After some days, the guild barely had time to catch their breath.
Ryu stood among them, his chest heaving, blood crusted against the edges of his torn tunic. Around him, warriors slumped against shattered stone, armour clinking in tired rhythms, their expressions straining between relief and disbelief. They had survived. Somehow. Waves upon waves of grotesque, malformed dungeon beasts had poured in from every corridor, shrieking and clawing with nightmarish fervour. Blades had sung. Screams had echoed. Blood had soaked the ancient floor. But the Iron Fangs had endured.
And that was the mistake.
The dungeon was not finished.
Ryu felt it before he saw it. A pulse—subterranean, primal—throbbed beneath his boots. The air thickened, suffocatingly still, as if the very oxygen recoiled in fear. Then came the tremor. Subtle, then growing—like the inhalation of something colossal. The ancient ruins shuddered. Torch flames stuttered and died. Shadows stretched, slithering unnaturally across the walls like living things.
Then came the silence.
No wind. No whispers. Not even the distant rumble of falling stone. Just void.
A single sound pierced it.
A step.
Massive. Measured. Monstrous.
The ground groaned beneath it.
Ryu's head snapped up. His eyes were fixed on the corridor from which they had emerged victorious moments ago. Darkness pooled there, thick and churning. Then, from that abyss, a shape emerged.
A figure.
Towering.
It stepped forward, displacing the very air around it with a sound like tearing metal. Its body defied logic—a colossus of regenerating sinew laced with molten veins that pulsed like a heartbeat. Jagged armour, fused with stone and bone, encased its limbs. Arcane runes, glowing an eerie sapphire, slithered across its surface like living tattoos. Behind it, drifting like carrion mist, came dozens of shadow-forged soldiers—twisted mockeries of knights, their eyes glowing with ember-red hate.
The boss.
Ryu's blood turned to ice.
Its blade—no, its cleaver—was as tall as a man, serrated along the edge like teeth in a predator's maw. Magic pulsed from its surface, crackling in the air like static before a storm. The creature's eyes locked onto them. Intelligent. Calculating. Cold.
This was no mindless dungeon beast.
This was an executioner.
The Iron Fangs had relaxed for a moment. One moment. That was all it took.
"Move!" Ryu shouted, but it was already too late.
With impossible speed for its size, the creature lunged.
It covered the distance between itself and the camp in a heartbeat.
A single swing of its blade cleaved through the stone floor, splitting it open like parchment. The impact unleashed a shockwave that hurled bodies like dolls. Campfires scattered into sparks. Tents disintegrated.
Ryu was thrown backwards, his back slamming against a ruined pillar. Pain lanced through him—but it faded just as quickly. Regeneration kicked in. Bones snapped back into place. Muscles knit themselves whole.
But others weren't so lucky.
Screams filled the chamber. Real ones. No laughter. No jeers.
Cole staggered to his feet, blood running down the side of his face. "What in the hells is that thing?!"
Miyuki spun, blades drawn, eyes narrowed. "It's not just a boss. It's the dungeon's core protector."
"What does that even mean?" Cole snarled, backing away.
"It means," Ryu said hoarsely, "that it's designed to end intruders."
The creature raised its blade again, its molten veins glowing brighter. Another shadow soldier materialised at its flank and lunged toward the scattered guild.
Ryu didn't hesitate.
He sprinted.
Not toward safety—but toward information.
His eyes darted over the boss's movements, the way its weight shifted, and how its shadow soldiers responded to its positioning. It moved in calculated arcs, controlling space, herding them like prey.
He shouted, "Don't clump up! It's forcing us into kill zones! Split up—three groups! Flank it!"
Some listened. Others panicked.
Ryu didn't have time to drag them into discipline. The creature swung again. A wall of flame erupted as its cleaver scraped across a mana-encrusted slab. Heat singed Ryu's skin as he dove through it, rolling beneath a soldier's blade and stabbing upward.
His dagger found a weak point—a gap in its armour.
The shadow soldier screeched and dissolved into ash.
His mind worked at lightning speed. The boss generated those shadows. They weren't infinite—but they regenerated if he didn't destroy the source quickly.
"Miyuki! Aim for the runes on its left arm—disrupt the spell!"
"On it!" she called, dashing between falling debris. Her blades flashed, mana surging as she leapt, struck, and rolled away.
A burst of light flared as one of the runes cracked.
The boss recoiled for the first time.
Ryu pressed the advantage. "Everyone—target the runes! They're its anchor points!"
Suddenly, the fight shifted.
No longer prey, the Iron Fangs became predators—wounded, desperate ones—but with purpose.
Even Cole, bloodied and cursing, obeyed orders. He tackled a shadow soldier, fists glowing with raw kinetic energy, pummelling the creature into smoke.
Ryu darted across the battlefield, yelling directions and marking rune locations with chalk from his belt. The boss roared in fury, its molten veins pulsing violently. It spun in a wide arc—too wide.
"Now! Blind side—hit the base rune on the spine!" Ryu yelled.
Miyuki moved like lightning, leaping onto rubble, rebounding off a wall, and driving both blades into the rune.
The boss shrieked.
A pulse exploded outward—like a psychic scream.
Ryu fell to his knees, clutching his head as visions tore through his mind. Darkness. A core. A throne of stone and teeth. The dungeon had a will. A presence. And it had marked him.
But the moment passed.
And the boss staggered.
Chunks of its armour fell off, steaming. Its sword flickered, the magic stuttering.
Ryu.
This was their only chance.
He sprinted toward it, heedless of danger. Behind him, others followed.
He remembered every trap they had disarmed, every corridor they had mapped, and every death he had endured.
And he used it.
Vaulting over a fallen slab, he drove his blade—still warm from a hundred regenerations—into the core rune on the boss's chest.