The ruins outside Tokyo were older than the city itself—massive stone structures sunken into the earth, riddled with collapsed catacombs, ancient scripts, and mana-saturated corridors that twisted like a forgotten labyrinth. No maps existed for this place. At least, not accurate ones.
Minwoo descended the crumbling steps into the earth, every footfall echoing in the cold, dust-choked silence.
This wasn't just a test. It was a death sentence.
He reached for the Bakura Dagger, unsheathing it with a slow breath. Its edge shimmered in the dim light, the blood-red gem at its hilt pulsing faintly.
"Veyl," he murmured to himself. "Let's see what you're hiding."
For three days, he hunted.
The ruins tested him. Traps—both mechanical and magical—waited around every bend. Specters, remnants of fallen adventurers, haunted the deeper tunnels, attacking with rage and desperation.
Minwoo moved like a ghost himself—silent, efficient, bleeding when he had to, resting only when his mana was nearly gone.
On the fourth day, he found the first sign.
A corpse.
Fresh.
An A-rank adventurer—throat slit, chest carved with a strange symbol: a spiral of knives pointing inward. Not a clean kill. A message.
And scrawled in blood on the wall behind the body:
"The guilds are the disease. I am the cure."
Minwoo stared at the message for a long time. Then he pressed forward.
On the fifth day, the nightmares began.
He slept only in brief intervals, wedged between fallen stones or beneath collapsed statues. Each time he closed his eyes, he dreamed of fire and blood—of Kinro dead at his feet, of the Bakura Dagger turning in his hand and slicing through friends.
He awoke gasping, sweating, the dagger vibrating faintly in his grip.
"Not now," he growled. "You don't control me."
But the whispers were growing louder.
On the sixth day, he found the chamber.
It was deep in the ruins—beneath layers of stone, past ancient pressure seals and mana barriers. A hall lit by flickering blue torches, the walls covered in murals depicting a war that had never been recorded in any book.
At its center stood a single figure.
Masked. Cloaked in gray and black, armor designed for silence and speed. A curved blade rested in his hand, the edge glimmering with poison.
"Minwoo," the figure said, voice calm, echoing in the chamber. "You found me."
"Veyl," Minwoo replied. "Why?"
Veyl didn't answer right away. He turned to face the mural behind him. "The guilds feed on the weak. They send D-rankers to die while their elders sit in towers, drinking wine and debating who lives and dies. I was like you once. Hungry. Angry. But then I saw the truth."
Minwoo tightened his grip on the dagger. "So you became a killer?"
"I became free."
The tension snapped in an instant.
Veyl moved fast—blindingly fast. His blade hissed through the air, coated with a shimmering toxin that ate through stone.
Minwoo met the strike with the Bakura Dagger, shadows spiraling around his arm.
Clang!
They clashed again and again—Veyl a blur of lethal precision, Minwoo matching him with agility and raw instinct.
The chamber shook with each strike.
"You've been marked," Veyl said, voice strained. "That dagger… the whispers? They're not your thoughts anymore."
"I know what's mine!" Minwoo shouted.
Their blades locked, faces inches apart.
"Do you?" Veyl whispered.
Minwoo staggered back. His vision was blurring. The dagger in his hand pulsed like a heartbeat—not his own.
He could feel something inside him changing.
If he let the Shadow Domain out again here—fully—it could destroy everything.
But if he didn't… he would die.
He looked at Veyl—this rogue, this former A-ranker who had walked away from the system, whose ideals were twisted but whose pain was real.
Minwoo made his choice.
"I'm not like you," he said. "But I understand you."
Then he opened the Domain.
The world turned black and gray. Time slowed.
Veyl's eyes widened as shadows surged from the walls, crawling up his legs, dragging him down.
He fought—but he was mortal. And Minwoo had become something more.
The fight ended in seconds.
When the Domain receded, Minwoo stood over Veyl's fallen body—alive, but unconscious, bleeding from half a dozen wounds.
It was done.
He didn't feel victorious. Just… quiet.
Minwoo returned to the surface on the seventh day.
Veyl, bound and barely alive, slung over his shoulder.
At the Central Tower gates, the elders waited. Hanzo's face was unreadable as Minwoo dropped Veyl at their feet.
"Trial complete," Minwoo said.
Hanzo nodded slowly. "The Shadow Fang is officially recognized. Your guild charter will be processed. You may now recruit freely."
As Minwoo turned to leave, the white-haired elder called after him.
"You survived this," she said. "But be careful, Minwoo. That dagger… and that domain… they'll keep testing you. One day, you'll have to decide who you really are."
Minwoo didn't reply.
He just walked.
That night, back at the guild house, Kinro launched at him, curling around his chest, chirping wildly.
Lira ran to him next, punching him lightly in the arm. "You're insane."
Jin handed him a drink. "But you did it."
Minwoo looked around. His friends. His guild. His family.
The fire crackled in the hearth, and Kinro curled around his feet.
Outside, the wind howled over Tokyo's towers.
Inside, a new fire burned.
Shadow Fang had survived the trial.
And tomorrow, they'd rise.