Hajin walked at the head of the formation beside the Captain, as the group pushed deeper into the ruins.

The Captain walked in silence for a while, his claymore resting across his shoulder while his eyes tracked the shadows between the crumbling walls, and Hajin could feel the weight of the man’s gaze shifting toward him every few seconds.

"You figured out the anchor plan," the Captain said finally, his voice low enough that the knights behind them would not hear, "I was watching you sprint toward that glowing tile before the statue intercepted you, you saw something I missed."

Hajin kept his eyes on the path ahead, his hands shoved into his pockets.

"Had a friend point it out to me," he said, thinking of Ashley’s message about external anchors and weak points, "barriers like that always have a power source feeding them from outside, I just followed the mana threads."

The Captain nodded slowly, his expression unreadable.

"Smart," he said, "and fast thinking for someone who should have been unconscious at the time."

Hajin did not respond to that, mostly because he was not entirely sure how he had managed to wake up with broken ribs and a hole in his chest, but he was not about to admit that to the Captain.

Then the man’s gaze shifted, dropping to Hajin’s chest where the spike had gone through.

"Speaking of which," the Captain continued, his tone turning more serious, "how did you heal that wound? A spike through the chest should have killed you, and when I saw you lying there I was certain you were dead."

Hajin looked at him for a second, then looked back at the path.

"That is a secret for now," he said.

The Captain studied him for a long moment, his jaw tightening slightly, but he did not push.

"Fair enough," he said, and the conversation moved on.

They walked in silence for a while longer, the ruins stretching out around them in crumbling walls and collapsed pillars, and after a few minutes Hajin spoke again.

"So is this really a seven shard dungeon?" he asked, glancing at the Captain from the corner of his eye, "because so far the monsters have not been all that impressive."

The Captain’s expression shifted, his brow pulling together slightly as he considered the question.

"I was thinking the same thing," he said, "the sand worms were tough but they were not seven shard tough, and that statue was strong but it was still manageable once we figured out the anchor."

Hajin nodded, his eyes narrowing as he thought back to the day he met Kenny on the road, the arrogant knight bragging to his squad about how easy the gate was going to be, and then the day he saw him ride back into the capital missing an arm with his entire squad dead.

"Look," he said, keeping his voice casual, "I know Kenny is dumb, but would he really lie about something like this?"

The Captain stopped walking.

Helen, who had been pacing a few steps behind them, also went still, her eyes locking onto Hajin’s back.

The Captain turned his head slowly, his expression shifting into something sharper.

"You know Kenny?" he asked, his voice dropping lower.

Hajin felt his stomach drop, realizing he had just made a mistake.

’Crap,’ he thought, his jaw tightening, ’I should not have said that.’

"I mean," he said quickly, trying to recover, "I met him when he was heading to the gate, he was riding out with his squad and I saw him on the road, he did not seem all that smart from the way he was talking."

The Captain stared at him for a long moment, his eyes searching Hajin’s face for something, and Helen had stopped walking entirely now, her arms crossed while she watched the exchange with sharp, calculating eyes.

"You met him on the road," the Captain repeated, his tone flat, "before he entered the gate."

"Yeah," Hajin said, keeping his voice as casual as possible, "he was bragging to his squad about how easy it was going to be, talking loud enough for everyone on the road to hear."

The Captain did not look convinced, but he let it go, turning back to the path ahead.

"Either way," he said, "your point stands, the monsters we have faced so far do not match a seven shard rating, which means either the assessment was wrong or something else is going on."

Helen stepped up beside them, her expression tight.

"Or the gate is hiding something deeper," she said, her eyes scanning the ruins ahead, "something that has not shown itself yet."

The Captain nodded, his grip tightening on his claymore.

"Then we stay sharp," he said, his voice carrying across the formation behind them, "and we do not assume anything about what we are walking into."

Hajin kept walking, his eyes tracking the shadows between the walls, and felt something cold settle in his stomach because the Captain was right, something about this gate felt wrong, and the deeper they went the worse it was going to get.

Deep inside the gate, past the ruins and the desert and the collapsed pillars, there was a village.

It was not a human village, the huts were built from bone and stone and dark wood that looked like it had been pulled from the earth itself, and the creatures that moved between them were not the mindless beasts that had attacked the formation earlier.

They walked upright, most of them, their forms shifting between humanoid and something far less pleasant, and the air around them carried a weight that made the sand vibrate under their feet.

A smaller creature, something that looked like a lizard with eyes that burned a dull red, scrambled across the open ground toward the largest hut in the center of the village.

Its claws scraped against the path as it ran, its breathing coming in ragged gasps that had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with fear.

It stopped at the entrance, its body trembling so badly that its legs could barely hold it upright, and dropped to its knees.

"permission to enter," it said, its voice cracking on the words.

The hut sat there, massive and dark, its walls made of something that looked like petrified wood but felt wrong when the wind blew against it, like it was breathing.

The air around it was heavy, pressing down on everything nearby with a weight that made the smaller creatures in the village give it a wide berth.

The door swung inward on its own, revealing a darkness inside that was thicker than it should have been, and the lizard creature crawled forward on its belly, its entire body shaking as it moved through the entrance.

Inside, the hut was larger than it looked from the outside, the ceiling stretching up into shadow while the walls pulsed with a faint, sickly light that came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

A chair sat at the far end, massive and crude, carved from a single piece of dark stone that seemed to absorb the light around it.

Something sat in that chair.

The lizard creature could not look directly at it, every time its eyes tried to focus on the shape they slid away, like looking at something that existed in more dimensions than it was supposed to. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"What is your report," the thing in the chair said, its voice carrying a weight that made the walls vibrate.