In a dimly lit room where the only source of light was the moonlight seeping through the draped windows, was a man on his knees. The man looked every bit the image of a man terrified, droplets of sweat on his forehead despite the chill in the room, shoulders drooped so low they were almost touching the ground, his extremely pale face that looked as if a corpse adrift in the ocean, but the biggest giveaway was the fact the he was crying "sob* sob* pl...please please i...i don't w..want to go there please don't m..make me go there alone sniff* i... please i c..can't do this anymore i..i can't i can't do this alone please sniff* sob* am just one man" A grown man in what appeared to be a mage robe with some semblance to an assassin's outfit was on his knees tightly holding a slender woman's hands while he was balling his eyes out. The woman just stood there in a daze completely frozen with a grim expression on her face not knowing what to do. she felt as if she was witnessing something humans were never meant to see, like the downfall of a god and who could blame her. If anyone in valorie were to witness this scene then every ounce of hope for survival would be drained out of their body for this man was none other Cypher, the only SSS hero in the world.
A man known by many names, some called him the eternal, others demon Slayer but perhaps the most prominent name was THE WALL. It might not sound like much but to the people that name was the embodiment of their hope, prayers and last chance of survival. To everyone it brought a sense of security like the walls of a city forever standing.The only man who they felt would push back the monsters if not slaughter them altogether and for a while even cypher himself thought that was the case untill the first SS ranked dungeon appeared. what made S rank and above dungeons different from others was that only one person could go in at a time and no one else would be able to enter untill the dungeon was either cleared or the person who entered was killed.
To Cypher these dungeons didn't pose that big of a challenge to him but now they were asking him to go into a SSS ranked dungeon when he almost died in all the seventeen SS ranked dungeons he's cleared and not just that but in these SS dungeons he's been beaten to a pulp, poisoned, tortured and in one of them he was trapped for two whole weeks where he was imprisoned and tortured to make him submit and just when he wasn't sure how much longer he would hold on the SSS rank treasure devora he found while exploring a dungeon activated. It allowed him to unleash unfathomable power but at the cost of his own life force and because of this he was able to clear the dungeon. And if using ones life force wasn't enough, one would die immediately if he used devora three times and he had already used it two times .
Every time he was beaten to the verge of death the higher ups would hide it from the world so to the people cypher was the unwavering wall that would always stand even in the face of the test of time.
Since the dungeons first arrived they would release monsters if they weren't cleared and people started calling this dungeon break. All Monsters including the bosses would pour out of their dungeons by the droves and for some reason their numbers were doubled and they were even stronger than when they were inside the dungeon so in their wake they toppled kingdoms and massacred countless lives so it went without saying that the SSS rank that had appeared needed to be cleared and who better to do that than the invincible, unwavering immortal cypher right??
Back in the room the man continued to cry for some minutes, seeing that things were not going any where and finally starting to get annoyed the woman finally mustered up the courage to speak , "look it's not my fault okay, I was just ordered to tell you to head to the SSS dungeon that just opened and that's all, if you have any complaints you may go speak with the council". The words came out so cold no one would think she was talking to the number one hero. ' aren't you supposed to be the number one hero?? didn't know that you were such a coward, of all the people why was such a coward blessed with so much power ' Delilah thought while looking down on the hero her face showing disdain.
the higher ups in other words the council did such good job hiding the monstrosity of the S ranked dungeons that Delilah thought Cypher was just a coward.
The SSS ranked dungeon was clearly an apocalypse on it's own and the council knew this as they had seen Cypher's condition whenever he walks or crawls out of an SS dungeon but they had no choice other than to hold on to the slight slither of hope that Cypher would somehow make it like he always does. Deep down they were ashamed, ashamed of their own weakness, ashamed that they were sending their only hope on a seemingly impossible mission but they knew all hell would break loose if the SSS dungeon were to break and it would be too late to stop it as they still remember what happened when a mere S rank dungeon break occurred and they barely managed to win against the monsters so what more an SSS one. That's why they sent Delilah to deliver the mission as they couldn't look him in the eye while sending him to hell.