Haruki lay in a crater of his own making, the hot, sticky spray of Vorian's blood drying on his cheek. The Commander's screams had faded into a wet, gurgling silence, the man's body crumpled beside his shattered greatsword.
Rico stood over them, a monolith of bleeding meat and malice. His two stumps were still bubbling, trying to regenerate, but the fire from the power stones had been unnatural—it resisted the healing, cauterizing the wounds with a stubborn, searing heat.
The Great Demon looked down at Haruki.
"You," Rico wheezed, his chest heaving. "You made me cut off my own arms. Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what you have done to a Ruban?"
Haruki stared up at him. He couldn't move his right arm. His left was a numb weight. His vision was blurring.
*I bought time,* Haruki thought. *And it wasn't enough.*
Rico raised his foot, the heel glowing with condensed mana. A executioner's axe made of bone.
"Goodbye, Haruki Sora. I will keep your eyes. They look... defiant."
The foot began to descend.
Then—
*CLAP.*
The sound was not loud. It was immense.
It didn't come from the room. It came from everywhere. A thunderclap of such magnitude that it bypassed the ears and struck the soul directly.
The dungeon stopped.
The air pressure plummeted. The shadows on the walls fled in terror.
The floor beneath them lurched. Not a shake—a vertical displacement. The entire spire, the entire fifth floor, jumped three inches into the air and then crashed back down.
*CRUUUUNCH.*
The obsidian walls split. The ceiling groaned, massive chunks of stone shearing off and falling into the abyss below.
Rico stumbled, his execution kick missing Haruki's head by an inch and shattering the floor instead.
"What?" Rico hissed, his head snapping up. "Who dares?"
The town shook.
It wasn't a tremor. It was a violation. The earth roared, splitting the cobblestones of the market square. The water in the fountain erupted into the air.
Panic erupted. People screamed, flooding out of the guild hall, looking toward the dungeon entrance in the distance.
Inside the medical ward, the bed jumped.
Maren's eyes snapped open.
The pain in her missing hands was gone, replaced by a cold, hollow phantom sensation. But the fear... the fear was real.
"Earthquake!" a nurse screamed, grabbing the doorframe.
Maren sat up, her bandaged stumps throbbing. She stared at the window, at the dust rising from the hill where the dungeon sat.
*It's him,* she thought, a cold pit forming in her stomach. *He's dead. He has to be dead. No human survives that.*
The door to the room slammed open.
Guildmaster Boros stood there, his face grim, his normally composed demeanor shattered by the urgency in his eyes. He held a glowing communication crystal.
"We have a Class-A alert!" Boros roared, looking at the healer. "Get the civilians to the shelters!"
"Guildmaster!" Maren choked out.
Boros looked at her. He saw the despair in her eyes. He looked at the blood on her bandages.
"Stay down, girl," he said, though his voice lacked its usual bite. "You did your part. You lived."
"What happened?" she asked, her voice trembling.
Boros gripped the doorframe as another aftershock hit.
"The dungeon just woke up," he said grimly. "Something deep... something ancient just moved. I'm summoning an investigation team. Gold-rank. We're going in."
He looked at the dungeon.
"Whatever is happening down there... it's a disaster."
The dust settled slowly, choking the air.
Haruki gasped, the movement sending a spike of pain through his broken ribs. The world was tilting, sliding sideways as the dungeon's geometry struggled to maintain itself.
"Sol..." Haruki thought, his mental voice a whisper. "What... what was that?"
"Impact detected," Sol said. His voice was devoid of emotion, purely analytical. "Source: Deep Floor. Classification: S-Class Calamity."
"S-Class?"
"The awakening," Rax said, his voice unusually serious. "The thing that was sleeping? It just rolled over in bed, kid. And the whole house is shaking."
Haruki coughed, blood splattering his lips.
Rico was looking toward the deepest part of the dungeon, his eyes wide. For the first time, the madness in his gaze was tempered by... confusion. Even fear.
"Father..." Rico whispered.
The distraction was minimal. But it was there.
"Haruki," Sol commanded. "Get up. Run. That earthquake bought you three seconds. Use them."
"Run where?" Haruki thought, trying to move his legs. They didn't respond. "I can't... I can't move."
"He's going to kill you," Rax said. "And then he's going to kill the Commander. And then he's going to go upstairs and kill everyone else."
"We need a miracle," Sol stated.
"Or a plan," Rax countered.
Haruki felt a surge of defiance. "Do you have one? You said 1%. Did that change?"
"It got worse," Sol said. "Probability of survival is now effectively zero. The Commander is down. You are down. The dungeon is collapsing."
"Then what do we do?" Haruki screamed internally.
"We use the last resort," Rax said.
Haruki blinked. "Last resort? You never mentioned a last resort."
"Because it's a suicide move," Sol snapped. "Rax, don't. The structural integrity of the host cannot handle—"
"We have no choice, Sol!" Rax roared back. "Look at him! Look at Rico! We don't have mana. We don't have health. We have *nothing left to lose*."
"What is it?" Haruki asked, cutting through their argument. "Tell me."
Silence in the mind.
Then, Rax spoke. His voice was heavy.
"It's a plan with a 0.1% success rate," Rax said. "We call it... The Podium Plan."
Haruki saw a flash of data. It wasn't a skill. It was a schematic.
It involved the SSS+ skill. The fire in his hand. And the very nature of the dungeon itself.
"It will either kill the demon," Rax said, "or it will kill us instantly. There is no middle ground."
Haruki looked at Rico. The demon was turning back toward him, the confusion fading, replaced by renewed hunger.
"Do it," Haruki said.
"Haruki—" Sol started.
"We're already dead, Sol," Haruki whispered. "So let's try to take him with us."
He focused on the fire in his hand.
*Initiating Podium Plan.*
TO BE CONTINUED...