Yun's breath caught as the wind blew through the skeletal remains of the S-rank party. Each corpse still radiated a faint, unnatural chill. He knelt near what used to be the party's leader — Lyra Valen, known across the world as the "Celestial Blade." Her eyes, still open, stared blankly at the cavern ceiling, frozen in her final moment.
"Show me..." Yun whispered, trembling.
His system responded instantly.
[Absorbing Death Echo…][Memory Sequence Detected: Subject - Lyra Valen][Begin Playback]
Darkness swallowed Yun's vision, replaced by a warped reality — Lyra's final perspective. He saw what she saw, felt her fear, heard her thoughts.
"It's not supposed to be here… That thing shouldn't exist—"
Then, chaos.
A grotesque creature — ten meters tall, cloaked in darkness, with shifting, insectoid limbs — emerged from a hidden rift deep within the dungeon floor. It wasn't a boss. It wasn't part of the raid. It was… something else.
It tore through their formation in seconds. The A-rank shieldbearer melted in a flash of black fire. The healer screamed, trapped in a time loop of her own death, reliving her final breath over and over again.
Lyra's last thoughts were full of betrayal. "This dungeon… it's not random. We were sent here to die."
Yun was hurled out of the vision, gasping, drenched in cold sweat.
He stumbled back, staring at the bodies. "They were… sacrificed?"
The realization weighed heavy. If what Lyra saw was true, someone had tampered with the dungeon — had wanted this elite party eliminated. But why?
Before he could process more, his system flickered again.
[Skill Unlocked: Phantom Step – Rank A][Memory Fragment Integrated: Swordplay Lv. 4 – Celestial Blade Style]
Yun's hand instinctively gripped the air — and a shadow of Lyra's blade technique flowed into his muscles like instinct. He took a step, and the world around him warped, leaving behind a blurred afterimage.
It wasn't just knowledge. It was power. Real power.
But something else bothered him.
As he looked toward the dungeon core, he noticed a trail — faint, but fresh. Someone else had been here… after the deaths.
He wasn't alone.
Suddenly, a whisper echoed through the dungeon, not from the system, not from his mind — but something older.
"Watcher of Death… the cycle has begun again."
Yun froze.
The dungeon was alive.
And it knew who he was.