Grim Knights Castle sat at the edge of the warehouse district like something the city had tried to forget. Dark stone. Gothic arches. The kind of architecture that shouldn't exist in Prep City but did anyway, because the System had no sense of subtlety.
[Grim Knights Castle - Training Dungeon - Rank C] [Recommended Level: 18-20] [Warning: Undead enemy types. Necromancy mechanics present. Boss possesses Life Drain abilities.] [Estimated Clear Time: 4-6 hours | Recommended Party Size: 6-8 Players]
The iron gates at the entrance had rusted into half-open positions, the kind of rust that took decades to accumulate. The courtyard beyond was dark despite 8:47 AM sun overhead, the stone walls pulling the light in and giving nothing back.
Six figures stood near the gates. Riri recognized four of them before she was close enough to read their names. Battle-axe, two daggers, the two who'd fled when Samael materialized at Red Cult Altar. They'd brought reinforcements. Both newcomers carried high-grade gear that caught the morning light off polished edges.
Loki padded at her left. Vesper rode her right shoulder, claws light as paper against the Shadow-Weave fabric. Vermillion circled forty feet overhead in slow, looping patterns.
Samael walked beside her.
The Bond sat warm behind her ribs, steady as a second heartbeat. She was still learning its rhythms. Every time Samael's satisfaction spiked, she felt it like a warm hand between her shoulder blades. Every flicker of his amusement registered low in her chest, half a second before his expression shifted to match.
It was intimate in a way she hadn't prepared for.
Battle-axe spotted them first. His gaze moved from Riri to Samael, then up, reading the System tags overhead.
Except the tags had changed.
The gold "2" above Riri's head now carried additional text beneath it. [BONDED], rose-gold script, perfectly legible from thirty feet away. Samael's crimson "1" displayed the same.
Battle-axe went pale. His mouth pressed flat. The others followed his gaze, and one by one, they backed up. Three steps. Then five. Creating space like the distance itself might protect them.
Riri was already pulling up dungeon enemy data, reviewing the Life Drain mechanics on the boss entry. She didn't look up.
Then Samael's hand settled on the back of her neck.
His palm was warm through the thin strip of exposed skin above her collar. Fingers spread across the base of her skull, thumb tracing one slow arc just below her hairline. Not tight. Not urgent. Just there, claiming the space like he'd already decided it belonged to him.
She glanced up.
He was watching the six men. And he was smiling. Not the practiced, controlled expression he used when he was calculating something. This one was sharper. Patient in the way a trap is patient.
The six men looked away fast.
Riri pressed her lips together. The display was excessive. Entirely unnecessary. She knew that.
Heat crawled up the side of her neck. Through the Bond, she felt his satisfaction bloom.
His smirk deepened by a fraction before he turned toward the dungeon gates.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
They crossed the threshold together.
[Entering: Grim Knights Castle (Training Dungeon - Rank C)] [Warning: Undead creatures possess Life Drain on contact] [Objective: Defeat the Grim Knight Commander OR Clear all hostile creatures (0/147)]
The courtyard opened ahead. Cracked stone, dead grass turned to gray powder at the roots, fog rolling along the ground in thick, slow waves. Gargoyles perched on every arch. Stone faces carved into expressions that sat just past decorative, features too specific to be random.
Riri scanned the fog line. Her Danger Sense pinged softly. Standard distribution, enemies in holding patterns, waiting for proximity triggers.
Samael moved.
His hand caught her wrist, pulled, and turned her in one motion. Her back met cold stone wall before she'd processed that she was moving. He braced one forearm above her head, his body blocking out the courtyard entirely, and looked down at her with the same focused attention he gave dungeon maps and enemy HP bars.
Her breath went short. Not from impact. The wall was cold through her jacket. Samael was not.
"I can feel your desire, Riri."
His voice was rough at the edges. Like he'd been keeping it level and it had gotten away from him slightly.
The Bond pulsed. Her surprise, her racing pulse, the warmth that had nothing to do with the fog. His satisfaction at causing all three.
She looked away, buying herself a moment. The stone wall to her left was close enough to feel its chill on her cheek.
His free hand caught her chin. Gentle. Turned her face back.
Dark eyes. Fully focused. Heated in a way that was new and very specific.
"I won't do anything you're not ready for." A pause. His thumb pressed lightly against her jaw. "But you are mine now. And all you have to do is ask."
The Bond feedback looped. Her pulse, his control, her awareness of both things happening simultaneously.
He held her gaze. Then stepped back, giving her room to breathe, and extended his hand between them. Palm up. Waiting.
Riri looked at his hand. Looked at him. At the complete steadiness in his posture, like he hadn't just pinned her to a dungeon wall and said what he'd said.
She took it.
His fingers closed around hers immediately. Warm and firm, thumb pressing lightly against the back of her hand as they started walking.
"You're ridiculous," she said, after they'd covered enough ground that her voice came out even.
"You like it."
She did not argue. His thumb traced a slow path across her knuckles, and the Bond hummed between them, and there was no reasonable comeback to either of those things.
"Good," he said, reading her silence correctly. "Because I'm not stopping."
The first pack emerged from the fog ahead.
Five Grim Knights. Each one seven feet of fused plate armor and decay, the flesh beneath visible through joints and gaps, pale and wrong-colored. Their swords dragged along stone with a sound that scraped against Riri's back teeth.
[Grim Knight - Level 17 | HP: 680/680] [Grim Knight - Level 18 | HP: 740/740] [Grim Knight - Level 17 | HP: 680/680] [Grim Knight - Level 18 | HP: 740/740] [Grim Knight - Level 19 | HP: 820/820]
Higher than standard C-Rank. The dungeon was reading their combined Combat Power and adjusting upward.
The Level 19 charged.
Samael released her hand. One step forward, one raised palm.
The knight folded in on itself, metal screaming against metal before cutting off completely.
[Enemy Defeated: Grim Knight - Level 19]
The remaining four stopped. Not mindless aggression. Actual assessment, heads tilting behind visors, re-evaluating threat priority.
"Loki, left two. Vermillion, center. Vesper, harass." The commands left Riri's mouth before the thought fully formed, habit built over weeks of synchronized fighting.
Loki hit the leftmost knight at full sprint, jaws clamping through plate armor and finding purchase on whatever was underneath. The creature's sword swept down. The wolf wasn't there anymore, already repositioning, the exchange leaving a fresh dent in its HP bar.
[Grim Knight HP: 423/680]
Vermillion's six bodies swarmed the center knight's helmet in a tight formation, HP Drain pulling a thin red mist from the undead flesh beneath.
[Grim Knight HP: 612/740] [Vermillion HP: 1,050/1,050 - Fully Restored]
Vesper materialized on the rightmost knight's pauldron, claws raking across the gap at the collar joint, then vanished before the gauntlet came up to swat her.
[Grim Knight HP: 581/680]
Samael handled the remaining two with the same efficiency he'd shown on the first.
Five knights, cleared.
Riri tested her Shadow Step. She picked a point fifteen feet ahead, activated the skill.
The courtyard folded. She was there before her body finished the motion of leaving. No displacement, no vertigo. Just here, then there, the transition smooth enough that Vesper didn't even adjust her grip.
Twenty MP. Clean.
"How does it feel?" Samael had crossed the distance on foot, arriving beside her a beat after.
"Like Vesper's, but quieter."
He looked at the spot where she'd been standing, then at her current position. "It'll carry you through area attacks without telegraphing the direction."
His hand found hers again. Natural as water moving downhill.
They went deeper into the courtyard.
The fog thickened past the first gate, visibility dropping to thirty feet before the gray obscured everything beyond. Danger Sense compensated. Pings mapped the surrounding area: a group of three on the left, two singles tracking parallel paths along the wall, a larger cluster somewhere ahead in the forty-foot range.
A pack of Grim Hounds burst from a side passage.
[Grim Hound - Level 16 | HP: 420/420] x3
Rotted flesh stretched thin over skeletal frames, joints grinding audibly with each stride. Their pale eyes were the same blue-white as the knights'.
Loki intercepted the lead hound before it crossed twenty feet. One jaw-lock, one sharp motion. The creature crumpled.
[Enemy Defeated: Grim Hound - Level 16]
Vesper and Vermillion divided the remaining two without coordination cues from Riri, working off pack instinct built over dozens of dungeons.
[Enemy Defeated: Grim Hound - Level 16] x2
Samael watched. Arms loose at his sides. He hadn't moved.
"Your formation held without commands."
"They've been running that pattern for three weeks."
His gaze tracked across her three companions as they reset positions. Something in his expression shifted, too brief and too internal for her to name.
"You're missing burst damage," he said.
"That's what you're for."
The satisfaction through the Bond was immediate. He looked back at her, and the corner of his mouth pulled slightly before he controlled it.
They reached the main doors. Heavy wood reinforced with black iron strapping, hanging open on hinges that should have seized decades ago. The darkness inside was absolute until their eyes adjusted, and then it was only slightly less so. Ceilings that disappeared into black. Six corridor branches, each identical, each radiating the same cold that clung to the stones here like damp. The air tasted of old copper and something flatter underneath, the smell of dust that had been still for a very long time.
And in the entrance hall, arranged in a loose half-circle, were fifteen Grim Knights.
All Level 18-19. All turning in unison.
[Warning: Elite Pack detected] [Grim Knight - Level 19] x15
Samael's hand tightened around hers. One squeeze.
"You handle stragglers," he said.
"You handle the bulk."
He released her hand and stepped forward.
The hall filled with the sound of compressed metal screaming. Ten knights simultaneously. The entrance hall shook, stone dust sifting down from above. When the noise stopped, ten HP bars blinked out in a cascade.
[Enemy Defeated: Grim Knight - Level 19] x10
The remaining five charged.
Riri activated Shadow Step, landing behind the rightmost knight before it had covered half the distance. Crimson Fang materialized in her grip, blade catching none of the light in the dark hall, and she drove it into the gap between gorget and helm, angling for the soft rot beneath.
[Critical Hit!] [Hemorrhage applied: 50 damage/second for 3 seconds] [Grim Knight HP: 623/820]
The Hemorrhage ticked immediately. She was already gone, repositioned ten feet left, watching the bleed count down.
[Grim Knight HP: 573/820] [Grim Knight HP: 523/820]
Loki hit it from the front, targeting the weakened area with unerring accuracy. Vermillion finished what was left.
[Enemy Defeated: Grim Knight - Level 19]
The other four fell in the time it took her to run the math on Hemorrhage stacking. Samael took three. Her team handled the fourth without her.
Silence settled into the hall like dust.
[Objective Progress: Clear all hostile creatures (31/147)]
One hundred and sixteen remaining.
Samael turned from the far end of the hall and crossed back toward her. His gaze went to the dagger in her hand first, then to her face. Something passed through the Bond that wasn't pride, exactly, but sat adjacent to it. Like pride's more focused sibling.
"The Commander is three floors up," he said, pulling up dungeon mapping. "Central tower. Clear route or direct approach."
Riri slid Crimson Fang back to inventory. "Systematic. I want to stress-test the new abilities."
He put the map away.
His hand extended between them again, palm up, the same patient offering as before. Like he'd decided this was the default state of things now and was simply waiting for her to agree each time.
She put her hand in his.
They moved deeper into the castle, the Bond warm and steady between them, Loki's claws clicking softly against the stone at their left.
One hundred and sixteen enemies ahead.
"Two hours," Samael said.
"Less."