The moment Weiss collapsed, mechanical arms shoved me into the elevator.
Weightlessness hit like a punch to the gut.
The sharp scent of disinfectant was cut off, replaced by something cold and ancient—sandalwood that belonged in tombs or forgotten temples, not a prison.
```
[System Alert: B4 Level Reached - Abyss Corridor: Garden]
```
No cheerful *ding*.
The elevator doors dissolved without a sound.
What lay before me wasn't a prison cell. It was a night painted in ink and despair.
A broken bridge stretched over an endless void, a lone pavilion suspended in the darkness. Rain fell from nowhere, but instead of hitting the ground, each drop struck directly against my nerve endings.
I raised my hand, catching a droplet.
The cold wetness was real.
Someone sat in the pavilion.
He wore elaborate robes of midnight black, his long hair unbound except for a withered branch used as a hairpin. His head was bowed over a guqin, pale fingers dancing across the strings. The music that erupted was sharp as breaking glass, carrying the weight of a thousand battlefields.
Prisoner 03. Lord Jun.
The madman who lived in a dead dynasty.
"Mortal."
The music didn't stop. Jun didn't even look up.
The rain froze mid-air.
The atmosphere compressed into millions of transparent ice needles, all hovering three inches from my forehead.
"Leave."
No room for negotiation.
My knees buckled under crushing pressure. I grunted, one knee slamming into the wet stone with a sickening crack.
Blood poured from my nose, staining the collar of my protective suit.
But I didn't retreat.
Instead, I pushed my gold-rimmed glasses up my nose and pressed my other hand against my restless medical kit.
The livestream signal flickered, the image distorting into static snow.
```
[Livestream Chat - Signal Interference]
→ @Anonymous_4729: Don't go in! That's Jun's absolute domain!
→ @MentalWarfare: S-Class psychic pressure—who can handle that?!
→ @SaveTheDoctor: RUN! He despises humans!
→ @WifeProtector: It's over, hubby's gonna break...
```
The music turned vicious.
The scene before me began to melt.
The broken bridge became muddy ground. The pavilion transformed into a leaking tin shack.
*That rainy night.*
*That thin figure kneeling in the mud, clutching his mother's corpse, sobbing until his throat bled.*
The wound I'd buried deepest was torn open with surgical precision, salt poured into the gaping flesh.
Jun's figure floated above it all, looking down with divine mockery.
"This is your fear?"
His voice was ethereal, touched with godlike disdain.
"Pathetic. Filthy. Powerless."
"Sleep... sleep forever in this despair..."
In the monitoring room, Adam swirled his wine glass, data streams racing behind his monocle. "Mental breakdown rate: 99%. Pity. He's defective."
However.
That number stuck at 99%. It didn't budge.
In the mud, I stopped trembling.
I slowly raised my head.
My blood-stained face was terrifyingly calm. No fear. Only the irritation of someone who'd been overworked and underestimated.
"Fear?"
I ripped off the annoying N95 mask, revealing my pale, sharp jawline.
I even shook the mud off my hands with fastidious disgust.
"I'm a doctor."
"In clinical medicine, this is called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD. It's a mental illness."
I straightened, the golden lotus in my chest spinning in reverse, becoming a black hole of concentrated fury.
Text blazed across my retina:
```
[System Alert: "Micro-Manipulation" Module Detected!]
[Analyzing illusion base code...]
[Analysis Complete.]
[Injecting exploit...]
```
I raised my right hand and clenched it into a fist, grabbing at empty air.
"Since you're this sick, don't blame me for prescribing heavy medication."
"Physical therapy starts now."
The air crystallized.
The vicious rain stuttered to a halt.
Jun's fingers froze on the strings.
The space behind me began to warp violently. Blue purification particles didn't form a shield—they flew together, interlocking, hardening.
*Click.*
*Click.*
The metallic sounds made my teeth ache.
A six-barreled Gatling gun, thick as my thigh and glowing with ethereal blue light, materialized beside me.
The barrels began to spin.
The whirring drowned out the music.
For the first time in millennia, Jun's frozen expression cracked. "What... what manner of artifact is that?"
I straightened my rain-soaked white coat, my voice cold as winter steel:
"Blessed be the Gatling Buddha."
"Rata-ta-ta-ta."
*BOOM!*
Blue flames erupted three meters long!
These weren't bullets.
They were highly compressed purification energy rounds, each one precisely targeting the illusion's structural nodes!
In that moment, all the ink-wash aesthetics, all the tragic fallen kingdom poetry—everything was shredded by the metal storm!
"You dare—!"
Jun stumbled backward, clutching his guqin, his protective aura shattering like tissue paper under the concentrated fire.
His robes were torn to ribbons, his jade crown exploded, his long hair whipped wildly in the artificial hurricane.
This wasn't a mystical duel.
This was a dimensional downgrade.
The livestream chat, after three seconds of stunned silence, went absolutely feral:
```
[Livestream Chat]
→ @Anonymous: ????????
→ @GunNut: HOLY SHIT! GATLING BUDDHA?!
→ @MedicalFetish: This is the doctor's treatment plan? HARDCORE!
→ @CulturedSwine: Jun: I'm discussing art with you, and you pull out heavy artillery?
→ @ChaosLover: YES! BLOW UP THAT PRETENTIOUS BASTARD!
→ @ThirstyViewer: I'm sinning but the doctor with a Gatling gun is SO HOT
```
*Click.*
Empty chamber.
The illusion collapsed completely, revealing the cold, narrow elevator shaft.
Jun slumped in the corner, blood trickling from his mouth, his guqin missing two strings. Those eyes that had looked down on everything now held nothing but existential crisis.
Smoke cleared.
Except for being slightly paler, I didn't even have a hair out of place.
I picked up my medical kit, military boots clicking against the metal floor with heart-stopping precision.
One step. Two steps.
I crouched in front of Jun.
Without asking permission, I grabbed his formerly noble wrist, my fingers pressing hard against his pulse.
"Insolent..." Jun's voice was weak, but he still tried to maintain dignity.
"Shut up."
One cold glare silenced him.
"Heart rate 180, pupil tremor, irritability, hallucinations."
"Textbook bipolar disorder with menopausal complications."
*Rustle.*
I opened my medical kit and poured out a handful of white pills—high-concentration forced sedatives.
I pinched his delicate chin with one hand and shoved them in without ceremony.
The motion was as practiced as giving a stubborn cat deworming medication.
"Swallow."
I patted Jun's pale cheek, my tone flat. "There's nothing that a good night's sleep can't cure. If there is, increase the dosage."
Jun was forced to swallow the bitter pills.
As the medication took effect, consciousness fading, he looked at the man who had just obliterated his mental world.
Cold. Powerful. But carrying a deadly... fragrance.
The unique scent of a Purification-type.
For S-Class monsters trapped in constant mental chaos, this was the only antidote. Water in the desert.
Jun's head fell helplessly against my shoulder.
In the monitoring room, Adam's wine glass shattered in his grip.
"Interesting..."
Just as I was about to push the unconscious Jun away, system alarms screamed:
```
[WARNING! WARNING!]
[Prisoner 03's psyche showing severe "dependency" mutation!]
[He has developed extreme craving for your mental contact!]
```
I didn't have time to react.
Jun, supposedly unconscious against my shoulder, suddenly moved.
The hand that had played the guqin wrapped around my waist like a serpent, gripping tight enough to fuse us together.
Burning breath ghosted over the skin of my ear, sending involuntary shivers down my spine.
Jun was mumbling unconsciously, his voice hoarse and sticky with embarrassing need:
"Don't go... do it again..."
"More..."
My body went rigid, a vein throbbing at my temple.
*More?*
More bullets?
The livestream chat changed color again:
```
[Livestream Chat]
→ @Anonymous: ????????
→ @InnocentReader: Those terrible lines!
→ @WeaponToRomance: Just now it was Gatling guns, now we're driving?!
→ @ProtectiveFan: Jun let go! That's your doctor, not your wife!
→ @PsychAnalyst: I get it now—all these S-Class are masochists, right? Beat them up and they get off?
```
I tried to pry his arms off, but Jun's grip was iron. His face was flushed, pupils dilated from the medication, but there was something else there—a hunger that had nothing to do with the drugs.
"Treatment..." he whispered against my neck, his voice breaking. "Need more treatment..."
*Oh, for fuck's sake.*
I was a doctor, not a drug dealer. But looking at his shattered expression, the way his entire body trembled with withdrawal-like symptoms, I realized something disturbing.
The purification energy wasn't just calming him. He was becoming addicted to it.
```
[System Alert: Dependency Level Rising]
[Prisoner 03 Psychological Profile: Severe Attachment Disorder Developing]
[Recommendation: Maintain Professional Distance]
```
*Professional distance.* Right. Tell that to the man currently trying to crawl inside my ribcage.
"Jun." I kept my voice clinical, detached. "Release me. Now."
"Can't." His grip tightened. "Hurts when you're not here. Everything hurts."
The vulnerability in his voice was like a knife between my ribs. This wasn't the arrogant lord who'd tried to crush me with illusions. This was something broken, desperate.
*Damn it.*
I was a doctor. I'd taken an oath. Even if my patient was a homicidal maniac with delusions of grandeur, I couldn't just abandon him in withdrawal.
But I also couldn't let him think I was his personal drug dispenser.
"Five minutes," I said firmly. "Then you let go, and we discuss a proper treatment schedule."
Jun nodded frantically against my shoulder, and I felt his death grip relax slightly.
*Five minutes,* I told myself. *Then I'm getting the hell out of here.*
The livestream chat was having a field day:
```
[Livestream Chat]
→ @ShipperTrash: THEY'RE CUDDLING
→ @DoctorDefender: He's being professional! It's medical!
→ @ChaosGremlin donated 2,000 credits: "Kiss him you coward!"
→ @Anonymous_8372: Why is this hotter than it should be?
```
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the way Jun's breathing was slowly evening out, the way his body was finally relaxing for what might be the first time in centuries.
*Just five minutes,* I repeated. *What could go wrong?*