The boss chamber still stank of acid and dying slime. Black sludge pooled and hissed on the stone floor where the Dread Slime King had finally burst apart. Yang stood alone in the center, breathing shallow, the Devourer's Core warm and heavy against his palm. Thirteen strength. Thirteen agility. New passives crawling under his skin like cold insects. Power he hadn't begged for, power that felt like it had been shoved into him whether he wanted it or not.
He heard them enter before he saw them.
Boots scraping wet rock. Armor clinking. Two sets of breathing—sharp, angry, uneven.
Yuan and Cheng stepped out of the tunnel mouth. Their elite escorts hung back several meters, faces tight, weapons half-drawn like they weren't sure whether to charge or run.
Yuan's crimson robes were shredded at the shoulder, singed black along the hem. Thin flames still licked her knuckles, but they trembled, weak. Cheng's indigo armor was cracked down the center; faint sparks jumped between his fingers, more reflex than control.
They stopped dead when they saw the empty space where the boss had been.
Yuan's gaze flicked from the evaporating sludge to Yang. Then back to the sludge. Her mouth opened, closed. When she spoke, the word came out cracked and small.
"You…?"
Cheng barked a laugh—short, ugly, disbelieving. "No fucking way. Hellish difficulty. Solo. With that rusted piece of garbage." His eyes locked on the sword still sheathed at Yang's hip, its edge stained black. "You're bluffing. You have to be bluffing."
Yang didn't move. He just looked at them.
The same faces that had called him trash since he could walk. The same mouths that had laughed while maids dragged him away from the training grounds. Now those faces were streaked with sweat and fear, eyes wide with something raw and unfamiliar.
He flexed his fingers around the Core. The Shadow Mark pulsed once—cool, patient, waiting—but he pushed the god's presence down. This wasn't for the god.
"System notification went out to everyone inside," he said, voice flat. "Dread Slime King. Slayer: Yang Lionheart."
Yuan took one sharp step forward. Her flames flared, guttered, flared again. "How?" The word cracked like dry wood. "The gods rejected you. You were supposed to be nothing. Mother always said—"
She stopped herself. The name hung there anyway.
Yang felt the old burn rise behind his eyes. He swallowed it.
Cheng's lightning snapped loud enough to echo off the walls. "Don't," he snarled. "Don't you dare say her name. You don't get to."
Yang met his stare. No flinch. No bow. "I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have to." Cheng's knuckles whitened around his spear. "Every time Father looked at you he saw her grave. Every time we trained we knew we had to be twice as good because you existed. You were the crack. The shame. The reason she's gone."
Yuan's flames steadied, but her voice stayed low and shaking. "She died screaming your name. The birth tore her apart. The priests said the gods marked you defective. Dangerous. We were children. We believed them."
Yang's jaw tightened. He could feel the truth burning on his tongue—the gods' laughter in the void, the word "accident," the casual way Perfection had called her a loose thread. But he bit it back. Not yet. Not here. Not while they still looked at him like he was the disease.
Instead he said, quiet and cold, "You hated me before I could walk. Before I could talk. Before I even knew her name."
Yuan's eyes glistened. "You took her from us."
The accusation landed like it always did—sharp, familiar, heavy.
Yang exhaled through his nose. "I was a baby."
Cheng laughed again, bitter and wet. "A baby who broke everything."
Before Yang could answer—
The ground lurched.
A deep, grinding rumble rolled up from below. Cracks spider-webbed across the floor. Acid pools boiled violently. The escorts shouted warnings, backing toward the tunnel.
[WARNING]
[Abyss Mutation Detected]
[Hidden Boss Activated – Abyss Tyrant, Level 20]
The stone floor exploded upward.
A nightmare erupted—black-armored slime fused with jagged obsidian, three crimson cores throbbing like angry hearts in its chest. Bigger. Faster. The air screamed.
The Tyrant's first swing came straight for Yuan.
She barely raised her greatsword in time. The impact hurled her into the wall with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed from her mouth as she slid down, gasping.
Cheng roared—pure fury—and charged. Lightning exploded along his spear in a blinding arc. He drove it into the creature's flank, cracking one core. The Tyrant swatted him aside like paper. He hit the ground hard, rolling, spear clattering away.
The escorts tried to help. One died instantly under a massive foot. Another was torn in half mid-scream.
Yang watched.
He could walk away.
Let them bleed out.
Let the gods' golden children die in the dark while the rejected one walked free.
The Tyrant turned its burning gaze toward him.
Survival instinct kicked in—cold, mechanical, older than hate.
He stepped forward.
Shadow energy coiled around him.
The Tyrant lunged.
"Shadow Step."
He vanished.
Reappeared on its flank.
"Devouring Strike."
The blade sank in. Vitality flooded back into him as the monster roared.
Yuan dragged herself up the wall, coughing blood. Flames reignited around her sword—weak, desperate. She didn't look at Yang. She just rasped, "The cores. Hit the fucking cores."
Cheng crawled to his feet, spitting red. Lightning crackled back to life around his hands. "Don't think this means shit," he snarled toward Yang's general direction. "We're not on the same side."
Yang didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
They fought in the same space—not together, not helping each other, just refusing to die in the same hole at the same time.
Yuan hurled Ashfall Inferno to blind the beast when it reared toward her. Cheng's Storm Breaker cracked the second core when the monster turned on him. When acid spikes erupted and sprayed toward Cheng, Yuan threw a wall of flame in front of herself—not to shield him, but because the spray was coming her way too. When a claw nearly bisected Yang, Cheng didn't move to help—he just used the opening to stab again because the monster's attention had shifted.
No saves. No tackles. No shared glances. Just three people killing the same thing because it was trying to kill them.
When Yang's Shadow Executioner finally pierced the last core and the Tyrant collapsed into steaming black sludge, the chamber went quiet except for three separate, ragged breathing patterns.
Yuan leaned heavily on her sword, blood dripping steadily from her chin, eyes fixed on the dissolving corpse.
Cheng sat slumped against a broken stalagmite, spear across his knees, staring at nothing.
Yang stood apart—several long paces away—Shadow Blade slowly dissolving back into mist. His new level-up notifications blinked in the corner of his vision. He ignored them.
No one spoke for a long minute.
Then Yuan lifted her head. Her voice came out cracked, hollow.
"Don't think this changes anything."
Cheng laughed once—short, ugly. "Yeah. You're still the curse. Just… a curse that can kill level-twenty abominations now."
Yang met their eyes one after the other.
"I never asked for your forgiveness," he said quietly. "And I'm not offering mine."
He turned toward the exit portal.
Behind him, Yuan pushed off the wall with a wince. Cheng dragged himself upright, spear in hand.
They followed—several paces apart, weapons still gripped tight, eyes hard and wary.
The dungeon was collapsing in on itself.
Whatever waited outside, the three of them would face it the same way they had faced the Tyrant:
Not as family.
Not as allies.
Just three people who happened to still be breathing in the same collapsing hole.
For now.