What stood before them was a scene straight out of hell.
The skeletons writhed like a living tide, surging across every patch of ground a person might stand on. Even shattered bone fragments stirred and rose, joining the carnival of the dead.
Any normal person would already be screaming and running in every direction. And that wasn't even the worst of it.
Below them, the thousands of Carthus warriors had begun to move.
Their undead bodies lurched upward, desperately climbing. Crimson light flickered within hollow eye sockets — countless red pinpricks illuminating the darkness below — and a single glance was enough to send the heart lurching into the throat.
The ground began to shake without explanation.
Piercing, chaotic screaming poured in from somewhere unknown, battering against everyone's minds like a physical assault. Even the Abyss within the cavern seemed provoked by it, writhing and churning, its maddening aura spilling outward and agitating the monsters further.
"Retreat!"
Mercenaries shouted at the top of their lungs. Their voices were swallowed entirely by the overwhelming tide of screaming.
Survival instinct drove everyone toward the cliff wall regardless.
Then one of the mages cried out in panic:
"It's no use — earth magic isn't working for some reason!"
Without earth magic, there were no stairways. Without stairways, there was no climbing back up.
Which meant death.
The drop from the cliff could be survived with sufficient magic and equipment to cushion the landing. Climbing back up was an entirely different problem. Only now did anyone think to look at the cliff wall properly — unnaturally smooth, and sloping inward the higher it went. A deliberate design.
Only Elsa could make it back up by sheer physical ability alone.
"Wait — I can use Slime Magic to make my skin adhesive. Then we can—"
The mage had just raised a finger, idea forming, when a spear shot up from below and punched straight through his body.
Everyone went still.
Weapons had appeared among the surging skeleton tide. The danger level doubled on the spot.
"Move!"
Elsa released her strength in a single concentrated burst. Every skeleton that came within range was smashed apart, and she carved a small breathing room out of the chaos by force.
"If we can't go up…"
Sali forced himself to think clearly and looked around. His eyes settled on the suspension bridge.
The Abyss on the far side was churning, but it showed no signs of leaving the cavern. Getting closer might be dangerous. But a potential danger was still preferable to the one already bearing down on them.
At least over there they'd still be alive.
"Head for the bridge! Use everything you have — hold nothing back!"
Elsa led the charge into the skeleton sea. The mercenaries followed in her wake.
Holy Water. Magic scrolls. Crosses. Even garlic sausages.
Everything was thrown out without hesitation.
Somehow, it actually helped — taking a fraction of the pressure off Elsa. The skeleton tide could swallow ordinary people whole, but for a statistical monster like Elsa, it was something she could wade through for a while.
Being called a monster by the mercenaries during the previous incident had shifted something in her, subtly. Even so — the Vanguard Squad lived alongside her every day. Their bonds ran deeper than those of any other unit.
Right now, she genuinely wanted to protect them.
As if responding to that wish, faint crimson patterns began spreading across her greatsword. The weapon grew heavier. More powerful. Each swing now released coarse bursts of sword energy at close range, carving space through the chaos.
Amid frantic screaming, the group finally reached the suspension bridge.
The bridge swayed violently from the trembling ground. The moment they stepped onto it, someone lost their footing and fell. At the same time, Carthus warriors that had climbed up reached the bridge's edge — their claws seized mercenaries and dragged them off without mercy.
The narrow terrain stopped Elsa from using her weapon at full capacity. She couldn't even react in time to stop it.
Ironically, their casualties became worse the moment they reached the bridge.
"Give it everything you have! Keep moving!"
Mercenaries weren't afraid of dying. They were afraid of dying badly.
Sali's eyelids twitched.
Behind them, the skeleton tide rushed onto the bridge. The whole structure began swaying with dangerous energy. He could hear the ropes. Fraying. Snapping.
We've only made it halfway.
Some things hold for years without issue. Then the first thread goes, and what remains collapses almost instantly. Carthus suspension bridges were exactly like that.
Under Wade's modifications, there was nothing beneath this bridge.
Only endless monsters.
A small secret worth sharing: the Carthus warriors below were essentially background scenery. Less than one-tenth of them were actually active — the rest simply looked imposing. To avoid exposing the illusion, anyone who fell was enthusiastically greeted by the active ones. And if someone somehow killed every last active monster… the scenery would become real.
The bridge ropes kept fraying.
The other side grew no closer.
Just as despair began generating its own particular quality of spiritual energy, Elsa grabbed Sali by the shoulder.
"What are you—"
Before he could finish, she reached out with her other hand and grabbed a second mercenary. She was gathering herself.
She was going to throw them across.
"Elsa — forget about us! You go first!" Sali shouted.
"She's right, Captain! Throwing us won't help — you're the one who needs to be there for whatever comes next!" another Vanguard mercenary called out.
Conflict moved across Elsa's face.
And in that moment of hesitation —
The bridge broke.
"AAAAAHHHH!"
Everyone plummeted into the darkness below.
Total party wipe.
Someone might have made it, if not for the indecision.
May the heavens be merciful to those who hesitate at the wrong moment.
A short while later, the group materialized near the bonfire.
Every single face wore the same expression:
Stunned.
None of them had ever encountered a monster horde like that in their lives. Nobody wanted to remember what it had felt like to fall into an infinite ocean of writhing skeletons. Compared to that, they'd take a cesspit without complaint.
The moment they landed, Elsa had been swatted from the air by a gigantic skeleton the size of a giant. Without her in the way, Sali and the others were hacked apart quickly and sent back to the bonfire.
Once they counted heads, they noticed something wrong.
One person was missing.
Elsa.
"As expected of the Captain. Ridiculously strong," a mercenary muttered, then turned to Sali, who was crouched beside the bonfire, thinking. "Vice-Captain — do we wait for her before pulling back?"
Retreating now was a valid choice. What they had just witnessed was extraordinary. The skeleton sea. The Abyss-filled cavern. All of it pointed toward something significant — possibly the boss itself. Simply reporting this would probably be enough for Sali to satisfy Eliphis. He might even earn a reward.
"No."
Sali's eyes steadied.
"We're going back."
"We'll wait here a little longer. When Elsa returns, we go again."
One scene wasn't proof of anything. If he wanted real praise from Eliphis, he needed to find out what was actually inside that cavern.
"Even if the Overlord himself is waiting in there — I'm going to look."
They waited.
Elsa didn't come back.
"Where did the Captain go…?"
"We move."
Sali stood up.
"We're not waiting for Captain Gut?"
He shook his head.
If Elsa hadn't returned, she had either found something new or she had survived the siege somehow. Either way, there was nothing he could do for her from here. He might as well focus on the mission.
She would be fine.
She was the Hero.
Without her, the mood among the mercenaries shifted noticeably. They moved with more caution, eyes searching every shadow. Their strength wasn't the issue — life under Elsa's protection had simply made them accustomed to a certain kind of security, and now that it was gone, the absence pressed against everyone.
Sali noted this and filed it away. When they got back, he would need to run proper training.
After significant time and effort, they reached the Knight's chamber again. Beyond it lay the skeleton sea that had sent them all to their deaths.
Everyone shuddered in unison.
Sali immediately ordered the mages to cast Mass Excitement, Inspire, and every morale-enhancing spell at their disposal.
"OOOOOHHH!"
The mercenaries lit up as though a stimulant had been injected directly into their bloodstreams.
They moved along the narrow cliff path. The skeleton sea and Carthus warriors below had returned to stillness. The bridge had, inexplicably, repaired itself. Everything looked exactly as it had before the first descent.
"Mages — every speed enhancement you have, and Holy Light barriers. The moment we jump, we run. No hesitation, not for a single second."
"Last time, the skeletons took a moment before they reacted. There's a delay — we use it."
"We have to reach the bridge before that window closes."
"On my mark. Three. Two. One. Jump."
They dropped.
The landing. The roll. Back on their feet before the dust settled. Sprinting as hard as any of them had ever sprinted in their lives — harder, honestly, than most of them had ever run chasing enemies on an actual battlefield.
One second.
Two seconds.
Thirteen seconds later — just as they neared the bridge — the skeletons began to stir.
"Faster! Move!"
Screams from the rear. The skeleton tide surged forward. But this time, by the time it reached the bridge, the group was already across the halfway point.
Something close to joy broke across Sali's face.
"Charge!"
The mercenaries ran with everything they had.
When the rearmost runner was seized by the skeletons — too slow by half a step — Sali didn't hesitate. He drew his blade and cut the bridge ropes clean through.
The bridge fell with a thunderous crash, taking countless skeletons down into the abyss with it.
The sight was deeply, viscerally satisfying.
Cheers erupted without anyone deciding to cheer. The relief of surviving something that should have killed you had its own particular joy — it flooded through the group like warm water.
Sali exhaled for what felt like the first time in hours.
And then, quietly, the fear arrived.
One second slower. Slightly weaker. And that last runner would have been all of them.
At present, excluding Elsa and those lost along the way, fifteen mercenaries remained.
There was comfort in numbers. Inside Sein Dungeon, numbers probably didn't change the outcome much — but they provided something to feel better about during a retreat, at minimum. As long as you ran faster than the person behind you.
"Stay here."
Sali looked toward the cavern.
"I'll go take a look. If something happens to me, run."
He got halfway through the sentence before remembering.
The bridge was gone.
There was nowhere to run.
"Let me go instead, Vice-Captain. My life isn't worth much anyway—"
"Don't say that."
Sali waved the offer aside without looking.
"Don't ever say that."
He faced the cavern.
"Every one of you is worth something to me."
"Vice-Captain…"
The mercenary looked close to tears.
Sali studied the writhing Abyss carefully. He had never encountered it directly before, only read about it in reports gathered from Bedford City. Difficult to describe in words, it turned out. He gathered his nerve and approached.
Nothing happened.
"It doesn't seem hostile?"
He tested it with magic first. No reaction. Then he prodded it with his sword. Still nothing.
Finally — ignoring the mercenaries' warnings — he reached out and touched it.
Before he could even draw breath to react —
He was gone.
"VICE-CAPTAIN!"
The mercenaries surged forward in a panic.
The Abyss came alive.
It opened — a vast maw — and swallowed them one after another. Several, in their panic, jumped off the cliff themselves.
When no living presence remained in the chamber, the Abyss gradually stilled.
The world spun.
When Sali's senses returned, he was standing before an ancient stone door — already open.
Beyond it, a tomb-like chamber.
And leaning against the doorframe, completely asleep, was a familiar face.
"Elsa? What are you doing here?"
His eyes went wide.
"Sali?"
She opened her eyes.
"You got pulled in too? It's dangerous here. Where are the others?"
"They're—"
The rest of the group came tumbling through behind him, one after another.
Fifteen pairs of eyes stared at each other in silence.
"…Why are all of you here too?" Sali's expression twitched.
After Elsa explained, the picture came together.
After being swatted away by the giant skeleton, she had been wedged against the cliff face with her greatsword still in her hands. She had climbed back up by punching handholds directly into the rock, one fist at a time, until she reached the top.
Which was —
Very much her style.
Afterward, she had touched the Abyss out of curiosity and been pulled inside. And then discovered she couldn't leave.
"Any dangerous monsters in here?" Sali asked.
Elsa shook her head.
"No monsters. No traps."
She paused.
"But there is a dangerous presence."
Sali's expression tightened.
They had come this far. There was only one direction left.
Forward.
They rested, recovered, and stripped most of their remaining supplies to lighten the load — the atmosphere made it clear enough that whatever waited ahead wouldn't care about consumables. A boss battle. It had to be.
Every person raised their focus to its absolute limit.
They passed through the tomb entrance in silence. No one spoke. The air grew colder with every step. Somewhere around them, the cries of restless spirits seemed to breathe through the stone walls. Strangely, every trace of the Abyss had vanished — exactly as Elsa had said. No monsters. No traps.
Yet their unease only deepened.
The calm before the storm had a particular quality, and this was it.
At the far end of the tomb stood another stone door.
Sali placed his hand against it.
And immediately pulled back.
The instant he touched it, a wave of impending death washed through him — not a thought, not a premonition, but something physical. A certainty.
Behind this door was something terrifying.
Possibly Overlord Wolnir himself.
Elsa's hand came down on his shoulder.
The contact settled something in him immediately.
They looked at each other. Nodded once.
And pushed the door open together.
The mercenaries behind them readied themselves.
The door swung open.
What they saw was a crown.
Atop a stone altar rested a skull. A weathered crown sat upon it, covered in the dust of ages. Its hollow eye sockets regarded every visitor with silent, patient emptiness.
The moment their eyes met those hollow sockets —
Something changed.
They couldn't move.
None of them.
Then the darkness came.
Endless black mist poured from the skull. It swallowed the floor first, then the people, then everything — until the entire tomb chamber had been consumed.
They craned their heads upward, desperate, but there was no escaping it.
Some held their breath against the possibility of poison.
Then something strange settled in.
As vision went completely black, the space around them shifted.
"Where are we?"
Control returned to their bodies. But there was no relief in it — wherever they were now, it wasn't the tomb.
Pitch black, in every direction. Absolute darkness. The kind where you couldn't see your own hand held before your face. Like the Dark Zone, but complete. Total.
Except —
In the far distance.
A single point of light.
Glowing softly through the black.
And no one —
Not a single person among them —
Could resist what a light in the darkness promised.