Silence settled heavily after the last body fell, pressing against their ears.
However, no one lowered their guard.
King Gulben still stood at the front with his sword still raised, his eyes cutting through drifting dust and lingering smoke as he scanned every shadow and broken corner of the corridor.
His breathing ca slow and controlled, but tension coiled tight through his body.
The others followed his lead, turning in place, watching the walls, the ceiling, and gaps between shattered stone, fully expecting another wave to erupt at any second.
But nothing ca. Only corpses remained.
The massive bodies of the fallen monsters lay strewn across the corridor, piled atop one another in grotesque heaps.
Dark blood pooled between cracked stones and stead as residual Magic bled out into the floor.
Chunks of wall lay shattered where the attacks from them or the monsters had hit and scorched markings spread across the stone.
The fighters stood amid the ruin.
Exhaustion finally caught up to them. Magic energy reserves felt hollow and distant, responding only a little when they reached inward.
Adrien and Billy leaned on their weapons to stay upright. Others pressed hands to their sides or shoulders, feeling the pain of wounds.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. Slowly, disbelief replaced tension.
"It's… done," Lysander whispered.
Aurdis released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, her shoulders sagging as relief washed through her. Around her, weapons and guards lowered one by one. A few weak laughs broke the silence. Others simply bowed their heads, eyes closing as everything was finally done.
"That wave was insane," Adrien muttered, dragging a hand across his face, saring dried blood across his cheek. "I honestly thought we would die from that."
"I was thinking the sa," Billy said then let out a hoarse chuckle as he rolled his shoulder carefully.
Aerchon rested both hands on the poml of his sword, breathing hard but smiling faintly.
They began to gather instinctively, closing the gaps between them. Hands reached out to grip shoulders to steady each other's swaying bodies or check wounds.
The fear they had faced together was still there, but it no longer threatened to actually end them. It bound them instead. They had stood on the edge of death together.
Camaraderie settled in their heart.
Then Erend descended and landed in front of them.
His presence cut through the lingering haze imdiately. He stepped among them. His eyes swept over their battered bodies and exhausted faces.
He saw the strain and fear they had, and the resolve that had replaced it now after they went through it together.
"You're all getting stronger," he said evenly.
The words landed on them. It feels like they have made significant progress.
"If this keeps up," Erend continued, "then we'll have a real chance when we face Zerathul."
Sothing shifted in the air at that. Their exhaustion remained but resolve and hatred for Zerathul sharpened beneath it. Not just fear of him.
Without wasting ti, Erend turned and raised his hand. The next door responded to his will and opened. As it did, warmth surged through the fighters' bodies. Their wounds sealed fully, their bruises faded. Their strength did not fully return yet, but enough of it already flowed back to let them stand tall again.
They stepped through together.
Level 16 greeted them with devastation.
A vast barren world stretched out before their eyes, everything was cracked and blackened as if scorched by unimaginable force.
The ground was broken into jagged plates, separated by deep fissures that vanished into darkness.
Ruined structures of skeletal remains of cities long dead rose in the distance.
The sky hung colorless and heavy above them, neither day nor night, choked with ash and drifting debris. The air itself felt heavy, cold and oppressive, carrying the unmistakable sense that sothing catastrophic had happened here.
This world didn't look like a battlefield. It looked more like the aftermath of a battlefield on an imaginable scale.
And now they stood there, staring into the desolation.
King Gulben took a slow step forward, his eyes never leaving the ruined horizon before him. His grip tightened on his sword as if the weapon itself anchored him to certainty.
"What is this place?" he asked.
He turned toward Erend, expecting the usual calm certainty, the sa quiet confidence Erend always carried when they entered a new level. Instead, he saw sothing that made him freeze.
Erend was staring ahead in silence, frowning as if he was also confused.
The Elf King blinked, an alarm flickering through his eyes. Erend did not look prepared. He looked… unsettled.
Eccar noticed it at the sa mont. His relaxed posture stiffened, arms uncrossing as his gaze snapped to Erend's face. Aesa followed a heartbeat later, her brow knitting together as she sensed the shift in the air around him.
Neither of them spoke.
Erend felt unease pressing against him from the mont they arrived. This level did not feel the sa like the others.
It felt wrong.
"This isn't a dungeon made the way they usually are," he thought, his jaw tightening.
The Magic here felt old, frayed, as if it no longer belonged to the System power that governed everything else.
Like it had been built by sothing else entirely.
"Wait," Erend said suddenly.
Before anyone could react, his Dragon Wings unfurled from his back in a powerful surge and he leapt upward.
From above, the devastation beca even clearer.
Erend's unease deepened.
He reached inward and summoned the System.
Text of familiar light manifested before his eyes.
[This level is not made by us.]
Erend froze. For the first ti in a long while, genuine shock rippled through his heart.
The presence behind the ssage revealed itself imdiately. It was none other than Veyrun. The System's proxy.
"Not made by you…?" Erend thought, his mind racing. "Then who did?"
Below him, the others waited in tense silence, unaware of the exact words but fully aware that sothing had gone terribly wrong.
If this level was not created by the Dungeon World then whatever had shaped this place operated outside its authority, but also had power to manipulate it like this.
A realization sent a chill through Erend.
"Is this Zerathul's doing?"
—
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