Chapter 61: Fuck My Orders!

Silence filled the vault.

The fresh smell of iron and blood filled the cold air. Dennis’s body lay motionless on the stone floor, his chest torn open where the stone spear had impaled him.

The five surviving hunters stood frozen in place, their knuckles white as they gripped their weapons, terrified that even taking a single step would trigger another trap.

"Nobody move!" the captain shouted in a frantic whisper, sweat dripping down his pale face. "Don’t touch the floor tiles, don’t touch the walls, and don’t go near that pedestal!"

"Captain... Dennis is dead," the young healer choked out, tears streaming down her soot-stained cheeks. "He’s really dead..."

HISSSSSSS!

Before anyone could answer, a loud, sharp hiss echoed from the corners of the room.

Thick, purple-black gas hissed from iron grates around the floor. The moment the gas hit the air, it spread quickly across the tiles, filling the room with a choking, foul smell.

The archer coughed hard, clutching his throat as his skin turned bright red. "The air... it burns! It’s poison gas!"

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The scout looked down at his wrist-mounted mana radar as the digital screen flashed red with emergency warning text:

[CRITICAL WARNING: AMBIENT MANA SPIKING!]

[RATING: C-RANK ➔ B-RANK ➔ HIGH A-RANK!]

[ENVIRONMENTAL PURGE DETECTED: TOXIC SHADOW-MIASMA!]

"The rift just mutated!" the scout screamed in panic. "The mana density jumped to A-Rank! Our passive shields are dropping by five percent every ten seconds!"

SCREEECH!

From the dark cracks between the pillars, glowing red eyes lit up in the shadows.

Dozens of four-legged crawlers... monsters the size of large wolves with razor-sharp crystalline spines began crawling down the stone walls, hissing as they circled the hunters.

"Defensive formation!" the captain roared, drawing his broadsword. "Frontliners protect the healer! We have to hold them off!"

The squad scrambled into a tight circle.

The archer fired mana arrows as fast as his trembling hands could draw his string, while the captain and the remaining brawler swung their blades, desperately hacking away at the lunging beasts.

Dark ichor splattered across the stone, but every breath they took burned their lungs like swallowed glass. Their movements grew sluggish, their stamina rapidly draining under the choking gas.

"We can’t hold out here!" the brawler yelled, his iron shield denting under the heavy claws of two crawlers. "The gas is going to melt our lungs in minutes! We have to unlock the doors!"

"The pedestal!" the captain shouted through ragged coughs. "The puzzle on the pedestal is the only thing that controls the room! We have to align the runes to shut off the gas and open the exit!"

The captain glanced toward the back of the room, looking for an opening and froze.

Standing twenty paces away, completely untouched by the chaos, was Evren.

Evren had his hands tucked into the pockets of his dark trench coat. His face was calm and his breathing was steady, as if the toxic shadow-gas didn’t affect his lungs at all.

He was casually studying the geometric carvings along the four massive pillars, observing the flow of mana through the room.

The captain’s face twisted in rage. "Hey! What the hell are you doing?! Don’t just stand there looking at the walls! Help us!"

Evren turned his head slowly, looking at the captain with a mild expression.

"Help you?" Evren replied calmly. "I’m just following your orders, Captain. You told me not to touch your monsters, stay twenty paces back, and not get in your way."

"Fuck my orders!" the captain screamed, ducking under a lunging beast and driving his sword into its belly. "Dennis is dead! We’re down a man, and the whole room is filled with poison! Make yourself useful, or we all die in here together!"

Evren took his hands out of his coat pockets. "Are you sure? If I step in, you won’t report me for kill-stealing?"

"I don’t care about the drops! Just clear these monsters so we can solve the lock!" the captain pleaded, coughing up a mouthful of dark phlegm as another beast slammed into his shoulder.

Evren reached toward his right hand and tapped his Spatial Storage Ring.

A freezing blast of mana filled the room as the Frost-Bane Cleaver materialised in Evren’s hand. The huge, blue-tinted sword glowed with icy light, instantly freezing the toxic purple mist around him into harmless snowflakes.

Evren took a single step forward.

In the blink of an eye, Evren blurred past the trembling healer.

With a casual sweep of his sword, a wave of frost mana erupted across the floor.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

Over twenty obsidian crawlers were sliced clean in half mid-leap, their frozen remains shattering into glittering dust before they even hit the stone floor.

The entire front line was cleared in less than one second.

The surviving hunters dropped their jaws, staring at the massive wave of frozen dust in utter disbelief. The captain was left speechless, his sword trembling in his hand.

"Hold the perimeter," Evren ordered in a calm, authoritative voice. "I’ll handle the pedestal."

Evren walked past the pool of Dennis’s blood and stepped onto the central circular platform.

He had been studying the runic puzzle for the last few minutes since Dennis dropped dead; and looking at it closely, the ancient runic puzzle didn’t look like a guessing game.

Evren could clearly see the invisible veins of mana running beneath the stone tiles, connecting the four obsidian pillars to the central pedestal.

"The outer ring controls the earth frequency," Evren murmured. "The middle controls the shadow flow. The inner ring is the spark."

Evren gripped the three concentric stone rings with his bare hands.

He quickly spun the outer ring three notches left, rotated the middle ring two notches right, and clicked the inner disc into the center groove.

Click. Click. Clack.

The geometric runes on the pedestal glowed with a bright, brilliant blue light.

The iron grates on the floor instantly slammed shut, completely cutting off the purple poison gas. The toxic mist in the air cleared after a few seconds, allowing the hunters to finally take deep, clear breaths.

"It worked!" the archer shouted in joy, falling to his knees and crying with relief. "The gas stopped! The puzzle is solved!"

"We did it..." the captain gasped, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a trembling laugh. "The doors are going to open! We survived!"

The five hunters turned toward the sealed stone entrance with bright, hopeful smiles, waiting for the massive slabs to slide open.

Nothing moved. The stone entrance remained completely solid and sealed.

RUMBLE...

Instead, the entire floor of the vault began shaking violently, far worse than before.

The central pedestal didn’t open the door.

With a heavy grinding noise, the hexagonal stone platform began sinking straight down into the floor, disappearing into a massive, bottomless pit in the center of the room.

"Wait... why is the altar sinking?" the scout stammered, stepping backward in terror.

As the pedestal sank, a wave of hot red mana and black fog exploded from the pit like an erupting volcano.

A giant, armored claw slammed onto the edge of the pit. The five hunters froze, all the color instantly draining from their faces.

Rising slowly from the depths of the sunken platform was a towering, fifteen-foot monstrosity.

It wore ancient, spiked black armor covered in blood-red runes. In one massive hand, it dragged a jagged greatsword that screeched loudly against the stone.

Behind its horned helmet, two glowing red eyes burned with pure malice, while right in the center of its armored chest, a fist-sized purple crystal pulsed with overwhelming power: The Shadow-Mist Core.

The immense pressure of the mutated High A-Rank Boss flooded every corner of the room, forcing the five hunters to their knees.

The captain looked up at the towering giant, his voice breaking as despair filled his eyes. "It wasn’t an exit puzzle..." the captain sobbed in terror. "It was... an awakening seal..."