The Quarry was never silent.
It groaned like an old wound, stone cracking faintly, wind sighing through tunnels, whispers carried in the mist. Every step hunters took seemed to wake something deeper inside.
Hours had passed since the descent. Already, groups had splintered.
---
Minjae's party stuck to the left path, torches burning bright. He walked at the front like a prince on parade, his cloak spotless, hair gleaming even in the gloom. His retainers—two armored men loyal to House Raon—flanked him, eyes sharp for threats.
Behind them trailed half a dozen younger hunters, common-born, pulled in by promises of protection. Their eyes flicked constantly to Minjae, desperate for guidance.
"Keep close," Minjae ordered, his voice carrying with practiced authority. "The Quarry is dangerous, but with me here, no beast will—"
A shriek cut him off.
From the mist, a Lesser Corrupted Hound lunged. One of the commoners screamed as the beast bowled him over, teeth tearing into his throat before he could raise his blade. Blood sprayed across stone.
Chaos erupted. Hunters scrambled, torches dropped, blades clattering against claws.
Minjae's retainers reacted instantly, shields braced, swords cleaving. Within seconds, the beast lay split in two, its corrupted blood sizzling on the ground.
But the young hunter lay still, throat torn, eyes wide in death.
The party froze, staring.
Minjae's jaw tightened. He glanced down at the corpse, then flicked his cloak back into place. "He was weak. The Quarry does not spare the weak. Remember that."
The others swallowed hard, fear knotting their faces.
Minjae walked on without looking back.
---
Elsewhere, the axewoman—Yura, a scarred veteran with arms thick as stone pillars—carved her own path with three companions. She swung her great axe in wide arcs, cleaving beasts in half with raw force.
"Don't run," she barked as another corrupted hound skittered back. "Chase it down. Let it call friends, and we'll be overrun."
Her hunters obeyed, hacking down the beast before it could vanish into the tunnels. They fought like a pack—loud, brutal, effective. But already, two bore bloody wounds, bandaged with torn cloth.
Yura spat into the dirt. "The Quarry eats cowards. If you want to live, keep swinging."
---
And in the narrow tunnels, two others moved with silence: the wiry archer and the shieldbearer.
The archer, a lean young woman with sharp eyes—Seol Ahreum—moved like a shadow, her bow always half-drawn. The shieldbearer, Park Jongho, was broader, quiet, his shield nicked and dented from too many deflected blows.
They didn't speak much. They didn't need to. Ahreum's arrows struck from shadow, Jongho's shield absorbed what slipped through. Together, they flowed like water through the Quarry's veins.
But even they felt the unease. Ahreum paused often, eyes narrowing at strange carvings scratched into stone walls—runes she didn't recognize, glowing faintly when her torchlight passed.
"This place isn't just a mine," she whispered once, low so Jongho barely caught it. "It's a grave. And something's still buried here."
---
And Jaeheon—
He moved alone.
His cloak hung heavy with damp, his blade already bloodied from the hound he'd slain. His arm throbbed faintly from the wound, but the sting kept him sharp.
Every step was deliberate. Every breath measured. His instincts hummed at the edge of danger, tugging him left before a tunnel's ceiling crumbled, pulling him back before a cluster of mushrooms hissed poison into the air.
The Quarry tested not only strength but awareness. And Jaeheon saw its traps for what they were.
He paused once, crouching by the stone wall. His eyes traced a set of markings—runes etched in jagged lines, pulsing faintly red. Not natural. Not old mining work.
Corruption, carved deliberately.
He brushed a finger near the rune. It pulsed brighter, reacting as if alive.
---
[System Notice: Foreign Influence Detected.]
[Warning: Traces of Demonic Inscription present.]
---
His jaw tightened. The Quarry wasn't just infested with beasts. Someone had carved this corruption deeper into the stone.
And that meant the trial was more dangerous than even the guild knew—or worse, maybe they did know.
---
Far above, faint echoes carried through tunnels—shouts, steel on flesh, screams cut short. The hunters were scattering, breaking, dying.
The Quarry's hunger was only beginning.
And Jaeheon knew, with a clarity sharper than steel: not everyone who entered would walk back out.
The Quarry shifted.
It wasn't imagination. The tunnels groaned, stone cracking, dust drifting from ceilings. Rails buckled underfoot as if the earth itself flexed. Hunters cursed in the dark when paths they marked twisted into dead ends.
The Quarry was alive.
---
Jaeheon slowed, pressing a hand to the damp wall. His instincts prickled sharp—like a bowstring drawn tight, ready to snap. The system hummed, feeding him warnings he already felt in his bones.
He stepped back just as the ceiling collapsed ahead. Stone slammed down with a roar, choking the tunnel in rubble and dust. If he'd taken one more step, he'd be crushed.
His cloak whipped in the gust of falling debris.
---
[System Notice: Danger Avoided. +1 Instinct growth.]
---
He coughed once, brushing grit from his face, and kept moving. The Quarry wanted him buried. It would have to try harder.
---
Elsewhere, screams echoed.
The axewoman Yura's voice carried, loud and furious. "Hold the line, damn you! Don't—"
A shriek cut her off. The clash of steel rang, then the sound of bodies hitting stone.
Then silence.
Jaeheon didn't change pace. If she survived, she would. If not, her blood joined the Quarry's hunger.
---
The further he went, the worse the air grew. Mist coiled thicker, carrying whispers that weren't his own. He gritted his teeth, ignoring them.
Then a rustle—soft, deliberate. Not the collapse of stone, not the drip of water. Movement.
He turned, blade drawn in a single fluid motion.
Two shapes froze at the tunnel's edge, torches faint. A bow raised halfway, an arrow ready. A shield lifted in reflex.
Not beasts. Hunters.
The wiry archer—Seol Ahreum—narrowed her eyes, lowering the arrow but not relaxing. The shieldbearer, Park Jongho, stayed silent, shield steady between them.
"You move quietly for someone alone," Ahreum said. Her voice was sharp, measured, carrying suspicion.
"You move loudly for someone who wants to live," Jaeheon replied.
Her eyes flickered, just a fraction, but her bow lowered further. Jongho didn't shift.
"We've seen runes," Ahreum said. "Strange ones. Did you—"
"I've seen them too," Jaeheon cut in. His tone left no room for doubt.
She studied him, torchlight flickering across her sharp features. "…You didn't carve them."
"No."
"Then we're not enemies. For now."
---
A faint scrape echoed deeper in the tunnel. All three turned instantly.
From the mist, beasts emerged. Not just one—five Lesser Corrupted Hounds, their bodies twitching unnaturally, eyes glowing faintly red. They fanned out, jaws dripping.
Ahreum cursed under her breath, bow string tightening. Jongho braced his shield, setting his stance.
The hounds snarled.
Then they attacked.
---
The first lunged for Jongho, jaws snapping. His shield slammed up, teeth scraping across dented metal. The impact rattled his arm, but he held firm.
Ahreum's arrow flashed, burying into the beast's throat. It convulsed, collapsing with a hiss of corrupted blood.
Another darted for her flank. Jaeheon moved before it reached her, blade slicing through its leg. The hound shrieked, stumbling. He pivoted, drove steel into its chest, and wrenched free.
Two down.
The others circled, faster, more cautious now. Their glowing eyes fixed on him.
Jaeheon felt it—the tug of his blood, the skill waiting to awaken. He let them come.
One leapt. He didn't dodge. Claws raked his side, burning, blood spraying. Pain sharpened his focus.
---
[Blood Edge Activated.]
Attack power increased by 15%.
---
He drove his blade upward, impaling the hound mid-lunge. Blood sizzled, steaming in the air.
Ahreum loosed another arrow, Jongho shield-bashed a fourth into stone. Jaeheon stepped forward, finishing the dazed beast with a single stroke.
The last hound hesitated, growling low. Its body twitched violently, like something deeper pulled its strings.
Then, instead of attacking, it turned—and bolted into the dark.
Ahreum cursed. "They've never run before."
Jaeheon wiped his blade clean. "It wasn't running. It was retreating."
"Same thing."
"No." His eyes narrowed at the shadows where the beast vanished. "It went to fetch something bigger."
Silence.
Even Jongho shifted uneasily.
---
Ahreum lowered her bow fully now, her sharp eyes settling on Jaeheon. "You fight… differently. You don't waste motion."
He didn't answer.
"You're not just some noble's castoff."
Still nothing.
Her lips twitched faintly, half amusement, half calculation. "…Fine. Don't answer. But if you keep moving like that, maybe we'll both live long enough to ask again."
Jaeheon sheathed his blade. "Stay quiet in the Quarry. Or it will hear you first."
---
The three of them moved deeper, their steps careful now. The mist thickened.
And on the walls, more runes began to appear—etched in jagged lines, pulsing faintly like open wounds.
The Quarry wasn't just shifting.
It was being fed.
The deeper they walked, the quieter it became.
No more echo of hounds. No more drip of water. Just mist, thick as breath, muffling every sound.
Jaeheon's instincts burned like a torch in his chest. The Quarry wasn't empty. It was watching.
---
The first body appeared at the bend of a tunnel.
A young hunter, sprawled on stone, chest split open. His blood hadn't pooled; it had been traced into patterns, curling runes carved into the ground. His face was frozen in terror, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream.
Ahreum froze, bow half-lifted. "That… wasn't a beast."
Jongho gripped his shield tighter, his knuckles bone-white. "Who would do this?"
Jaeheon crouched near the runes. The marks pulsed faintly, feeding on the blood still seeping from the corpse.
He touched the stone with a gloved finger. The system flared.
---
[System Notice: Corrupted Inscription Detected.]
[Warning: Demonic Ritual In Progress.]
---
His jaw tightened. "Not who. What."
He stood, blade sliding free with a faint rasp. "Something down here is shaping the Quarry. And it wants us feeding it."
---
They moved carefully now, every step deliberate. Torches threw long, wavering shadows.
Then more bodies.
Two hunters strung up by ropes of blackened sinew, their chests carved, runes glowing faintly from their blood.
A retainer from Minjae's group, his head bowed, mouth sewn shut by threads of corruption. His sword still in hand, useless.
Ahreum muttered a prayer under her breath. Even Jongho's steady face twitched.
"Hunters did this," she whispered. "Has to be. No beast ties knots."
Jaeheon didn't answer. His eyes scanned the walls, tracing the spread of the glowing runes. They crawled outward from the bodies like roots, stretching deeper into the Quarry.
Someone—or something—was feeding corruption into stone.
---
Then, faint movement ahead.
Not beasts. Figures.
Cloaked shapes, hoods pulled low, their outlines shifting strangely in the mist. They moved with eerie precision, hands pressed to the stone as they traced new runes.
Ahreum hissed through her teeth. "Cultists."
The nearest one paused, as if hearing her. Slowly, its hooded head turned. Beneath the shadow, no face—just a mass of twisting black veins, glowing faintly red.
It raised a hand.
The runes on the wall flared, pulsing with sudden life.
The ground shook.
---
A roar split the Quarry.
From the mist behind the cultists lumbered a new beast—towering, warped. A Greater Corrupted Hound, its body fused with stone, claws like jagged pickaxes. Its glowing eyes fixed instantly on the hunters.
Ahreum's bowstring creaked as she drew back. "You've got to be kidding me."
Jongho braced, shield angled.
Jaeheon didn't hesitate. His system flared. His blood burned.
---
[Blood Edge Surge Unlocked.]
Attack power increased by 30% for limited duration.]
---
The beast charged, stone claws shattering rails as it barreled forward. The cultists melted into the mist, their forms flickering like shadows swallowed by fog.
It was just them and the monster now.
---
The impact rattled the tunnel. Jongho blocked the first swipe, his shield sparking under the weight. He staggered, teeth gritted, but held.
Ahreum's arrows thudded into the beast's hide, only to snap uselessly against hardened stone flesh.
Jaeheon surged forward, blade blazing in torchlight. He slashed at its leg, steel meeting stone. Sparks flew. A crack split faintly through the corrupted flesh.
The beast howled, tail whipping like a mace. Jaeheon ducked, rolling beneath its swing, slicing across its underbelly.
Blood—black and burning—splattered the ground.
---
It didn't fall. It grew angrier.
The Quarry shook harder, runes on the walls glowing brighter, feeding energy into the beast.
Jaeheon's instincts screamed. Kill fast—or it would never die.
---
He darted forward again, ignoring the claws raking his side. His blade drove deep into the crack he'd carved.
"Now!" he barked.
Ahreum loosed three arrows in rapid fire, each striking the exposed wound. Jongho shoved with his shield, slamming the beast off-balance.
Jaeheon twisted his blade with a snarl.
The beast shrieked, body convulsing as cracks spread across its stone-fused hide. With a final, keening roar, it collapsed, rubble and blood crashing into the tunnel floor.
---
Silence.
Their torches flickered, smoke rising around the corpse.
Jaeheon ripped his blade free, black blood dripping. His chest rose steady, eyes sharp.
Ahreum lowered her bow slowly, staring at him. "…You fought like you've killed one before."
"I haven't," Jaeheon said flatly.
But his tone didn't deny the ease of it.
Jongho glanced uneasily at the glowing runes, now flickering faintly, dimmer with the beast's death. "…If the Quarry's birthing things like that, we won't last long."
Jaeheon looked at the mist where the cultists had vanished. His grip tightened on his blade.
"They're not birthing them."
The others turned to him.
"They're feeding them. And we're next."
---
The Quarry groaned again, louder, as if agreeing.
The hunger wasn't sated.
It was only just beginning.