Ezekiel ventured deeper into the cave, dragging behind him the corpse of a monster he had spared from being butchered. At some point he had torn a piece of his tunic and tied the monster's leg to his own wrist.
The oppressive darkness pressed in from all sides, a suffocating shroud that seemed to absorb even the enhanced vision granted to him by the nearby White Stone Ore. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and decay, each step echoing ominously through the silent cavern.
He approached a fork in the path, the two tunnels yawning before him like the gaping maws of ancient beasts. The presence of the creature lurking at the dungeon's core was palpable now, an omnipresent weight that made the very air tremble. Yet, he couldn't discern which path led to his quarry.
"Aren't you going to help me?" He called into the darkness, his voice laced with amusement, a self-assured smile on his lips. "I am a sincere guest. You wouldn't turn me away now, would you?"
His confidence hadn't come from nowhere.
The Epic Quest tasked him with rescuing sixteen men — implying they were still alive. A Pseudo-Epic Quest would've only asked for Dhamra's remains.
But why Dhamra? Why not anyone else?
Many villagers had lost loved ones ten years ago. What made Dhamra so special? Could a common NPC even communicate through dreams... and elevate a worthless accessory to as high as Platinum-tier?
It was a question Ezekiel had deliberately avoided, brushing off the strangeness as just another eccentricity of the game's narrative design. But what if it wasn't?
All this time, he'd assumed the call for help had come from Dhamra. It made sense. A brother's connection. A grief-stricken dream. The perfect trigger for a quest.
But that assumption began to crack the moment he stepped foot into the White Stone Cave.
What if it hadn't been Dhamra at all?
Lance received that dream after the investigation into the kidnapping had finally gained traction. What if the dream wasn't a plea — but a tool? Something to soothe the families left behind.
A calculated whisper, ensuring they didn't dig too deep.
If so, the receiver could have been anyone else. Dhamra might've just been a convenient choice because his brother had some influence in the village at the time. Lance's voice carried weight. His truth would spread quicker than most.
Except… it hadn't worked the way it was meant to.
And the more that thought took root, the more Ezekiel began rifling through his memories, assembling pieces, searching for something that fit.
A creature that could infiltrate dreams.
A being capable of manipulating emotions — and upgrading an item to Platinum-tier.
Low level monsters could never. And no NPC below Level 200 even had the authority or skill to pull it off.
But then, something did fit.
What solidified his suspicion — what transformed theory into certainty — was a single, chilling detail:
Sixteen young men.
Not fifteen. Not seventeen.
Sixteen.
Exactly the number required for that kind of being to satisfy its hunger.
Now he had a name to the shadow. And because he knew what it was, he also knew how to face it.
It wouldn't be easy. His limits would be tested to the extreme, and even then, he might not succeed. But he wasn't actually afraid. Fear wouldn't solve his problems for him. He had to face it, whether he liked it or not.
Because the moment he had stepped into the dungeon, he was already in its clutches. Escape was never an option.
Besides, ReLife didn't hand out quests that were impossible — especially not ones with such heavy penalties. He could make it work. He was… maybe 50% sure.
Which, for him, was good enough.
Even if it doesn't work...
Ezekiel looked back at the monster corpse he'd been dragging along this entire time, a Reger twig still jammed into its neck like a grotesque handle.
He wasn't foolish enough to walk in without insurance.
So he waited at the fork, motionless. Minutes passed.
The silence was oppressive, thick enough to choke on.
Then — just when he began to feel the creeping embarrassment of possibly being wrong about everything — he heard it.
A melody.
Faint. Ethereal. Familiar in a way that hurt.
A lullaby.
"Ahgreich Derabien... Klesteemar Losdelwen Hwardecan Joch Veeron.... Filbresi Worag Ree-ahn..."
The words slithered through the dark like smoke. The voice — gentle, warm, loving — wrapped around him like a childhood blanket. Foreign syllables, strung together in a language no one on Earth spoke.
But he knew it.
His mother used to sing it when he was small, when nightmares clawed at his sleep. He'd never understood the words. Not really. But the melody had always brought peace.
Until the night he tried to sing along.
She'd frozen — eyes wide, face pale. And then, without warning, she stopped singing to him forever. Said he was too old. That he didn't need lullabies anymore.
He hadn't questioned it.
But the song never left him. He'd buried it deep, the memory dulled by time and guilt.
Now, it surged back — resurrected perfectly.
His mother's voice. Her exact tone, every inflection preserved. It was her... or a perfect imitation.
Grief and longing twisted in his chest. A blade drawn across old wounds.
He'd lost her without warning. Out partying with friends while his parents lay dying. He never got to say goodbye.
The guilt gnawed at him — constant, merciless.
His feet moved on their own.
Or rather… he didn't resist.
He wanted to follow the voice. He needed to.
Even if it led him into the jaws of something unspeakable.
His mind clouded. Thought slowed. Reality thinned.
It was no different than the drunken hazes he'd drowned in after their funeral — numb, aimless.
He turned right at the fork, led by invisible threads of memory and magic. The passage narrowed, the air turned wet and cold.
The darkness grew heavier. It wasn't just absence of light — it was presence. A living, smothering force.
Even with the 400% buff from the White Stone Ore, his vision struggled. Shadows didn't recede. They clung, thick as tar.
Still, his feet moved surely, as if the cave itself parted for him, or as if it was a home he'd spent the entirety of his life in.
Raised stones, sharp corners, sudden dips — his body evaded each hazard without pause. He heard water somewhere nearby, trickling through the stone. But none of it mattered.
Only the song did.
Then — suddenly — it stopped.
The spell broke.
He blinked.
Ahead, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber.
His breath caught in his throat.
A crater — massive, sunken, its walls slick with something dark and glistening. The air stank of old blood and rot. It clung to his tongue, thick and metallic.
The cave walls shimmered with oily gleam — layered entirely with raw White Stone Ore.
Despite its name, the ore was pitch black in its natural form. It wouldn't transform into its characteristic white color until it was subjected to intense flame and purified. But here, in this pure dark, it only gleamed faintly as if to make its presence known.
Then the sound registered.
Wet. Sluggish.
Rippling liquid.
He turned to the center of the crater and saw it: a wide, viscous pool — dark as ink, with an unsettling sheen that caught nothing yet reflected everything.
Blood.
Thick. Congealed. Wrong.
Children of Darkness, he realized.
The ones he hadn't seen, the ones that were meant to be nurtured in this dungeon.
They'd all bled here.
Thousands... No — hundreds of thousands of them.
A faint crunch broke the silence.
Then another.
Something moved — each step grinding through bone.
It was walking over a carpet of bodies.
Then —
Splash.
The creature entered the pool from the far side.
Splash.
Splash.
Slow. Unhurried.
It was approaching. Like a predator already assured of its victory.
The sound of blood parting under its weight echoed like thunder in Ezekiel's ears.
A full minute passed before the thing emerged from the center of the pool.
Each step of its iron limbs rang out, clanging against the hard stone like hammers on an anvil.
Ezekiel could finally see all of it, his sight no more obstructed by distance or the fog of darkness. And the moment his mind registered the thing before his eyes, every primal instinct inside him screamed.
Ten feet tall.
A humanoid upper body fused grotesquely onto the thick, spider-like thorax of a creature with ten legs.
Its muscles were corded — veined with dark energy — its skin the shade of a chalky blue. Its head was elongated, featureless save for rows of sharp crimson eyes — eight on each side — unblinking, glistening, watching everything at once.
No nose. Just a jagged mouth filled with crooked, interlocking teeth.
From its scalp sprouted tendrils, not hair — limbs, writhing, twitching, as if tasting the air.
A creature born of darkness. A demonkin that had constantly evolved through blood and stolen dreams.
Ezekiel's lips parted, breath shallow.
He whispered the name.
"Incubus."
Level 149 pulsed in red dangerously on top of its head, an indicator that it was far out of his league.
And yet, Ezekiel did not run.