"There are no enemies among those who bleed beside you
—only truths that no longer need words."
-Sizzling Flesh-
The air reeked of rot and steam. Metal clashed. Flame howled. Mana sparked off stone.
The Dungeon Master—Armored Flesh—stood in the heart of the pit, shrieking with guttural resonance, a tower of muscle, bone, and red pulsing mass. Tendrils slithered and snapped in every direction. The pit was a blender of chaos.
And the hunters?
They moved as a fractured machine. Mismatched parts, held together not by trust—but by need.
Trevus, Camylle, and Harlen
Now stood side by side, backs barely apart.
Harlen snarled, blood dripping from a gash across his cheek, sword gripped tightly.
Camylle's hands blazed, flickering like twin torches, her breath ragged as embers scattered from her knuckles.
Trevus pivoted low, fluid and centered, his saber humming with reinforced mana, his eyes scanning for a breach in the beast's movement.
None of them had to speak.
The Dungeon Master didn't need words either.
The battle raged on.
Flesh tore. Steel rang. Fire screamed.
In the pit of Dungeon #47-F, seven combatants moved in a deadly dance against a monster that should not think—but clearly did.
It had watched them.
Measured their strengths.
Calculated their flaws.
Trevus ducked low, curved sabers flashing as he sheared off another writhing tendril.
Beside him, Camylle roared as her fists, wreathed in flame, smashed into the creature's armored ribs. Steam hissed where fire met sinew.
Her foot planted into the ground and she hurled a flaming uppercut, causing the flesh wall behind them to blacken and bubble.
Lotha stood farther back, glowing glyphs circling her hands, chants barely audible through the roar.
Nira slipped between the shadows, slicing wounds deep and unseen from beneath.And Ashe and Mina, hidden behind a broken archway, observed with bated breath—timing, learning, waiting for the moment they'd strike.
Then the creature shifted.
-The Switch-
It sensed the drop.
Harlen's mana was waning. Diminished. Fading into threadlight.
The Armored Flesh didn't hesitate. It knew what to do.
Seven tendrils uncoiled from its mass—fast and fluid—breaking off with the force of loosened armor plates. Bits of bone-plated skin clattered to the ground as the seven limbs twisted together, warping into one massive barbed wrecking limb, aimed straight at Harlen.
Harlen's eyes widened. He braced.
"Harlen—MOVE!" Camylle screamed.
The tendril crashed down like a siege hammer.
BOOM.
A geyser of dust and stone exploded into the air. The whole pit shook. Ashe and Mina, watching from behind a distant rock outcrop, shielded their eyes.
When the dust cleared—
Harlen was still standing.
Knees bent. Sword braced. Arms trembling.
The giant tendril had slammed into his blade, and he was holding the block.
His boots had carved two trenches into the stone.
His teeth were grit. Blood pooled in his mouth. But he stood.
"GRRAAAAGHH—!!" Harlen roared, pouring every last drop of mana he had into his sword. The metal glowed, vibrating under the pressure as he slashed, cutting halfway into the monstrous limb.
The Armored Flesh shuddered.
But it responded.
Spikes burst from the tendril—barbs of bone and metal—impaling through Harlen's armor with sickening force.
He gasped.
And that's when Trevus arrived.
"GET BACK!!" Trevus shouted.
His single curved saber gleamed in his hand.
A clean, precise strike. The blade sang.
The massive limb split—falling in half with a squelch, blood and bone splashing the ground.
The severed limb crashed beside Harlen with a wet, armored thud. Black-red blood sprayed across the stone.
Harlen stumbled, but Trevus caught him, locking his arm under his ally's.
"You're not dying today," Trevus said flatly.
"Still dramatic..." Harlen grunted through grit teeth, "...bastard."
Harlen staggered back, falling to one knee, breath broken.
Camylle rushed in next, planting a palm to Harlen's chest. A minor warm healing glyph glowed faint under her hand. Her jaw was clenched. Her eyes wide with something terrifying.
Not fear.
Genuine concern.
"Keep breathing" she muttered. "We're not done yet."
The moment lingered.
For just a second—there was silence.
The Dungeon Master twitched violently, spasming with sharp, erratic bursts like a puppet with cut strings. Camylle's last strike had scorched its core; a flaming rune had branded its central mass, sending waves of flame spiraling into its nervous flesh.
The party closed in.
They moved like one body, no longer fractured. A strange rhythm formed between them—a cadence found in near-death, rage, and necessity.
"Push it back—break it apart!"
The order was unspoken, shouted only in the clang of steel and roar of mana.
With Harlen wounded but alive, the battlefront reformed.
Trevus took point, his dual saber style reduced to one—but no less deadly.
Camylle, flame burning brighter than ever, now fought not for rage—but unity.
Lotha, unwavering, cast light and shield in rhythmic chant, her mana pulsing in layers.
Mina and Ashe, no longer just porters—moved like gears in the greater machine.
The Dungeon Master—Armored Flesh—reeled, staggering beneath their collective assault.
But it adapted. It learned. And it was angry.
-Flame, Steel, and Holy Word-
Camylle's foot slammed down, erupting a pillar of flame upward into the creature's underbelly.
"Incinerate!" she shouted, her gauntlets glowing white-hot.
Her fists blurred—three strikes, four, five, each contact sending chunks of flesh flying, igniting every wound.
Trevus darted through the smoke.
With a sharp exhale, he spun low, severing two searching tendrils that reached toward Camylle's flank.
He moved like water, cutting through gaps in armor, his breathing controlled, precise.
"Lotha! Now!" he called.
Lotha raised her hand. A single word echoed:
"Blessing!"
Golden light surged over the two frontliners—wounds slowed, movements hastened, and the miasma began to thin.
-Shadows and Sparks-
Ashe stood a few paces away, arms raised. Glyphs of illusory shimmer hovered around his palms, flickering like candlelight.
"I've got a veil prepped—Mina!" he called. "Lure it left! Blindside incoming!"
Mina didn't hesitate.
She whistled, then threw a blade—not to hit, but to draw attention.
The Armored Flesh twitched, following the blade's arc.
Too late.
Ashe whispered, "Veil Unseen."
A wave of warped light rippled over the monster's eyes.
For a split second, it couldn't tell what was real—what was solid.
Camylle punched straight through its faceplate, flames bursting from the impact like a volcanic crack.
Harlen Rises
Bruised, bleeding, but far from done—Harlen stood once more.
He tore the broken barbs from his side, threw away the dented shoulder plate, and picked up his blade.
"Tryin' to finish without me?" he barked. "Trevus—strike on my lead!"
Together, the two knights crossed paths, blades a blur of mirrored arcs.
Harlen's strike cracked the tendrils.
Trevus followed through, slicing the wound open wider.
From above, Camylle dropped, both feet aflame—slamming into the core, cracking bone.
And in the shadows near the rear wall—
Mina stood completely still.
While the others pressed forward, she watched—waited.
Unlike the rest, the Armored Flesh couldn't sense her. Not fully. Not clearly. The "Null", as they called her, slipped beneath its awareness.
And it was time to use that.
She crept closer to its lower flank, blades drawn.
"Ruth", for defense.
"Mischief", for the kill.
She saw the same eye that tried to reform in the flank.
She stabbed.
Once. Twice. Deep.
The eye burst in violet fluid, and the beast shrieked—lurching sideways in pain.
It had no idea what hit it.
-Formation Reset-
"Hold it down!" Trevus barked.
Camylle was already locking another tendril in a grapple of flame.
Harlen shoved his blade deep into a weak point near its spine.
Lotha's chants lit up the ceiling with radiant bursts.
Ashe amplified illusion fields to keep tendrils confused and slow.
Mina?
She rolled out of the way, blades smoking."Ashe!" she shouted. "Now or never!"
He nodded.
Glyphs lit up his palm—one final Shroud spell cast over Nira's last known location.
Because below, in the Realm of Shadows,
the bomb was ready.
The Dungeon Master staggered back.
For a heartbeat, it hesitated.
Then—
With a low, guttural groan reverberating through the chamber, it lurched toward the walls, flesh squelching wetly as it merged with the pulsating, veined mass of the dungeon itself.
"It's trying to escape!" Harlen shouted, raising his blade.
Camylle gritted her teeth, her hands already glowing bright orange as she extended both palms forward.
"Ignia: Ex-Flamethrower!"
A stream of white-hot flame roared from her arms, washing across the far wall, charring the merging flesh. The stench of burning rot flooded the air.
The Dungeon Master screeched, its voice like a chorus of broken bone and echoing mouths.
It retaliated.
A thin, whip-like tendril snapped from its side—too fast to track, too thin to see—and slashed Camylle across the side.
Camylle crumpled, she didn't screamed or flinch as her eyes followed the barb as it made it's mark.
A gaping wound torn through her midsection, smoke still rising from her hands.
"Camylle!" Lotha was already beside her, trembling as she dropped to her knees.
She raised both hands and shouted through the chaos,
"Sana Vitae Lux!"
A sphere of holy energy enveloped the fallen mage, trying to seal the wound. Camylle clenched her jaw, barely conscious, hand twitching as flames sputtered weakly from her fingertips.
Trevus stepped forward, his last saber raised in defense.
"Get her stable!" he barked. "I've got you covered!"
Tendrils whipped toward them again—but Trevus danced between the strikes, parrying three at once, his blade flashing like a silver arc in a storm of flesh.
Harlen's roar cut through the chaos.
"YOU FILTHY—FUCKER!" he surged forward, slamming his sword into the creature's ribs.
Despite the tendrils & barbs skewering over Harlen's frame, he resisted and continued pushing forward.
"YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY!"
And then—
A flash in the shadows.
Nira.
She moved like a whisper of death.
No longer hidden, no longer cloaked.
The battlefield was open. And the opportunity was perfect.
As the others gave their all in holding it back, she appeared behind the Dungeon Master, leaping upward—her feet using cracks and gore-slicked bones as footholds.
Three glowing charges, each etched with Camylle's glyphs, clung to her hip.
She climbed high enough to reach its exposed back—where the spine pulsed like a crown of thorns.
She threw the explosives into place, one by one, whispering to each:
"Bite deep."
She dropped down and shouted: "Camylle! IGNITE IT!"
Camylle's eyes fluttered open.
Her tattooed arm—etched with Ignition Sigils—flared.
With the last of her strength, she clenched her fist and chanted out.
"Ignia: Deto"
The runes across her forearm pulsed.
Boom.
BOOM.
BOOOOOOM.
A muted tremor. A blast of heat rolled across the room.
The final charge exploded—and with it, the entire chamber erupted in fire. Aroaring shockwave of flame engulfed the entire dungeon heart, swallowing the Dungeon Master in a storm of molten light.
The walls cracked. Flesh peeled.
Tendrils shrieked and withered.
Silence followed the inferno.
Just the flicker of dying flames and falling ash.
-The Anomaly-
Despite their efforts, the victory wasn't clean.
The fireball had torn through the chamber, consuming everything in its wake—but the cost was steep.
Camylle, spent and barely conscious, collapsed again into Lotha's trembling arms.
A heartbeat later, Lotha herself fell to her knees from the shockwave, exhausted beyond her limit, the last of her mana drained.
Harlen, his armor scorched and shattered, lay motionless—knocked out cold, his sword half-melted. Blood trickled from his shoulder, his body slumped beside the scorched remains of a wall. He was the nearest one to the explosion yet most of the Armored Flesh's body shielded him.
Trevus, caught mid-dash, was struck by falling debris. A slab of hardened flesh from the ceiling crushed part of the floor beneath him. He disappeared beneath rubble, only his bent saber sticking out from under the pile.
Ashe barely had time to react.
He grabbed Mina by the arm and pulled her behind a fallen pillar, both coughing through the smoke and dust. His hands trembled, the recoil of mana burnout catching up to him. His head spun.
And from behind the curtain of ash and fire—
Nira knelt, her body swaying. Her hood torn, her face pale and bloodied. She clutched her head—her concussion worsening. Even with her shadow affinity, the blast had stunned her nerves.
One by one, the party fell still.
Silence overtook the pit.
But then—a sound.
A wet, slithering skkrrchh— echoed across the blackened stone. Like a wet dull blade scraping against the stone floor.
It still moved.
Three-fourths of the Dungeon Master—Armored Flesh—had been blasted apart, torn, and scattered.
But not the core.
Its heart, hidden until now, was protected—encased within a cage of jagged tendrils that had formed a cocoon around it at the final second.
The tendrils had melted and cracked, but the monster still crawled.
Its true face now revealed: a monstrous, grotesque crab-like skull, split with rows of clicking teeth and multiple eyes glowing like hot coals.
It dragged itself forward—not walking, but clawing, twitching tendrils pulling it across the chamber.
Right toward Mina and Ashe.
Ashe groaned beside her, his eyes fluttering. He was barely conscious.
"No, no—Ashe—wake up...!" Mina shook him. "Come on, don't you dare pass out now!"
The creature howled, its echo like a death whistle.
Mina turned, drawing her blades with trembling hands.
She stood up—alone.
Her muscles screamed from exhaustion, her mana non-existent. Her vision swam. Still, she stepped forward, placing herself between the beast and Ashe.
Even if she couldn't win…
She'd buy him a few more seconds of life.
The monster leapt forward.
And then—
A hand grabbed her shoulder from behind.
Firm. Grounded. Unfamiliar.
Before she could react, she was yanked backward with Ashe in tow—just as a blur of blue and silver stepped in front of them.
SHHNKKK!!!—
One strike.
A spear shot through the air—longer than a greatsword, wrapped in old red ribbons, its rusted edge humming with violent energy.
The Dungeon Master didn't even scream.
It simply imploded, the spear piercing through its heart, its entire form splattered all over the room from the powerful force.
Gone.
Just like that.
The smoke cleared. Blood rained down.
The one who stood there... was a tall man. Older. Weathered.
He wore a tattered Flame Servant's cuirass, mostly obscured beneath a worn blue coat, its hem frayed from travel and battle. His long white hair flowed past his shoulders. Over his covered face was an old, dented iron mask, and in his grip, a towering spear—longer than a man was tall, the shaft cracked with age but still humming with sealed power. His face—hidden behind a battered iron mask—let out a raspy cough, muffled by the helm.
He drove the spear into the ground to stabilize himself.
Mina stared at him, her eyes wide with confusion, awe—and a strange flicker of recognition.
Even through the exhaustion, the memory snapped into place.
That voice. That presence.
The grunts. The coughs.
"…Who is that?" Mina whispered.
The old man said nothing.
He turned slightly, as if to acknowledge her—but not to answer.
Then, slowly, he lifted his spear from the ground and began to walk past her, the ash parting at his feet.
The old man coughed into his palm, a coarse, gravelly rasp—faintly tinged with blood. His gaze lowered, locking onto the emblem stitched just below Mina's shoulder: A tropical tree inside a green pentagon, the mango sigil at its heart.
His eyes, hidden behind the iron mask, narrowed with a memory long buried.
Then he crouched beside her.
"…Tropico Guild," he muttered with a smirk.
"I see they haven't changed the insignia. How kind of them. Still pretending they remember."
Mina furrowed her brows. "You know the Guild?"
He didn't answer—at least, not directly.
Instead, he studied her face. Her hands. Her posture. Then, his tone shifted.
"You're not like the others."
Mina's pulse quickened. She focused inward, a reflex more than instinct, trying to gauge his mana signature—but there was nothing. No flux. No aura. Not even a trace in the air.
He was an empty space.
Just like her.
"Y-you're like me," she whispered.
The man tilted his head slightly.
"Yes," he said. "I am."
For a moment, there was stillness. No roar. No distant howls. Only the faint hissing of burned flesh walls and the crackling of dying embers.
Then, without a word, the man rose and stepped past her.
It wasn't long before he got to work. No hesitation. No wasted movement.
With shocking ease, he lifted Trevus from beneath the rubble, Harlen over his shoulder, and Nira and Lotha by their collars like misbehaving children.
He carried them to a safer stretch of corridor—an open space lit faintly by flickering dungeon glyphs.
Mina followed closely, dragging Ashe, who remained unconscious, suffering from acute mana-burnout. She laid him down gently next to the others.
"Lay them down gently," the old man instructed. "This place is still breathing."
She turned back to the old man, heart still racing.
"H-how did you do it?" she asked. "You're a Null… like me. But you… you finished that thing like it was nothing."
He scoffed quietly, avoiding the question.
Instead, he knelt again to gently lift Camylle, who lay bloodied and groaning near the blast site. He carried her with surprising care and added her to the wounded.
Only then did he finally speak—gruff, but calmer.
"I've been trapped in this dungeon for… weeks."
Mina's eyes widened.
"Trapped?"
He nodded, brushing dust off his shoulder.
"I entered from the Juluo Region, north of here probably."
"North!?" Mina said, stunned. "We're in the Apusa Region!"
The old man chuckled.
"Then that confirms it. This dungeon's not just large. It's connected… deeper than the Guild thought. Cross-regional, maybe even pan-continental. I've been looking for the Dungeon Core… or the Master. Either would've opened the gate of where I came from."
"Well…" Mina smiled faintly. "I'm glad you found us. You saved our lives."
The old man fell silent. As if contemplating something.
Then, with a slow inhale, he removed his glove and extended a rough, scarred hand.
"Name's Theseus…" he hesitated, "…Theseus Alistor."
Mina raised an eyebrow. The name didn't ring any bells.
But something in the way he said it… suggested he expected it to.
"Mina," she replied, accepting the handshake. "Mina Meijer."
She paused, then added quickly:
"B-but keep the last name secret, alright? Not everyone's supposed to know it."
Theseus held her gaze a moment longer. His grip firm, but not forceful.
"…It's a promise."
End of Chapter 8...