"But before we talk about that… I think we need to leave this place first."
Copper tilted his head slightly, glancing over their shoulders.
Ren spun around immediately… and then he saw them.
In the pitch-black hallway, tiny pinpricks of light suddenly appeared. One… then two… then ten.
Twenty.
Forty.
Eyes.
They glowed eerily in the darkness like ghostly lanterns, cold, unblinking.
Clack… clack…
The sound of metal against stone echoed around them. Figures emerged, stepping out from the depths of shadows as though they'd never had a defined form before.
Skeletons.
Not ordinary monsters. They were stitched together from broken bones, skulls with swords driven through their eye sockets, arms disconnected from their bodies yet still clutching weapons.
"They… they're not from this floor," Ren whispered, stepping back.
Copper nodded, voice unnervingly calm:
"I know. This event isn't part of the main system."
"It seems… they reacted when we activated the fourth fragment."
Ren grit his teeth. His eyes flicked, assessing numbers and distance. Forty, maybe more. No detour, only retreat.
"There's no time to explain. Run."
Copper turned and sprinted. Ren did not hesitate. He gritted his teeth, drew his sword, and ran alongside.
Right behind them, the clack clack roared into a terrifying rattle, the bone husks rushing forward like a haunted tidal wave.
They didn't cry or hiss. They simply moved, fast and unnaturally, ignoring fractured shapes and any logic of normal movement.
They surged on, silently persistent like darkness spreading. A faceless, nameless white deluge on the narrow path, like blood flowing from a fresh wound.
Two slender, fragile figures slashed across the darkness with frenzied steps, exhausting everything left.
A corner. A turn. The corridor narrowed with a low ceiling threatening to crush them. Still, the creatures followed; each glance back revealed more of them.
As if the darkness itself was reproducing.
The ground hummed, a soft but continuous tremor, like a drumbeat signaling something bigger approaching.
It felt like the space was destabilizing. With every step, Ren felt like he was running along the edge of something about to collapse.
Not the world.
But the limits of the unfortunate.
Escaping… had never been a good solution. And now, brutal reality smashed that illusion with a gasp-inducing example.
In front of them, through the dense, freezing air, a cold, pale blue light blossomed, unmistakable.
A summoning effect.
Points of light coalesced, spiraling like ash drawn to a central point. Then, from the darkness emerged another wave of skeletal soldiers, layer after layer, grotesque avatars of silent death, blocking the path ahead.
A trap.
A nightmare in form.
Ren faltered. Though his body still propelled forward, his eyes froze. No escape. No gap.
Running had only led them straight into a massive snare.
No turning back.
Ren gripped his sword hilt until his fingers turned white, then lunged forward.
Metal clashed against bone in the cavernous hall. Ren's blade severed the nearest skeletal warrior's knee joint; it collapsed, bones splintering like rotted wood.
But before he could breathe, three more charged.
There was no strategy, only savage battle: kill or be killed.
Steel arcs flickered in the darkness. Ren moved like a gale, each strike precise and cold.
But they kept coming. Kill one; two more filled the spot. A skeletal arm fell, and a rusty blade slashed across Ren's armor, cutting shallow flesh.
Copper was on the other side, a whirlwind in motion, each brutal strike seeming to drain all his energy.
He swung, and five skulls shattered at once, splintering under the system's shard-effect light.
With every breath, he exhaled white mist into the frigid night, yet his eyes didn't retreat.
No blood poured, only red pixels exploding like dust.
But even after dozens fell, they multiplied, swarming from front and rear halls. Ren staggered back, pressing against the icy stone wall. He was being consumed.
The sword in his hand trembled under pressure. Each breath scorched like flame; his stamina plummeted, each strike slower and heavier.
A skeletal soldier lunged. Ren braced and swung...but he was late. The rusted axe cleaved across his shoulder.
–132
"Ren!" Copper shouted, hurling a healing flask, but it was deflected by a flying skull.
Ren ground his teeth, forcing himself upright. Not yet. Not like this. Even if he fell… he would fall with his sword still in hand.
He sprang, wind whistling, swinging his blade on a diagonal from below, splitting a skeleton in two, releasing a flash of bright light through the system.
But immediately, ten more figures dropped from the ceiling.
No path. No time. No chance.
Only two people and an advancing sea of undead, emotionless, relentless, unforgiving.
Despair engulfed them like darkness devouring every last ounce of hope.
Blood in Ren's veins felt frozen. Each labored breath burned, as if his lungs themselves were aflame with fear and exhaustion.
A few more seconds, just seconds, and they both would be overwhelmed by the white flood swarming them like a breached hell.
His arm went numb, he could barely hold the sword. Each step on the cold stone reverberated against his chaotic heartbeat.
Worse yet, the shattered skeletons didn't disappear. They kept crawling, dragging themselves over the broken bones of their kin.
Some clung to Ren, dragging him with broken joints; claws clicked against his armor, grabbing like silent reapers.
…As though everything had collapsed from the very roots of this world.
Ren gritted his teeth. He stepped back, then lunged forward, his sword spinning in his hand like a flash of cold lightning.
The strikes were frantic, unsteady, but still forceful enough to shove back the undead pulling at him.
Ahead, Copper shouted, his voice hoarse from running and fighting, "Up ahead... there's a..."
He didn't finish his sentence before a thunderous crash rang out. The ceiling behind them collapsed, blocking the path they had just taken, swallowing dust and a few of the leading skeletons.
But only seconds later, skulls began to rise again from the rubble, as if growing from the earth, undying.
Ren glanced back. "We can't keep fighting."
Copper was breathing heavily. But his gaze had returned to its usual icy calm. "There's a chamber ahead with an arched door. If we make it there, I can lock it."
Ren asked, "And if we don't?"
No answer.
He tightened his grip on his sword. Feeling strength drain from his arms, the steel shimmered in the darkness, like a final glimmer of faith.
And Ren understood, this was a life-or-death gamble.
Immediately, both activated their strongest sword skill, blue and green light intertwined into a vortex of steel, clearing the monsters in their path.
Their bodies felt hollow, drained, as if their souls had been sucked out.
But…
There was no time to hesitate.
Both clenched their teeth, and charged forward.
Their footsteps thundered like war drums, mingling with the howls of dozens of skeletons in hot pursuit.
They broke the encirclement, slicing through bone joints forming barricades.
Ren dashed forward, every swing of his blade tearing through the heavy air. Copper struck cleanly, each blow a declaration: We're still alive.
The corridor trembled.
Beneath their feet, the path began to crack, and the only light, the torches along the walls, flickered and faded. Only darkness remained, and the bone-chilling shrieks of the undead.
And then… they saw it, like a lone fishing boat adrift in a black sea.
A glimmer of survival for two castaways on the depths of a dark ocean.
A black metal door stood solitary at the corridor's end, as if grown from the dungeon's deepest abyss. Runes etched across its surface pulsed with blood-red light, beating like a living heartbeat.
Ren reached it first, slamming his shoulder into the door as if trying to will it open. Behind him, Copper placed his palm on the center of a magic circle, immediately, the grooves on the door's surface lit up like a network of living nerves.
Red light surged and writhed like serpents, pulsing in sync with their hammering hearts.
[Condition verified: Convergence of Four Fragments and Unlock Skill.]
"I've got the lockpicking skill," Copper shouted and activated it.
[Condition met.]
[Unlocking: 12 seconds.]
"You have to hold them off… just 12 seconds!" Copper yelled, his voice overpowering the clattering footsteps rushing from all directions.
Ren didn't reply. He had already turned, sword trailing a faint light in the darkness, raised high, like a final bastion of life.
Before him was a sea of white bone, the undead surging forward like an unstoppable tidal wave.
Their hollow eye sockets glowed with deathly blue. The clash of metal, the scraping of bones on stone, voiceless screams, all wove together into a suffocating symphony of annihilation.
Ren quickly grabbed an HP potion and gulped it while keeping his eyes locked on the enemy. But before he could finish it, they arrived.
Crash!
A skeleton lunged, snarling. Ren dropped low and slashed across its shoulders, its skull rolling away like a loose stone hitting a wall.
9 seconds.
Another came from the right, swinging a broken axe toward his neck. Ren gritted his teeth, blocked with the sword's spine, leapt back, then stabbed straight through its chest. Not fatal, but enough to shove it away.
Behind him, Copper shouted, "8 SECONDS!"
Ren didn't answer, he couldn't. A whirlwind of bones and limbs closed in, forcing him to retreat step by step, as if being drowned. His hands were numb, blood already drained by dozens of minor and major wounds.
6 seconds.
Ren roared, spun, and activated a sword skill.
A blazing red arc carved a crescent through the horde, three, four skeletons were blasted away in one swing. But the rest surged on, unfeeling, unyielding.
4 seconds.
"There's too many!" Copper bellowed, eyes locked on the slowing circle on the door.
Ren didn't speak. He stood alone in the hallway, his thin back unyielding. He blocked, countered, retreated, charged again, each move soaked in blood, yet unwavering.
2 seconds.
A skeleton crawled along the floor, lunged for Ren's leg, its gaping skull opened impossibly wide and sank into his shin.
–70
Ren clenched his teeth, kicked the head back into the skeletal tide crashing down the corridor.
But it wasn't enough. They still came. At first, Ren had tried to drive them away, now, all he could do was prevent them from piercing deeper, as his body neared its breaking point.
His vision blurred before the white flood. His hands burned beneath leather gloves. His legs trembled, barely steadying him against the wall.
The damage wasn't fatal… but the pain was real, tearing through every shred of emotion left in his mind.
Adrenaline was no longer enough to keep him standing.
HP: 230/700
HP: 166/700
HP: 83/700
HP: 34/700
1 second.
"IT'S DONE!"
The door glowed...and opened.