The air in District 5 didn't just feel cold; it felt heavy, like walking through chest-high water. The purple fog here was thick with the scent of ozone and ancient dust. Every breath Kang-woo took tasted like copper.
"Keep close," Kang-woo whispered.
Behind them, the entrance to the subway tunnel collapsed under the weight of something massive.
CRACK.
A claw the size of a car door ripped through the concrete. Then came the head—a skull stripped of skin, burning with green balefire, its jaws dripping with black ichor.
[Entity Identified: Hound of the Grave (Rank B-)][Trait: Relentless Tracker.]
"There's three of them," Seol-ah gasped, her silver mana flickering weakly. She raised a shard of her glass bow, her fingers bleeding from the jagged edges.
"Don't waste your energy yet," Kang-woo commanded.
The Black Guard Centurion stood between them and the Hounds. It was fully repaired now, its black bones polished and its iron crown glowing with a dull violet light. It held its greatsword low, vibrating with a low, humming hunger.
The lead Hound lunged. It didn't bark; it let out a sound like a thousand souls screaming at once.
"Centurion, Hold!"
The skeleton slammed its sword into the ground, creating a shockwave of necrotic force. The Hound crashed into the invisible wall, its ribcage snapping with a loud thud. But it didn't stop. It scrambled over the debris, its iron claws carving deep furrows in the asphalt.
[Warning: Your Mana is at 12%.][Efficiency is dropping due to the 'Dead Zone' interference.]
Kang-woo felt his heart stutter. He needed a way to end this quickly. He looked at the ruined buildings surrounding them. This district was a graveyard of the early Hunter era—old mana-reinforced skyscrapers that had partially fused with the dungeon dimension.
"Seol-ah! That building! Get to the roof!"
"What about you?"
"I'm going to fish."
Kang-woo didn't run away. He ran toward the nearest Hound.
The beast snapped its jaws, missing his shoulder by an inch. Kang-woo slid under its belly, his hand reaching out for the 'Auditor's Ink' still burning in his inventory. He didn't use a drop this time. He used the concept.
[New Skill Unlocked: 'Grave-Hook'.]
A chain made of solidified black ink erupted from Kang-woo's palm. It wasn't physical; it was a tether of debt. The hook slammed into the Hound's burning skull, anchoring itself in the green fire.
"Got you," Kang-woo hissed.
He jumped onto the side of a rusted bus, using the momentum to swing the Hound around like a wrecking ball. The massive beast crashed into the other two Hounds, a tangle of bone and balefire.
[Life Force drained from target: +5% Mana.]
The 'Grave-Hook' didn't just hold them; it sucked the energy directly from their cores. Kang-woo felt a jolt of cold power rush back into his veins.
"Centurion! Finish it!"
The Centurion leaped into the air, its greatsword wreathed in gray-silver flames—the paradoxical mana Kang-woo had shared with it. It brought the blade down in a vertical cleave that split the lead Hound from head to tail.
[Target Neutralized.][Experience Gained.]
But as the first Hound dissolved into ash, the remaining two grew larger. They absorbed the fires of their fallen pack mate, their eyes turning from green to a piercing, bloody red.
[Warning: The Hounds are entering 'Berserk' state.]
"Kang-woo! Behind you!" Seol-ah's voice echoed from the building's second-floor fire escape.
A fourth Hound—larger than the others, with wings made of tattered shadow—was descending from the dark sky. This wasn't a tracker. This was an executioner.
[Field Boss Manifested: The Grave-Vulture.]
Kang-woo's 'Viper's Sense' went numb. The danger was so high it had broken his internal compass.
"We're trapped," Seol-ah whispered, looking at the street blocked by the Hounds and the sky blocked by the Vulture.
Kang-woo looked at his hands. They were turning gray, the skin becoming translucent. The 'Road of the Lone Sovereign' wasn't a path to power; it was a transformation into something that no longer belonged to the world of the living.
"Not trapped," Kang-woo said, his voice dropping an octave, sounding hollow and metallic. "Just outnumbered. Centurion... let the girl see what we really are."
He slammed his fist into his own chest, forcibly breaking his mana circuits to release every drop of energy at once.
"Manifest... The Abyssal Cage!"