Introduction Of The Characters
Aren Veyl-MC
Kael Noctryn -Silver-haired boy
Liora Ashwyn -Braided-hair girl
Darius Holt-Spear boy
Supporting
Leviathan-SSS Calamity
The academy gates loomed like the mouth of a beast.
Aren Veyl stood among hundreds of candidates, his posture relaxed, eyes half-lidded as if bored. But inside him, something colder than fear stirred.
This is earlier than last time.
In his previous life, the Academy Entrance Test had been brutal but predictable. A standardized dungeon, fixed monsters, known survival rate. Seventy percent pass. Twenty percent injured. Ten percent dead.
This time?
The air itself felt wrong.
The mana density fluctuated in waves, pulsing like a living heartbeat. The ground beneath the stone plaza trembled faintly, as if something deep below was stretching in its sleep.
Aren exhaled slowly.
The dungeon is already awake.
A translucent blue screen flickered before his eyes.
[System Notification]
Entrance Examination Dungeon: Rank C
Difficulty Adjustment: In Progress…
Behavioral Index: Analyzing
Aren's lips tightened.
That line hadn't existed before.
Behavioral Index.
So you're watching how we act now.
"Hey."
A voice broke his thoughts.
Aren turned slightly to see Darius Holt spinning his spear with casual flair, the metal tip catching the morning light.
"You look calm," Darius said with a grin. "Too calm. First dungeon and you're already bored?"
Aren glanced at the weapon. The grip was worn. Calloused hands. Darius had trained seriously more than he let on.
"You should worry less about me," Aren replied. "And more about how much noise you make inside."
Darius laughed. "Monsters hear fear, not confidence."
Aren didn't correct him.
They hear intent.
Nearby, Liora Ashwyn stood quietly, fingers woven together around the strap of her staff. Her braided hair fell over her shoulder, trembling slightly despite her steady breathing.
She was afraid.
But she hadn't run.
That mattered.
And then.....
A presence.
Aren felt it before he saw it.
Someone stood a few paces away, hands in his pockets, silver hair catching no light at all. His eyes pale, almost reflective were fixed not on the gates, but on the sky above them.
Kael Noctryn.
Their gazes met.
For a fraction of a second, the world sharpened.
Kael's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"You feel it too," Kael said softly.
Aren didn't ask what.
"Yes."
Kael nodded once, satisfied. "Good. That means you might survive."
Before Aren could respond, a booming voice echoed across the plaza.
"CANDIDATES."
Mana surged.
At the top of the academy steps stood a tall man in dark robes trimmed with silver. His presence alone crushed the murmurs into silence.
This was Instructor Magnus Vale, Rank S, Execution-Class.
A man who had personally killed three dungeon breaches barehanded.
"In a moment," Magnus said, voice calm and merciless, "you will be transported into the entrance dungeon."
His gaze swept across the crowd, pausing briefly imperceptibly on Aren.
Aren felt it.
He noticed me.
"There are no teams," Magnus continued. "No rules beyond survival. You will be evaluated on adaptability, combat sense, and decision-making."
He raised a hand.
"The dungeon will respond to you."
A murmur rippled through the candidates.
Respond?
Magnus smiled thinly. "Pray it likes you."
The ground split open.
Light swallowed the world.
Aren landed hard, boots skidding across damp stone.
The air was thick, metallic, reeking of blood and rot.
Torches flared to life along jagged walls, revealing a vast cavern riddled with broken pillars and ancient claw marks.
[Dungeon Instance Created]
Rank: C
Evolution State: Unstable
Aren's heart sank.
Unstable already.
Around him, candidates materialized one by one, disoriented shouts echoing through the cavern.
Liora stumbled but caught herself.
Darius landed in a crouch, spear raised instinctively.
Kael appeared standing, as if he'd simply stepped into the room.
And then
A scream.
From the darkness ahead, something moved.
The torches flickered.
Aren's system window flashed violently.
[Warning]
Dungeon Behavioral Shift Detected
Cause: Collective Fear Response
The stone floor rippled.
From the shadows emerged creatures that should not exist in a Rank C dungeon.
Faceless humanoids, their bodies stretched and wrong, skin like wet parchment pulled over bone. Their mouths opened vertically, splitting their heads in half as soundless screams poured out.
[Enemy Identified]
Name: Hollow Warden
Threat Level: B
Panic erupted.
"B-rank?! That's impossible!"
"They're evolving"
A Hollow Warden lunged.
Darius reacted instantly, spear thrusting forward with a roar. The weapon pierced the creature's chest and stopped.
The Hollow Warden tilted its head.
Then grabbed the spear.
With a sickening crunch, it snapped the shaft and backhanded Darius into a pillar.
"Darius!" Liora screamed.
Aren moved.
Not forward.
Backward.
He watched.
He observed.
How fast. How strong. How reactive.
Another Warden charged Liora.
Before Aren could intervene, silver flashed.
Kael stepped in, his hand glowing faintly. He struck the creature's neck not with mana, not with force
But with authority.
The Warden froze.
Its body collapsed into ash.
Silence followed.
Aren stared.
That wasn't a skill.
Kael met his gaze calmly.
"You see it now," Kael said. "The dungeon isn't testing strength."
More Wardens emerged, their forms shifting, adapting.
"It's testing choice."
Aren's system screamed.
[Critical Alert]
Leviathan's Attention: 0.01%
Status: OBSERVING
Aren felt it.
Something vast.
Something amused.
Far beyond the dungeon, beyond the academy, beyond the sky
Leviathan turned its gaze.
And for the first time since his regression, Aren Veyl felt something he hadn't allowed himself to feel in either life.
Anticipation.
So this is how you begin again.
The dungeon walls pulsed.
The torches went out.
And a new message appeared before every surviving candidate.
[Hidden Condition Triggered]
True Test: Commencing
Aren smiled.
Slowly.
Coldly.
Darkness swallowed the cavern.
The torches didn't simply go out they were erased, as if the dungeon had decided light was no longer necessary.
Screams followed.
Not the dramatic kind.
Short, cut-off sounds. The kind that ended too quickly.
Aren Veyl closed his eyes for half a second and breathed.
Don't panic. Panic feeds it.
His system interface flared again, harsher now, the text jagged as if forcibly rendered.
[True Test Commencing]
Dungeon Authority: Partial Override
External Observation: Permitted
So Leviathan wasn't just watching.
It was allowed to watch.
The ground shifted beneath Aren's boots. Stone softened, turning viscous like flesh, then hardened again. The dungeon was reconfiguring itself in real time.
"Everyone stay together!" someone shouted.
A mistake.
The Hollow Wardens responded instantly.
They didn't rush.
They waited.
Then the walls themselves opened.
From slits in the stone, long, jointed limbs emerged.too many elbows, too many angles grabbing candidates and dragging them screaming into the dark.
Blood sprayed across the floor.
Aren moved.
Not toward the screams but toward the silence.
He grabbed Liora by the wrist and yanked her close, pulling her behind a half-collapsed pillar.
"Breathe," he whispered. "Slowly."
Her eyes were wide, tears streaking down her face but she nodded, clenching her jaw.
Nearby, Kael Noctryn stood utterly still, silver hair unmoving despite the shifting mana currents.
"You're not afraid," Aren said quietly.
Kael glanced at him. "Fear implies uncertainty."
Another candidate sprinted past them
Renn Calder, a broad-shouldered boy with twin axes only to vanish as the ground split beneath his feet.
No scream.
Just absence.
[Candidate Eliminated]
The system message echoed in every surviving mind.
Liora flinched.
"How many?" she whispered.
Aren didn't answer.
He was counting.
Twelve gone in under a minute.
Too efficient.
The dungeon wasn't hunting randomly it was pruning.
"Listen," Aren said. "The dungeon adapts to behavior. If you run, it chases. If you group blindly, it isolates."
"And if we fight?" Liora asked.
Aren's eyes hardened.
"It learns."
A new voice joined them.
"Then we do neither."
A tall girl stepped out of the shadows, her armor marked with fresh blood. Her short black hair was matted with sweat, eyes sharp and calculating.
"Name's Seris Kain," she said. "Tactical background. You're thinking ahead."
Aren studied her.
She would die in his previous life betrayed during a B-rank raid.
Not this time.
Before he could reply, the dungeon shifted again.
A low, resonant sound echoed not from the walls, but from everywhere.
A heartbeat.
Slow.
Massive.
[Leviathan's Attention: 0.03%]
Kael exhaled softly. "It's amused."
The stone floor cracked.
From the fissure rose something new.
Not a Hollow Warden.
This thing was taller, broader, plated in obsidian-like armor grown directly from its flesh. Chains dragged behind it, embedded into its own spine.
Its head turned slowly.
And locked onto Aren.
[Enemy Identified]
Name: Judicator of Depths
Rank: A
Liora gasped. "A-rank…? We're dead."
"No," Aren said calmly. "We're being judged."
The Judicator raised one massive arm.
The dungeon waited.
Kael stepped forward.
"I'll distract it," he said.
Aren's eyes narrowed. "You can't beat it."
"I don't need to."
Kael moved and reality bent.
For a moment, Aren saw it clearly.
Kael wasn't using mana.
He was commanding probability.
The Judicator swung.
Kael wasn't there.
The attack shattered a pillar instead, debris raining down and crushing two Hollow Wardens beneath it.
Kael reappeared behind the Judicator, palm glowing faintly.
"Look at me," he said.
The monster did.
And hesitated.
Aren felt the shift immediately.
It acknowledged him.
"Now," Aren said.
Seris reacted instantly, hurling a dagger infused with compressed mana into a crack in the monster's armor.
Liora chanted, voice trembling but steady, binding glyphs flaring around her staff.
The Judicator roared not in pain, but in anger.
It slammed its chains into the ground.
The cavern collapsed.
Aren was thrown back, skidding across stone. His head struck something hard.
His vision blurred.
And then....
Silence.
He lay still.
Too still.
[System Alert]
Subject: Aren Veyl
Status: Critical
Leviathan watched.
Aren felt it.
Not as a presence but as a pressure inside his thoughts.
You again.
Memories surged unbidden his death, the final dungeon, that crushing hand around his heart.
Regret burned.
And something else ignited with it.
Defiance.
A new interface forced itself open, black text bleeding across his vision.
[Hidden Function Unlocked]
Resource Detected: Regret
Conversion Rate: 0.0001%
Aren smiled weakly.
"So that's it…"
His fingers twitched.
Mana surged not outward, but inward.
The dungeon shuddered.
The Judicator froze mid-motion.
Every surviving candidate felt it.
A wrongness.
Aren pushed himself upright, blood running down his temple.
Leviathan's attention spiked.
[Leviathan's Attention: 0.05%]
Kael stared.
Liora whispered his name.
Aren met the Judicator's gaze.
"Your judgment," he said softly, "is flawed."
The monster cracked.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
And deep, deep beneath the academy
Something ancient laughed.