The tunnel stretched ahead, darker than before.
Not just the absence of light. This dark had weight. A thick, pressing kind of black that filled Thane's lungs with something colder than air.
He hadn't seen anyone. Not truly.
But the memory of that figure haunted the edge of his vision with every blink. It stood there again in flashes... gone again by the time his head turned.
His mind tried to reason with it. It had to be hunger. The poison. Lack of sleep.
But his instincts didn't agree.
His body hadn't flinched when he ate poison. It hadn't hesitated when he summoned fire.
But this... this presence made his muscles tighten like prey before a storm.
He moved carefully.
Hand on the wall. Eyes wide.
The screen floated beside him for comfort, even though it offered no answers.
[STATUS]
🧍 Name: Thane🧬 Race: Human🌍 Origin: Unknown Plane❤️ Vitality: 4💪 Strength: 3⚡ Agility: 5🧠 Intelligence: 6🔥 Mana: 3 (19/30)🔁 Passive: Law of Absolute Repetition(Active)🎒 Skills: [Firebolt – Untrained] • Level: 1 • EXP: 22 / 100 • Mana Cost: 10 [Poison Resistance – Lv. 2](Passive) • EXP: 4 / 25📈 Level: 1🧪 EXP: 30 / 100
The numbers gave him something real. Structure. A way to track his existence. The world could forget him, abandon him, try to kill him... but the screen remembered.
Still, it couldn't explain what he had seen.
Or what waited ahead.
The tunnel finally opened again.
The chamber was larger than the last two he had passed through. The ceiling vaulted overhead into darkness. A small stream trickled from a crack in the far wall, winding its way along the edge of the floor. It pooled into a shallow basin—still, clear, untouched.
Water.
Thane nearly dropped to his knees.
He ran to it, fell beside it, and cupped the surface with shaking hands. He paused. Waited.
Sniffed it.
No scent.
No shimmer of mana.
No warning.
He drank.
It was cold. Bitter. But clean.
It filled his belly with something other than rot, and for the first time in days, the fire in his throat went quiet.
He washed his hands, his arms, his face. The numbness faded. The ache softened.
And then he saw it.
Not in the pool.
In the wall.
Something carved.
Shallow lines, uneven but deliberate. He stood slowly, wiping his mouth, and traced them with his fingers.
Symbols.
Runes.
Not modern. Not decorative.
Old.
He didn't recognize the language. But he recognized something else.
Intent.
This wall had been marked on purpose.
There were rows of symbols, one stacked above another. Then, below them... a handprint.
Human-sized. Roughly.
Not burned in. Not blood. Just pressed. Deep enough to leave a memory in the stone.
Thane pressed his palm to it without thinking.
Nothing happened.
No flash of light. No magic tremble. No message from the gods.
Just cold stone.
He stepped back.
Stared.
Then he saw the other carvings.
On the other side of the chamber. Faint. Repetitive. Dozens of tallies scratched into the wall in uneven lines.
He counted twelve full rows.
Each row had twenty marks.
Two hundred and forty.
And then, below the last one... a name.
No language. Just a symbol that repeated three times, etched deeper than the others.
He didn't know what it meant.
But it made him feel... seen.
Someone had been here.
Someone had survived. For a time.
Someone had kept count.
And then stopped.
He stood in the silence, fingers brushing the grooves. Cold wind moved faintly through the tunnel behind him. The water continued to trickle, uncaring.
Then the feeling returned.
The pressure.
Like something watching.
But this time, it wasn't ahead of him.
It was above.
Thane slowly turned his gaze to the far side of the ceiling, where the shadows were thickest.
There, perched between two stone beams, clung something that shouldn't have been able to stay that still.
Eyes.
Six of them.
Pale. Watching.
Unmoving.
No breathing.
No sound.
Not a beast. Not like before.
This one waited.
Studied.
Thane didn't run.
He couldn't.
Not because he was frozen with fear... but because the creature didn't move either.
It didn't lunge.
It didn't growl.
It simply... watched.
He took one step back.
Then another.
The creature stayed in place.
He moved to the edge of the chamber, heart pounding, fire already building in his chest, ready to cast... but still, the creature didn't move.
Its eyes followed him, slow and smooth.
As if it wasn't measuring him as prey.
As if it was... observing.
Thane stepped into the tunnel again, further from the chamber, until the creature vanished into shadow.
He didn't speak.
Didn't breathe too loudly.
Only once he had moved far enough down the next passage did he let the tension fall from his shoulders.
Not a hallucination.
Not this time.
The dungeon hadn't sent another mindless monster.
It had sent something intelligent.
And it hadn't attacked.
That was what chilled him most.
He summoned the screen again.
Nothing had changed.
No new skill.
No new alert.
But he felt it in his spine.
The dungeon wasn't just watching anymore.
It was waiting.