magnetic explosives he had wired across every pillar of the building.
BOOM!
Glosum's Maw erupted into a colossal ball of raging fire. The ancient structure collapsed, burying all sins and fractured bones within its ruins. Yet, amidst the towering flames roaring into the crimson sky of the Abyss, an orange shadow blurred past with lightning speed, slicing through the debris before the dust could even settle upon the earth.