Rayne’s party handled the next few ambushes cleanly and quickly.
After what they had learned earlier, they didn’t even bother testing the enemy out anymore.
Barton held the front while both flanks pressed in at once, with Rayne covering gaps and finishing off anything that slipped through.
The whole party moved like a well-oiled machine, grinding the armored Desiccated Corpses into bone dust one after another.
Greer trailed behind at his usual unhurried pace, leaning on his cane and making no move to interfere.
After they cleared the last corpse, Tyren moved forward to recover his arrows.
But he’d gone only a few steps when he stopped short.
At some point, a new opening had appeared in the rock wall on the left side of the canyon.
“A second one,” Asar said, eyes fixed on the side path. “One on the right, one on the left… plus that ‘one of three’ token from earlier.”
He lowered his head in thought for a moment, then looked at Rayne.
“Rayne, I’d wager there will be a third. Three paths, three bosses, three tokens.”
“What happens when we collect all the tokens?” Tyren asked.
No one had the answer.
But everyone understood one thing clearly: this couldn’t be some meaningless trinket. A dungeon didn’t hand useless items to adventurers for no reason.
“Let’s go take a look.” Greer leaned on his cane, gazing quietly at the opening. “Same rules as before. Stay sharp.”
This side path was much the same as the one on the right. The weaker corpses along the way and the two guards before the stone door gave the party no real trouble.
Before long, the heavy stone door swung slowly open in front of them.
But the instant Rayne stepped through, he instinctively came to a halt.
The air inside was different.
It felt as if an unseen boulder were pressing against his chest, making even his breathing feel sluggish. From deeper within came a low, rumbling hum, like some massive thing slowly drawing breath.
At the very center of the prison, a figure crouched.
Its upper body was bare, every muscle knotted like iron beneath a purplish-gray sheen in the gloom.
When fully upright, it would have stood a little over two meters tall, towering well above an ordinary man.
Both hands rested on a massive wooden club, so thick it hardly looked like a weapon.
The clubhead was planted against the floor, pressing a ring of fine cracks into the stone beneath it.
At the sound, the hulking creature slowly raised its head, and a savage crimson light flared in its dull, jet-black eyes.
“…Yeah, that thing looks nasty,” Tyren said, swallowing.
“Don’t just stand there. Spread out, now.” Rayne’s voice tightened. “We test it first. Barton, front.”
Barton nodded, stepped forward without a word, and brought his shield up in front of him.
The instant he planted his feet, Bonecrusher moved.
It didn’t charge. It just straightened slowly to its full height.
But that single motion made the hulking figure seem to rise even higher.
The club came tearing through the air.
It came down from above, straight toward Barton’s skull.
“Barton!”
Barton sank his weight through both arms and thrust his shield high.
Boom—!
The club slammed into the face of the shield with a thunderous, muffled impact. The shaft shuddered violently, and a few splinters cracked loose from the grip, scattering into the spray of dust.
Barton was hammered down onto one knee. The ground beneath his knee split into spiderweb cracks, sand and grit spraying outward.
“Ghk…” he grunted, numbness shooting through his arm.
But then he noticed something.
Once the club came down, pulling it back up took far too long.
By the time Barton got back to his feet and began to retreat, Bonecrusher had only just hauled the club back onto its shoulder.
“It’s slow!” Barton shouted. “But it hits hard. Really hard. Don’t let it touch you!”
“Tyren, shoot when you see an opening!” Rayne ordered. “Asar, we take the flanks!”
Arrows flew, and blades flashed almost in the same breath.
Bonecrusher’s hulking frame was too slow to dodge.
Every time it swung the club, it was left frozen in place for several breaths, wide open.
Rayne and Asar took those brief openings to cut in from the sides again and again, their blades opening wound after wound across its body.
But the reach of its attacks was staggering.
Once that club started sweeping, it covered a full quarter of the prison, forcing everyone into one frantic dodge after another.
A few times, dodging simply wasn’t possible, and they had to rely on Barton to step in and take the blow head-on.
For a while, the fight ground to a standstill.
◆ ◆ ◆
In the Core Chamber, Owen watched, thoroughly engrossed.
“Here we go, here we go. The big guy’s not one you can brute-force your way through, you know.” He studied the fight in the prison with obvious interest. “Figure out a way around its reach, or it’s checkmate.”
Bonecrusher was one of the creations he was actually pretty proud of.
It was strong, slow, and full of obvious openings, but no one in their right mind would eat one of its swings.
The whole point of a monster like this was that maddening feeling of, “I can hit it, so why can’t I do anything to it?”
You couldn’t out-muscle it, and grinding it down cost too much. Your own stamina would run dry first.
“This is the art of design.” Owen bobbed the head he didn’t have, every bit the seasoned developer. “Difficulty isn’t just piling on stats. You pair it with a mechanic and a weakness. That’s what makes a real challenge!”
He watched with delight as Rayne’s party wavered in front of Bonecrusher, caught between pushing in and pulling back. He was just about to savor that special designer’s pleasure of getting cursed out by the players.
But the very next moment, Barton took one hit, then quickly retreated out of range.
Owen’s smugness drained away like a receding tide.
This wasn’t how he’d pictured it.
“Aren’t they supposed to trade a few more blows first?” He blinked. “Why give up on the head-on fight the moment the battle starts?”
It had only been a few swings!
He’d assumed they would bash themselves against it head-on for a while, get bloodied up, and only then slowly figure out how to crack it.
Instead, right out of the gate, they’d already stopped playing along with his plan.
“Aren’t their instincts a little too sharp…?” Owen muttered, then snapped back to himself. “Oh, for—right, they’re adventurers, not gamers. Of course they’re not going to walk up and trade hits!”
Then again, they’d caught on to Bonecrusher’s sluggishness, but they hadn’t actually found its weakness yet.
Owen’s crystal flickered faintly, and his smugness quietly crept back in.
“Come on, my very first customers.”
“You’re only one key piece away from clearing it.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Outside the stone door, Greer leaned on his cane, his clouded eyes silently watching the battle unfold.
Long reach. Immense strength. And painfully slow.
A monster like this had its weakness sitting in plain sight.
The real trouble had never been the monster itself. It was that club.
Take away its ability to swing that weapon freely, and the threat the brute posed would be cut at least in half.
His throat bobbed slightly.
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The hint had already reached the tip of his tongue. In the end, he swallowed it back.
He couldn’t say it.
He braced himself on his cane and quietly looked away.
He could walk part of the road with these youngsters, but not the rest of their lives.
He was here today. A single word from him would let them clear this fight quickly. But it would also rob them of the chance to study the details and find the answer on their own.
One day, when they truly stepped into a high-level dungeon, someone else’s warning might not come faster than their own judgment.
By then, being even a single beat too slow, or misreading a single step, might mean there would be no second chance.
What they needed to see for themselves, they had to discover for themselves.
Greer’s fingers tightened slightly around the head of his cane, and in the end, he held his tongue.
Out in the prison, the fight was beginning to turn ugly.
Bonecrusher seemed to have realized that the man with the shield was the biggest nuisance.
It stopped paying attention to the attacks from both flanks and simply raised the club again and again, bringing it down on Barton with brutal force.
The sudden change in rhythm made Barton’s expression stiffen.
The club came down. Barton blocked it, but was still driven back two steps.
On the very next swing, he gritted his teeth and held firm, but a piercing pain shot through the left arm behind his shield, and his vision went black for an instant.
Bonecrusher raised the club high once more.
And right then, Barton froze where he stood.
He clenched his jaw, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t lift his left arm.
From shoulder to fingertip, the limb had stopped obeying him. The shield was already starting to slip from his grip.
His legs were going weak as well, refusing to hold him up.
And that club grew larger and larger in his eyes.
No. My body… won’t move.
He knew full well that he couldn’t block this one.
And yet, his heart was strangely calm.
Calm, as if he had known all along that he would return to this exact moment someday.
In the swelling shadow of the descending club, a night from many years ago surfaced in Barton’s mind without warning.
A burning village. Flickering firelight.
He and his older brother, hidden up in the rafters.
He had leapt down in a reckless impulse, only to fail to bring the bandit down.
The next moment, his brother had jumped after him.
A muffled thud.
His brother lay before his eyes, blood spreading across the coarse linen of his clothes.
That sickening helplessness returned: the feeling of watching it happen and being able to do nothing.
…Was it going to happen again?
The club came howling down.
◆ ◆ ◆
In the Core Chamber, the light within Owen’s crystal flickered.
“Hey, hey, hey… why does he keep trying to block it head-on?!”
The next instant, a figure charged in and yanked Barton out of the way.
The club grazed past their backs and slammed into the floor, blasting out a shallow crater as stone shards flew.
It was Rayne.
Only then did Owen let out a breath he didn’t actually have.
“That was close. Good thing the leader’s still using his head.”
“Barton! Can you move?” Rayne dragged him into a roll, barely clearing the strike, and shouted back over his shoulder. “Serin, blessing! Tyren, get him out! Asar, cover them!”
The next moment, Rayne had already turned back to face Bonecrusher, his longsword held crosswise in front of him as he took the follow-up swing head-on.
The impact slammed through the blade and left his hands numb to the wrists, his footing sliding beneath him.
His strength was no match for the brute. He was hammered back step after step, but he gritted his teeth and held firm, dragging all of Bonecrusher’s attention onto himself.
“Out of the prison! Re-form!” he roared, his voice cracking.
Serin cast a strength blessing on Tyren. The moment his body grew lighter, he rushed in, hauled Barton up, and hurried out through the stone door with her.
Once they settled Barton against the wall, Serin quickly moved in. Pale green light kindled in her palms and gently settled over his injured left arm.
Barton looked down at his red, swollen, numb arm, then glanced back at Rayne, who was still dodging Bonecrusher’s attacks at full speed.
The sickening unease lodged in his chest finally began to fade.
“…Thanks.”
A few minutes later, Rayne and Asar also managed to withdraw from the prison.
Bonecrusher chased them all the way to the stone door, only for its massive body to jerk to a halt.
It growled and took another step forward, but an unseen boundary seemed to hold it back. All it could do was glare at the group outside the door.
After a moment, it slowly withdrew to the center of the prison and planted the club against the floor once more.
Rayne and the others hurried over to check on Barton.
“How is he?” Rayne asked in a low voice, looking at the sweat beading on Serin’s forehead. “Can he still fight?”
“Severe bruising, but no fracture, thank goodness.” Serin let out a breath and kept the healing steady. “Give me five minutes. I can get his arm moving again.”
“Good. We regroup here.” Rayne let out a long breath and sat down on the spot. “We rest for ten minutes, then decide whether we push on or make a tactical retreat.”
The others nodded and sat down as well, resting and taking the chance to drink some water.
In the brief silence that followed, only the faint sound of Serin’s healing magic could be heard, flowing softly like running water.
Tyren was the first to break the silence.
“Greyhound…” He hugged his knees, his usual carefree attitude gone for once. “Can we actually beat that thing?”
As he spoke, he glanced into the prison, his voice lowering without him realizing it.
“I agree with Tyren.” She looked up, worry plain in her eyes. “We’ve more or less figured out how it fights. Why don’t we… pull back for now, get properly prepared, and come back tomorrow?”
The shadow of that club coming down in the prison still weighed on every one of them.
Retreat was, without question, the safest choice.
But Rayne did not agree right away.
He sat there in silence, his fingers absently rubbing the pendant at his chest. Only after a long while did he finally speak.
“If this were any other dungeon, I’d agree with you,” he said. “But precisely because this is Blackstone, I don’t want to pull back.”
Tyren blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it.” Rayne raised his head, his steady gaze sweeping over them. “Why do we dare to walk into this dungeon again and again? Because no one truly dies here.”
“Or rather, because even if we die, we wake up again in that stone chamber.”
Seeing the thoughtful looks settle over their faces, Rayne continued.
“But what about the dungeons outside?” His voice sank lower. “They don’t give us any do-overs. One wrong step, and it’s over.”
As he spoke, his fingers slowly tightened around the pendant.
“When we got wiped out by the boss at the gate last time, the five of us would already be cold corpses if not for this dungeon’s special nature.”
Silence fell around them. None of them would ever forget that.
“It’s exactly because this place lets us start over,” Rayne said, each word deliberate, “that Blackstone is the one place where we can afford to throw ourselves against the wall.”
“Here, we can face a dead end. We can be pushed to our limits. We can even make mistakes, then learn from them and come back stronger.”
“But if we retreat the moment we run into a real problem, even in a place where we still have a way out…” He paused for a moment, then looked at Tyren. “Then when the day comes that we’re trapped in a dead end with no way out, are we going to regret wasting the chance we had?”
“Maybe we’re only one step away.” Rayne gripped Tyren’s shoulder tightly. “One step away from turning this whole fight around. Are you really going to give that up?”
Tyren opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“I’m not saying we should throw our lives away,” Rayne said, letting go as his tone softened. “We still don’t know whether Soul Damage can be healed. So we can’t pay for this with our lives.”
“We use our heads. We find a way to bring it down at the lowest possible cost.”
He rose to his feet and looked around at them all.
“This fight isn’t about completing a job. It’s for us.”
“It’s so the future versions of us can find a way through even in a dead end. So we can forge the kind of skill that will actually keep us alive.”
“Outside of Blackstone, no amount of money could buy us a chance like this.”
The torchlight flickered gently around them.
Tyren lowered his head and stayed silent for a long while. When he raised it again, that flicker of fear had already been forced back down.
“…Fine.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. Though his face was still pale, he flashed a broad grin. “You’re right, Greyhound. If we don’t put our lives on the line, how are we ever going to make a name for ourselves?”
Barton silently clenched the left hand that had just regained feeling. He said nothing, but he braced his shield and rose to his feet again.
Asar looked at Rayne and gave a small nod.
Serin drew a deep breath and gripped her oak staff tightly.
Greer, who had been leaning against the passage wall and listening in silence the entire time, slowly straightened.
“Cheeky brat,” he said, his tone giving away neither criticism nor praise. “Quite the speech. You’ve got a bit of a silver tongue.”
Rayne looked a little embarrassed. “Guildmaster, I—”
“But,” Greer cut him off, turning his gaze unhurriedly toward the stone door, “you’re right.”
“When I was young, this was exactly how I made it this far.”
His gaze seemed to pass straight through the stone door and land somewhere very far away, in a time long past.
“Skill trained in safety is hollow. Only the will and technique forged at the edge of life and death will keep you alive when it matters.”
He drew his gaze back, and something rare surfaced on that deeply furrowed face: a faint, almost indulgent smile.
“Go on, then. Fight.” He propped himself on his cane and settled back against the wall. “Same rule as before. I won’t step in. Show me whether you can find a way to bring that brute down.”
Rayne nodded firmly.
◆ ◆ ◆
During what remained of their rest period, Serin made the most of the time to finish Barton’s healing.
The others gathered close, replaying the exchange over and over in their minds.
As they sat there thinking, Asar was the first to speak.
“Did any of you notice that club?”
Barton shook his head. He had been too busy staying alive to notice anything else.
“What about it?” Tyren glanced toward Bonecrusher. “Something wrong with the club?”
“The grip is too thin,” Asar said in a low voice. “And during the fight just now, every time the club struck the floor or the wall, it threw off quite a few splinters.”
Rayne’s head snapped up. “…You’re saying that club might not be as sturdy as it looks?”
Asar nodded. “Look closely. After those last few impacts, cracks have already started forming around the grip.”
A brief silence fell over the entrance to the prison.
Then, little by little, the corner of Rayne’s mouth began to lift.
“Every time it attacks, all that force comes down on the thinnest part of the weapon: the grip.”
“We can’t take its blows.” He lifted his head, a fierce light suddenly kindling in his eyes. “But we don’t need to.”
“We just have to make it break its own club.”
“We bait it into swinging,” Asar said, picking up the thread, his breathing quickening slightly. “Make it hit the ground and the walls, but stay clear of the blows as much as possible. If even Barton can’t withstand them, the rest of us definitely can’t take them head-on.”
“Once the club is gone,” Rayne said, standing as he tightened his grip on his longsword, “it’s just a slow brute. And at that point—”
He looked toward the huge crouching figure beyond the stone door.
“—the advantage is ours.”
The torchlight shone over five faces, each one burning with renewed fighting spirit.
This time, Barton stood at the center of the party.
Asar and Rayne took positions to either side, their formation set.
“Everyone clear?” Rayne drew a deep breath and gave the final order. “This time, we dodge every attack. Don’t block unless you absolutely have to.”
“Got it.”
◆ ◆ ◆
And in the unseen Core Chamber, Owen watched Rayne’s party as their fighting spirit burned bright once more, his crystal glowing faintly.
“Ha. I knew you’d find it.”
Sure, they had cracked the encounter, but this weakness was something he had deliberately built in from the start.
Far from being annoyed, Owen felt nothing but indescribable delight.
Still, finding the weakness didn’t mean the clear would go smoothly from here.
They would have to dodge Bonecrusher’s attacks again and again before the plan could actually work.
“Good luck!” he cheered. “Let’s see if you can wear Bonecrusher’s weapon down until it snaps!”
Inside the prison, the crouching brute slowly raised its head.
In its jet-black eyes, that savage crimson light kindled once more.
The second attempt began.