The world on the other side of the portal was dark, damp, and alive. There was no real sky, no proper ground—only an endless stretch of jagged rocks, exposed roots, and tunnels that pulsed like the veins of some titanic creature. The Dungeon was alive. And hungry.
Seth had barely taken two steps inside when he felt the change in the air.
"Hey, Rank-E, try not to get in the way, alright?" said one of the mages—the scruffy-haired one—his posture now more confident than it had been outside. He had removed his hood, revealing a crooked smile born solely to provoke.
"Just stay in the back and try not to die," the other one added, laughing.
The healer averted her eyes, visibly uncomfortable with the sudden shift in attitude, but said nothing. Garran, on the other hand, remained silent. Perhaps he was used to treating "fill-ins" as disposable parts. Or perhaps he simply didn't care.
Seth just looked at them for a moment. He didn't respond. Didn't frown. Didn't show irritation. Instead, he laughed.
A short, low laugh, almost imperceptible—but it carried a tone of absolute disdain. Not necessarily for them, but for the effort they were making to seem important. As if their words had any effect on him.
He stepped to the back of the group, resting Vaali on his shoulder and adopting a relaxed posture. Arms crossed, he began walking as if he were strolling through some strange, disgusting garden.
"Do it your way. I'm just here for the paycheck," he muttered.
The Dungeon began to shape itself around them—that's what living dungeons did. They sensed fear, confidence, arrogance... and reflected it all back, amplified. Like a warped mirror.
The first attack came fast.
From the walls, dozens of eyes glinted. Goblins. But not the usual kind. These were taller, leaner, their skin pale and their eyes glowing red—the Dungeon's version of surface vermin. They wielded bone-spears, their mouths filled with jagged fangs and a hunger that seemed to span centuries.
The first horde fell upon them like a chaotic wave.
Garran charged in without hesitation, shield forward, blocking the rush with enough force to snap a boar's spine. The two mages began casting—slicing wind blasts and shards of ice exploded through the air, clearing a path with surprising efficiency. The healer, nervous, focused on keeping soft green lights glowing around Garran, rapidly accelerating his regeneration with support magic.
And Seth?
He sat on a rock.
Literally.
Vaali was propped beside him, lightly vibrating like a dog itching to sprint. But he ignored her.
The sound of battle filled the space: screams, cracks, explosions, the clash of spears against metal. Goblin blood splattered the walls. And Seth… yawned.
One of the mages noticed.
"Hey! You gonna help or just sit there like some damn tourist?!"
Seth scratched his chin, his eyes drifting toward the cracks in the cave ceiling.
"You guys seem to be doing just fine. Why would I ruin that?" he replied calmly, as if complimenting a mediocre show.
"You useless bastard..." grumbled the other, but he didn't have time to continue - a goblin leapt at him, only to be blocked by Garran with a snarl and a brutal shield move that smashed the creature against the wall.
The Healer broke out in a cold sweat, trying to keep up with the growing damage. The mages were starting to lose their breath. The number of enemies did not diminish. More and more goblins emerged from the crevices - some with reinforced claws, others with skull collars that suggested rudimentary intelligence. They screamed in their guttural tongue, full of hatred.
'They take damage on purpose because there's a healer... fucking animals.' Seth watched.
His breathing was controlled, almost meditative. He didn't move. He just analyzed. He measured. He calculated.
There, between explosions and screams, he didn't see allies. He saw variables. An equation he didn't need to solve. Not for them.
"If I were them," he thought, "I'd learn to fight as a team... these guys are just cheap looters. They'll probably try to double-cross me."
Garran took a blow to the shoulder. A goblin bigger than the others managed to get through the shield, piercing part of the armor with a bone spear.
The Healer hesitated.
Blood began to flow.
"HEALER, FAST!" shouted Garran.
She raised her trembling hands, trying to summon a more powerful cure. One of the mages turned to her, impatient.
"Heal him soon, you useless girl! Are you going to let Tank die?"
Seth looked away. His gaze met the girl's - for a second, she looked like she was about to fall apart. Seth knew what it was. Fear of making a mistake. Panic of failure.
'She's not part of the group.' He didn't get up.
It wasn't his job to save them. They'd made that clear.
The larger goblin approached again - now not Garran, but Healer herself. It sniffed out weakness. Easy prey.
The group was distracted.
Seth looked at Vaali. She was vibrating intensely now.
"And there we go," he muttered, getting up with a resigned sigh.
In the next instant, he disappeared.
There was no sound. There was no light. Just an invisible movement - like thunder that passed without a sound.
The big goblin stopped in mid-air.
And then its head slipped off its neck, as if it had been cut by a blade too hot to be perceived. The body toppled over. Healer didn't even realize what had happened.
Seth was standing behind her, with Vaali dripping purple blood. "It's a good thing she didn't strike an explosive blow..."
The mages turned abruptly, startled.
"What...?"
Seth stared at them. No smile. No anger. Just that calm look of a predator who has seen enough.
"You really are a bunch of good-for-nothings." Seth said suddenly. "That's why you almost die every time. How pathetic."
Garran turned around slowly, staring at Seth with a mixture of surprise and anger... "What did you say?"
Seth stepped forward, Vaali now resting against his shoulder, as if he weighed nothing - as if cutting a goblin in half was the same as waving a sheet of paper. Blood was still trickling down the blade, slow, thick, with the smell of burnt metal and rotting flesh.
"I said you're pathetic," he repeated, his voice laden with contempt, but without changing his tone. "Do you want me to repeat it more slowly?"
Garran clenched the hilt of his shield tightly. The two mages looked at each other, confused, hesitant - Seth's aura now seemed like something else. It was no longer the quiet Rank-E in the background. It was lightning waiting for the right moment to strike.
"You think you can talk to us like that just because you killed a little goblin?" spat the wizard with the crooked smile. "Do you know how many dungeons we've cleared, you trash? You're not even from the Guild."
Seth tilted his head slightly, watching the wizard as if he were an insect that had just climbed into his shoe.
"You clean up dungeons the way garbage collectors pick up bodies at the end of a war: too late, and badly done."
Garran stepped forward, his deep voice almost vibrating. "You think too much of yourself for your rank. I've seen replacements like you die for much less."
Seth cracked a smile. But it wasn't one of amusement. It was a warning.
"Is the little flower offended?" Seth asked.
A heavy silence fell.
The Healer watched everything with wide eyes, still trembling - but now not from fear of the goblins. The atmosphere among the hunters themselves was more threatening than any creature in the dungeon.
Suddenly, the surrounding walls shook. A deep, cavernous sound echoed throughout the corridors as if something gigantic had awoken. A deep, inhuman scream came from far away - too deep for a goblin.
Seth looked around calmly.
"The Dungeon has realized that you are weak," he said, almost like a teacher giving a lesson. "And when it does... it feeds its own evolution."
From the ground, roots began to emerge, pulsing with purple energy. The environment began to close in, as if it were swallowing up the group.
"Ah... shit," muttered one of the mages.
Seth spun Vaali around in a quick, silent movement, the sound of metal scratching the air seeming more threatening than any scream.
"You take care of it. If you die, it's your fault. I've already done more than the contract required."
He paused for a second, looked over his shoulder, and let out a smile as sharp as his sword.
"Let you arrogant bastards die."
And then he disappeared.
The sound of thunder came a second later. A streak of pure white light crossed the corridor, making the roots shake with the energy that burned everything around. Seth turned into lightning. A flash. A cut in reality.
He crossed the battlefield as if time had slowed down for everyone but him. The goblins didn't even understand what was passing them by - they only felt a hot wind, and then they fell to pieces. Heads rolling. Broken bodies. Nothing dramatic. Nothing noisy. Just... efficient.
The group barely had time to react.
Garran stepped forward, grunting, trying to understand what had happened.
"He's... gone?" muttered the mage with the messy hair and wide eyes. "He left us?!"
The Healer, still kneeling, looked at the hole Seth had left in his wake. It was a deep fissure in the heart of the dungeon, as if something greater had called him. As if the very core of the living creature had recognized in him... a predator.
Down below, where the heat was rising and the walls were vibrating like the living ribs of an ancient monster, Seth was running.
Or rather - he was flying.
Gliding through tunnels like a living spark, his presence pushed the dungeon itself to react. The roots tried to close him in. The walls molded themselves into thorns, into teeth, into tentacles of stone and flesh that stretched out towards him - but he was faster. He was inevitable.
"Let's see what you keep down there, you disgusting thing," he muttered, his eyes gleaming. "Show me what you've got... before I get bored."
Vaali vibrated in his hand, more alive than ever. Eager. Hungry. An extension of his mood - and his fury.
The tunnel finally opened up into a colossal space - an underground chamber so vast that it seemed to contain the very echo of the world. The ceiling was lost in darkness, covered in black stalactites and glowing fungi that emitted a ghostly blue light. In the center of the room, an immense fire burned, its flames fed by bones and oil, casting dancing shadows on the grotesque walls.
And that's where Seth fell.
Literally.
One last curve at high speed, a hole that opened up without warning, and he plummeted several meters - not that it made any difference. His body touched the ground with the lightness of a ghost, kneeling with one hand resting on the ground and Vaali stuck in the cracked earth.
He looked up. And laughed.
In front of him, arranged in battle formation, were at least forty orcs. Not the ordinary ones - these were the Superiors. Tribal warriors, with reddish skins, muscles like columns of stone, and eyes that burned gold, like red-hot irons. Their weapons were made of black iron, adorned with primitive runes and blood symbols. They all wore rustic armor, made of leather and raw metal, sewn from the skin of the defeated.
And in the center, on a throne of skulls sewn together with dried tendons, was him.
Kharizan, the Orc King.
The creature was enormous - almost three meters tall, with long, curved tusks like those of an ancient boar. His skin was a deep red, like oxidized iron, covered in scars that looked as if they had been burned in rituals. In his right hand, he wielded a gigantic club made from the bone of an ancient creature, wrapped in golden chains. His eyes were two wells of silent fury.
A message appeared in front of Seth's eyes, drawn in floating fire:
[Mission Activated: Eliminate the Leader of the Khazack Tribe - Kharizan, the Orc Lord]
Seth looked at the message with genuine boredom, like someone reading a work email after hours.
Then he let his gaze roam over the entire army of Orcs with an almost insulting calm. The sound of heavy breathing, creaking armor and weapons being raised didn't seem to worry him at all.
And then he said, with a half-smile on his face:
"Oh... from little green goblins to little red orcs. How cute."
A buzz ran through the orcs. Some growled. Others banged weapons against shields. Kharizan didn't move - he just watched. Like a predator recognizing another.
Seth snapped his shoulders, spinning Vaali in the air as if she were as light as a feather. She vibrated, anxious, almost pulsing with the excitement of the imminent combat.
"Let's play for a while," he murmured - and the air around him began to change.
The ground crackled.
Sparks slid across the blade.
Seth's eyes went out for an instant... and then rekindled, like two sharp white beacons.
The orcs screamed, advancing in unison like a monstrous red wave.
Seth laughed. Again. A clear, vibrant, almost childish laugh.
"All right... come on."