The city outskirts burned quietly.
A dungeon rupture had opened without announcement. No guild response. No broadcast.
Just corpses.
The man stood in the center of it.
Tall. Lean. Eyes glowing faint crimson.
His coat torn, hands covered in monster blood.
At his feet lay a high-tier dungeon core, pulsing violently.
He crushed it in his palm.
Energy flooded his veins.
He did not scream.
He smiled.
"I see it now," he murmured.
The path.
Power was not granted.
It was taken.
He had watched the broadcast.
Watched the ice.
Watched the fire.
Watched the powerless man shout commands.
And he had understood something.
They were rising.
So he would rise higher.
Days passed.
He hunted alone.
Mid-tier dungeons fell.
Then high-tier.
Then unstable anomalies.
His name began circulating in whispers.
The Red Executioner.
The Independent Slayer.
The Man Who Clears Alone.
His power grew unnatural.
His aura warped air.
His eyes stopped blinking normally.
He stopped sleeping.
Stopped eating.
He consumed cores instead.
And then—
He challenged them.
🧊 VOLUME 2 — CHAPTER 2 "WRONG TARGET"
The plaza was quiet this time.
No broadcast.
No guilds.
Just the three of them.
Tatsu was eating.
Leonhart was polishing a ring.
Fridge Sama was staring at nothing in particular.
The air distorted.
The Red Executioner stepped forward from a rift of his own making.
His presence crushed the air.
Leonhart stood immediately.
"…You feel that."
"Yes," Fridge Sama replied.
Tatsu swallowed his food wrong.
The villain's voice echoed calmly.
"I have surpassed you."
Silence.
He raised one hand.
Dark energy spiraled violently around him.
The ground cracked.
Streetlights shattered.
Leonhart's flames ignited instinctively.
Tatsu's heartbeat spiked.
Fridge Sama looked mildly inconvenienced.
The villain continued.
"I consumed six high-tier cores. I shattered two anomalies. I refined my body beyond mortal limits."
He stepped closer.
"I leveled."
Leonhart narrowed his eyes.
Tatsu whispered.
"…He rehearsed that."
The villain pointed at Fridge Sama.
"You are the ceiling I will break."
Fridge Sama finally looked at him directly.
Three seconds passed.
Four.
Five.
The villain attacked.
The impact wave shattered nearby glass.
Dust exploded outward.
The street collapsed inward.
Leonhart shielded Tatsu instantly.
The shockwave ended.
The dust settled.
Fridge Sama stood exactly where he had been.
The villain's fist was frozen mid-strike.
Not his whole body.
Just his fist.
Ice crawled slowly upward.
The villain's eyes widened.
"…Impossible."
Fridge Sama tilted his head slightly.
"You are loud," he said.
The villain tried to pull back.
He could not.
Fridge Sama stepped forward.
Touched his chest.
Cold entered.
The villain dropped to his knees instantly.
Energy flickered violently and then died.
Leonhart blinked.
"…That was it."
Tatsu stared.
"…That was Volume 2."
Fridge Sama looked down at the kneeling villain.
"You leveled incorrectly," he said calmly.
The villain collapsed face-first.
Unconscious.
Silence.
Tatsu slowly raised his hand.
"Do we let him wake up."
"No," Fridge Sama replied.
Leonhart exhaled.
"…That was anticlimactic."
Fridge Sama turned away.
"If he survives," he said, "he may try again."
Tatsu stared at the unconscious villain.
"…Should we at least let him finish his speech next time."
"No," Fridge Sama replied.
They walked away.
Behind them, the "future threat" lay face down on cracked pavement.
Volume 2 had begun.
And already, it had ended for someone.