From the top of the staircase, as the last damp sound of Gregory's body being devoured disappeared beneath the creature's crackling and hissing, a new presence took over the hall.
Not from outside.
But from within.
From where the light did not touch.
From the shadows.
A figure crossed the dark veil beside Seth. It did not run. It did not jump. It just appeared. As if it had always been there, quiet. Watching. Waiting for the command that finally came.
Bastet.
A black panther, but not just black—nonexistent. Its fur was a cloak of liquid night, where no light was reflected. It walked with the grace of a silent storm, muscles flowing beneath its skin like condensed smoke. The trail of its footprints immediately faded behind it, as if it were erasing its own presence from reality.
Eliza instinctively took a step back, even though she knew Bastet was an ally. It wasn't fear of being attacked — it was fear of understanding what she was seeing. Something that wasn't a beast. Not even a summoning. It was... an extension of Seth's own soul. Wild, intelligent, and full of purpose.
The Spider sensed it.
For the first time, she hesitated. Her slender paws stopped scratching the ground. Her crystal eyes swiveled, trying to capture that creature that produced no sound, smell, or aura.
But there was no time for more.
Bastet disappeared.
And then she appeared above the spider.
A leap. A tear in the air. Gravity forgot her.
Bastet's claws glowed deep purple, like enchanted blades echoing with a forgotten curse. She descended with a violence that seemed too silent to make sense.
The panther's claw pierced the spider's shell.
It didn't scratch.
It didn't crack.
It penetrated.
The sound was muffled, as if the world had choked. The creature let out a distorted scream—not a vocal sound, but a desperate vibration that cracked the crystals on the ceiling. Bastet did not hesitate. She used her hind legs to spin in the air and drove her other claw into the opposite side of the abdomen, tearing an arc of crystallized blood that spurted like liquid glass.
The Spider writhed, spinning its legs in a defensive spiral.
But Bastet had already disappeared again.
A second later, she reappeared at the creature's base, attacking its joints with cruel precision. Each blow was a clean cut—not by brute force, but by knowing exactly where to strike. Each joint broke with a dry crack. The spider's movements became erratic.
One limb fell.
Then another.
The creature tried to rise on its remaining four legs, but Bastet climbed up its side like a shadow creeping up a wall. A crystalline eye exploded beneath its fangs. A viscous, shiny liquid dripped down. The creature screamed—now a vocal sound, a high-pitched roar that seemed to come from all directions at once.
The arena reacted.
Crystals exploded from the walls. Bursts of pure mana shot out like colored spears, trying to hit the panther.
But Bastet disappeared again.
As if she were playing at being in all directions at once. Illusory. Deadly.
A flash appeared in the center of the creature—Bastet had pierced its chest, tearing out a crystal core with her teeth. The Spider went into a frenzy, now blind in half its eyes and missing three legs.
It spun its body, expelling a toxic cloud, a dark mist that dissolved mana and soul at the same time.
Bastet vanished before it could touch her.
She reappeared above, biting one of the creature's fangs with brutal force. She didn't just break it—she tore it out. She tore it out as if she were picking a flower. The fang fell to the ground with a metallic, wet sound, ricocheting three times before coming to rest.
The creature lost its balance.
Its paws faltered. Its crystal throne shook.
Bastet did not retreat.
She roared.
And the roar was not a sound.
It was a command.
It was authority.
The air grew thick. The light went out. And for a moment, everything—everything—bowed to the existence of that creature.
The Spider stopped.
Frozen.
Then, in a single movement, Bastet dug her four front paws into what remained of the Spider's back and pulled.
Not to kill.
To open.
The carapace gave way. With a sound of tearing leather and cracking crystal, the back split into two irregular plates. The creature's internal organs—a living mass of luminescent filaments and mana cores—began to spill out.
Eliza covered her mouth in horror.
Bastet sank her head inside.
Short, brutal bites. She was hungry, yes—but not for flesh. Hungry for victory. Hungry for purpose.
The creature shuddered one last time. Its limbs opened in a spasm. A wave of dark mana swept across the arena, like a breath of death trying to carry away the last traces of consciousness.
And then, nothing.
Silence.
The crystals ceased their glow. The dome of the hall darkened.
The Crystal Spider was dead.
Or perhaps worse—forgotten.
Bastet emerged from the corpse as if emerging from a curtain of water. Her body did not have a drop of blood. She did not walk—she glided across the floor.
She returned to Seth.
She stopped beside him.
And she sat down.
Like a statue.
Like a satisfied curse.
Seth gave a slight nod.
"Good girl."
[You have eliminated the Guardian of the Crystal Arena]
[You have received EXP]
[You have obtained: Living Crystal Core (Rare+ Grade)]
[You obtained: Eye of the Guardian (Reagent)]
"Hm... something new," he muttered, without much emotion, and with a simple gesture of his hand, he closed the interface. That could wait. There was something more palpable in the atmosphere. The tension had not yet dissipated.
At that moment, the portal appeared.
Opening like a crack of light in the heavy air of the dungeon, its glow contrasted with the darkness and metallic stench of recent death. The portal rotated slowly, as if breathing, inviting—or testing—the survivors.
Seth lifted his foot to take the first step.
"Wait!" Eliza's voice cut through the silence like a sharp blade.
He stopped, the sole of his foot suspended in the air for a second before returning to the ground. He turned, his eyebrow slightly arched.
"Hm?" Eliza was tense. Her forehead was sweaty, her face still marked by the revulsion of what they had witnessed. But her voice carried something else now: indignation.
"What about the others?" she asked, taking a step forward. 'You saw the Hunters trapped... dead, yes. But... what about the ones who disappeared? The ones who went in before us? The ones who came with Gregory? Where are they?'
Seth was silent for a moment. His eyes half-open. As if the question floated in his mind, searching for a space where it would really make a difference.
Then he tilted his head slightly to the side.
"Right, huh?" he said, with a half-empty smile.
His tone was not mocking. It was more... absent. As if the humanity behind the question had passed through him like a breeze, leaving no mark.
Eliza frowned.
"Seth... don't you care?"
He shrugged, as if responding to a math question that had lost its meaning mid-calculation.
"If they were alive... why didn't they ask for help? If they were dead... well, the dungeon wanted them more than we did."
Silence fell like a stone. Eliza looked at the portal, then at Bastet, still sitting like a silent sentinel. The panther opened one lazy eye and watched her for a second—not threateningly, but with a kind of ancient judgment.
"They were hunters, yes, but they were also people," she said, her voice firm. "No one deserves to die like that. Not even Gregory."
Seth didn't respond immediately. He looked around the hall, now covered in bloodstains and broken crystals. The Spider's torn body was a twisted heap, and the altar in the center still pulsed faintly blue—as if it missed its daily horror.
"Deserving or not," he said at last, 'has never been a criterion around here.'
Then he turned back to the portal.
"If anyone is still alive... good luck to them."
And he took his first step toward the light.