I couldn't breathe.
Their eyes—clouded with death—were still locked onto mine. Dozens of them. The entire Heaven's Fang party. All S-rank. All dead.
"Y-You're not real..." I whispered, stepping back.
But they didn't disappear.
Instead, the air grew cold. My breath misted. The whispers in that strange, echoing language turned into overlapping screams. One of the apparitions—what used to be their healer—lunged forward. Her face was half-melted. Her lips moved.
"He betrayed us."
I staggered back, heart pounding in my chest.
Before I could ask who, a new notification rang inside my head.
[NEW FUNCTION UNLOCKED: Final Echo][Select a corpse. Viewing last memory…]
My eyes darted around, but there was no physical body—only these phantoms. Still, my gaze was pulled toward one figure.
The leader of Heaven's Fang—Rikard. The Flame Emperor.
Tall, arrogant, always surrounded by fire. But now… he was kneeling, hands on the floor, his chest caved in. Blood pooled at his feet.
I didn't move.
But somehow… I reached out.
[Final Echo: Rikard of the Flame][Last 17 seconds of life loading…]
The world twisted.
A burning sensation crawled through my skull like a hot wire threading into my brain. I saw what he saw.
Darkness.Screams.Flames erupting in a narrow tunnel of the dungeon.Rikard yelling, "Why are you doing this?! We're on the same team!"A cold laugh.Then—Steel flashing in the dark.A sword straight through Rikard's heart.
And the face of the killer—
One of his own teammates.
My body jolted, yanking me back to reality.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping. My hands shook violently.
They were betrayed.Not by monsters.But by each other.
I looked up. The phantoms were gone.
Only the silent gate remained, cracked and pulsing ever so faintly.
My fingers clenched into fists. I didn't know why, but anger bloomed in my chest. They'd entered the dungeon with pride, hailed as legends.
And now they were dead.Buried in silence.And the world wouldn't even know the truth.
I had to report this.I reached for my comm unit, calling the Hunter Association's emergency line.
The automated voice replied:"All agents are currently busy. Please leave a message."
Typical.
I tried to contact the city watch next—same result.
Was this just bad timing… or was someone blocking outgoing alerts?
Just as I was about to try again, the gate behind me shifted.
RUMBLE.
A low vibration shook the ground. I turned sharply.The cracks on the dungeon door had deepened.It was… breathing harder.
Something was coming.
I backed away slowly.
Then—sudden silence.
Until the System spoke again.
[Caution: Dungeon Anomaly Detected][Hostility Level Increasing: Threat Level—???]
Triple question marks?
Even S-rank threats were labeled with "S", "SS", or "Omega". But this?Unknown.
My mind raced.
First the forbidden system. Now this anomaly.And worst of all—someone in Heaven's Fang had killed their own.
This wasn't just a failed raid.This was something deeper.
Rotten.
Deliberate.
"Yun," I muttered to myself, "you're just a gatekeeper. You're not supposed to be involved in this…"
But I was.
I saw it.
And the moment I accepted the Watcher of Death…
The world would never be the same again.