Then came the cracking. Not a sound. A *sensation*. Deep, resonant, like the earth itself splitting. It vibrated up through Yuri's boots, rattling her teeth. Every torch flickered wildly. Across the cavernous expanse of Level 1, the very stone walls began to fracture. Not randomly. With terrifying precision. Eighty jagged fissures ripped open simultaneously, spiderwebbing across the bedrock. From each dark maw, a wave of heat and fetid breath washed out. Then, shapes emerged. Massive. Horned. Crimson-eyed. Three Minotaurs stepped from each crack. Eighty cracks. Two hundred and forty Minotaurs. An impossible tide of muscle, rage, and gleaming axes filled the chamber, their combined bellows shaking dust from the ceiling like a localized earthquake. The ragged cheer of the arriving reinforcements died instantly, replaced by a chorus of horrified gasps. The dungeon hadn't just answered her challenge. It had declared annihilation.
The sheer mass of the Minotaur horde was overwhelming. They didn't charge; they *advanced*, a living wall of horned death pressing forward with terrifying inevitability. Adventurers scrambled back, shields raised in futile defense. Swords glanced off thick hides. A Familia captain roared orders, his voice swallowed by the monstrous din. Yuri felt the crushing weight of despair. Two hundred and forty. Impossible. Her dagger felt like a toothpick against a mountain range. The Minotaurs' eyes, all burning with that unnatural crimson intelligence, fixed on her—the defiant spark who had slain their champion. They moved as one, a coordinated avalanche of destruction aimed squarely at her position. The ground trembled with their synchronized steps. Hope bled away faster than the wounded. This wasn't a battle. It was an execution.
Yuri's wolf ears flattened against her skull. Her tail bristled. The system screamed warnings she couldn't process. Then, a cold clarity washed over her. This wasn't just about survival anymore. It was about buying time. Every second mattered. For Allison. For the city above. She planted her boots firmly on the blood-slick stone, ignoring the agony in her ribs. Her mismatched eyes—one the green of a world lost, one the blue of a love found—locked onto the advancing crimson sea. A feral grin, sharp and desperate, split her face. Her dagger rose, a sliver of defiance against the impossible dark. "Lilly," she whispered into the storm of sound, the name a vow. "Show me how to make them *bleed*." The Minotaur tide reached her. She met it, a lone wolf howling into the storm, her silver-tipped hair the last bright thing in the consuming darkness. The first axe fell.
Yuri didn't know how she moved. One moment, the crushing weight of the Minotaur charge threatened to pulverize her; the next, she was a phantom. A blur of midnight and silver. She flowed *between* the giants, a leaf riding the hurricane's edge. An axe whistled past her ear, close enough to stir her hair. She pivoted, the movement liquid, impossibly fast—guided by Lilly's pulsing evasion vectors flashing in her mind. Her dagger, a mere sliver of steel, flickered out. Not deep wounds. Not killing blows. A shallow slice across a thick hamstring here. A quick stab into the soft tendon behind a knee there. Death by a thousand cuts. She danced on a razor's edge, her breaths ragged gasps, her world narrowed to the next dodge, the next flick of her blade. Pain screamed from her ribs, ignored. Fear clawed at her throat, silenced. There was only the dance, the desperate rhythm of survival etched in blood and shadow. Around her, the Minotaurs roared, stumbling, their coordinated advance fracturing into chaos as limbs buckled beneath them. They swung wildly, axes carving empty air where she'd been a heartbeat before.
Slowly, agonizingly, the tide turned. Not by overwhelming force, but by relentless attrition. Yuri was everywhere and nowhere, a ghost haunting the giants. She ducked beneath a sweeping axe, rolled between stamping hooves, and came up slashing at an exposed flank. A Minotaur bellowed, crashing to one knee, its leg tendon severed. Another stumbled, hamstrung, blocking its kin. The sheer press of their numbers became their weakness. They hindered each other, their rage blinding them. Ten fell. Then twenty. Then fifty. Each drop of blood, each faltering step, was a testament to her impossible defiance. The surviving adventurers, stunned into immobility, could only watch. They stood frozen, weapons hanging slack, eyes wide with disbelief. One lone lowe level a girl with wolf ears and a dagger—was dismantling an army meant to shatter Orario. Dust hung thick in the air, mingling with the coppery scent of blood and the Minotaurs' furious bellows, now laced with something new: confusion, frustration… fear.
Soon, only ten Minotaurs remained, isolated islands of fury amidst a sea of fallen kin. They formed a ragged circle around Yuri, their crimson eyes burning with primal hate, but also a flicker of wary respect. They hesitated. She stood panting in the center, drenched in sweat and gore, her dagger dripping, her small frame trembling with exhaustion. Her green and blue eyes, though, blazed with unbroken fire. She raised her blade again, a silent challenge echoing louder than any roar. The remaining beasts shifted, hooves scraping stone, their bellows low and guttural. The dance wasn't over. But the impossible had already happened. The gate still stood. And the lone wolf had made the dungeon pay in blood.
As Yuri went to move forward, to meet the final challengers, her legs buckled. The adrenaline surge vanished like a blown-out candle. The agony in her ribs flared white-hot, her muscles screamed in protest, and the world tilted violently. She collapsed, darkness rushing in at the edges of her vision. Her dagger slipped from nerveless fingers, clattering on the stone. Consciousness slipped away like water through grasping fingers. Her body, pushed past its limits a dozen times over in the frantic dance of survival, had finally surrendered. The remaining Minotaurs, sensing the defiance extinguished, lowered their horns and charged as one, a final, brutal stampede toward the helpless girl.
The killing blow never landed. Two blurs of motion, faster than thought, intercepted the charge. Twin blades flashed, silver streaks in the dim light. One Minotaur's horn shattered mid-charge; another stumbled, hamstrings severed. The beasts roared in surprise and fury, skidding to a halt before the new barrier. Standing protectively over Yuri's fallen form were two Amazons, identical save for the fierce determination in their eyes and the slight smirk on the taller one's lips. Tiona and Tione Hiryute. They'd arrived halfway through Yuri's impossible stand, drawn by the cacophony and the sheer, suicidal defiance radiating from the lone girl. They'd watched, fascinated, as the low-level newcomer systematically dismantled the monstrous horde with nothing but grit, speed, and a dagger. They watched until the fight finally left her, spent and broken. Only then, only when the girl's raw courage had earned their deepest respect, did they make their move.
Tione planted her boot on the chest of the nearest struggling Minotaur, driving her knife deep. "Heh. Took you long enough to fall, little wolf," she muttered, her gaze flicking to Yuri's unconscious form. Tiona danced past a clumsy axe swing, her own large twin blade finding a chink in thick hide. "Respect," she breathed, her voice tight with focus and admiration. "That was… something else." They moved with lethal grace, a whirlwind of blades finishing what Yuri had started. The last Minotaurs fell quickly before the seasoned Level 5s, their roars silenced forever. The dungeon floor fell eerily quiet, save for the ragged breathing of the stunned survivors and the dripping of blood. The twins stood amidst the carnage, looking down at the small, bloodied figure who had held the line against impossible odds. The path ahead was still treacherous, but the wolf girl had earned her rest. And perhaps, allies worth having.
Word spread through Orario faster than wildfire. A low-level newcomer, a girl barely taller than a child, had stood alone against a Minotaur army summoned by the dungeon itself. She hadn't just survived; she had shattered their advance, buying precious time until Loki Familia's elites arrived. Whispers painted her as a lone wolf, a spirit of defiance clad in silver-tipped hair and mismatched eyes. The Guild clerks confirmed the impossible carnage on the first floor. The adventurers who witnessed it spoke of her impossible speed, her eerie calm amidst the storm, the way she danced through giants like death itself. By dawn, the tale was already legend: the Wolf of the First Floor who faced annihilation and spat in its eye. Her name, Yuri, was on everyone's lips, a symbol of raw courage against the dark.
Yuri awoke slowly, blinking against the soft light filtering through a high window. Her body screamed – ribs tightly bandaged, muscles aching as if she'd been trampled by a herd of unicorns. The sterile smell of antiseptic and the soft murmur of voices told her she was in a clinic. Panic flared briefly – Allison? The dungeon? – before a calm, familiar voice echoed in her mind. [Host is safe. Guild clinic. Surface level. Injuries severe but healing. Rest is advised.] Relief washed over her, followed by bone-deep exhaustion. She sank back into the pillow, fragments of the nightmare flashing: crimson eyes, crashing axes, the desperate dance. She remembered the twins arriving… barely. Then darkness. She closed her eyes, not ready to face the world just yet. The quiet hum of the city outside felt impossibly distant.
The clinic door creaked open. A nurse bustled in, checking her bandages. "Ah, awake! Good. You gave everyone quite the scare, little hero," she said warmly, adjusting a pillow. Before Yuri could process the strange title, a figure filled the doorway. Hephaestus stood there, her fiery hair tied back, her expression unreadable. Her single eye swept over Yuri, lingering on the bandages. There was a flicker of something deep within that gaze – respect, perhaps, mixed with a fierce protectiveness Yuri hadn't seen before. Hephaestus stepped fully into the room, her presence commanding silence. "Little wolf," she began, her voice low and steady, cutting through the lingering haze of pain and confusion. "When you're healed… we need to talk."