Warehouse 17 stood at the edge of Neonsvale's industrial district a forgotten, rusted monolith surrounded by silence and shadows. Devin approached with cautious steps, clutching the recruitment flyer tightly in his trembling fingers. His heartbeat thudded in his ears, echoing like a war drum in the eerie stillness.
No guards.
No lights.
No sounds.
Just an old metal door hanging ajar like the mouth of a slumbering beast.
He hesitated only a moment before pushing it open with a loud creak. The interior was dark, lit only by flickering fluorescent tubes that buzzed above like dying wasps.
Inside, a crowd had already gathered.
Dozens of low-rank hunters filled the warehouse space, their armor dull, weapons worn, and faces etched with uncertainty. Most wore their rank insignia clearly pinned to their chests D-rank badges glinting under the faint light, with only a few scattered E-ranks nervously keeping to the edges.
The moment Devin stepped inside, all eyes turned to him.
He froze.
The room fell into momentary silence, tension coiling like a snake about to strike.
Hunters sized him up his ragged gear, patched leather boots, and battered blade slung over his shoulder. A few sneered. Others scoffed and looked away, deeming him unworthy even of their disdain.
Devin swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to move deeper into the crowd, pretending he didn't feel like a rabbit among wolves.
He wasn't the only one who looked uneasy. Whispers echoed through the hall.
"Why so many D-ranks?"
"Too quiet…"
"This doesn't feel right."
Minutes ticked by like hours.
And then… at thirty minutes past midnight, the door behind Devin vanished literally vanished melting into thin air like smoke being inhaled by some unseen force.
A cold chill swept through the warehouse.
Gasps erupted.
Then, the shadows moved.
One by one, humanoid shapes began to emerge from the darkness itself figures cloaked in deep obsidian armor, their presence warping the very air around them. The Shadow Clan had arrived. Their insignias glowed crimson against their chests: a crescent moon shackled in chains.
There were at least a dozen of them. All of them radiated power. A-Rank, at least. Some might have been higher.
Unease turned to fear.
Hunters stiffened. Hands went to hilts. Some began inching backward.
But before panic could take root, the tallest of the shadow-cloaked figures stepped forward and raised a hand.
In one swift motion, they removed their mask revealing a calm, sharp-eyed man with silvery hair and a voice that was velvet over steel.
"Welcome, chosen ones," he said smoothly. "Do not be afraid. We are not here to harm you, so long as you follow our rules."
His voice echoed across the silent room like a sermon in a crypt.
"But," he added, eyes narrowing, "there is no turning back. You passed through the gate. You are ours now."
Devin felt his heart skip. Every fiber of his being screamed that he was in danger. Big danger. His instincts, dulled from years of low-tier dungeon crawling, had suddenly awoken snarling like a beast.
But the promise of the reward echoed louder than fear.
Thirty thousand dollars.
His mother's life.
He clenched his fists and stayed silent.
The shadow leader continued. "You are here to assist us in a reconnaissance operation. A dungeon unlike any seen before has opened deep, ancient, and hostile. We do not require you to conquer it. Merely… to walk through it."
There was a pause.
"You will each be provided with a monitoring suit. Cameras, sensors, voice recorders. We want data, not blood. Avoid contact with any beasts within. Your objective is to explore, record, and return."
The murmurs began again, this time louder, tinged with panic.
"They're sending us in blind?"
"Recon in an unknown dungeon? Are they crazy?"
"They want to use us as meat shields!"
A few of the more defiant hunters stepped forward, their voices rising in protest.
"This is suicide!" one shouted. "Even S-ranks wouldn't step into something like this blind!"
Others joined in, raising their voices, trying to rally the group to walk away.
But they never got the chance.
Without warning, shadows burst beneath their feet like geysers of darkness. Screams filled the air and then silence.
The complaining hunters were gone. Swallowed whole. Erased. Not even a trace remained.
The remaining crowd recoiled in horror.
The shadow leader didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
He simply said, "Let that serve as a reminder. There is no going back. Your participation is no longer optional."
A heavy silence fell.
No one moved. No one dared speak.
The weight of fear crushed all resistance. The message was clear: obey, or vanish.
Devin's heart pounded like a hammer in his chest. Every part of him screamed to run.
But there was no door.
There was no escape.
And somewhere, hooked to tubes in a hospital bed, his mother lay in limbo.
He took a deep breath, clenched his jaw, and whispered to himself.
"…I'll survive this. No matter what."
The oppressive atmosphere within Warehouse 17 weighed down on every hunter like a storm cloud ready to burst. The earlier arrogance, chatter, and whispers had been replaced by tense silence. After witnessing the fate of those who tried to rebel, no one dared even shift their weight too loudly.
They all understood now.
This was no ordinary mission.
This wasn't just another dungeon raid.
This was a test of survival… cloaked in promises and shadow.
The Shadow Clan's leader stepped forward again, his silver hair catching the flickering lights above as his voice cut through the silence like a blade.
"You all came here for money… and you will be paid," he said, calm and confident, like someone entirely used to being obeyed. "Survive this assignment, and you will walk away wealthier than most C-rank hunters make in a year."
A few of the hunters clenched their jaws. Others lowered their heads. None dared to voice regret.
Greed had led them here.
Desperation had bound them.
Now survival was their only path forward.
"From this point onward," the Shadow leader continued, "you are bound to secrecy. What you see, what you encounter, and what you learn inside the dungeon is not for the outside world. That is our law. That is our creed."
He raised a gloved hand.
"Form six lines. You will each sign the Blood Oath before we proceed."
One by one, the hunters obeyed.
There was no resistance now. Only grim acceptance.
Devin found himself in the fourth line, sandwiched between a burly D-rank with a scar across his nose and a trembling E-rank girl who looked no older than eighteen. His heart pounded, but his face remained still. He had long since learned to hide fear behind silence.
At the head of each line stood a member of the Shadow Clan, clad in flowing darkness like living silhouettes. Before them rested a stone pedestal etched with a hauntingly intricate heptagram, glowing faintly with a ghostly purple light.
"Present your thumb," the shadow figure instructed.
Devin hesitated only a second before biting into his thumb, drawing blood. He pressed it onto the center of the symbol.
The moment his blood touched the stone, the symbol flared to life glowing with a dark crimson hue and a searing heat burned across the back of his right hand.
He gasped, biting back a cry of pain.
When the glow faded, a crescent moon shackled in chains was etched into his skin like a tattoo. A mark of the oath. A brand of silence.
He stepped aside, clutching his hand, breath shaky. The others followed.
One by one, every hunter took the oath. Every hunter was marked.
When the last mark had been burned, the Shadow leader gestured to a long, dark table lined with dozens of smooth, featureless black masks.
"Put them on," he said. "They will guide your transfer."
Devin reached for one hesitantly. As his fingers touched the cool surface, an unnatural shiver ran through his spine.
He turned the mask over. No eye holes. No straps. Just a flat, obsidian surface that shimmered like still water.
With a deep breath, he pressed it to his face.
The mask clung to him, sealing with a hiss, like it had a mind of its own.
And then darkness.
The world fell away like shattered glass.
No floor. No ceiling. No breath.
Only a sensation of falling as if his soul had been yanked from his body and tossed into a bottomless abyss.
Somewhere, faintly, he could hear the last words of the Shadow leader.
"May the strong return. And the weak… be forgotten."
And then, there was nothing.
Just the chilling silence of a dungeon that was waiting to devour them all.