After clearing the rank A dungeon, heroes team back to base camp not to far away from the castle.
"We do nothing, Arga just swept everything away.." Rina talked to others.
"Doesn't that is good? No one hurt because of Arga."
Elara responded.
Arga just stay silent, his head is still full of echoed sounds. But just after they arrived at the base, the wind feels really strange. It's like something is just not right, the sky somehow looks like crying for no reason.
Arga's instinct kicks in.
Where the support team? Why are they not arrived here yet?
He knows something isn't right, without hesitation he turned his body.
"Bro what's wrong?" Yogi ask politely.
Before the team could take they breath. Arga ran towards the C rank dungeon.
No explanation.
Only his fast speed leaving clear tracks among the ways.
The wind split apart.
Stone cracked every time Arga's feet touched the ground.
He ran.
No one could react to that speed.
he shot forward, as if crashing through the air with a rage that had yet to take shape.
Behind him, the hero team was left behind.
The other students try to pursue him.
"Elara! He's too fast!" Yogi shouted.
"Argaaa!" Elara try to call him.
But Arga had already streaked ahead like lightning that had lost its sky.
There was something inside that Rank C Dungeon.
Not merely monsters.
Not merely the stench of blood.
But a suffocating pressure that seeped into the bones.
As if the world were holding its breath.
As if an abyss were waiting to swallow everything whole.
The closer he came to the boss chamber, the heavier his steps became, not from exhaustion, but from a truth he had not yet seen, yet somehow already understood.
***
Then he arrived.
And the world stopped.
Bodies lay scattered across the stone floor like leaves fallen before their season. A Class C mage slumped in a pool of red, its edges already dried. A healer lay with her hand still outstretched, as though trying to reach something that had drifted too far away.
Ilham and Satrio did not move.
Adam knelt, his face pale like a statue that had forgotten how to feel.
Nadia wept without sound, her body bent over.
Kafka.
His blood spread across the floor like a rose forced to bloom in a storm.
Mr. Rahmat stood with his sword raised, his body unsteady, but his eyes still sharp.
And at the center of the chamber,
the Goblin Champion stood.
A voice whispered inside Arga's mind.
Let them die!
Let the Dungeon devour the weak.
You have fought enough. There's no reason to save this useless bugs.
The words did not shout.
It whispered.
Arga closed his eyes.
For a moment.
He remembered.
The orphanage.
Rain leaking through the roof.
Stale bread split in two.
Small hands tugging at his shirt when he was about to fight another child.
Kafka.
That foolish boy who always stood in front of him.
Who always smiled even when beaten.
Who always believed the world could become something better.
Arga hated him.
Because that gentleness felt like an insult.
But seeing that body pierced and discarded like worthless cloth.
something tore inside his chest.
Not love.
Not friendship.
But memory.
And memory is a root that never truly dies.
"How dare you take my…"
His voice was low.
Like a growl.
The Goblin Champion laughed.
And Arga moved.
His sword blazed like a fallen moon crashing to earth.
The first slash cleaved the air,
and the air itself split apart.
Five small goblins were severed at once before they could even scream.
Blood sprayed like red rain.
Arga surged forward again.
Each step struck like lightning seeking ground.
He slashed.
Thrust.
Spun.
Every movement are precise, like a sentence written without room of error.
The Goblin Champion roared and attacked.
Their blades collided like two mountains crashing together.
CLAAAANG!!
The tremor spread throughout the chamber.
But Arga was tired.
He had just cleared a Rank A Dungeon.
He had run without pause.
His stamina was not an endless river.
Arga understood clearly, this had to end quickly.
"Sword Light of Judgement!"
He unleashed his ultimate technique, a slash powerful, swift, precise. An attack impossible to evade.
Goblin Champion's body split apart. The monster's flesh fly everywhere.
For a fraction of a second, he believed he had won.
Then the severed body knit itself back together.
Two more cores pulsed within the Goblin Champion's body, as though deliberately planted by someone else.
Arga began questioning.
"Is this really rank C?"
the cores throbbed faster.
DUKDUKDUKDUK.
The Goblin Champion's flesh writhed.
The wounds Arga had carved sealed themselves like earth swallowing footprints.
Bones protruded like thorns from a poisoned rose.
The creature grew.
Larger.
Wilder.
More wrong.
"This isn't Rank C…"
Arga smiles turn bitter.
And as he was hurled against the wall,
he knew.
This was a trap.
The goblins that had died rised again.
Their bodies rotted, then stitched themselves, like puppets sewn by unseen hands.
Their eyes glowed red.
Empty.
Like lanterns from hell.
Arga stood at the center of the circle.
Alone.
Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
The voice returned.
Stop.
You've done enough.
Let them die.
He almost surrendered.
Almost.
Then,
something flashed.
Red.
Fast.
A goblin about to cleave Arga suddenly split apart clean, like paper cut by invisible scissors.
Arga turned.
Kafka stood there.
His body swayed.
The wound in his chest still gaped.
Yet his blood did not fall.
It hovered in the air.
Like fragments of a sunset refusing to sink.
The blood moved.
Fused.
Lengthened.
Forming two daggers.
Deep crimson.
Pulsing like a second heart.
Kafka's gaze was empty.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Empty like a starless sky.
But behind that emptiness,
there was silent resolve.
He stepped forward.
And every step was like signing a contract with death.
The goblins charged.
Kafka vanished among them like a shadow torn free from its owner.
His blood daggers struck.
Swift.
Silent.
Throats split before screams could be born.
Abdomens ripped open before final breaths escaped.
The blood of fallen goblins rose into the air, merging with his blades.
Each death deepened their color.
Like dusk growing darker toward night.
He was not fighting.
He was dancing.
And the battlefield was his stage.
His movements flowed like a river that had shattered its dam.
Sometimes curving.
Sometimes straight as lightning.
Sometimes spinning like a leaf caught in a storm.
A goblin leapt from behind.
Kafka pivoted halfway.
Right dagger pierced a skull.
Left dagger sliced through another's knee.
He landed lightly.
Blood streamed around him like an armor.
The Goblin Champion roared and attacked.
Its massive blade fell like a collapsing pillar of the sky.
Kafka slid aside.
The ground shattered where he had stood.
He dashed forward.
Leapt onto the creature's shoulder.
His dagger stabbed into its eye.
The monster shrieked.
But the black core pulsed violently.
A massive hand tried to seize him.
Kafka leapt down.
Blood in the air formed a thin chain for a brief second.
He pulled.
The Goblin Champion's eye tore to the air.
Its scream shook the chamber.
But it did not die.
Goblin Champion's body swelled.
Muscles bulged like storm clouds.
It attacked wildly.
Kafka was hurled away.
His body slammed into stone.
The wound in his chest split wider.
Blood flowed more heavily.
Yet he rised again, like a corpse who refuse to die.
Without expression.
Without a cry.
Only heavy breaths.
The blood around him gathered.
Forming dozens of small crimson shards.
Like a cluster of red stars.
He raised his hand.
And the shards shot forward.
Like a meteor shower.
Piercing the Goblin Champion from every direction.
The creature roared.
Struggled to advance.
But Kafka was already flash in front of it.
His daggers changed.
Widened.
Lengthened.
Like demonic wings forged from wounds.
He stared at the black core.
And for the first time,
a light appeared in his eyes.
Not emotion.
But decision.
He stepped forward.
One.
Two.
And with a single breath,
he cut through time.
Silence.
The Goblin Champion's body froze.
Then split apart.
Smells of organs pierced the air, pieces fell one by one like rain that had come too late. The remaining two cores shattered into fragments.
Its dark light extinguished.
The hovering blood fell.
The daggers dissolved into ordinary crimson liquid.
Kafka stood for a moment.
Like a statue that had forgotten how to breathe.
Then his body lost its support.
Mr. Rahmat moved swiftly and caught him.
For the first time,
Arga did not know what to say.
He stared at that empty face.
Blood still flowed.
"What the?, how could you…"
He did not finish.
Because Kafka had already fainted.
Arga himself swayed.
At last, his exhaustion win against him.
He dropped to his knees.
Then collapsed.
Nadia, her breath uneven, limped toward Kafka. Her eyes were still swollen, tears not yet dry.
Adam remained frozen, filled with regret, envy, and fear.
The chamber was littered with torn flesh.
The goblins that had risen were now truly dead.
Silence.
Only Mr. Rahmat remained standing.
He gazed at the shattered black cores.
This was not coincidence.
Not a miscalculation.
This was planned.
***
In the cathedral. Far beyond the dungeon,
Bishop Magnus received the words that Arga had run toward the Rank C Dungeon.
His face turned pale red.
"FOOL! QUICKLY, FOLLOW HIM! WE COULD LOSE OUR HERO!"
Forces mobilized.
But when they arrived,
all they saw was ruin.
Arga unconscious.
Kafka drenched in blood.
Nadia crying in silence.
Adam sitting motionless.
And Mr. Rahmat standing in the middle of the wreckage.
With the eyes of a man who had just realized,
this game was far bigger than they had ever imagined.
~To Be Continued ~