The Shrieking Matriarch hung from the ceiling like a nightmare someone had forgotten to wake up from.
Wingspan wider than the chamber. Fur the color of dried blood. Its body pulsed with each breath, ribs expanding and contracting beneath taut skin. The head was wrong. Too large for the body. A mouth that split open past where a jaw should stop, lined with teeth that curved inward.
It was asleep.
Jaehyuk and Somin stood behind the waterfall curtain, water misting their faces. The chamber beyond was maybe forty meters across. Circular. The ceiling rose into darkness. Stalactites hung like teeth in a second mouth.
"That's the boss?" Somin whispered.
"Yes."
"It's the size of a car."
"Minivan."
"Oh, great. Minivan. That's so much better." Her grip on her staff had gone white-knuckled. "How do we fight a minivan bat with no weapons and a healing stick?"
"We don't fight it head-on. We exploit its cooldown."
He pulled her back from the waterfall edge. Kept his voice low. The Matriarch's hearing was its strongest sense. It could detect a heartbeat at thirty meters. The waterfall gave them cover, but only while they stayed behind it.
"Its main attack is a sonic shriek," he said. "Close range, it ruptures eardrums. Mid-range, it disorients. Long range, it still hurts. But after every shriek, it needs three seconds to recharge. During those three seconds, it's deaf to its own echo. Blind, basically."
"Three seconds."
"Three seconds to hit the left wing. There's a weak point where the membrane connects to the second joint. The cartilage there is thinner. A concentrated strike can tear it."
"And you know this because..."
"YouTube was very thorough."
"I'm going to kill you after we survive this."
He almost laughed. Didn't.
"Here's the plan," he said. "I go in. I bait the first shriek. The second it fires, I use Shadow Step to close distance and hit the wing joint. You stay behind the waterfall. Do not come out until I say."
"What if you get hit by the shriek?"
"I won't."
"What if you do?"
"Then heal me from range."
"My range is six meters, Jaehyuk. Six."
"Then I won't get hit."
She stared at him with an expression that suggested she was reconsidering every life choice that had led her to this cave.
"Go," she said. "Before I change my mind about being in your party."
He stepped through the waterfall.
The cold water hit him like a slap. For one second, he was blind, soaked, gasping. Then he was through. Standing in the chamber. Dripping on stone that hadn't seen light in centuries.
The Matriarch's head twitched.
Not awake. Not yet. But aware. Its ears rotated like satellite dishes, tracking the new sound. Water dripping off a human body onto rock. A heartbeat that wasn't there before.
Jaehyuk controlled his breathing. Slowed it. Let the water drip.
He needed the first shriek on his terms. That meant positioning. He circled left, hugging the chamber wall. His bare feet were silent on wet stone. Each step deliberate. Each breath measured.
The Matriarch's left wing was folded against its body. The joint he needed was about four meters off the ground. He'd need to jump. With 12 Strength and 13 Agility, that was... tight. Very tight.
Shadow Step could close horizontal distance. Not vertical.
He needed a rock.
There. A boulder near the chamber wall, roughly two meters high. If he climbed it, then Shadow Stepped from the top, the horizontal distance to the wing joint was maybe five meters. Doable. Barely.
He climbed the boulder. Slow. Silent. The Matriarch's ears kept twitching. It knew something was in its chamber. It just couldn't pinpoint what.
Jaehyuk stood on the boulder. Five meters of air between him and the joint. A sleeping minivan bat between him and the ground.
He picked up a loose stone. Weighed it. Threw it at the far wall.
The crack of stone on stone echoed through the chamber.
The Matriarch's eyes opened.
Two orbs of amber fury. They locked onto the point of impact on the far wall. The creature unfolded. Wings spreading. Membrane stretching taut. Its mouth opened.
Jaehyuk covered his ears.
The shriek hit like a physical force. Even with his ears covered, even at thirty meters from the point of aim, it rattled his skull. His vision blurred. His teeth ached. The sound wasn't just loud. It was invasive. It crawled inside your head and scraped.
The far wall cracked. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Then silence.
One.
Jaehyuk dropped his hands.
Two.
He activated Shadow Step.
The skill was F-rank. Barely functional. It didn't teleport. It didn't make him invisible. What it did was compress three steps into one. A burst of speed so short it looked like a flicker. Like a bad frame in a video.
Three steps became one. He launched from the boulder.
Three.
His fist connected with the wing joint.
And here was where knowledge fought physics. He knew exactly where to hit. The cartilage seam. The spot where the membrane bunched and the structural integrity was compromised. He'd watched climbers hit this spot a dozen times on Floor 2 videos that circulated in the mid-floors.
But those climbers had Strength above 50.
His Strength was 12.
The impact jarred up his arm like he'd punched concrete. Something in his hand cracked. Pain. White and immediate. But the joint... the joint flexed. He felt it give, just slightly. A millimeter of cartilage buckling.
Not enough.
The Matriarch screamed. Not the sonic attack. A raw, animal sound. Pain and rage. Its wing swept sideways and caught Jaehyuk in the chest.
He flew.
The wall met his back. Everything went white. Then red. Then a very specific shade of grey that meant his body was trying to decide if he was conscious or not.
He hit the ground. Couldn't breathe. Ribs. At least two cracked. Maybe three.
The Matriarch turned toward him. Mouth opening for another shriek. This one aimed directly at him, from ten meters. At that range, it wouldn't just rupture eardrums. It would liquefy something.
"JAEHYUK!"
Warm light. Somin. She'd come through the waterfall. She was standing in the open, staff blazing, healing him from... more than six meters. Closer to ten.
Her range had increased. Under stress. Under fear. An adrenaline-forced skill evolution. He'd seen it happen before, on higher floors. Never on Floor 2.
The healing knit his ribs. Not fully. Enough. He could breathe.
The Matriarch shrieked.
Jaehyuk rolled. The sonic wave hit where he'd been lying. The stone cratered. Fragments peppered his back.
One.
He was on his feet.
Two.
He ran. Not away. Toward it. Straight at the left wing. The joint was damaged. He'd felt it give. One more hit. Maybe two.
Three.
Shadow Step.
His fist found the same spot. This time he didn't just punch. He drove his fingers into the seam. Found the edge of the buckled cartilage. And pulled.
The membrane tore.
The Matriarch's shriek became a howl. It listed sideways, one wing crumpling. It thrashed. Its tail swept the chamber. Jaehyuk ducked. The tail passed over his head close enough to ruffle his hair.
The creature couldn't fly. Couldn't balance for a proper shriek. It scrambled on the ground, dragging its ruined wing, mouth opening and closing in rapid, unfocused bursts of sound that bounced off walls without coherence.
Jaehyuk didn't let up. Shadow Step. Three seconds. The right wing joint. Same spot, opposite side. Punch. Crack. Again. The cartilage here was stronger. He felt his knuckles split. Blood on membrane.
"Heal," he said.
Light washed over his hands. The bones reset. The skin closed.
He hit the joint again.
It buckled.
The Matriarch collapsed. Both wings ruined. It screamed, but the sound was broken now. Fragmented. Like a radio losing signal.
Jaehyuk stood over it. Breathing hard. His hands were destroyed. Somin was healing them, but the damage was accumulating faster than E-rank could fix.
The Matriarch's amber eyes found his.
And for one moment, Jaehyuk saw something in them that he hadn't expected.
Recognition.
Not the animal kind. Not prey-awareness or threat-assessment. Something deeper. Like the creature was looking at him and seeing something it shouldn't be able to see.
Then its eyes dimmed. The body dissolved into blue light.
[Floor 2 Boss Defeated — Shrieking Matriarch]
[Clear Time: 22 minutes 07 seconds]
[Rank: S]
Somin made a sound behind him. Half gasp, half laugh.
"S-rank? S-RANK?"
He barely heard her. He was watching the loot window.
Three orbs again. One white. One green. One blue.
No skill he needed from this floor. The drops were standard.
But that wasn't what held his attention.
Behind the dissolved Matriarch, on the chamber wall, something was carved into the stone. Old. Older than the Tower should allow. Letters that looked like they'd been scratched by fingernails.
Two words. In Korean.
다시 시작Start again.
Jaehyuk's blood froze.
He walked to the wall. Touched the letters. The stone was cold. The grooves were deep. Whoever had written this had done it slowly. Deliberately. With nothing but their hands.
"Jaehyuk?" Somin's voice. Far away. "What is that?"
Below the words, smaller, almost invisible:
회차: 6Iteration: 6
He stared at it.
Iteration six.
If this was iteration six, and the scratches were from a previous climber who'd regressed...
Then Jaehyuk wasn't the first person to come back.
And he wasn't the sixth.
He was the seventh.
The exit portal appeared. Blue light, stone arch. The hum.
But Jaehyuk didn't move. He was staring at the wall. At two words and a number that rewrote everything he thought he understood about what had happened to him.
Somin touched his shoulder. "Hey. Talk to me."
He turned to her. His face must have shown something, because her expression shifted from concern to fear.
"We need to move faster," he said.
"Why? What does that writing say?"
"It says I'm not special." He walked toward the portal. "It says I'm just the latest."