The instant his feet touched the ground, Sung Jinwoo broke into a dead sprint, determined to shake off Scáthach.
Then he felt it—the drain of mana.
Summoning shadows didn't cost mana. If his mana was being consumed, it meant his shadow soldiers were being destroyed.
His shadow soldiers were undying. As long as he—the Shadow Monarch—remained alive, he could spend mana to resurrect them endlessly.
"You've got to be kidding me! How long has it even been? They're already gone?!"
Jinwoo's expression darkened. To buy time and block Scáthach, he'd summoned his two strongest shields.
And had they even lasted five seconds?
[Quicksilver]:Movement speed increases by 30%.
Jinwoo had assumed that once he gained some distance, he could rely on [Quicksilver] to escape cleanly. Yet not only had he failed to shake her off, the gap between them steadily narrowed. She was about to catch him.
And the closer she got, the more his anxiety grew.
The terrain was the worst part. Gray peaks and stone spires jutted everywhere, twisting his route and slowing him down. Meanwhile, Scáthach moved effortlessly—like a wildcat darting among crags, treating this nightmarish landscape as if it were flat ground.
"Faster, faster. The little mouse running away is about to get caught by the kitty."
Her teasing voice came from behind. To Jinwoo, it felt colder than a demon's whisper.
BOOM!
Jinwoo slammed a foot into the rocky ground, skidding with the momentum, carving a long gouge through dirt and stone.
Snapping his waist around, he whipped a dagger toward Scáthach.
The thrown blade turned into a streak of light, aiming directly at her.
"Oh? Done running—are you ready to fight to the death?" Scáthach laughed softly.
A breathtaking curve lifted her lips. With a casual flick of her vermilion spear—
The dagger flew aside as if it weighed nothing.
At the same instant, Jinwoo's leg muscles exploded with force.
He blurred forward, closing the gap instantly. With his remaining dagger, he sliced through the air, accelerating to his limit—fast as lightning—as he thrust at Scáthach's throat.
Clang!
The lethal strike stopped dead.
Scáthach blocked it effortlessly, the dagger's tip digging into the spear shaft.
"The attack you pinned your hopes on didn't work," she said, crimson eyes gleaming with a mesmerizing, predatory glow.
"Of course," Jinwoo replied gravely, no discouragement in his gaze. "I wasn't counting on it."
As his words faded, nearly ten shadow soldiers appeared simultaneously, their weapons descending upon Scáthach from every angle.
The ambush was perfectly timed. Trapped midair without footing—how could she possibly parry every attack without a scratch?
But did Scáthach truly lack footing?
Nonsense. To her, the entire battlefield was footing.
Scáthach swept her spear. As its blade caught a shadow soldier's greatsword, the soldier felt a powerful pull rip through its arms—
Scáthach used that pull to vault upward.
She sprang over their heads, turning their coordinated strikes into chaos as their blows crashed into comrades' weapons.
Inverted—head toward the ground, feet toward the sky—Scáthach's eyes flashed coldly.
A deep crimson aura enveloped her spear as she unleashed a storm of thrusts upon the shadows below. Each strike landed precisely, punching through shadow soldiers' skulls.
Clang—!
"Hm?" Scáthach made a small sound of surprise, gaze falling on the shadow soldier who had blocked her strike.
"So it's you." Her voice dropped to near boredom. "Ashborn even let you remain by this kid's side?"
Feeling the strength transmitted through her spear, she lowered her eyes. "You're far weaker than before. Is your current master dragging you down? I suppose he's still far too young compared to Ashborn."
She had recognized him.
Igris—formerly Ashborn's right hand, a commander who had led the Shadow Army, among the earliest to follow him.
Scáthach kept her voice low. Only she and Igris could hear.
Then, Igris's grip on his sword began trembling violently, armor clattering with metallic clicks. Simultaneously, the aura around him intensified—denser, fiercer than before.
Winds howled.
Again and again, Igris swung his greatsword at Scáthach, each slash unleashing a blade storm capable of shredding everything in its path. Even the gray rock around them cracked beneath invisible sword pressure.
"Angry? Because I spoke ill of that kid?" Scáthach either parried or dodged every strike with effortless ease. Her voice held a hint of puzzlement, faintly intrigued. "So you've acknowledged him already. Interesting… Then what about him earned that acknowledgment?"
Igris, of course, didn't answer. Shadow soldiers couldn't speak.
He had accompanied Ashborn through countless wars; his combat skill exceeded Jinwoo's system-enhanced technique by far. Yet against Scáthach's spearwork—refined beyond mastery—even Igris was insufficient.
Even when serving Ashborn, he'd never matched her.
And now?
The outcome was decided in less than a blink.
A vermilion meteor pierced through the storm of blades and impaled Igris's chest.
In the instant the victory was sealed, Scáthach moved half a step to her right.
A cold flash of dagger-light sliced through the air where her head had just been. Had she not moved that half-step, the strike would've cleanly taken her head off.
Having attacked, his [Stealth] broke. Jinwoo reappeared, disbelief etched into his face.
Gritting his teeth, he didn't pull back. He swung again at Scáthach's side—
And she caught his wrist.
"Next time you attempt an ambush," she advised, like a teacher correcting a student's mistake, "conceal your killing intent more thoroughly."
Her tone was gentle; her hands were not.
One hand locked onto his wrist like an iron vise. The other flashed out to grab his collar.
Before Jinwoo could even register what was happening, she executed a brutal shoulder throw, slamming him into the ground.
BOOM!
His back crashed against the rocky earth with the force of a meteor impact. A vicious crater instantly opened beneath him, spiderwebbing with cracks.
"Ghk!"
For a split second, his mind seemed detached from his body.
Then stabbing agony pulled him back, forcing control into his limbs as every inch of him screamed in protest. The torment was overwhelming.
This was the perfect moment to kill him. Jinwoo couldn't move. Scáthach was surely aware.
Yet she didn't.
She rested the spear lightly on her shoulder, looking down at him, clearly waiting for him to stand again.
Crack.
Crack-crack—
An ominous noise came from beneath him.
The fractures radiating outward from the crater continued to spread, showing no signs of stopping.
Then, with a thunderous crash, the rocky ground beneath them gave way, revealing a bottomless chasm. Looking down, there was only deep, swallowing darkness.
Along with chunks of broken stone, they fell.
Falling, falling, endlessly falling…
Then they hit the ground.
Everything hurt like hell, but at least he hadn't died. That alone felt like a stroke of luck.
Jinwoo pushed away the rubble covering him and staggered to his feet, battered and filthy. He glanced upward, confirming the hole he'd fallen through was still visible.
"Where'd that woman go?"
After noting the exit, he scanned the darkness around him.
No sign of Scáthach.
"…Strange. Did she not fall? Did I manage to shake her off—at least for now?"
Relief surged in spite of himself. He didn't care how filthy the ground was—he collapsed onto it and gulped air in ragged breaths.
He was at his limit.
No—his body had likely reached its limit long ago. He'd only kept moving because the pressure she exerted was so overwhelming that it had forced him to ignore the crushing strain on both his body and mind.
Now, with that pressure gone, he finally realized how wrecked he was.
The expensive clothes he'd bought had been shredded to scraps barely fit for decency. Not a single intact patch remained. Some wounds had scabbed; others still bled. Sweat and blood stuck the torn fabric to his skin.
He looked like someone hauled straight out of a pool of blood.
Without [Longevity] accelerating his recovery, a normal person wouldn't even be fighting—they'd be dead already.
"Right now, I have to find a way back. Where the hell did that teleport circle send me?"
There was only one path back to Earth: through the Gate he'd initially entered.
The first thing he needed to do was find the teleportation circle that had brought him here.
If it had merely transported him to another area within the same Dungeon, fine. Dungeons usually weren't enormous—given enough time, he'd locate it eventually.
But if it had sent him to a different Dungeon entirely…
Then he was in trouble.
As that thought crossed his mind, Jinwoo's senses jolted.
Multiple lifeforms were approaching.
Low growls rolled through the darkness. Under Jinwoo's wary gaze, grotesque beasts crawled from the shadows one by one.
They had thick, powerful forearms and short hind legs, moving on all fours. Strangest of all, they had no eyes—yet somehow they knew exactly where they were going.
Most stalked along the ground. Others clung to walls and ceilings, their razor-sharp claws—keen enough to carve stone—pinning their bodies effortlessly to the rock.
Despite their lack of eyes, they found Jinwoo with unerring precision. Viscous drool dripped from their jaws.
Jinwoo felt their hostility and hunger radiating toward him.
They had marked him as food.
His face paled. His pupils shrank to needlepoints.
There were thirty of them.
Worse—every single one emitted a presence stronger than the giant spider he'd fought earlier.
What did that mean?
It meant each one was an S-Rank monster.
Thirty S-Rank monsters.
Even at his peak, he couldn't handle so many.
And right now… he was already in this state.
They closed in from all directions, sealing every escape route. The hole above was far beyond reach.
There was no path to victory.
No route to survival.
Faced with a dead end like this, giving up would have been easy.
But…
Jinwoo tightened his grip on the dagger.
"I won't die here…"
His long-missing father flashed through his mind.
His sister, about to start university.
His mother, still unconscious in a hospital bed.
And himself—again and again—bloodied, broken, barely escaping death by a hair's breadth.
"My sister, my mom…they're still waiting for me. I haven't even earned Jinah's tuition yet. I still haven't found a way to wake Mom up. How could I possibly die here?!"
As if sensing his resolve—sensing their prey daring to raise a weapon against their overwhelming numbers—the monsters let out roars that shook the cavern.
"ROOOAAAR—!!"
He roared back, as though sheer volume alone could force courage into his bones.
Jinwoo lunged at the nearest monster—
In the next instant, a streak of vermilion descended from above like a meteor.
The sound of tearing air hadn't even reached him before the crimson line shredded the monster's massive body. Upon striking the ground, it impacted like a falling star, unleashing a devastating shockwave.
BOOM!
Jinwoo barely steadied himself against the violent gust.
His mind went blank.
The monsters ignored him entirely—because something far more dangerous was descending from above at astonishing speed.
But their alertness was meaningless.
Enveloped in a crimson aura, spear after spear fell like a storm.
Dodging was impossible. Those vermilion spears were swifter than shooting stars.
Countless gods had been slain by that very attack.
Defending was impossible. Flesh tougher than steel lasted no more than a heartbeat before being pierced and pulverized.
Everything unfolded in a single blink.
Every monster was annihilated—nothing left behind. Not even scraps.
"You're terribly unlucky," a voice said lightly, "falling directly into a monsters' nest."
Scáthach landed gracefully beside Jinwoo, her toes barely making contact. Not the slightest sound accompanied her descent.
"But really, you're partly to blame. If you hadn't run so far, you wouldn't have stumbled into this." Her lips curved, half-amused. "When I fish, I don't like being disturbed—so I purposely cleared out the nearby monsters."