A few more days folded into the same routine, wake up, push through the daily regimen before his legs fully forgave him for the day before, spend the afternoon at the guild grinding through Rending Claws until his arms gave out, drag himself home just in time to collapse. The soreness had started fading into something more manageable by the fourth day, and the dummy readouts kept climbing, slow but steady, exactly the kind of progress Fenrir kept insisting was the only kind that actually mattered.Even the others had started noticing in small ways. Sooyeon caught him mid strike one afternoon and let out a low whistle, telling him his stance had actually stopped looking like it was about to fall over, which he decided to take as a compliment even though it hadn't sounded like one. Jiho offered a rare nod of approval after watching him land three clean hits in a row without resetting badly in between. It wasn't much. But it was real, and it was his.He was midway through his afternoon s

The air on the other side of the breach was cooler than Seojin expected, damp stone replacing the gravel and pine of the world outside, and the first thing he noticed once his eyes adjusted was the carvings. They ran the length of the entrance hall in long, uneven bands, worn smooth in places but still legible in others, robed figures bowing in rows toward something at the center of each panel that had been chipped away or eroded past recognition. Further along, the carvings shifted, chains looping across the stone in tight coils, wrapped around shapes too worn down to identify clearly, though something about the pattern nagged at the back of Seojin's mind without quite resolving into a memory."Cult shrine," Somin said, already crouched near the nearest wall with her drone hovering low to scan the surface. "Filing didn't mention that specifically, just flagged it as ritual adjacent. Guess we get to see what that actually means.""Wonderful," Doyoon muttered, hands in his pockets as h

The passage beyond the priestess's chamber opened without warning into a vast octagonal room, ceiling lost somewhere in shadow high overhead, torchlight guttering along walls carved with the same tight, deliberate script they'd been chasing the entire dungeon. Three stone podiums stood evenly spaced across the chamber's center, and atop each one, a robed statue knelt frozen mid gesture, hoods drawn low, hands positioned as though caught in the middle of some ritual that had stopped centuries too early to finish.The group spread out cautiously as they entered, weapons half raised, eyes darting between the three still figures like they expected movement at any second even though nothing had happened yet. Their footsteps echoed strangely in the vast space, the sound bouncing back distorted off the high, shadowed ceiling, and even Doyoon's usual restlessness had quieted into something more careful."This is it," Ganghyun said quietly, staff already sliding free of his shoulder. "The thre

The surged Warden didn't give them time to think. He drove both fists into the ground and the entire chamber lurched, stone erupting upward in violent, uncontrolled bursts that had nothing of the earlier fight's methodical precision, jagged pillars tearing free of the floor fast enough that Seojin barely wrenched himself out of the way of one before another nearly caught him from the side. Dust and broken stone filled the air, visibility dropping to almost nothing beyond a few feet, and the only thing keeping the group oriented at all was Ganghyun's voice cutting through the chaos."Fall back!" Ganghyun's voice cracked across the chaos, no room left for strategy, just survival. "Entrance, now!"Nobody argued. The group scattered toward the passage they'd come through, boots skidding across shifting rubble, and the Seer's threads snapped through the settling dust behind them, thin silver lines catching at ankles and wrists faster than anyone could track them coming. Eunji's badger took