Yechan leaned slightly toward Woonhee, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t carry past the cluster of porters gathered behind the rankers.
"...Where’s Kang Min?"
Woonhee didn’t look at him imdiately. Her eyes remained fixed ahead, toward the massive sinkhole stretching into the earth, its spiraling layers disappearing into a depth that made her chest feel tight.
"He got laid down," she said quietly.
Yechan blinked. "What?"
Woonhee finally glanced at him, her expression calm but firm.
"Because of the Calamity 4 disaster."
She said nothing else.
Yechan frowned, clearly confused, but the way she turned her gaze forward again told him the conversation was over.
Woonhee stayed silent, but her thoughts didn’t.
She knew more than anyone else here.
She knew what Kang Min had been doing over the past few days, knew what it ant for soone to rise to Ranker status in such a short ti, knew the cost of standing alone against sothing like a Calamity 4.
After all, she was the only one who knew that he was Singularity.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the strap of the supply crate she was carrying, but her expression didn’t change.
She said nothing.
Ahead of them, the rankers stood at the edge of the abyss, and the tension from Sasha Kim’s explanation still lingered heavily in the air.
No one was looking at the sinkhole the sa way anymore.
The wind rising from below felt colder now, sharper, as if it carried intent rather than air.
The formation that had seed solid just minutes ago began to loosen, not physically, but ntally.
Plans were shifting.
Doubts were forming.
And voices began to rise.
"This changes the entire operation," one of the White Stars strategists said, adjusting his glasses as he stared down into the abyss, his tone controlled but clearly strained. "If we’re dealing with a multi-floor descent structure, then the current formation is inefficient. We need layered fallback positions and rotation points between floors."
An Iron Aegis ranker scoffed, crossing his arms. "Rotation points won’t matter if we don’t even know how many floors there are. Overplanning will just slow us down."
"Slowing down is better than walking blindly into a boss chamber," the White Stars strategist shot back.
A Blue Dragon mber stepped forward, his expression sharp. "You’re assuming we even get the chance to slow down. If this is anything above a Grave Depth, we’ll be forced into engagent imdiately."
"That’s exactly why we need to rethink positioning," another White Stars mber added. "Support needs to stay closer to the vanguard during descent, not behind. If the generals are comparable to bosses, we can’t afford delayed response tis."
"Support stays where it was assigned," one of the Iron Aegis frontliners said firmly. "Our job is to take the first impact. Yours is to keep us standing. Don’t complicate it."
"Your job changes if the structure changes," the strategist replied without hesitation.
A faint smirk appeared on one of the Siberian Fist players. "You Koreans talk too much."
That drew a few sharp looks.
"We talk because we think," a Blue Dragon ranker responded coldly.
"And thinking won’t save you when sothing stronger than you is already waiting below," the Russian replied, his tone amused rather than hostile.
Sasha Kim remained near the edge, listening without interfering, her gaze still directed downward as if she was asuring sothing the others couldn’t see.
Nearby, one of the players from the diner shifted his stance, glancing between the arguing groups. He had been quiet until now, but the tension was getting harder to ignore.
"If there are multiple floors, then the final blow isn’t a single event anymore," he said, his voice cutting through the overlapping argunts just enough to draw attention.
Several heads turned toward him.
"That ans the objective isn’t just survival or clearing," he continued, "it’s distribution. Who takes which floor, who engages which boss, and who claims what."
A Blue Dragon mber narrowed his eyes. "You’re thinking about rewards already?"
"I’m thinking about reality," the player replied evenly. "We didn’t co here for nothing."
That sparked another wave of murmurs.
Because everyone knew he was right.
The mont the concept of multiple bosses across multiple descending floors beca real, the entire expedition shifted from a single coordinated effort into sothing far more complicated.
Opportunity multiplied.
So did risk.
One of the EU rankers stepped forward slightly, his voice asured. "If that’s the case, then we need to establish priority claims before we descend. Otherwise this turns into chaos the mont we split."
"Priority claims?" an Iron Aegis mber repeated with a short laugh. "You think anyone’s going to honor that once we’re down there?"
"They will if it’s agreed upon beforehand," the EU player replied.
"No," the Iron Aegis ranker said bluntly, "they won’t."
A brief silence followed that statent.
Because it was true.
No one here fully trusted anyone else.
Not with sothing like this.
Not with the kind of power that abysses were known to contain.
"Then we don’t split," a Blue Dragon strategist suggested. "We move as one unit through each floor."
"That’s inefficient," soone imdiately countered.
"It’s safe," the strategist replied.
"Safety doesn’t exist in a sinkhole," Sasha finally said, her voice calm but cutting through the discussion instantly.
Everyone looked toward her again.
She turned slightly, her gaze moving across the group.
"You can argue about formation, priority, and strategy all you want," she continued, "but once you enter, the abyss decides the pace, not you."
Her words settled over them like weight.
"Trying to control everything is how teams collapse in Catastrophe Depths," she added.
One of the White Stars mbers frowned. "Then what do you suggest?"
Sasha didn’t answer imdiately.
Instead, she looked toward Variable X, who had been standing near the edge the entire ti, her posture relaxed, her gaze fixed downward as if the depth didn’t bother her at all.
"You’ve been quiet," Sasha said.
Variable X didn’t look at her.
"There’s nothing to say," she replied.
"Not even strategy?"
"No."
That drew a few irritated looks.
One of the Blue Dragon mbers spoke up. "You’re part of this expedition. You should contribute."
Variable X finally turned her head slightly, just enough for her voice to carry clearly.
"You’re overthinking it."
The statent annoyed more than a few people.
"Overthinking keeps people alive," soone shot back.
"No," Variable X said calmly, "strength keeps people alive."
Silence followed.
She looked back into the abyss.
"Go down," she continued, her tone unchanged. "Kill what’s there. Move deeper. Anything else is just noise."
The simplicity of her words clashed sharply with the complexity of the situation.
But no one could dismiss them completely.
Because in the end...
That was exactly what this would co down to.
Kim Jin stood slightly apart from the others, his arms resting at his sides, his expression unreadable as he watched the exchange. He didn’t speak, didn’t react, but his eyes moved carefully between the different groups, taking everything in without a single wasted motion.
He said nothing.
But his presence alone carried weight.
The discussions continued, voices rising and falling, agreents forming and breaking apart just as quickly.
So pushed for tighter coordination.
Others argued for flexibility.
A few openly acknowledged that once they descended, individual decisions would override any pre-established plan.
Behind them, the porters listened.
Yechan shifted slightly, his grip tightening on the crate he carried.
"...This is bad," he muttered under his breath.
Woonhee didn’t respond.
But she agreed.
Because the more they talked, the clearer it beca.
This expedition wasn’t unified.
It was held together by necessity.
And that kind of structure didn’t last long under pressure.
Suddenly, a faint flicker of light appeared in front of everyone’s eyes.
Then—
A sharp, clear sound.
[SYSTEM SSAGE]
The world seed to pause for a fraction of a second as translucent windows materialized before each player.
Woonhee’s eyes focused instantly.
So did everyone else’s.
[ABYSS CLASSIFICATION COMPLETE]
[FLOOR 11 SINKHOLE IDENTIFIED]
A brief pause.
Then the next line appeared.
[DIFFICULTY: MIDDLE TIER – CATASTROPHE DEPTH]
A ripple moved through the entire expedition.
No one spoke imdiately.
But the aning was clear.
Not the worst.
But far from manageable.
Another line appeared.
[WARNING: MULTI-FLOOR DESCENT CONFIRD]
[WARNING: BOSS-CLASS ENTITIES DETECTED PER FLOOR]
[WARNING: GENERAL-CLASS ENTITIES PRESENT]
The air grew heavier.
Even those who had remained calm until now felt it.
Because this wasn’t speculation anymore.
It was confirmation.
One of the White Stars mbers exhaled slowly. "Catastrophe Depth..."
An Iron Aegis ranker cracked his neck slightly, a grin forming despite the situation. "Good."
"Good?" soone repeated incredulously.
He shrugged. "Better than Hell."
A few people let out short, tense laughs.
Not because it was funny.
But because it was true.
The system window faded slowly.
And as it disappeared...
The reality of where they stood settled fully over them.
This wasn’t just another floor.
This wasn’t just another mission.
This was a descent into sothing that had already been classified as capable of wiping out entire teams.
And they were about to enter it.
The argunts didn’t stop.
If anything, they beca sharper, more focused now that the stakes were undeniable.
User Comments
0 comments from readers