The vortex twisted like a sick heart, pulsing amid the ruins of a gutted shopping mall. Ha Neul stopped at the entrance, his eyes calm.
"We're going in."
Nero nodded. No words were superfluous.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, gravity shifted. The air was thicker, charged with organic electricity. A rustling sound ran through the walls, as if the dungeon were breathing.
Their surroundings had changed.
Black floor, living glass walls, shifting ceiling. The place resembled a gigantic closed eye, waiting to open. Fragments of reality floated in the air, frozen: a table, a face, a shattered memory.
Ha Neul activated a card: Ion Strike. It merged with a Vision Plate, creating a field of perception that revealed the unstable fluxes of the terrain. Hidden distortions dotted the corridor.
— "Illusions of movement. The dungeon doesn't want us to find the core."
"Then we burn it," Nero replied.
He cast Mirror Copy: Echo of Self, his signature card. A spectral duplicate appeared to his left, mimicking his movements. With a fluid backhand, Nero chained together: Solar Chain, Bent Blade, Curved Leap. He and his reflection began to dance within the fractured space.
A scream erupted.
Creatures emerged from the walls—parasites of the Flux, half-organic, half-spectral. One resembled a child with a split skull, another a floating hand armed with stolen cards.
Ha Neul unsheathed a combination of Celestial Wall + Reverberating Wave. A wall of energy stopped the attacks in its tracks, followed by a wave that disintegrated the weakest. Nero and his reflection eliminated the rest in perfect sync, without a sound.
Then silence fell again.
"This isn't a resource dungeon. It's a decoy," Ha Neul murmured.
"It's built like a trapped memory."
A central room appeared before them. Spherical. Deserted.
And in the center, a black mirror.
Nero approached. His reflection, however, didn't move.
"...This is a portal. But not to an exit."
The mirror vibrated. A shadow fell from the ceiling.
A hooded figure. No sound. No emotion. Only a chilling presence.
"You are pawns," she said. Her voice, deep, seemed to emerge from another language.
"This dungeon wasn't a challenge. It was a beacon. A signal." »
She held up a black card, tore it open slowly. A wave exploded. Ha Neul raised a protective shield, Nero stepped back.
But there was nothing.
Nothing... except a symbol etched in the air: an eye surrounded by chains.
The next moment, the shadow was gone.
And the dungeon began to disintegrate. Slowly, the world around them evaporated, like a useless shell.
"It was a test. Not for us. For something else," Nero said.
Ha Neul nodded.
They stepped outside.
In the sky, a second vortex was already opening.
The Game had only just begun. 🜁 Ha Neul
Rank: 9
Level: 74 (+1)
Understanding: 43
Class: Fusionist
Origin: Korean (Regressor)
Key Skill: Elemental Fusion — "Sealed Wind Blade"
🜂 Nero
Rank: 8
Level: 86 (+1)
Understanding: 50
Class: Mirror Fortune Teller
Origin: Italy
Signature Card: Mirari: Speculum Duplicem
Key Skill: Partial Copy of Enemy Abilities