We clear the mid-corridors smoother than I've ever seen us do it.
Not because we've gotten stronger.
Because I've gotten… efficient.
Every time a ghost afterimage shows me someone getting gutted, I move them two steps left. Every time I remember a trap chewing off a leg, I throw something at it first.
It feels less like fighting, more like editing.
By the time we hit the last checkpoint before the boss room, our armour's scuffed, HP bars a little nicked, but no one's died.
Kenta slams his shield into the Anchor pillar like he's high-fiving it. "Hell yes. We're cracked today."
Mori exhales. "Don't jinx it."
Rin doesn't say anything. She's watching me again.
The boss door looms at the end of the platform, a set of steel shutters warped into the shape of an open mouth. Warm air gusts from the gap, carrying the stink of smoke and rot.
Hellmouth's core.
This is where I died the last time.
And the time before that.
And the hundred times before that, if you count everything the System kindly blurred out for me over the years.
"Alright," Rin says. "Same strat as always—"
"No," I cut in.
Her head snaps toward me. "Excuse me?"
I keep my tone level. "The suicide seize-and-blow won't work."
Kenta snorts. "Bro, that's literally the meta. You invented that shit in this party."
Yeah. I know.
I also know what it feels like when teeth crunch through your spine. The sudden dead weight of your own body. The blue light that comes like a hand over your face.
"You want a red wipe?" I ask. "Phase three's tuned tighter since the patch. Demon's faster, grabs for whoever's doing the most damage. Our old route relies on me going down on purpose so you can bomb its hand and force the reset. If it decides to grab you instead—" I nod at Rin. "—we're screwed."
Rin crosses her arms. "So what's your alternative?"
I point at the far end of the platform, where one of the overhead lighting rigs hangs lower than the rest, cables exposed.
"We use height. We use line-of-sight. We kite it into the pillar cluster. Kenta pins its charges, you shred its ankles when it staggers, I keep callouts for when it swaps targets. Nobody gets eaten."
Kenta squints. "That takes longer."
"Yes," I say. "It takes longer. And less dying."
Silence stretches.
Mori clears his throat. "I… don't hate the 'less dying' part."
Rin studies me like I'm another dungeon mechanic she hasn't seen before.
"You never had a problem dying here," she says. Not accusing. Just observing. "You used to joke about it."
I shrug. "Joke got old."
She doesn't look away. "You've been different since last week."
Last week. Death one-oh-eight. The crunch, the burn, the dark.
"Yeah, well," I say. "Neck still remembers it."
Something flickers across her face. Concern? Annoyance? It's hard to tell with Rin. Her baseline is sharp.
Then she exhales. "Fine. No suicide play. We run your route. But if it goes to shit, I'm improvising."
"Wouldn't dream of stopping you," I say.
We line up by the door.
The System gives us the usual polite warning:
[BOSS ARENA AHEAD]
Prepare for Respawn.
The irony hits a little differently.
Rin glances over her shoulder. "You good, Kai?"
I roll my neck. My body feels wired, alert. Underneath that, something cold and hard has settled where fear used to sit.
"I'm fine," I say. "Let's go wipe our feet on Hell's face."
The door shudders open.
Heat hits first, like stepping in front of an oven. The arena is a twisted version of the station's lowest platform: tracks half-melted, platforms warped into jagged teeth. The centre is a pit of fire and shadow.
The demon hauls itself up from that pit as we enter.
It's bigger than any human thing has the right to be; a mass of charred flesh and rusted armour plates, four arms ending in too many fingers. Its head is a cracked station clock with jagged glass teeth.
It roars. The sound makes my ears ring.
We spread out without thinking. Muscle memory.
First phase is easy. It throws fire, smashes the floor, tries to punt us into the pit. I call the patterns before they land.
"Left swing—jump. Shockwave—back two. Kenta, shield up, now."
We strip its HP in chunks. It howls, flails, cracks the ceiling.
Second phase, it adds grabs. Long, sweeping lunges with those too-big hands. That's where most newbies die; they don't respect the range.
"Rin, three o'clock!" I bark.
She's already moving, vaulting off a chunk of broken platform, her blade drawing burning lines across one arm as she runs up it.
The demon shrieks and flings her off. She tucks into a roll, hits the ground hard, HP shaving down but still green.
Kenta slams his shield into a stamping foot, drawing its attention. Mori keeps heals rolling. We bleed the second health bar dry.
Then the third phase hits.
The arena shakes. Fires surge. The demon's body distorts, extra limbs tearing their way out of its back as the System goes, "Alright, no more training wheels."
[PHASE III: HELLBLOOD AWAKENED]
"Here we go," Kenta mutters.
This is where we used to do it.
The old route: I let it grab me, Rin charges her blade, Mori stacks buffs, Kenta anchors. I stab its hand, it bites me in half, we blow the limb off while it's busy making paste out of my torso.
Messy. Efficient.
I see it. Ghost-style.
For a heartbeat, the arena overlays with past deaths—the exact frame where I chose to stand and raise my sword, the exact angle the hand came in, the moment my ribs collapsed under the pressure.
My skin crawls.
The demon rears back. All four arms spread.
It roars, and the world narrows to a single choice.
"Positions!" I snap.
We move.
Not to the old spots.
To the ones I mapped in my head this morning, lying on my bed staring at the ceiling like a crazy person.
"Kenta, pillar three! Rin, low on its right!" I shout. "Mori, behind me—don't stop casting."
The first arm crashes down where Kenta was a second ago. He's already shifted, shield braced against the pillar. The impact shudders the whole platform; debris rains down.
The second arm goes for Rin. Of course it does. She's top damage.
She slides under it, sparks skidding from her boots, then kicks off the demon's wrist and drives her blade into the exposed tendon behind the knee.
Its leg buckles.
"Now!" I yell.
Kenta shoulder-slams its other leg. It drops, forced to balance awkwardly, lower to the ground than the AI likes.
The third arm whips toward me, fast enough that most players only see a blur before they're grabbed.
Ghosts explode across my vision.
Me, getting caught. Me, trying to roll. Me, misjudging the timing.
I step exactly where none of them are.
The fingers slam into the stone right beside me, buckling the floor and showering me with broken concrete. My whole body rings from the shock, but I'm not in its grip.
"Ankle!" I snarl.
Rin is already there.
She carves through joint and tendon in a bright, brutal arc. The demon's HP plummets. It screams, tries to stand, falls hard.
We pile in.
Its arms lash blindly, grabbing at empty air. Fire geysers from cracks in its chest; Kenta blocks what he can, shouting obscenities, Mori's voice a steady litany behind us as he layers heals and buffs.
I see the opening as clearly as if the System highlighted it: a fracture in the plates over its heart, pulsing red-gold like an exposed battery.
"Rin! Core!" I yell.
She doesn't hesitate.
She sprints, vaults off my back, drives her blade down with both hands.
The demon convulses.
For a second I swear its clock-face head turns, glass teeth grinding, and looks directly at me.
Like it remembers.
Then it detonates.
Fire washes over the platform in a wave. The world goes white, then blue, then—
[BOSS DEFEATED – HELLMOUTH STATION STANDARD]
[CLEAR TIME: 12:47]
[PARTY DEATHS: 0]
[REWARD: EXP + 5,800 | SHARDS + 320]
I'm still standing.
Breathing hard. Armour scorched. HP bar flashing red. But standing.
Kenta whoops. "Let's gooo!"
Mori just sits down where he is and puts his head between his knees.
Rin pulls her blade free, deactivates it with a flick, then looks at me.
Not impressed. Not surprised.
Curious.
"You changed the whole route," she says. "On the fly."
"On the bus," I correct. "I had time to think."
A slow smile pulls at her mouth, but it doesn't reach her eyes.
"That's the scary part, Kai," she says. "You thought about it."