Professor Rhett stood before the assembled Class S students with the same calm expression he always wore when he was about to say something important.
The chamber they had gathered in was one of the academy's sealed briefing halls, built specifically for practical examinations that required controlled movement, heavy supervision, and a clear explanation before the students were sent into danger. The air was tense already. The dungeon practical had made everyone alert, but what made this moment heavier was the fact that Rhett was not speaking to them like they were children being sent on a class exercise.
He was speaking like a man who expected them to understand risk.
"The dungeon you are about to enter," he said, "is a sealed school-controlled structure with a layered internal geography. The first sector is known as the Hollow Entry Zone. It is unstable, low-visibility in parts, and prone to sudden pressure shifts near the portal threshold."
A few students straightened at that.
Rhett continued. "The monsters in the first sector are mostly lesser dungeon breeds, though their behavior is aggressive. You will encounter cave lizards, shale hounds, and corridor wraiths in the outer passage. Deeper inside, there are heavier variants, including armored burrowers and gate-born entities. Do not assume the early sector will be harmless simply because it is called the entry zone."
The students listened carefully now.
Even those who usually looked bored during lectures were focused. The dungeon had already become intimidating before anyone stepped inside it. That was partly because of the heavy energy around the portal itself, but it was also because of the way Rhett described it. He was not trying to frighten them. That was what made it worse. He was simply telling the truth.
"You are here for a practical examination," Rhett said, "not a glory march. Your watches will register kills and points. Your task is to survive, adapt, and perform under pressure. Stay in your assigned groups. Stay alert. And do not let the portal threshold disorient you."
Zynar stood among the students with his usual silence.
Lyra Ashbourne, standing in the same group as him, kept her expression composed, though her eyes were sharp. Finn Caldwell, also part of the group, listened with a steady face that suggested he was trying to make sense of the expected route and likely monster distributions. The others around them were tense in varying degrees. Even those from stronger classes could feel something wrong in the air.
There was a reason they had all been uneasy before entering.
The dungeon portal itself seemed to breathe with weight.
Rhett's gaze moved across them one final time.
"When I give the signal, your group will enter."
The students nodded, and the chamber grew quiet enough that the shift of fabric and the scrape of boots on stone could be heard.
Then Rhett lifted his hand.
"Move."
The group approached the portal.
The moment they stepped close to it, the sensation of pressure changed. The energy around the entrance pressed at their skin in a subtle but unpleasant way, like moving through the edge of a storm. The surface of the portal was dark and unstable, shimmering like water in a space where no water should exist. The hall behind them seemed to fade as the threshold drew everything inward.
One by one, they stepped through.
The transition was disorienting.
Color bent. Sound thinned. The world seemed to tilt for a heartbeat, and the students felt the familiar jolt that came from passing through an active portal. The first thing anyone registered on the other side was not the dungeon floor, not the ceiling, not the shape of the first sector.
It was motion.
Something moved with terrifying speed the moment they emerged.
Five figures.
Clothed like priests.
Their robes were pale and ceremonial, but the cloth carried a faint stain of corrupted energy, as though the garments themselves had been used in rituals too dark to speak of easily. The students did not have time to understand what they were seeing before the assassins struck.
The attack was precise.
Too precise.
In the same instant the students finished crossing the threshold, one assassin appeared directly at the front of the group where Zynar stood. The blow was swift, shocking, and absolute in its intent. Another assassin thrust a blade forward with enough force to pin the moment in the minds of everyone who saw it. Panic erupted immediately.
And Zynar's body fell.
The students froze.
Some screamed. Some stumbled back. One of the Class B students nearly dropped his weapon. Lyra's eyes widened for a split second, a rare crack in her calm. Finn's face went white. The Class S students behind them were too shocked to speak at all.
Zynar had been at the front.
And then he was down.
A priest-clothed assassin straightened just enough to speak, his voice filled with ugly satisfaction.
"Our contract is complete," he said. "The brat is dead. Now let us collect the sacrifices."
The word sacrifices changed the entire tone of the room.
The assassins were not here to kill one person and leave. They were here to slaughter the students.
The students were still trying to understand what had happened, but the priests moved again before anyone could fully react. Their speed was not normal. It was not monster speed either. It was trained human speed sharpened by murderous intent and something worse, something that felt tainted. The students were terrified already from the dungeon itself, and now they were standing in the middle of a deliberate ambush.
Lyra recovered first.
"Defend yourselves!" she shouted.
That was enough to shock the others back into motion.
Several students tried to form a defensive line, but the assassins were too fast, and the opening moments of the attack had already broken the group's rhythm. The Class S students drew their weapons. Finn moved toward the nearest wounded student. Lyra stepped into command with the same efficiency she had shown before the portal.
But the priests were strong.
Too strong for a group that had entered already shaken and half-disoriented by the threshold.
One student was cut across the arm. Another was struck hard enough to slam into the dungeon wall. A third stumbled while trying to cast a spell and was forced backward by the pressure of the attack. The students fought back with everything they had, but the assassins were trained, coordinated, and merciless.
Fear spread.
Not the abstract kind. The real kind.
The kind that makes the body hesitate even when the mind knows it should move.
Then, in the middle of the chaos, the voice came.
Calm.
Clear.
Almost amused.
"Your idea of killing people just as they enter through a portal was fascinating."
Every sound in the chamber seemed to vanish for a moment.
Even the assassins hesitated.
The voice continued, carrying through the chamber with a strange, unsettling ease.
"Anyone would die even if they were powerful. Entering a portal lowers the guard because of the energy fluctuations. That was a fascinating way of assassination."
The students looked around in confusion.
The assassins did as well.
Then the voice sharpened.
"But poor you, assassins. That method doesn't work for me."
The body on the ground moved.
At first it was only a twitch, something so impossible that no one understood it. Then the figure rose.
Zynar's body, which had been thrown down moments before, stood upright with a slow, deliberate motion that made the entire chamber feel wrong. His head was not where it should have been. For a second, nobody could even process what they were seeing. The beheaded body moved with cold control, as if the separation had been an inconvenience rather than a fatal injury.
Zynar's hands reached down.
He picked up his own head.
And then, with a calm that was more terrifying than any scream could have been, he placed it back where it belonged.
The students stared.
The assassins stared.
No one made a sound.
A beheaded person had just returned to life in front of them.
Zynar rolled his shoulders once, as though reassembling himself was a minor inconvenience, then lifted his gaze toward the priests.
"I was wondering where I had felt that energy before," he said. "But after hearing about sacrifices, I understood."
His eyes narrowed.
"You are the followers of that bastard."
The assassins reacted instantly.
Their shock turned into rage so fast it almost looked like relief. At least rage was something they understood. At least rage gave them a target. One of them spat out an insult against Zynar's words, furious that he would speak so casually of their faith and their god.
But the moment Zynar looked at them properly, the chamber changed again.
Nobody noticed it at first, not clearly.
The others were still struggling to believe what they had seen. The priests were still trying to process the fact that the thing they had killed had stood back up. Only when Zynar's gaze settled on them did they realize what was happening.
Pressure.
Not magical force exactly, but something close enough to make the body feel it.
The assassins could not move.
Their expressions tightened. Their limbs locked. Their feet remained planted in place as if the floor itself had swallowed them. The pressure of Zynar's gaze hit them like a silent wall, and for the first time in the ambush, the priests looked afraid.
Zynar's sword left its scabbard with a single clean motion.
The sound of it was sharp in the silence.
Before the assassins could even attempt to recover, he moved.
Five assassins.
Five pairs of hands.
In a series of brutal, efficient motions, Zynar cut both hands from all of them.
The students flinched.
Lyra turned her face away for half a second, the first time anyone had seen her do that in a situation like this. Finn stared, visibly stunned. The other students recoiled in shock, a few of them unable to keep watching the scene directly. Even the assassins made sounds of pain and disbelief, though the pressure on them kept them from doing anything useful.
Zynar did not stop.
He looked at them with a cold expression that made the dungeon feel even darker.
"You see," he said, "I could have killed you instead of cutting your hands off. But that corrupted energy of yours is disgusting, and I was curious about your contract to kill me."
The priests glared at him through pain and rage, their bodies shaking with the effort of trying to move.
Zynar tilted his head slightly.
"You know," he said, "I think I'll cut your legs too. Just in case you decide to run."
No one answered.
No one could.
Then he moved again.
The students had to look away more than once. Some did so because they could not bear to watch the ruthless efficiency of it. Some did so because the sight of Zynar acting with that much merciless control was too much to process all at once. The priests were reduced to helplessness before they even had a chance to speak again. In the end, they were unconscious, lying broken and motionless on the dungeon floor.
The chamber was silent except for the students' breathing.
Lyra's hand had fallen open near her side.
When she looked down by Zynar's original position, she saw something small on the ground.
Contact lenses.
Her brows drew together in confusion.
There were contact lenses lying in the dungeon floor near where Zynar's head had been earlier, and she stared at them for a moment without understanding why they were there. Then she looked up.
And saw Zynar's face.
He had already turned back toward the group.
The students who saw him now took a collective step backward.
Their reaction was immediate and genuine. It was not just fear of what he had done to the assassins. It was fear of his face. His eyes were no longer hidden. The demonic shape of them was now fully visible, and the intensity in them made the students feel something raw and involuntary crawl up their spines.
Lyra looked from the contact lenses in her hand to Zynar's face, and the answer came together at once.
He had been wearing lenses.
They had come off during the attack.
That was why everyone was reacting like this now.
Zynar looked at the group, then at Lyra's hand, and understood instantly.
"Ah," he said, his tone almost annoyed. "I wasn't planning on revealing my eyes this early. But now it's not as if I can hide them."
No one replied.
They were too shaken.
Too afraid.
The sight of his eyes had changed the way the others looked at him. Not because he was more monstrous than they had already thought, but because now they could see it. The raw force in him was no longer softened by the concealment he had worn before. He looked more dangerous than ever.
Zynar glanced toward the unconscious assassins and then back at the students.
"We've lost a lot of time because of these people," he said. "Do you want to pass this exam, or do you want to stand here afraid and fail?"
The words were blunt.
Almost cruel.
But they worked.
The students, even trembling, even pale, even terrified by everything that had just happened, began to move.
Lyra forced herself to inhale and exhale once before straightening her posture. Finn looked like he wanted to say something and decided that it would be more useful to keep his mouth shut. The Class S students, shaken as they were, began gathering themselves around the reality that the exam had just turned into something much worse than they had expected.
Not a practical exam.
Not a normal dungeon run.
An ambush.
A betrayal.
And Zynar, with his eyes now uncovered and his calm restored, was already walking forward like someone who had no intention of letting the rest of the group break apart.
Behind them, the unconscious priests lay defeated.
Ahead of them, the dungeon waited.
And the students, fear still clinging to them, moved on because they had no other choice.
[End of Chapter 26]