Dungeons were born from residual mana.
Everyone knew that.
When enough power lingered in one place—especially after spells of great scale or repeated use—the world itself twisted around it. The element of the mana shaped the dungeon's nature. Its density determined its rank.
It was common knowledge.
So the moment the air changed, every student felt it.
The mana around them grew heavier.
Not denser in the way of pressure alone, but wrong. Thick. Alive. It clung to their skin and slid into their lungs with every breath, as though the dungeon itself had begun breathing with them.
Then the roots trembled.
Once.
A deep shudder ran through the ground beneath their feet.
Then again.
Stronger this time.
Dust rained from above. Splintered bark cracked somewhere in the distance. The sound did not echo like a natural tremor.
It sounded like something moving.
Something vast.
Several students instinctively looked upward, staring into the writhing canopy above as though the horror would descend from there.
But the top ten did not.
Neither did Xavier.
Their gazes remained fixed ahead.
And then the others saw why.
In front of them, strands of mana began to gather.
Visible.
Elemental light twisted through the air in uneven currents, coiling and threading together like a wound in reality being forced open. Blue. Red. Yellow. Brown. Colours that had no place here shimmered within the darkness of the dungeon, growing brighter with every passing second.
Xavier's expression hardened.
'Mana is not meant to be visible like that.'
The roots that had blocked their path suddenly withdrew, dragging back into the earth as though obeying some unseen command. The clearing widened.
No.
It was being made wider.
The dungeon was carving out space.
An arena.
No one spoke.
Then Catheryn's voice broke the silence.
"This dungeon should only contain nature and dark mana."
She stared at the swirling currents ahead, her voice quieter the second time.
"So why are other elements here?"
No one answered immediately.
Because everyone already knew the truth.
Luke was the one who finally said it.
"Someone is forcing a dungeon outbreak inside the dungeon."
For a second, the words did not fully register.
Then they did.
A murmur spread at once.
Shock. Confusion. Fear.
Scarlett's brows furrowed. "They have to be lower rank than the original dungeon. That means only D-rank entities can come through. We can handle that."
Her words gave some of the students something to cling to. A few shoulders eased. A few faces lifted with fragile hope.
Xavier did not.
"The outbreak isn't the problem," he said.
All eyes turned toward him.
His gaze remained fixed on the unstable mana ahead.
"It's what gets left behind after."
Luke continued without missing a beat.
"When they die, their residual mana won't disperse. This dungeon will absorb it."
Now the meaning sank in fully.
Scarlett's eyes widened. "No. That's impossible. This dungeon only just reached C-rank. There won't be enough for it to evolve again."
"There will be," Lyra said coldly.
The group turned toward her.
Her face did not change.
"This dungeon absorbs corpses as fuel."
The words struck harder than any scream could have.
A horrible stillness followed.
Some students went pale.
Others looked at the bodies tangled within the roots around them as if seeing them properly for the first time.
Fuel.
They were standing inside something that fed on the dead.
Then one student spoke, his voice unsteady.
"Then... where is Miss Clark?"
No one answered.
Because no one wanted to.
Luke did.
"The people behind this know how to force an outbreak and knew we would be coming here today."
His voice was calm, and somehow that made it worse.
"If they can do all that, then they likely prepared for outside interference too."
He let the words settle before finishing.
"What makes you think they don't have someone outside delaying her?"
Whatever hope had survived until then finally gave way.
Students began glancing around with restless eyes. Some gripped their weapons too tightly. Others could no longer hide the tremor in their breathing. One girl took a step back for no reason other than instinct, only to realise there was nowhere to run.
The mana ahead kept building.
The roots kept shaking.
Whatever was coming was almost here.
And for the first time since entering the dungeon—
despair truly settled over the group.
Xavier looked over them once.
At the fear in their eyes.
At the uncertainty.
At the way their formation was already beginning to fracture before the battle had even begun.
'If this continues, we lose before it starts.'
Then light erupted.
It surged through the clearing and drove back the dark. The students flinched, only to feel warmth wrap around them like a second skin.
The shaking in their limbs eased.
Their breathing steadied.
Strength flooded their bodies.
Mana flowed smoother through their channels, and the pressure crushing their hearts began to lift.
Then lines of light spread across them.
Over their shoulders. Their chests. Their arms and legs.
A faint armour formed around every student—the ghost of a radiant legion.
Xavier stepped forward.
Light gathered in his hand and became a standard. Its banner unfurled without wind.
He planted it into the root.
The impact rang out.
His voice was low.
Everyone heard it.
"Standard of the Unbroken."
Xavier stood before the students, facing the swirling mass ahead.
What had once been a knot of unstable mana had widened into something closer to a portal, its surface twisting with violent elemental currents. Wind spilled from it in sharp bursts, stirring his blue hair and tugging at his uniform.
Yet Xavier did not move.
He stood beside the radiant standard like the point of a spear, still and unwavering.
Then the first creature emerged.
A wolf.
Blue fur crackled with restless arcs of lightning. Sparks snapped from its limbs as it prowled from the portal, saliva dripping from bared fangs, feral eyes fixed on the students behind him.
No one spoke.
No one breathed.
The wolf lowered its body—
and vanished.
It lunged so fast that several students saw nothing but a flash of blue.
Xavier finally moved.
His sword flashed once.
A clean arc of light.
Then the sound came.
A wet split cut through the clearing.
The wolf landed in two pieces.
For a brief moment, both halves remained suspended in the air before crashing to the ground at Xavier's feet. Blood hissed against the roots. A second later, the dungeon devoured the corpse, dragging it beneath the earth as though it had never existed.
Xavier lowered his blade.
Then he turned his head slightly, just enough for his voice to carry behind him.
"We are part of Spades."
His tone was calm, but it struck harder than a shout.
"The ones meant to stand at the forefront."
He raised his sword and pointed it toward the portal.
"If we break here, then what stands behind us breaks next."
His gaze sharpened.
"So we do not fall here today."
Light pulsed from the standard.
"We kill everything that comes through."
More wolves emerged.
Red. Blue. White. Black.
Each carried a different element, their bodies wreathed in flame, lightning, wind, or stone as they poured from the portal in a growing stream.
Before they could advance, Luke moved.
"Impervious."
Transparent mana spread across his body like a second layer of glass. Ruth stepped forward beside him, then the rest of the vanguard followed without hesitation.
Ruth opened his palm.
"Repel."
A burst of force erupted outward.
The front line of wolves was thrown into the air, limbs flailing, their formation breaking before it could even begin.
Then the vanguard met them.
Jaws crashed against fists.
Claws raked across chests.
Elemental attacks exploded at point-blank range.
Flames scorched. Lightning numbed. Wind tore. Stone shattered against flesh and armour alike.
Yet the golden light wrapped around them held.
The faint armour Xavier had granted them flickered but did not break.
So they advanced.
Step by step.
Blow by blow.
For every wolf they forced back, two more emerged from the portal.
Burns spread across their skin.
Their muscles spasmed from lightning.
Blood began to spill.
But they were the vanguard.
They were the wall before the wall.
They could not fall.
Green light spilled from Angelina, and her eyes darkened into a deep emerald.
She was a support class.
Yet she stood at Rank Three.
That alone said enough.
Wounds across the battlefield began closing at a visible rate. Torn flesh knit together. Burns faded. Blood slowed.
Then Angelina drove her staff into the ground.
Roots burst upward.
But these were not the dead roots of the dungeon.
They were vivid green—brimming with life, mana, and force.
"Enshroud."
Her voice was soft, yet it carried across the battlefield.
The vines lashed around the wolves, binding limbs and throats, locking them in place.
In the next instant, spells rained down.
Fire, ice, stone, and lightning crushed the trapped beasts into mangled flesh.
It was a gruesome sight.
Yet smiles began to appear on the students' faces.
They surged forward.
Each of them was talented.
After all, they were in Spades.
Will remained at the rear, silent as he watched the battlefield unfold. Beneath the curtain of his black bangs, his golden eyes glowed faintly.
Just before a wolf's claws reached Ruth, its footing gave way.
It stumbled.
Then another missed.
Then another.
Across the battlefield, wolves began slipping at crucial moments, their strikes veering off, their bodies crashing into one another as if the rhythm of the fight itself had turned against them.
The students did not waste the opening.
Wave after wave poured from the portal, relentless and unending, but they met each one head-on with equal ferocity.
Whenever fatigue began to creep in, the golden standard flared, washing them in renewed strength.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Flesh painted the battlefield, yet no corpses remained for long. The dungeon roots devoured them as quickly as they fell.
Xavier noticed something then.
The rumbling above had stopped.
To the side, Kyle and Lyra stood apart from the others, seemingly in the middle of a conversation even now.
'I need to recover my mana quickly.'
His blade cut down another wolf.
The roots seized it at once, dragging it away like starving things.
Xavier's eyes narrowed.
This was only the beginning.
'I might need to use First Form if the boss is B-rank.'
He knew Kyle and Lyra could handle a C+ boss.
But B-rank was different.
"Kyle. If you use the move you used during training—the one that consumes the residual mana—then the dungeon won't get the chance to absorb it."
Kyle's red eyes shifted to him.
Then he tilted his head, almost as if he found the request strange.
"Just because we share the same talent does not mean you can order me around."
His tone remained calm.
The meaning did not.
He would not act.
Xavier's jaw tightened. "I wouldn't be asking if it didn't matter."
Kyle's gaze drifted back toward the battlefield.
"I wouldn't use it anyway."
There was no hesitation in his voice.
Only quiet killing intent.
"I've always wanted to see if I could jump rank."
Xavier's grip around his sword hardened.
"People's lives are at stake."
"So?"
The answer came without pause.
Xavier's eyes sharpened. "You know this boss is different. A C-rank dungeon isn't supposed to show this level of intellect. Even if it reaches B-rank, it won't fight like an ordinary one."
Kyle did not so much as blink.
"So?"
Silence.
Xavier stopped trying to persuade him.
His gaze lifted instead, following the drifting strands of residual mana as they were pulled higher and higher into the dark above. Unease coiled in his chest.
Beside him, the golden standard dimmed for a moment, as if it too had sensed the shift in his heart.
'Only the powerful get to decide.'
Then he turned back to the battlefield.
The final wolf had fallen.
The students stood heaving for breath, not from physical exhaustion, but from the heavy drain on their mana reserves. The golden armour around them had begun to fade, its lines dimming little by little.
Not a single corpse remained.
Even the blood was already disappearing into the roots.
Only the portal remained.
Its swirling mass had begun to shrink, the unstable currents folding inward with each passing second.
Some students lowered their weapons. Others dropped to one knee or began hastily recovering mana, clinging to the brief moment of silence.
Then the whole arena shook again.
Not like before.
This was heavier.
Slower.
The kind of tremor that did not feel born from movement, but from presence alone.
Silence swallowed the battlefield.
Then something dragged itself across the ceiling.
The sound was wet.
Thick.
Every pull came with the crack of roots snapping under immense weight.
The students looked up—
and froze.
A monstrous body was crawling above them.
It was enormous, its flesh swollen and uneven, packed with layers of twisted muscle that bulged beneath strips of bark and tangled roots. It clung to the ceiling like some giant insect, its limbs digging into the dungeon with crooked joints.
Then its heads came into view.
Three of them.
The first wore a smile too wide to belong on anything alive.
The second was locked in a snarl of naked hatred.
The third was crying.
Black tears ran endlessly down its face.
For a moment, no one moved.
No one breathed.
The creature crawled forward another inch.
The ceiling groaned.
Dust fell over the students below like ash.
And all three heads slowly turned to face them.
The smiling one looked delighted.
The furious one looked starving.
The crying one looked as if it pitied them.
A shiver ran through the entire arena.
Not fear.
Something deeper.
Something older.
The kind of terror that reached into the spine and told the body, with absolute certainty—
this thing should not exist.
Xavier watched his banner dim in its presence.
'This is no time for me to waste mana.'
His banner dissipated into particles.
Weakness washed over the students at once. Some fell to the floor, staring up at the three faces.
Whatever hope they had left vanished.
One student could barely force the words out.
"I-it's impossible."
This time Xavier didn't say anything.
The smile stretched even wider.
Roots snapped in the process, sounding like a cackling laugh.
It was mocking them.
A single black tear fell toward the ground, where one of the students stood frozen.
Xavier dashed forward and grabbed him, hurling him across the field.
Students choked on their breath. Tears welled without warning. Regrets they had long buried clawed their way back to the surface, raw and merciless, until some could do nothing but kneel there in hopeless silence.
Xavier's voice cut through it.
"Cleanse."
A pulse of light spread outward.
The sorrow vanished from the affected students at once, ripped away before it could root itself any deeper.
But the mana loss remained.
Then the roots shifted.
Flesh began to shape itself around them.
The furious head slowly extended from the mass above, its face twisting as it stared directly at Xavier. One eyebrow drew downward in a grotesque imitation of human anger, as though it understood the expression without understanding the emotion itself.
Its jaw tightened.
Then opened too wide.
Muscle folded inward. Teeth ground against flesh. It bit down into its own mouth with a wet crunch, like something trying to teach itself how hatred was meant to look.
Then its body shifted again.
Roots spilled from its swollen mass and connected ceiling to floor in long, twisted columns, thick as tree trunks and slick with flesh. The three heads began to slide down them.
Slowly.
As though descending their own gallows.
The moment they reached the ground, the roots convulsed.
Flesh rushed after them.
Limbs tore free from the mass above and reformed below with a series of sickening snaps, stitching themselves together into a new body where the portal had once stood.
It was no longer on the ceiling.
It was with them.
Students nearest to it scraped backward across the floor, weapons trembling in their hands as they tried to put even a little distance between themselves and the abomination.
The three faces lifted.
And found Xavier again.
Its new body crouched low to the ground on six elongated limbs, each one bent and pressed against the floor like the legs of some monstrous spider. The heads were bound to the torso by a heaving mass of roots and flesh that served as a neck, though no sane creature should have been able to live with one.
Without warning, one of its legs lashed toward Xavier.
The strike was fast enough to split the air.
At the same time, spikes of dead wood burst from the earth beneath it, racing after the sweep like the attack had grown thorns of its own.
Xavier summoned four clones at once.
Each one swung an arc of light into the incoming strike.
It did not slow.
'This is going to hurt.'
The impact slammed into him like a collapsing wall.
Xavier was thrown across the arena and blasted into the roots, the force driving him deep into the living wood with a sickening crash.
The smiling face stretched wider.
Then more black tears fell.
They struck the ground one after another, and the grief returned at once. Not merely as before, but heavier. Layered. Each tear stacked another wave of foreign sorrow onto the last, until it felt as though despair itself had begun to drown the arena.
The affected students dropped to their knees.
Their mana reserves halved again.
Stolen.
From within the broken wall, a trembling hand reached out.
A low, hoarse voice scraped across the battlefield.
"Cl—Cleanse."
The pulse of light was weaker this time, but it still tore the sorrow away before it could fully consume them.
Then the arm gave out.
'Kyle, what are you waiting for?!'
Xavier's thoughts burned with frustration.
He needed to be in peak condition to use First Form.
Anything less, and the backlash would be severe.
The furious face gnashed its jagged teeth, its rage twisting deeper as it stared at him.
Then the other two heads shifted.
Their eyes moved away from Xavier—
and fixed on something else.
Footsteps echoed through the arena.
Slow.
Steady.
Unafraid.
Even in the darkness, Kyle's golden hair seemed to catch the light. His red eyes rested on the beast with quiet disdain.
In his hand was a black spear, its blade the colour of fresh blood.
Kyle walked forward.
For the first time—
the smiling face smiled less.