The group exchanged a look—no words, just that quiet, knowing smirk that said 'this is what we do.'
Bell stepped forward, raising his hand into a clenched fist.
Without hesitation, the others followed. Lyrien's slender fingers. Benige's gloved knuckles. Kiel's calloused grip. Lira's careful but confident touch. Even Ren's hand moved instinctively, muscle memory guiding him as he added his fist to the circle.
Six hands, forged by fire and blood and years of war.
Memories surged up, not images, but feelings. The first time they did this, the night before the Demon Lord's castle. The time they) lost Ignis and swore they'd fight smarter. The night in the rain where they failed to save a village, but still promised never to stop trying.
This wasn't just tradition.
This was family.
Ren swallowed back the sudden lump in his throat.
The stone gate opened with a grating hum, revealing a chamber bathed in dim, pulsing light. As the last of them stepped through, the doors sealed shut behind them with a deep thud.
No turning back.
Immediately, a foul wave of air swept through the space—dense, cloying, and sickly sweet. It wasn't just a smell. It pressed against their skin, sank into their lungs, made the room feel smaller than it was.
Dark miasma.
It slithered along the floor like smoke, creeping toward their boots, writhing like it was alive.
"Hold," Bell said.
Lira stepped forward, raising her staff. "Begone."
A brilliant light radiated from her staff's head, tearing through the darkness like sunlight breaking cloud cover. The miasma hissed as if in pain, shrinking, boiling, until it vanished with a sound like sucking wind.
The air cleared instantly.
And then—they felt it.
A pressure.
Weighty. Unnatural. Ancient.
A presence revealed itself from the shadows beyond.
It stepped—or rather, floated—forward. Silent. Smooth.
And they saw it.
It stood over three meters tall, its long, segmented limbs hovering inches above the ground as if it were immune to gravity. Its body was vaguely humanoid—two arms, two legs, a central torso—but that's where the similarity ended. Every inch of it shimmered with a chitinous sheen, its skin plated like obsidian insect armor, with subtle emerald and violet iridescence glinting across each shifting segment. The armor flexed as it moved, like it was breathing—alive and pulsing.
Its wings were massive—four of them, translucent and veined like a dragonfly's but jagged, warped at the edges like cracked glass. They flickered in and out of visibility, vibrating with such speed they left afterimages behind them. Each beat of its wings let out a sound like a chorus of whispers echoing in reverse, subtly warping the air around it.
The creature's face was the most disconcerting part. It had no mouth, only a cluster of tiny mandibles tucked beneath an eyeless helm of chitin that stretched back like a crown. And yet it watched them. It saw them. Dozens of small, spherical nodules dotted its head and upper shoulders—each one glimmering like black pearls, twitching slightly as if registering the group's presence on a spectrum humans weren't meant to perceive.
Where hands should've been, it had elongated digits—six per hand—each one jointed twice, ending in fine claws. And in those claws, it gripped a weapon unlike anything Ren had ever seen: a curved blade made of bone and crystal, floating slightly apart from its grip, connected by arcs of crackling spirit energy.
It didn't roar.
It didn't charge.
It simply hovered, like it had been waiting.
Waiting for them.
Bell's voice cut cleanly through the tension. Calm. Controlled.
"Dungeon Fifteen's final boss. A spirit beast."
He narrowed his eyes, using his "Appraisal" Skill. Thin lines of light flickered across his vision—lines only he could see.
"Level 135. Mana capacity: 200. Health: full. Species: Spirit-Class Aberration. High resistance to magic. Light vulnerability to physical."
He didn't miss a beat.
"Me and Nathan up front. Benige behind us. The rest, do your thing."
Everyone moved without hesitation, falling into formation like a machine of flesh and magic. Years of synergy, hundreds of battles—all practiced and sharpened to a deadly edge.
And Ren—Nathan—was at the front.
Exactly where he wanted to be.
His pulse was steady. His grip on the sword firm. The weight felt right. The mana in his veins thrummed with anticipation.
This was the moment he'd been waiting for.
Bell raised his sword.
"Let's end this quickly."
...
..
.
The spirit beast moved first.
It didn't walk or lunge—it "glitched" forward. One second it hovered at the far end of the chamber, and the next, it flickered across space like a corrupted frame in a video, landing almost instantly in their midst.
Bell's voice cut the tension.
"Engage!"
The group broke formation in perfect sync—well, all but Ren. For a split second, he froze. His instincts screamed one thing—run—but Nathan's body moved like it had other ideas.
Frontline. That's what Bell had ordered. That's what Nathan was. And what Ren had to be now.
He stepped forward.
The creature struck with inhuman speed, its warped blade hissing through the air. Bell blocked the first blow with a flash of blue steel, sparks flying. Ren caught the second—barely. The silver sword in his hands vibrated on impact, his wrists stinging.
Still standing.
Benige dashed behind it in a blink, blades flashing, but they barely scratched the creature's carapace.
"It's regenerating," he called out, flipping back into the shadows.
Lyrien's lyre rang out with a cascade of sharp, arcane notes—binding runes formed in midair, trying to anchor the beast. But it twisted, wings flaring, and shattered the spell with a ripple of mana.
Ren was moving without thinking now. Nathan's memories were in his head, but more than that—the reflexes. The mana control. The rhythm of battle. It was embedded in the muscles, in the flow of power pulsing through his veins.
He ducked a strike, rolled beneath the creature's slash, and slashed upward. Sparks. A grunt. Not much damage.
He stepped back. 'Okay. Physical attacks are barely landing, magic isn't sticking...'
Bell shouted again from across the chamber. "Lira, keep that barrier up! Kiel, with me—double flanks!"
Kiel dashed in from the right, his twin blades glowing faint green. He feinted left, then went high. Bell took low. Their swords hit simultaneously, forcing the creature to stagger.
That was Ren's moment.
He sprinted in.
Fire gathered in his palm. He shoved it directly into the creature's side and let it explode on contact. Chitin cracked. The monster screamed, wings spasming in response. A ripple of heat rolled through the room.
But it wasn't down.
It surged back, hovering high, and opened its chest—literally. Plates shifted aside like insect wings unfolding, revealing a glowing mana core, pulsing deep violet. The air shimmered around it.
'Oh, that can't be good', Ren thought.
"Scatter!" Lira yelled.
A beam of raw, focused mana surged from the core. It melted the stone floor in a perfect line, vaporizing anything in its path. Ren dove behind a pillar. Heat grazed his cheek.
He emerged coughing, ears ringing.
"That's its core," he gasped. "We hit that, we end it!"
He hadn't meant to say it so confidently—but Nathan's voice came out. The same authority. The same control. The others barely blinked.
Bell pointed his sword toward the creature. "Then we split its attention. Lira, get that spell ready. I'll keep it grounded."
Ren exhaled. 'Here we go.'
He surged forward with Bell.
The spirit beast met them both, its claws whipping in a blur. Ren blocked two strikes, then raised a stone pillar to intercept the third. The claw shattered the stone, but the delay was enough. Bell's greatsword came down in a wide arc—clang—direct hit.
The creature spun and retaliated with a wing slash. Bell deflected one. The second cut across Ren's arm—deep, but not debilitating. Pain bloomed, sharp and hot.
'Stay standing. You've got this.'
From the edge of the chamber, Lira chanted. A radiant circle formed around her—six rings of golden light, rotating like gears in a celestial machine.
"Don't let it move!" she cried.
Lyrien stepped in now. Her lyre thrummed as she struck a discordant chord that sent a sonic shockwave through the air. The creature convulsed. Its wings faltered for just a second.
Ren saw the opening.
He leapt—too fast, too desperate—and thrust his blade forward, toward the exposed core.
The sword struck.
Crack.
A fracture appeared along the core's surface. Mana bled out in threads of violet lightning. The beast let out a distorted screech, flailing midair, sending out a pulse wave that threw Ren back.
He hit the ground hard.
Vision blurry. Chest burning. His sword skidded across the floor.
He blinked—and for a second, felt like Ren again. Just a kid. Just a high schooler who should've been cramming for a test, not fighting apocalyptic spirit bugs.
But then Bell shouted.
"Nathan!"
And Ren—Nathan—pushed up again.
He staggered to his feet, magic gathering around his fists. He didn't need the sword.
He was the sword.
'Focus. Control. Channel it.'
He gathered mana in both hands. Flame and light swirled together.
He ran.
Straight for the creature.
It raised its claw—
'Hehe. Too slow.'
'Fireball'
A beam of fire-laced light burst from Ren's palms, cutting straight through the beast's torso and piercing the core dead center.
For a moment, everything stopped.
The spirit beast hovered—cracked, burning from the inside out.
Then it shattered.
Like glass.
Chunks of mana crystal and chitin scattered across the floor, glowing faintly before dissolving into golden mist. Its screech died on the wind.
Silence fell.
A long silence.
Then—
"Holy hell..." Kiel muttered, panting.
Bell lowered his sword. "It's done."
Lira limped over, staff glowing as she began casting healing magic on the group.
Lyrien stared at Ren for a moment. "You moved differently today."
Ren tensed slightly.
"Not in a bad way," she added.
He offered a small nod.
The room rumbled softly.
A platform rose from the center, crystalline and elegant. A chest on top of it.
Bell approached and gently placed a hand on it.
"Dungeon Fifteen. Cleared," he said. "Took us long enough."