[FLOOR 15 — UNLOCKED]

[SIDE STORY FLOOR ACTIVE]

[ENTER FLOOR 15? Y/N]

[WARNING: DEATH IS PERMANENT]

James selected yes.

The white light came up fast.

Floor 15 did not open with the Dark Knight.

The light faded around them, and muddy ground settled beneath James’s boots. He smelled damp earth first, then old smoke, then something sour beneath it that reminded him of the shrine.

They were standing on a road at the edge of a village.

James knew where he was before he finished turning his head because it was the same road, the same houses, and the same hill with the shrine at the top, but everything had been changed just enough to make recognition feel wrong.

The road had been wet the last time. Now it was dry and cracked, with deep lines running through the mud like something underneath had pulled the moisture out of it. The houses stood open on both sides of the road, doors hanging inward, windows dark, interiors too still.

No women watched from the windows, no children moved between the buildings, and no old men sat by doorways pretending not to notice strangers.

The village was not abandoned. It had been cleared.

Finn said nothing, but his hand tightened on his weapon.

Ronan raised his shield a little higher.

Cillian’s eyes moved from house to house, and for once he did not make a joke.

The shrine sat above it all, larger against the sky than James remembered. Maybe it had not grown, maybe the village had only been emptied enough to make it feel bigger, but the effect was the same. It dominated the hill.

Above the shrine doors, the Succubus Cross burned red-black.

The sky had no sun in it and no stars either, only a dim red haze spread over everything like firelight trapped behind a curtain and waiting to burn through.

The stream chat reacted almost immediately.

[IronRingLive]: This is not a boss room.

[SeoulRaidBoard]: The Floor 15 reports never mentioned a village.

[TRBWatcher]: Where is the Dark Knight?

[Anonymous]: What the hell is that cross on the doors??

[LondonTowerWatch]: Team Zero expected this. Look at them. They knew.

James did not answer the chat.

The System did.

[FLOOR 15 — SIDE STORY BOSS FLOOR]

[OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT THE DARK KNIGHT]

[FAILURE CONDITION: PARTY DEATH]

James looked from the notification to the shrine.

The System still called it a Dark Knight, but the shrine was telling a different story.

Maeve stepped closer to the front of the group and lifted one hand toward the circlet.

The white stone gave a faint pulse.

"Something is pushing against the field," she said.

Ronan did not look away from the shrine. "From where?"

Maeve looked at the open houses on both sides of the road.

"Everywhere."

The whispers began from the houses.

At first, they were easy to mistake for air moving through broken doors. It was a low sound, not quite wind and not quite breathing, coming from both sides of the road at once. It slipped through the empty windows, brushed the open doorways, and gathered in the spaces behind them.

James kept his eyes on the shrine.

The sound moved closer without becoming louder, and that made it worse. It started to shape itself into things the mind wanted to understand, turning into a name half-heard, a familiar tone, and the edge of a voice that belonged somewhere else.

James heard the Saintess from Floor 14.

Her voice was soft, pleased, and waiting, the same way it had been when the shrine doors opened and she called the marked man by his name.

His hand went to his sword.

Ronan shifted beside him.

It was not even a full step, barely half of one, but his shield turned away from the shrine and toward one of the open houses.

Maeve moved at once.

Pale gold light spread from her feet in a steady ring, the same clean light as the circlet. It crossed the mud, reached the team, and closed around them like a boundary drawn on the floor.

Ronan stopped.

His eyes cleared, and his shield turned back toward the shrine.

Maeve did not look away from the hill. "Say it."

Ronan swallowed once. "Someone called my name."

"No one here knows your name," Finn said.

Cillian’s lightning flared across his knuckles, too bright for a second before he forced it down. Finn’s grip shifted on his weapon, leather creaking under his hand.

James looked at Maeve’s field.

The red haze pressed against the edge of it like smoke against glass. The whispers did not vanish, but they lost their shape and became distant again, more like noise in another room than voices inside their heads.

The team’s breathing steadied.

The stream caught enough to panic.

[Viewer_88412]: Did the audio glitch or was that intentional?

[GuildScout_EU]: Ronan moved. He almost moved.

[TRBWatcher]: Mental influence. That was a coordinated mental influence effect.

[Anonymous donated €2,000]: Maeve just saved them all and the floor hasn’t even started yet.

James did not thank her.

Maeve said, without looking at him, "Don’t make a habit of needing that."

"I wasn’t planning to."

"Good."

The village went still.

The whispers stopped moving through the houses, and that was worse than hearing them. Every open doorway seemed to wait, and every dark window faced the road.

Then the shrine doors opened.

The Saintess came out into the red light the same way she had in Floor 14, dressed in white ceremonial clothing with the Succubus Cross at her throat. Her face was calm, almost welcoming, but everything behind her was wrong: the empty village, the red sky, the open doors, and the cross burning above the shrine.

The System feed tightened on her without James controlling it. The viewers saw her walking down the shrine steps, but she gave no sign that she knew anyone outside the floor was watching.

The chat did not know what to do with her.

```text

[LondonTowerWatch]: That is NOT a Dark Knight.

[IRL_Fangirl22]: Is that an NPC? Is she a boss NPC?

[SeoulRaidBoard]: Why is there a woman on Floor 15?

[TRBWatcher]: Floor 14 connection confirmed. Team Zero knew this was here.

[Anonymous]: She’s looking at James. Why is she looking at James.

Her eyes moved over the five of them as if counting offerings. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

When they reached James, the red-black cross above the doors pulsed once.

"You refused the call," she said.

Maeve’s field tightened before the words finished leaving her mouth.

James did not answer.

"Maeve," he said. "Field stays up."

"It’s up."

"Ronan. Nothing crosses the square."

Ronan raised his shield. "She’ll have to move me first."

The Saintess looked at the shield, then back at James.

The smile stayed on her face.

Then she began the prayer.

The chat started going wrong.

[Viewer_11902]: Why does her voice sound like it’s right behind me?

[Viewer_62291]: why did she say my name

[Anonymous donated €500]: she is beautiful

[Anonymous donated €500]: she is beautiful

[Anonymous donated €500]: she is beautiful

[TRBWatcher]: CUT THE DIRECT AUDIO. Cut it now.

[SeoulRaidBoard]: Is the stream carrying the influence? Is that possible??

[GuildAnalyst_44]: Three identical donation messages in a row. That is not normal viewer behavior.

[Deleted_User]: open the shrine

James looked at the floating stream panel.

"Audio," James said.

Finn was already moving through the System stream controls. His fingers cut through the interface, and the direct floor audio snapped off before James finished the command.

The Saintess’s voice came through filtered after that, distorted and broken into captions instead of clean sound. The viewers could still hear Team Zero and the floor itself, but her voice no longer reached them raw.

For three seconds, the chat kept stuttering.

Then it steadied.

[TRBWatcher]: Audio now filtered. Smart call.

[Anonymous]: I could feel it even through the stream. What IS she.

[LondonTowerWatch]: The influence was travelling through the broadcast.

[GuildAnalyst_44]: If that had continued, this would have become a public hazard.

"That was the right call," Maeve said, eyes still on the shrine. "Late, but right."

"I know," James said.

The Saintess smiled as if nothing had changed.

It was the same private smile she had given him at the bottom of the stairs when the light had taken him away.

The Succubus Cross above the shrine doors burned brighter.

The white of her dress darkened at the hem first, slowly enough for everyone watching to understand that the change was deliberate. Then the black spread up the cloth in thin lines, climbing across the folds, reaching her waist, her arms, and her shoulders.

Metal formed over her skin as if it was growing out of her rather than being worn.

It rose in clean, wrong seams, swallowing the white cloth piece by piece. The ceremonial dress became armor without ever looking like it had been replaced. The Saintess simply changed around it, her warm expression remaining in place while the thing beneath it stepped closer to the surface.

The red light behind her stretched outward, casting a shadow larger than her body and shaped like something with wings.

Maeve’s field pulled tight enough for James to feel it through the ground.

Ronan planted his feet and held his shield steady.

Cillian stopped leaning into his usual careless posture. He stood straight with both fists up, lightning crawling along both forearms, and the smirk that had been on his face since the estate was gone.

Finn dropped into his stance.

The viewer count jumped again.

[VIEWER COUNT: 1,204,000]

Across the square, the Saintess stepped down from the shrine in her white ceremonial dress, the Succubus Cross glowing red at her throat.

The world had come to watch Team Zero fight a Dark Knight.

Instead, the first thing standing in front of them was a smiling Saintess.

Then she lifted her hand.

And the village answered