CHAPTER - 4 THE REALIZATION AFTER THE SLAUGHTER
The King Walks First
King Altherion of Eltross had walked into battlefields before.
He had crossed rivers choked with corpses, stood beneath siege towers burning with men still screaming inside them, and signed orders that erased entire bloodlines with ink and wax.
So when he stepped into the dungeon, he did so smiling.
"This," he said aloud, voice echoing confidently through the stone corridor, "will be remembered as the day humanity stepped into a greater age."
His entourage followed—royal guards in enchanted armor, court mages robed in gold-thread sigils, priests clutching relics, and scribes already preparing to write history before it happened.
The dungeon welcomed them.
Warm light.
Wide corridors.
Soft ambient mana that made joints feel younger, lungs fuller.
Ahead, weak slimes bounced lazily across the stone floor—translucent, harmless, almost cute.
Laughter rippled through the group.
"So this is the great threat?" one knight scoffed.
The king raised a hand. "Do not underestimate it. Still—"
He watched as a guard casually cut a slime in half.
It died instantly.
No resistance. No scream.
The king nodded, satisfied.
"Proceed."
The Map Lies
They advanced deeper.
The floor widened into a grand hall—pillars carved like roots, ceilings high enough for banners. The very architecture seemed to encourage confidence.
Scribes sketched furiously.
"Your Majesty," Torrin the cartographer said, "the dungeon's layout matches earlier reports. This appears to be Floor Two."
Good, the king thought. Predictable. Controlled.
Then the slimes froze.
Every single one—mid-bounce, mid-wobble—locked in place.
And then they collapsed.
Not killed.
Dismissed.
They melted into nothing, leaving behind faint black residue that evaporated into the stone.
The air changed.
The warmth vanished.
The dungeon breathed in.
The Doors That Were Not There
A sound followed.
Not loud.
A click.
The king turned.
Stone shifted.
Walls that had been smooth seconds ago split apart along invisible seams. Panels slid back silently, revealing hidden doors—dozens of them—embedded perfectly into the dungeon's architecture.
The scribes stopped writing.
The priests felt their relics grow cold.
From the darkness behind the doors came movement.
Low.
Scraping.
Breathing that was wrong.
The First Real Monsters
They poured out.
Goblins—but not the childish creatures of folklore. These were lean, sinewy things with elongated limbs, yellow eyes glowing with intelligence far too sharp. Crude armor hugged their bodies, blades held properly, grips disciplined.
Behind them came kobolds—scaled, hunched, mouths filled with serrated teeth, dragging chains, carrying fire-pots and hooked spears.
They didn't charge.
They spread out.
Formations.
The king's heart skipped.
"Guards!" he shouted. "Formation!"
Too late.
The Dungeon Closes Its Mouth
With a thunderous finality, the entrance behind them sealed shut.
No warning.
No glow.
No escape.
The sound echoed like a coffin lid slamming closed.
Panic exploded instantly.
"Magic—break the wall!"
"Protect the king!"
"Where did they come from?!"
The goblins moved.
The Slaughter Begins
They didn't scream.
They didn't roar.
They executed.
A goblin hurled a hooked blade low, catching a knight's ankle. The man fell—and three kobolds piled onto him, stabbing between armor joints with precise, economical strikes.
A mage raised a spell.
A sling stone shattered his jaw mid-incantation.
Fire erupted—kobolds rolled through it, shields raised, scales blackening but bodies moving.
The dungeon absorbed the heat.
The king drew his sword, enchanted steel humming, and cut down the first goblin that reached him.
It died.
And smiled as it fell.
That was when the king understood.
These creatures weren't afraid.
They weren't testing.
They had trained for this.
Fear Becomes Currency
Every scream fed the walls.
The stone pulsed faintly red.
Priests tried to invoke miracles—their voices cracked as divine magic sputtered, distorted, weakened by unseen pressure.
A goblin leapt onto a scribe, pinned him down, and did not kill him immediately.
It waited.
Watched.
As the man begged.
Then slit his throat slowly.
The dungeon shuddered in pleasure.
Somewhere—far beyond the king's awareness—a system registered an increase.
The King Falls Back
Altherion retreated step by step, guards dying around him.
This wasn't a battle.
This was processing.
"Retreat to the hall!" he commanded, voice breaking. "Regroup!"
But the hall had changed.
The pillars had shifted.
Corridors narrowed.
The dungeon rewrote itself in real time, herding them like livestock.
"Your Majesty!" a knight cried, taking a spear through the chest. "This isn't—this isn't normal!"
No, the king thought.
This is intentional.
A Glimpse of Truth
As he backed away, bloodied, he saw something carved faintly into the wall—symbols he hadn't noticed before.
They weren't runes.
They were records.
Kill counts.
Fear levels.
Behavioral data.
The dungeon wasn't defending itself.
It was learning.
And then, briefly—just for an instant—the king felt it.
A presence.
Not above.
Not below.
Beyond.
Watching.
Evaluating.
The Last Command
"Form a shield wall around the priests!" the king roared, swinging wildly now, exhaustion creeping in. "We will carve a path back!"
There was no path back.
A goblin captain stepped forward—taller than the rest, eyes glowing a deeper red. It tilted its head, studying the king like an interesting specimen.
Then it spoke.
Rough. Broken.
But clear.
"Data… sufficient."
The dungeon doors behind the goblins closed again.
More opened ahead.
And the slaughter accelerated.
Far Away, a Finger Lowers
In Pharones, beneath a waterfall, Kravex watched through a mist-formed portal.
His expression did not change.
The purple slab updated silently.
HUMAN LEADERSHIP UNIT: ENGAGED
FEAR SPIKE: ACCEPTABLE
PRIDE COLLAPSE: IN PROGRESS
"Good," he murmured.
In Hellemes Grounds, a cocoon pulsed once inside a volcano.
It had tasted its first lesson.
Back inside the dungeon, King Altherion screamed orders into the dark.
History would record that this was humanity's first dungeon expedition.
It would not record that this was the moment humanity stopped being the apex species in its own world.
Because the dungeon had closed.
And it had finally decided to eat.
THE END OF THE CHAPTER.