Chapter Fifteen: Before the Dive
The last night before the dungeon was different from any ordinary night at the academy.
Not because anything unusual happened. But because everyone was in their own place in a way that said they knew what was coming tomorrow.
Zikro was in the private training hall. Completely alone. The lights were dim and his blue aura filled the space around him. He wasn't practicing new things — he was repeating the same movement over and over. One strike. Refining it. Repeating it. Refining it again. Until it became exactly what he wanted. Fili sat in the corner reviewing data in silence, her pen never stopping, but her eyes lifting toward him occasionally in a way she didn't usually do.
Neon was in a small nearby restaurant. His back against the wall, a plate in front of him he hadn't eaten much from, his orange eyes staring at the ceiling. No phone, no book, nothing. Just him and the ceiling and a silence that seemed comfortable to him in a way that didn't suit his usual personality.
Kaya in her room. Lying on the bed with complete calm, slowly eating something she held. Her sword on the wall directly in front of her — not to the side, not in a corner, directly in front of her. As though she wanted it in her line of sight. Her eyes open, looking at the ceiling.
Nour was the only one who seemed normal — practicing in his own way, failing at some technique, laughing, trying again. But even his laughter was quieter than usual by a margin that was barely noticeable.
Shina was reviewing her notes when she heard the knock on the door.
One knock only.
She opened it. Iris stood in the frame. She didn't say why she had come. She just looked at her.
Shina opened the door wider.
They sat in silence. The device was closed. The lights were dim. The night outside the window.
The silence stretched for a long time before Shina spoke.
"I don't understand what's happening."
Iris didn't respond. But she didn't ask what she meant. Because she already knew.
"A full week beside him. I studied every movement, every reaction, everything." She paused. "And nothing completed itself. Everything I tried to analyze disappeared before it became anything."
Iris said nothing.
"And that frightens me."
Iris looked at her this time.
"Not fear of him. Something else." Silence. "Every time I see him not trying, not caring, not expressing anything — it unsettles me. As though I want to step away."
"But you haven't stepped away," Iris said.
"No."
A long silence.
"Neither have you."
Iris looked at the window.
"I…" She paused. "I don't know how to describe what I feel."
"Try."
"Like I've seen him before." She stopped. "Not as someone I know. But as something familiar in a way I can't explain." She looked at her fingers. "At first I thought it was because of what I went through before. The incident when I was young. I thought I was seeing something of myself in him."
"And after the week?"
"The feeling grew stronger. But it didn't become clearer." Silence. "It became stranger."
Shina looked at her.
"I feel that too. Like I know him from somewhere I can't remember." She paused. "And that's exactly what unsettles me more than anything else."
A different silence this time. Not the silence of two people who have nothing to say. But the silence of two people who have too much to say and cannot say it.
"I was going to ask him to withdraw," Iris said.
"I know."
"Why didn't you tell me not to?"
"Because I wasn't sure you were wrong."
The room stayed silent after that.
Iris didn't leave. She stayed sitting until dawn came slowly through the window.
The main gate in the morning was crowded in a way unlike any ordinary crowding.
Not just the numbers — but the weight. Every person carried something in their face that didn't resemble confidence and didn't resemble fear exactly. Something between the two.
Teams gathering. Weapons being checked. Scattered murmurs. Tense laughter born and dying quickly.
Zikro stood with his team with a steadiness that resembled a wall. Nour beside him trying to joke but no one laughed. Fili reviewed her device one last time then closed it.
Neon leaned against the wall. His orange eyes moved around the space in a way that seemed random but wasn't.
Kaya in the corner eating something small. Her face calm as always. But her hand on her sword's hilt was more ready than usual.
Rio stood in front of everyone. Silent. Waiting.
Then Shina's team arrived.
The murmurs changed in the moment everyone saw them.
Not because of Shina. And not because of Iris.
But because of the third person walking between them.
Ozoki. His black hood. His staff. The dead aura that had never changed.
"They actually brought him," a student from a nearby team whispered.
"First and second in the rankings with someone outside the System," another said at lower volume.
"The point system is smart but—"
A fourth voice cut them off: "But inside the dungeon the points won't protect you."
Shina heard all of this. Her face didn't change. But her fingers on her device pressed harder than they needed to.
Iris looked at no one. Only ahead.
Ozoki didn't move. He didn't appear to have heard. Or perhaps he heard and saw no difference.
Zikro saw Ozoki.
One look. Short. No contempt in it, no anger this time. Something else he couldn't name even himself. Fili noticed this look and wrote something in her device without lifting her head.
Neon saw the three of them. Saw Zikro looking at them. Then saw something else in the whole scene that he said nothing about. He looked at the ceiling.
And went quiet.
In a place no one could see, in the air near the gate, two things watched.
The girl stood in silence. Her black hair, her red eyes fixed on Ozoki. No clear expression on her face. But in her eyes something very old — something that had seen this moment before, countless times, in different forms.
Shin beside her. His black coat, his golden eyes, the smile that never disappeared.
"Level Seven dungeon." He murmured to himself more than to her. "This will be interesting."
The girl didn't respond.
"Do you know what's going to happen?"
She looked at him for one second. Then returned to looking at Ozoki.
Shin smiled a smile quieter than usual.
"Me too."
Rio spoke.
"The rules are simple. Survival first. Points second. Whoever gets out, gets out. Whoever doesn't stays until time runs out. Any team that exceeds the safety limit will be automatically withdrawn."
He looked at everyone with a single gaze that swept the entire room.
"The dungeon will open in thirty seconds."
The thirty seconds passed in a silence heavier than any silence that had ever passed in this place.
Then the gate opened.
The first thing that arrived was the sound.
Not the sound of danger. Not the sound of battle. But the sound of the sea.
Waves striking something distant, wind carrying the smell of salt and something else — something old and alive at the same time, the sound of birds no one had seen yet.
Then the picture completed itself.
An island.
A wide expanse of land in the middle of a sea that seemed to have no end. A dense forest filling most of it — enormous trees whose branches intertwined until they blocked daylight in many places. Some at sizes that didn't suit any natural tree, their trunks wider than several people standing side by side. The ground underfoot was wet, carrying old moss and roots protruding like fingers from the dark soil.
No clear horizon in any direction. Only the sea and the island and the sky above.
The plants were striking in a way that combined beauty with warning. Some glowed with a faint green color even in daylight — healing plants according to what Shina had studied. Others were a deep red, beautiful in a way that made you want to touch them while something deep inside told you that you shouldn't.
And in the forest, sounds.
Not one sound — but layers of sounds. Some animalistic and familiar, some familiar but in a wrong way, and some no one had heard before.
Before the story began, a moment.
Forest. Night. Blood.
The enormous trees around this moment broken as though something massive had torn through them with force. The ground ripped apart. Small fires burning in scattered patches. The sounds of monsters from every direction — not the sounds of animals moving, but the sounds of things breaking and collapsing.
Iris standing. Her icy aura around her but cracking under pressure. Her body carrying wounds she hadn't bothered with. Her face looking at something in front of her.
Ozoki lying on the ground. His broken body covered in blood that wasn't only his — blood of many things that had no shape anymore.
Iris looked at him. Then looked at what surrounded her. Then at the sky that didn't look natural above this island in this moment.
"How did we get here?" she said.
Then the moment returned to its beginning.
Every team separated in its own way from the first moment.
Teams that headed inward immediately without hesitation. Others that stayed near the entry point watching and analyzing. One team that split internally in the first minute because of a disagreement about direction.
Zikro and his team moved with strict discipline — no unnecessary words, no hesitation, as though they had executed this plan a hundred times before.
Shina's team moved with deliberate slowness.
Shina at the front, her device recording everything. Iris covering the side and rear. Ozoki between them — walking with his usual steps, his hands sometimes touching the trees as they passed as though reading them.
The forest around them was dense enough to make visibility limited. Sounds from every direction but nothing had approached yet. Shina had studied this level. She knew what was dangerous in theory. But theory and reality were always two different things.
After twenty minutes they found the cave.
A narrow entrance behind a large rock, the inside wide enough for three people. Its walls dry despite the moisture outside. Far enough from the movement paths they had identified.
What they didn't know — what they wouldn't know until the time had already passed — was that this particular cave was one of the reasons for what would happen later.
"Good position," Shina said. "We study it and decide."
"Hidden enough," Iris said.
They began examining the space. Ozoki sat at the entrance. His staff in his hand.
The feeling came before anything else.
A slight change in the air. Something Ozoki's body noticed before his mind did.
His hand on the staff pressed lightly.
Iris noticed this.
"What?"
Ozoki didn't respond. But he slowly turned his head toward the trees on the left.
They both looked in the same direction.
Movement behind the trees. It stopped. Then appeared.
A monkey. Medium sized, its fur dark brown, its eyes watching them with quiet interest. It sat on a nearby branch and looked at them for a moment. Then disappeared into the trees with the same calm with which it had appeared.
"Just a monkey," Shina said.
"Yes," Iris said.
They relaxed.
But Ozoki didn't loosen his grip on his staff.
The first hours passed in an orderly way.
Shina building a mental map of the surrounding area. Iris collecting the healing plants the data had identified in advance. Ozoki moving with them — slow, silent, initiating nothing but not falling behind.
The small monsters in the forest appeared and disappeared from a distance. Not approaching too closely. As though they too were watching and assessing.
Everything was proceeding as planned.
But somewhere in the forest, from an angle where no light reached, behind trees denser than anywhere else on this island, something had been watching them since the moment they entered.
It didn't move.
It made no sound.
It only watched.
And waited.
End of Chapter Fifteen