CHAPTER 6
The stairway was drenched in blood.
It ran down the marble steps in crimson streams, pooling around the boots of exhausted hunters. The air reeked of iron and rot, thick enough to choke on. Every breath came with the taste of death.
The walls shook with the screeches of ghoulsa hundred, maybe more pouring from the shadows like a living tide. Their claws scraped stone, their eyes gleaming with feral hunger.
The hunters fought like cornered beasts.
Their blades flashed.
Their shouts echoed.
Their fear bled into the dark.
And in that storm of death, Tang Shi moved like lightning.
His twin daggers cut arcs of silver light, slicing through the swarm with terrifying precision. Each movement flowed into the next dodge, spin, strike—so fluid it was almost beautiful. Ghouls dropped around him like puppets with their strings cut, heads tumbling down the stairs, black ichor splattering across his armor.
"Pathetic things," Tang Shi hissed through gritted teeth, eyes glowing silver. "You dare call yourselves predators? In my presence?!"
He surged forward, stepping on corpses, cleaving through another wave. Every sense in his body burned alive with Infinite Tracker—his signature ability. He could feel the world around him in perfect clarity; every heartbeat, every twitch of muscle, every drop of malice pulsing in the air. Before the ghouls could move, they were already dead.
A-rank hunters struggled to survive.
B-ranks screamed and fell
But Tang Shi—Tang Shi was dominance incarnate.
He fought like he was untouchable. Like a god descending into a slaughterhouse.
BUT!!
Renji was not like him.
He stumbled back, his breath ragged, his pickaxe trembling in his grip. His eyes darted across the carnage—bodies torn apart, screams echoing, the stairwell slick with blood. Every sound dug into his skull. Every scream drowned his courage.
I can't… I can't fight them…
I'm going to die here. I'll die and Lily will be alone…
A ghoul lunged at him a flash of claws, rancid breath, and hunger.
Before Renji could even raise his weapon, steel intercepted the strike.
A clean, defiant clang.
Choji.
The older hunter stood between Renji and death, blade buried in the ghoul's neck. His armor was cracked, his shoulder bleeding, but his eyes burned with will.
"Stay behind me, Renji-san!" Choji roared, forcing the ghoul down with a desperate swing that split its skull.
He shouldn't have been standing. Every muscle in his body screamed, but Choji refused to fall. He wasn't the strongest, nor the fastest—but he was human courage given form.
Even as ghouls clawed at his armor.
Even as his blood dripped down the blade.
Even when his knees trembled.
He fought. Because Renji was still alive.
Renji's vision blurred with tears. "Choji…"
But his legs refused to move. Fear held him in its cold, merciless grip.
Minutes felt like hours. Then—silence.
The last ghoul's screech died with a wet crunch as Tang Shi's dagger buried into its skull. The stairwell fell eerily quiet, the only sounds the panting of the survivors and the slow drip of blood.
Tang Shi stood at the center of the carnage, chest rising and falling steadily. His daggers gleamed wet and dark. He flicked his wrist, scattering droplets of ichor across the wall before sheathing the blades with a smug grin.
"Is this all?" he spat, stepping over a corpse. "A hundred ghouls, and not one worth remembering. If this is the best this dungeon can offer, then it's a disappointment."
He raised his arms, black blood running down the silver of his daggers like ink.
"Come on! Come at me again! I'll paint these stairs red until there's nothing left to kill!"
Some hunters, wounded and half-broken, almost believed him. In that moment, his arrogance gave them a flicker of hope.
But that hope died with the next sound.
STOMP. STOMP.
The ground trembled.
The walls groaned.
The torches flickered then shrank as if suffocated.
A new pressure rolled through the chamber one that crushed lungs and souls alike. It wasn't the chaotic bloodlust of monsters. It was something colder. Older.
Like the dungeon itself was bowing to a superior will.
Renji collapsed instantly. His knees hit the floor with a wet smack, vision spinning. His heart felt like it would explode. His instincts screamed one truth—run—but his body refused to obey.
Around him, hunters gasped for breath. Some vomited blood. Others fell unconscious from the sheer density of mana.
Tang Shi's smirk vanished.
His knees bent slightly, the silver in his eyes flickering. "What… what is this pressure…?"
The air rippled as if reality itself strained to hold something back.
Then, from the bottom of the stairwell, two eyes opened.
Glowing crimson. Vast. Ancient.
A voice rolled through the darkness—not sound, but vibration. It reached into their bones.
"Now…"
A pause that lasted an eternity.
"MORTALS."
The torches died.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
The Boss Emerges
From the abyss, it stepped forward.
Its form was a nightmare—nearly four meters tall, wrapped in torn black robes that shimmered like liquid shadow. Beneath the tattered cloth, bone and flesh melded together in grotesque mockery. Veins pulsed with eerie green fire, crawling across skeletal arms like living worms.
Its skull—elongated, crowned with twisted horns glowed from within, eyes burning like dying suns.
When it moved, it was not clumsy or savage. It was graceful.
Every step carried weight, authority—the movement of something that owned the world it walked in.
A low, rasping laugh echoed.
Not sound, but thought that cracked skulls from within.
"Hunters… how amusing."
Tang Shi's breath hitched. Sweat ran down his face, his silver eyes wide.
"No… this aura…" he stammered. "This isn't SS-rank. It can't be—"
He thought of the strongest ss ranker
Hiroto kenzaki —the storm of a man who could sink cities. Yet this thing before him dwarfed that presence like the ocean swallows a drop of rain.
"This… this is an SSS-rank…" Tang Shi's voice broke. "No. No, that's impossible! There are only eight in the world—!"
The boss raised a hand. Its skeletal fingers flexed, talons glinting in the dark.
"Dance for me."
And the massacre began.
It appeared behind an A-rank before anyone saw it move.
A flash—then two halves of a man hit the floor, entrails spilling like spilled ropes.
Choji roared and charged, sword raised high.
His blade met the creature's fingers.
Snap. The weapon broke like glass.
The claws pierced Choji's gut. His eyes went wide as blood poured down his armor. He collapsed, coughing scarlet.
"CHOJI!" Renji's scream tore from his throat.
Choji's hand twitched, reaching for him. Then the light began to fade.
But before death could claim him—the creature whispered:
"Replenish."
With a sickening crack, Choji's body restored itself. Flesh mended, bones reset, life forced back into dying eyes.
He screamed again—alive, aware, hurting.
Then the boss struck again, tearing him apart.
And revived him again.
And again.
And again.
A hunter's body on the floor reformed, only to be ripped open seconds later. Their cries overlapped in a chorus of agony. Flesh shredded. Bones reset. Screams repeated in an endless loop.
Renji fell to the ground, shaking, bile burning in his throat.
"STOP IT!!" he screamed, voice raw. "STOP IT!! PLEASE—!"
But the creature only smiled.
It walked among them like a conductor, orchestrating their torment. Each gesture birthed pain. Each step dripped mockery.
Tang Shi Breaks
Tang Shi's aura flared wildly.
"INFINITE TRACKER—ACTIVATE!!"
His eyes blazed silver. His daggers flashed, cutting faster than thought.
He struck again and again, ripping through flesh, splitting ribs, shattering bone.
But every wound closed. Every slice healed.
The boss didn't even move.
Tang Shi's precision turned frantic. His breathing became erratic. Then—
Slash.
His arms hit the floor. Blood sprayed in twin fountains.
He fell to his knees, trembling.
"No… no, I can't lose… not to a monster like you…"
The boss tilted its skull, voice dripping with cruel amusement.
"Replenish."
Tang Shi's arms reattached themselves in a storm of nerves and pain. He screamed—a sound that shattered whatever pride he had left.
"Do you understand now, hunter?" the boss whispered, crouching low. "You cannot win. You cannot die. You belong to me… until I tire of you."
Renji clutched his head, sobbing.
Choji's screams. Tang Shi's agony. The smell of blood and bile. The endless deaths. The endless rebirths. It broke something inside him.
Why am I here?
Why did I agree to this?
Why can't I do anything?!
And then—he remembered.
A voice, soft and fragile, yet stronger than any scream.
"Big brother… promise me you'll never give up."
Lily.
Her smile. Her little hands clutching his sleeve. The only light left in his world.
Renji's tears fell to the blood-soaked floor, mixing with the crimson of others.
His fingers tightened around his trembling pickaxe.
His breathing steadied—just slightly.
He couldn't move yet.
But for the first time…
He refused to look away.
Even if he had to witness hell itself.