The young man's sprint ended with a sound that didn't belong in this world.
The abomination opened its maw and screamed.
Not sound. Not even vibration. The screech was a knife of raw existence, a pressure that rattled teeth from jaws and squeezed the blood inside veins until it threatened to burst. The young man dropped to his knees, clutching his skull as crimson welled from his ears. His body refused to obey.
Then the cavern began to move.
The shadows peeled off the walls like tar, sliding toward the abomination's gaping maw. From its throat, bodies spilled — half-digested, still twitching, their
mouths gaping in silent agony. The creature was vomiting its victims, but they didn't fall as corpses.
They assembled.
Bones knit with splintering cracks, ribs stapled themselves together with strands of sinew. Spines locked into place with the shriek of grinding iron. Screams overlapped as the bodies fused, faces pressed into armor that was half-samurai, half-mass grave.
A monster took form.
It rose taller than the cavern should have allowed, plates of rusted armor fused
with twitching human torsos. The helmet was a skull stretched too wide, with dozens of teeth jammed into its grin. In its hand, it dragged a weapon forged from vertebrae and steel, dripping with rot.
The young man's breath hitched. He couldn't even scream. His body was chained by the screech, trembling like a marionette under invisible strings.
The giant samurai leaned forward, its eye sockets burning faintly red, and stepped. The cavern floor split, dust raining down as if the mountain itself recoiled.
Herwoj's entire right side burned like fire eating flesh. His arm was ruined — a mangled stump of blood and nerves after the Inheritance of a Thousand Wills tore through him.
His body convulsed, half from pain, half from the paralysis creeping in
carmichael assessing the situation says, "Not good… not good at all."
Herwoj forced a laugh through bloodied teeth, a bitter, broken sound.
"You think I don't know that? Look at my hand."
But Carmichael's tone wasn't mocking this time. It was edged with something heavier. Calculation.
"…And soon, it won't just be your hand. If that thing gets here, it'll be all of you."
Herwoj tried to drag himself upright, but his legs refused. Pain disguised the truth — he was frozen, just like the others.
.
Through the haze, he barely registered the crash — the young man slammed through the cave wall, skidding across the stone until he came to rest a few feet away, coughing blood into the dirt.
Herwoj's eyes widened, the pain briefly forgotten.
"Ohh… damn," he rasped, voice breaking. "So this is what you meant…"
His vision blurred. The world tilted. His eyes rolled half-shut.
Carmichael's voice snapped, vicious, raw:
"You motherfucker, you better not faint!"
Herwoj groaned, lips twitching into something like a smirk. "Ahhh… I never wanted to do this…"
Carmichael's voice darkened, almost gleeful with rage.
"Then listen. You'll owe me. A huge favor."
The last thing Herwoj felt was Carmichael's presence surging, sharp and invasive, as the darkness swallowed him whole.
The zombie samurai's shadow engulfed the cavern, its blade dragging sparks as it approached. Each step was a death knell, a drumbeat promising erasure.
The rabbit, watching from its shattered pedestal, threw its head back and laughed — a hideous, ecstatic sound that rang like broken bells.
Beyond, the gods leaned in through the abomination's gaze, their sight fractured but hungry. Their whispers coiled around the cavern, pressing down like a second gravity.
Every watcher, divine and damned, was waiting for the same thing.
To see if the heroes broke.
The zombie samurai raised its grotesque blade.
The cavern groaned beneath its weight as the weapon tilted downward, dripping rot and marrow. Shadows stretched, swallowing the young man and Herwoj whole, pinning them under the weight of impending death.
The rabbit's laughter built to a shrill ecstasy.
"Yesss! End them! Tear them apart!"
Through the abomination's fractured sight, the gods leaned in, hungry. This was the moment they waited for: collapse, despair, failure.
Herwoj lay barely conscious, his ruined hand twitching weakly. The young man was frozen, body locked by the screech's lingering grip. The samurai's blade descended.
And then the world shook.
The cave walls split with a violent crack, stone bursting outward in an avalanche of dust. From the opposite side of the chamber, something forced its way through — a blur of limbs, distortion, raw chaos.
For a heartbeat, it was impossible to tell if it was man, beast, or something worse. Its frame rippled, veins
glowing with unstable light, its shape warping as if reality itself struggled to contain it. Its mouth opened in a soundless snarl, shadows writhing around it like a second skin.
The rabbit's laughter stopped.
The gods' whispers faltered.
Because the "thing" didn't hesitate.
With a single, monstrous step, it lunged. The cavern cracked beneath its speed. And then — impact.
The zombie samurai, towering and grotesque, was kicked.
The blow landed like a thunderclap, the samurai's massive body hurled sideways into the cavern wall. Stone split, shockwaves ripping fissures through the floor. Dust and fragments rained down like a collapsing sky.
For a moment, silence followed.
The rabbit's crimson eyes widened, then narrowed. "…That's no ordinary monster."
Through the falling rubble, the figure straightened. Its chest heaved, steam curling from its skin. Its eyes glowed faintly, too alive, too wild, burning with a fury that wasn't entirely human.
The young man's breath caught in his throat.
"Another monster…?" he whispered.
But no — the face, beneath the distortion, beneath the unnatural glow, was one he recognized.
Kaito.
Or at least, what was left of him.
The cavern stilled in shock.
The rabbit froze mid-laugh. The gods, who only moments before had been savoring Herwoj's fall, now leaned closer, their voices breaking into gasps of awe.
That thing… no, that boy.
Through the distortion, pieces of a face flickered into view — eyes half-hidden by steam, a jaw clenched too tight. It was Kaito. But the power spilling out of him was feral, untamed.
"I—I don't know how long I can hold this!" his voice cracked, half human, half distorted growl. His body trembled as if the form itself was trying to tear him apart.
The young man, still pinned in agony, coughed blood and forced out a rasping plea.
"Two… minutes. Just buy me two minutes."
The cavern answered with another roar.
The zombie samurai dragged itself from the crater, its bloated frame cracking as broken limbs stitched themselves back together. Its dented chest swelled grotesquely, and with a violent heave it spat shards of sharpened bone — hundreds, screaming through the air like a storm of spears.
Kaito's body blurred.
He moved with savage, unstable speed, weaving between the bone projectiles, each miss leaving a gust that shook the dust from the walls. In the space of a blink, he had closed the gap, claws and fists wreathed in trembling light.
The zombie's single eye narrowed. It predicted the strike. Its blade swung to intercept.
But Kaito — or the monster inside him — twitched. It was as if he sensed that the zombie had sensed him. At the last instant, he bent his body at an impossible angle, ricocheting off the cave wall with explosive force.
The counter-strike turned into a feint.
The zombie roared, twisting its rotted bulk to defend — and still, the impact came.
BOOOOM!
The collision ripped through the cavern like a shockwave. The ground tore open, stalactites shattered, and entire slabs of stone collapsed. Dust blacked out the air.
But it didn't end there.
Even as their first strikes clashed, they poured more power
into the lock — Kaito's unstable form blazing brighter, the zombie's grotesque muscles bulging as bones cracked under the strain.
The cavern wasn't just shaking now. It was dying.
Rocks rained down like meteors. Cracks split the ceiling, threatening to bury them all.
And still, the two monsters pushed against each other, snarling, roaring, each strike louder than the last — a battle fit for the gods' stage.
The cavern was collapsing around them. Screams of stone echoed as walls split open, slabs falling like guillotines.
Kaito's body blurred through the haze — claws swiping, fists cracking air itself. He ricocheted off the zombie samurai's guard again, sparks and bone fragments flying from the contact. The monster's defense held, unyielding, a wall of rotting armor and twisted strength.
Kaito stumbled back, landing low, shoulders rising and falling. His breath wasn't just a breath anymore — it was a distorted growl layered over his own voice.
Why did I do this? His thoughts screamed against the static of his form. I swore I'd keep this hidden. I can't even control it… what if I hurt them? What if—
A flash of Herwoj's battered body.The image of the young man's bloodied face.
Fear ripped through him sharper than any strike. I'll kill them before I save them.
The zombie monster stomped forward, dragging its massive blade through the rubble, each step splitting the ground beneath its bulk. Kaito shifted his stance, knees coiling, claws tightening. He was about to lunge again—
"—Kaito."
The voice cut through the roar of collapsing stone.
Dust and rubble shifted on the far side of the cavern, where
a battered hand clawed its way out. The young man forced himself up from the wreckage, coughing blood but refusing to fall.
"Be careful of your surroundings," he growled, his tone heavy with grit. "You're swinging like a beast in a cage. If you lose sight, we're dead before that thing even kills us."
For a moment, the cave itself seemed to hush.
Kaito's glowing veins pulsed erratically, shadows writhing along his skin. His distorted head twitched toward the voice, glimpses of his face showing beneath the writhing form. His lips moved, barely his own:
"…I know…"
The zombie samurai roared, raising its weapon high. The ground cracked beneath its stance.
Kaito shifted, claws digging into the stone. This time his movements weren't just rage — the words of the young man cutting through the haze like a tether. He coiled his body tighter, ready to strike, but his fragmented thoughts still whispered in the back of his skull:
I don't know how long I can hold this. I don't know if I'll even survive it.
Then the monster lunged, and the cavern split in two.
The cave groaned like a dying beast. Cracks raced along the ceiling, boulders plummeting with every strike.
Kaito's claws blurred against the zombie samurai's blade — slash, crash, strike, recoil. Each collision sent shockwaves rippling through the cavern, dust flooding the air like smoke from a battlefield pyre.
The zombie swung with monstrous weight, every blow splintering stone, every roar rattling the marrow of the survivors hidden among the rubble. Herwoj lay limp, the young man dragging him desperately under a crumbling archway, their breaths drowned beneath the chaos.
Kaito's fragmented mind burned.End it quickly. Don't give it time. Don't give me time.
His body tensed into a stance — low, crouched, both hands clawing the ground like an Olympic sprinter waiting for the gun. Shadows writhed over his arms. His muscles coiled so violently the stone beneath him cracked.
Then — silence.
In the blink of an eye, Kaito vanished.
A thunderclap followed, stone walls shattering as he tore through the zombie monster with a speed that mocked sight itself. His body stretched into a blur of violence, smashing through one wall, then another, then another. The sound of his passage was like a meteor ripping through the earth.
The samurai zombie, dragged along the path of destruction, screamed as its armored body split the dungeon open.
The cavern couldn't contain them anymore. The walls gave way, bursting into sunlight like an open wound.
Kaito and the monster erupted onto the surface, crashing into the ruins above. Stone rained in jagged chunks, dust rising like a funeral pyre.
For one dizzying moment, Kaito staggered, his inhuman form thrashing against itself, but his glowing eyes locked onto something beyond the fight.
And he froze.
In the clearing, locked in its own struggle, stood another nightmare.
The Abomination — all teeth and writhing flesh, its grotesque limbs slashing at a shadowed figure. And that figure… the one who had spoken to the young man in the cave. The "final boss." The monster that was supposed to be sealed.
They were fighting.
Behind them, from the yawning hole torn open by Kaito's sprint, the young man clawed his way out, dragging Herwoj on his back. His arms shook from the weight, but his eyes burned with defiance. He followed the collapsed trail of stone, climbing through the wreckage, each step leaving streaks of blood across the broken slabs.
They weren't safe. Not even close.
The dungeon had only been the beginning.
[Status Warning: Survival Time Remaining — 5:00]