「11th Floor Ruins」
「Blue Dragon Guild's 4th Expeditionary Team」
"Pass the bottle, Min-Gyu!
Don't be a hog just because you took the most hits today!"
The voice belonged to Hana, a lithe B-rank Assassin whose twin daggers were currently resting discarded on a bedroll.
She laughed, her face flushed red from the warmth of the roaring campfire and the potency of the 'Grog of the Abyss' they had smuggled in.
Min-Gyu, a massive man with shoulders like a mountain and a laugh that could shake the ruins, hoisted a ceramic jug.
"I earned every drop!
That Stone Guardian Golem nearly pancaked me.
If I'm going to die in this Tower, I'm going to die with a buzz!"
The team erupted in cheers.
There were twelve of them in total.
A mix of seasoned B-ranks and promising C-ranks from the Blue Dragon Guild, one of the most prestigious organizations in the Korean sector.
They were young, talented, and riding high on the momentum of a "Perfect Clear" day.
Jin-Ho, the team leader, sat slightly back from the fire, watching his squad with a faint, paternal smile.
He was a man in his late twenties.
A veteran who had survived the lean years before the Great Regression's ripples had made climbing standard.
He held a cup of tea, though his eyes kept drifting to Eun-Bi, the team's primary scout.
She was sitting across from him, sharpening a feathered arrow with methodical grace.
Every so often, she'd catch his gaze and wink.
"Leader..."
She called out, her voice playful over the crackle of the flames.
"Stop brooding.
We're in a Level 3 Safe Zone.
The perimeter wards are active, the sensors are quiet, and the nearest boss spawn is five miles North.
Come have a drink before So-Young finishes the whole jug."
So-Young, the team's healer and the youngest of the bunch, stuck her tongue out while holding the jug to her lips.
"I'm healing your hangovers tomorrow, so I get a head start tonight!"
Jin-Ho laughed, finally letting the tension in his shoulders drop.
"Alright, alright....one drink.
But we're moving out at 06:00."
He moved to join them, settling into the circle.
The atmosphere was golden.
The firelight danced off the Blue Dragon insignias on their armor.
For a moment, it didn't feel like they were inside a death trap known as the Abyssal Tower.
It felt like a college camping trip.
Min-Gyu was making clumsy, bold passes at Hana, who was expertly dodging them while feeding him more liquor.
Tae-Woo, the mage, was trying to explain the fables of the ruins to anyone who would listen, though he was mostly being ignored in favor of a dirty joke told by the vanguard, Sang-Hun.
"I'm serious!"
Tae-Woo stammered, his glasses fogging up.
"The fables say the Ruins weren't destroyed by war...I'm telling you!"
"Yeah, yeah, Tae-Woo."
Sang-Hun laughed, clapping the mage on the back.
"And I'm the next S-rank.
Drink up...you bookworm...haha."
The night deepened.
The two moons of Floor 11...one pale silver, one a sickly violet rose high above the jagged silhouettes of the broken pillars.
Jin-Ho leaned back, watching a spark fly up into the dark sky.
He felt a rare sense of peace.
"..."
The flames, which had been bright orange and warm, suddenly sucked inward, turning a faint, ghastly blue for the fraction of a second.
The laughter didn't stop immediately, but Eun-Bi, the scout, went rigid.
Her arrow dropped into the dirt.
"Did the wards just..."
She whispered, her eyes darting to the darkness beyond the camp's edge.
"What is it?"
Jin-Ho asked, his hand instinctively moving toward the hilt of his broadsword, lying just inches away.
"The perimeter..."
Eun-Bi stood up, her hand hovering over her bow.
"The signal just... vanished...
...I-It just stopped."
"Maybe the mana battery died?"
Min-Gyu grunted, wiping grog from his beard.
"I told the quartermaster those cheap-"
*Squelch!
The sound was wet.
Like a heavy boot stepping into a deep puddle of mud.
It came from directly behind Sang-Hun.
Sang-Hun didn't even have time to turn.
One moment he was laughing at his own joke; the next, his head was simply... gone.
There was no spray of blood at first.
Then, the pressure caught up.
A fountain of crimson erupted, dousing the campfire and turning the cheerful orange glow into a sputtering, hissing nightmare of red steam.
"SANG-HUN!"
So-Young screamed, her voice cracking into a high-pitched wail.
The camp exploded into chaos.
"BATTLE STATIONS!"
Jin-Ho roared, his B-rank instincts taking over even as his mind reeled in horror.
"GET YOUR GEAR! TANK UP! MIN-GYU!"
Min-Gyu lunged for his shield, but something moved in the darkness.
There was a sound like a whip cracking against a stone wall.
Min-Gyu's massive shield, a Grade-A piece of reinforced steel, was sheared in half.
Along with it, Min-Gyu's torso was split diagonally from shoulder to hip.
He stared down at the two halves of his body sliding apart, his eyes wide with a confusion that would haunt Jin-Ho for the rest of his short life.
"WHAT IS THAT?!
WHERE IS IT?!"
Hana screamed, swinging her daggers wildly into the dark.
"It's in the camp!"
Eun-Bi yelled, firing three arrows in rapid succession.
The arrows hit something in the shadows.
A a sound of -tink, tink, tink like needles hitting a mountain and dropped harmlessly.
Then, the darkness itself seemed to lunge.
So-Young, the healer, was snatched upward.
Her screams echoed from the top of a crumbling pillar thirty feet above them, followed by the sickening sound of snapping bone.
"HOW?!"
Jin-Ho screamed, his sword finally in his hand, his aura flaring in a desperate, golden light.
"This is a Safe Zone!
Monsters don't attack camps!
They don't leave their zones!"
Tae-Woo, the mage, began chanting a high-level [Holy Nova] spell, his hands trembling.
"I-I can't lock on!
There's no mana signature!
It's like it's not even-"
*CRACK!
The pillar Tae-Woo was standing near collapsed.
The debris crushed the mage instantly, burying his half-finished spell under tons of ancient marble.
"Eun-Bi, run!"
Jin-Ho yelled, grabbing her arm.
"Toward the exit gate!
Go!"
Eun-Bi didn't run.
She couldn't...she was staring at the space between them.
"Jin-Ho..."
He looked down.
A shadow darker than the night, was coiled around Eun-Bi's waist.
"NO!"
Jin-Ho swung his sword, pouring every ounce of his mana.
The blade passed through the shadow.
There was no resistance.
It was like swinging at smoke.
Eun-Bi was jerked backward into the ruins.
"COME OUT!"
Jin-Ho screamed into the dark, his voice breaking.
"FIGHT ME, YOU COWARD! BLUE DRAGON! I AM THE LEADER OF THE BLUE DRAGON 4TH EXPEDITION! SHOW YOURSELF!"
The response was silence.
The campfire had died, smothered by blood and debris.
The only light came from the violet moon, casting long, twisted shadows across the wreckage of his camp.
Hana was gone.
The others... he could hear the sounds of their armor being crumpled, the wet thuds of bodies hitting the stone.
He was the last one.
A sudden, overwhelming pressure slammed into his back.
Jin-Ho was thrown forward, his sword flying from his grip.
He hit a jagged piece of a fallen archway, the impact shattering his ribs.
He gasped for air, his lungs filling with the metallic taste of his own blood.
He tried to push himself up, but his left leg didn't respond.
He looked down.
His eyes widened until they felt like they would burst from their sockets.
His left leg was gone from the hip.
The wound was a jagged, cauterized mess of shredded muscle and bone, bleeding so profusely that a pool was already forming beneath him.
"Ah... ahhh..."
He choked out, his vision blurring.
He tried to crawl, his fingers digging into the dirt.
He reached for a healing potion in his belt, his right hand shaking.
*SNAP!
The pressure came again, this time on his right shoulder.
Jin-Ho watched, in a detached sort of shock, as his right arm.
The arm that held his guild's pride was torn away.
The bone was twisted until it snapped, the tendons stretching like taffy before they gave way.
He collapsed onto his stomach, the agony finally catching up to him.
A scream tore from his throat.
"How..."
He wheezed, his face pressed into the dirt.
He managed to roll onto his back, the movement sending waves of white-hot fire through his mangled body.
He looked up at the violet moon, his breath coming in shallow, wet rasps.
The shadow drifted over him, blotting out the stars and the violet moon.
Jin-Ho couldn't see eyes.
He couldn't see a mouth or face.
It loomed over him, the sheer weight of its presence making it hard to breathe.
Jin-Ho looked up his eyes wide.