"We can't keep going like this."
Those were a participant's last words before the pale stalker above him made the point moot.
No one screamed.
It was not for lack of fear—terror was carved into every face.
Into every set of clenched, white-knuckled hands—but because screaming squandered air, and air was the most precious resource they possessed.
The pale stalkers had herded the rear guard into a constricting circle of shifting bodies and flickering mana, and the circle was closing.
Henry had no weapon in his hands.
This was not oversight.
"Fire of Death."
A fireball appeared between his palms — orange-white, dense, the compressed heat of fire mana at serious output. He held it for half a second. Long enough for the nearest cluster of pale stalkers to register the light source and begin adjusting to it.
He threw it before the adjustment could be completed.
The explosion claimed four stalkers and one participant who had been standing too close to the blast radius. Henry had calculated the distance. He had made the calculation deliberately. He was not thinking about it now.
"Damn it, they just keep coming."
The words slipped out quieter than he meant.
He had files on this dungeon, ones he'd gotten through connections that opened doors closed to regular participants.
Henry had always known that information was the one edge no brute strength could take from him.
The files had detailed the pale stalkers' pack behavior, their ambush tactic, their strength-to-threat ratio for cautious hunters, but-
The files had not mentioned this.
He'd cleared plenty of A-rank dungeons and even tackled S-rank zones with the right backup of experienced hunters. But this dungeon was different—adaptive, government-run, and intentionally more complicated than the usual classifications. Still, after sizing it up, he figured the creatures here were tougher and smarter than standard fauna, but nothing he couldn't handle with the right prep.
He had been wrong. Not entirely — the pale stalkers were killable, and their individual strength matched his estimates. What his estimates had failed to account for was the number.
The files described standard pale stalker clustering: eight to fifteen per territory.
He was looking at sixty at minimum, and still growing.
Where are they coming from?
He conjured two smaller fireballs, one in each hand—dialing back their power to make them last longer, favoring steady offense over a single big blast.
The stalkers closed in from the front. He let both fly at once, two tight explosions that cleared the area for a moment before it quickly began to fill again.
"There are too many."
"Wow." The voice behind him was sharp enough to etch glass. "I didn't notice."
He had forgotten, briefly, that he wasn't alone.
The dark-haired woman at his back had a compact pistol in each hand, firing with the steady, deliberate rhythm.
"Subject 77," he said.
"It's Venia," she said with annoyance in her voice.
He couldn't focus on remembering names right now. They stood back-to-back in the middle of a tightening circle, and his mind could calculate the rate it was closing in, whether he liked it or not.
"I told you this would be a bad idea," she said.
She had—before he'd rallied the rear group, before he'd made the call. Now he was standing in the middle of it all.
"You've been bragging about your connections. Now's the time to use them—we're about to die."
"I expected more to join us."
Venia let out a sharp, precise scoff. "Yeah, like our enemies would ever fight beside us." She paused. "We're going to die carrying nothing but regret and anger." Another pause, softer.
"I'm going to die." Henry didn't dispute it.
"KYAAAHH—"
The scream ended abruptly, cut off as if something had silenced it before it could finish. Henry noted it on the left flank—another body added to the diminishing count. He didn't look. looking would mean paying attention to something he couldn't change.
Instead, he focused on the bigger picture.
Most of the participants had fled.
The people he had rallied—the ones who had charged into the pale stalker horde, believing that running was worse—most of them were now deeper in the dungeon. They were gone.
Damn cowards.
It was just him and Venia, two people in a closing circle.
He lifted his hands for another fireball, calculating the mana cost against what he had left, tallying the stalkers against how fast they were going down, and landing on the number he'd already expected —
BOOM.
The explosion came from outside the circle. Beyond the stalkers' perimeter, from the direction of the main tunnel.
KREEEHHH.
Henry had never heard that sound from a pale stalker before. It was higher than their usual pitch and sharper—a specific tone that indicated prey had just realized it was being hunted.
Whatever was there, the stalkers deemed it a different type of threat compared to them.
Then he saw her.
She drifted through the smoke mid-air with the effortless grace of someone who saw height as an advantage, not a challenge. Her hair was green, her ember-bright eyes catching the bioluminescence and reflecting it back with a warmer glow.
She held a bow without an arrow notched—because the arrow was already flying, already burning with the deep, rich green of Mana Force condensed to a single, brilliant point.
"BOOM."
The detonation that followed was larger than any fireball Henry had produced, and the pressure wave moved horizontally rather than radially, pushing the stalkers sideways rather than simply reducing them.
"This is fun!" Nia said, gripping Sylvie's bow. She didn't need it, but Ares said it would be like a game.
Five stalkers gone. The left edge opened.
"What the hell—"
BASH.
Something landed two meters to his right with the heavy thud of something much bigger than it looked. He turned.
Jones had shown up the way he seemed to do everything — no warning, carrying a tower shield, and moving with the absolute certainty of a man who already knew which way was forward and had no doubts left about it. The right flank gave way where he struck.
"Not sure it was the smartest move to choose a side," Jones remarked to someone behind him, cleaving a pale stalker in one swift motion with the edge of his shield as he spoke.
"You're the tank. Just telling you would ruin the fun." Ares stepped through the gap Jones had made, sword in hand, moving with the deliberate ease of someone whose lack of haste was entirely intentional.
"And how is this fun? I'm playing with my life here—"
"You forgot to say the word."
Jones groaned, a sound of pure, prolonged suffering. Then, with the resigned energy of a man honoring a commitment he did not willingly make, "BASH. BASH. BASH."
The roar rattled off the tunnel walls. The pale stalkers at the right flank hesitated, which was all it took.
"Why is that low-rank here."
Henry's frown appeared instantly, plain for all to see, before Venia gave him a sharp smack on the back of the head.
"Be glad they came. We're heading out."
She didn't give him a chance to reply. Grabbing his wrist, she pulled him toward the corridor Nia had cleared through the left side of the circle.
The gap was closing fast. Henry spun around, digging deep into what little strength he had left, channeling every ounce into his hands. The fireball that formed was the biggest he'd made all night—wild and rough, born of desperation rather than careful control. With a final push, he hurled it over the path they'd taken.
The pale stalkers saw it coming, and a few tried to back away. The fireball caught them in the act, the blast shaking the tunnel floor and sending a shudder through the stone that rattled Henry's back teeth.
Venia seized the distraction, reloading both pistols and firing into the horde to cover the retreat's rear as the stalkers took in the explosion.
Then something stopped them.
Not some pale stalker—just a hand. Nia stepped into the path ahead, casually extending her arm. Henry ran into it and came to a sudden stop. Venia followed half a second later, letting out a sound that wasn't quite a word.
"What are you—"
She didn't finish. Nia crouched, positioned herself, and stood up with Henry across one shoulder and Venia across the other as if she were retrieving luggage. The motion was economical, almost gentle, and entirely absurd.
"How is she this strong?" was the shared thought of two people who had far more questions than answers and even less chance to voice them, as Nia had already leapt.
The pale stalkers below them reached up at nothing.
She touched down next to Ares and Jones, placing them gently, as if they were fragile, before stepping back.
"Great." Venia glanced at the stalkers regrouping around them. "Back to square one."
Ares didn't respond, his attention fixed on Henry.
"The information," he said. "What's in them?"
Henry's eyes narrowed. "Hah?"
"Don't play dumb. You tapped into the dungeon's intel before we came in — that's why you were bold enough to rush in from the start." A pause. "And why you're standing here alive instead of dead."
"Even if that's true," Henry said, his voice dropping low, "why would I share anything with you? You're a D-rank."
The circle was still closing. Jones was holding the right side. Nia had taken the left and was working through it with the focused efficiency of someone weeding a garden.
The barrel of Venia's pistol appeared at Henry's temple.
He looked at it. Then at her.
"Venia."
"Tell him," she said, "or I'll make you. After everything you put me through, I honestly couldn't care less which way this goes."
Henry glanced at the gun. At Ares. At Jones, gripping a line that should've snapped twice by now. At Nia, who'd just decked a pale stalker so hard it sailed over two of its friends on the way down.
"Fine." He straightened. "But this changes nothing between us."
"I know," Ares said.
"The pale stalkers travel in clusters—"
"We've seen what they do. Tell me something we haven't."
Henry's jaw tightened, but the gun at his temple stayed perfectly steady.
"They're cannibals.
They move through underground tunnels like moles — that's why their numbers keep growing. And like ants—" He paused. "They follow a Queen."
Jones, from the right side, grunting through an impact: "Then where is the Queen—"
"Ares."
Sylvie and Marcus emerged from the tunnel entrance. Sylvie's dark hair was plastered to one side of her face with an unmistakable smear of pale stalker substance, and the look on her face left no doubt about her feelings toward it.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Was just about to get useful information before you interrupted."
"Sorry. I've been fighting creatures I've never met while covered in whatever this is." She gestured at herself with the dagger she brought in. "Forgive me for not being more patient."
Marcus stayed silent, taking his place at the back of the group's formation. His eyes swept the tunnel with the kind of sharp, practiced focus that only came from twenty years in dungeons, warning him when things were about to shift.
"Henry," Ares said. "Continue."
"The Queen," Henry said. "The files say she stays in her nest at all times. She only leaves for two reasons: hunting, or—"
RUMBLE.
The tunnel floor shifted—not from an explosion, but from a deep, structural vibration, the kind caused by something massive moving far below the stone.
RUMBLE.
Every pale stalker in the corridor stopped.
Those pressing Jones stepped back.
Those circling Nia's position retreated a full meter without making a move.
The ones on the perimeter froze, with the unmistakable stillness of animals responding to a signal from a source higher than anything else in their priority list.
Then they began to retreat.
All of them pulled back,
vanishing into the tunnel openings quickly. The corridor cleared with a swiftness that made the chaos of the last five minutes feel like a distant memory.
Nobody spoke for a moment. They didn't know what to say.
"Hey. Low-rank."
Henry's voice had shifted. The displeasure lingered — that ingrained resentment of someone branded D-rank and determined to keep marking it — but beneath it was something new, a note that hadn't been there before.
Caution.
"I suggest you have a plan for this."
"For what?" Ares asked, frowning.
"For her." Henry glanced toward the far end of the corridor.
"From the files. When there's a rumble on the first floor—" He paused, then continued. "She's coming." The wall at the corridor's far end broke and became an entry point for the figure emerging
It stood in the breach.
A pale stalker, technically speaking, with the species' coloration and general shape—though only in the way a hurricane shares a classification with a spring shower. It was big enough to make the tunnel feel suddenly smaller.
Three bone-white spikes jutted from its head in a crown-like formation, each long enough to serve as a weapon. When her eyes locked onto the group, they lacked the usual reactive targeting of a standard pale stalker. She was assessing.
The Queen.
The tunnel was eerily quiet, save for the sound of each person in the group finishing their assessment of what they saw and reaching the same conclusion in their own unique way.
Ares looked at it for one full second.
"Shit."