The battlefield inside the hidden temple had turned into pure chaos.
Stone statues rampaged without mercy.
Blood stained every corner of the chamber.
And now— something new had entered the battlefield.
A shadow stood behind Suho.
Its form was unstable, flickering like smoke shaped into a human body.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[Shadow Soldier #1 Active]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suho stared at it in disbelief.
“…I really created it?”
The shadow soldier slowly turned its head toward him.
Then knelt.
Like it was acknowledging its master.
A chill ran down Suho’s spine.
But there was no time to process it.
BOOOOOM!!
A statue smashed into the ground where he was standing moments ago.
Suho barely rolled away.
CRACK!!
Stone exploded behind him.
The shadow soldier suddenly moved.
Faster than expected.
It dashed forward and blocked a statue’s attack.
CLANG!!
The impact echoed across the chamber.
The remaining hunters froze.
“That shadow… is fighting for him?”
“What is he?!”
Jinho, trapped near the corner, shouted.
“Suho!! Behind you!”
Suho turned instantly.
Another statue charged directly at him.
No time to dodge.
His instincts screamed.
But— the shadow soldier intercepted it mid-air.
SLASH!!
Dark energy cut through the statue’s arm.
CRACK!!
The statue staggered.
Suho’s eyes widened.
“…It’s protecting me.”
For the first time in this dungeon… he wasn’t completely alone.
But the situation was still dangerous.
More statues were awakening.
The throne in the center pulsed again.
The shadow entity watching from above tilted its head slightly.
As if curious.
Then— it spoke.
“You have taken your first step…”
Its voice echoed through Suho’s mind directly.
“…but can you survive your second?”
Suddenly— the ground beneath Suho cracked violently.
BOOM!!
A new wave of statues emerged from beneath the temple floor.
More enemies.
Stronger pressure.
Hunters screamed again.
“This never ends!!”
“We’re going to die here!!”
Suho clenched his fists tightly.
“No…”
His eyes sharpened.
“I won’t die here.”
The system screen flickered violently.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[Shadow Extraction System Stabilizing]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Mana Sync: 22% → 35%━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suho looked at it.
“…It’s still incomplete.”
The shadow soldier beside him suddenly absorbed a fallen statue’s dark energy.
Its body grew slightly stronger.
Suho noticed it immediately.
“…It evolves?”
A dangerous thought formed in his mind.
“If I can extract more…”
“…I can survive this.”
But before he could act— a massive statue far larger than the others stepped out from the darkness.
BOOOOOOOM!!
The entire temple shook.
Its presence was different.
Heavier.
Deadlier.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[Elite Guardian Unit Detected]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Even the shadow soldier stepped back slightly.
Jinho’s voice shook.
“…That one is different.”
The giant statue raised both arms.
The pressure alone made weaker hunters collapse.
Suho felt it too.
His breathing became heavy.
“This one… is not normal.”
The system reacted instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[Emergency Evolution Condition Available]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Defeat Elite Guardian to unlock Shadow Growth━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suho looked forward.
Then at his shadow soldier.
Then at the monster.
“…If I don’t win this…”
“…everyone dies.”
The Elite Guardian charged.
BOOOOOOM!!
The ground shattered.
Suho dodged at the last second.
The impact alone blew him backward.
“Ghh—!!”
Pain shot through his body.
Too strong.
Way too strong.
But the shadow soldier attacked again.
CLASH!!
Dark energy collided with stone armor.
Suho gritted his teeth.
“Again…”
He rushed forward.
Dodge.
Step in.
Strike.
But this time— the statue reacted faster.
It grabbed Suho mid-motion.
“—!!”
His body was lifted off the ground.
Jinho screamed.
“SUHO!!”
The statue prepared to crush him.
Suho’s eyes widened.
“…No…”
Inside his mind— the system flickered violently.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[Host Life Threat Detected]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Forced Synchronization Initiated━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suddenly— dark energy exploded from Suho’s body.
The statue paused.
Its grip weakened.
Suho felt something change inside him.
Like chains breaking.
His eyes glowed faintly.
Purple light spread through his vision.
“…I can see it now.”
The weak point.
Right inside the statue’s chest core.
He moved instantly.
SLASH!!
His dagger pierced the crack.
CRACK!!
The statue froze.
Then—
BOOOOOOOM!!
It collapsed into pieces.
Silence.
The entire chamber went still.
Hunters stared in shock.
“…He did it…”
“…He killed it…”
Suho dropped to his knees, breathing heavily.
The shadow soldier slowly returned to his side.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[Elite Guardian Defeated][Shadow Growth Activated]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The dead statue’s shadow began rising.
Suho looked at it.
“…Another one?”
He raised his hand.
“Extract.”
The shadow entered his body.
A second shadow soldier formed beside him.
Now there were two.
The throne in the center began shaking violently.
The shadow entity stood up slightly.
For the first time… its expression changed.
Interest.
Suho slowly stood, exhausted but alive.
“…I’m not done yet.”
The dungeon trembled.
And the real trial was still waiting.
TO BE CONTINUED….!!
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