The Pool of Blood (Part 4)
---ANGGA---
"This... is huge," said a squad member behind them.
Angga agreed with that statement.
The gate was massive... too strange for a portal dungeon classified as low difficulty: C.
The wolf head statues on both sides of the gate stared down at them with cold, emotionless eyes.
"Can this even be opened?" a female squad member asked.
"If twenty people push at the same time, maybe it can," Arjuna said while scratching the back of his head.
Coincidentally, their squad consisted of 23 people.
For some reason... Angga felt uneasy about the atmosphere surrounding them.
He glanced at the watch on his wrist.
MAGIC ENERGY LEVEL IN THE AIR: NONE
"What's that?" Ayu, who was clinging to him, asked curiously, looking at his watch.
"This? It's a watch that detects magic energy levels around you."
"For what?"
"You don't know what's in a dungeon like this."
People often called the environment inside portals "dungeons." He didn't know the exact origin of the term, but he knew that in English, "dungeon" meant the deepest and darkest prison.
And for hunters exploring these deep and dark places, no one truly knew what dangers lay hidden in the darkness.
"It's better if we-"
Tap...
Angga was about to say something, but his words were cut short as he saw Arjuna suddenly step forward without hesitation.
"Captain?"
Arjuna, without a hint of doubt, placed his hand on the massive gate.
"Come here, help me push this," Arjuna called to them.
Foolish... What if the gate had some kind of security system that could endanger everyone here?
Even though Angga thought this, the other squad members seemed to lack the fear and paranoia he had.
Some of them immediately walked toward Arjuna without a second thought.
"Angga?"
Angga turned to Ayu, still leaning on him for support.
What were you going to say earlier?"
"I was going to say we should be more cautious..." he said with a furrowed brow.
He glanced back at Arjuna, who was smiling slightly while touching the gate, urging others to join him.
Surely... surely his paranoia wasn't baseless.
Angga's eyes focused on the wolf heads decorating the gate.
Wait a second.
He hadn't noticed the red eyes on the wolf statues before...
"Ayu, did you see red eyes on those wolf heads earlier?"
"Huh? N-"
BAMM!
A loud impact startled everyone, drawing their attention to where the sound originated- where Arjuna stood.
"Ha!"
Arjuna, who had been standing confidently while touching the gate, was now gone.
All that remained was a mass of flesh, crushed and flattened, with fragments of bone scattered around-pressed with overwhelming force.
It looked like meat compressed in an industrial machine, leaving only blood flowing out and a corpse with no trace of humanity.
"What... just happened?"
BAMM!
The sound echoed again.
This time, one of the squad's fighters met the same fate, reduced to a flattened mass of flesh.
What was this? Angga couldn't see any attack -it was as if the air itself had turned into a hammer, deciding to kill indiscriminately.
BAMM!
Another one-
BAMM!
And another.
One by one, his squad members were crushed into meat, standing helplessly, unable to see where the attacks were coming from.
"Run! Back to the portal!"
Someone screamed.
But could running really save them from death?
BAMM!
The answer was no.
But he had to run.
Without a second thought, he turned around, carrying Ayu and sprinting as fast as he could.
"Angga? What's going on?!"
"I don't know! Just run!"
BAMM!
"Hah! Ha-"
BAMM!
"Please! PLEASE! I DON'T WA-"
BAMM!
Behind him, he could hear the screams and despair of his squad members.
The voices of both those who ran and those who couldn't echoed, filled with fear and hopelessness.
"Cia! Don't just sit there! Run-"
BAMM!
"Ayu! Run faster!" he shouted, terrified as the attacks seemed to draw closer.
"I'm trying-"
BAMM!
"Ayu! Come o-"
Perhaps he should have realized it sooner.
He had long since accepted that death was part of the job when he took it on.
His low sense of self-worth, his inability to work as diligently as others, his mediocre skills-he always felt useless.
Ayu's hand, which had been clinging around his neck, hung loosely, severed.
Or rather, her body was gone.
Somehow, the attack had struck Ayu but passed right through him-enough to kill her but not him.
Ayu was no more, replaced by flattened, compressed flesh.
At that moment, Angga realized... running truly held no meaning.
"Ahk-"
BAMM!
The sound of another death rang out behind him, failing to take him.
How long had it been? He had continued living, almost forgetting how worthless his life felt.
How every second he spent staring down the barrel of a gun felt more satisfying than any meal he had ever eaten.
BAMM!
The sound echoed again, killing more of his squad members without mercy.
"Please... PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO DIE-"
BAMM!
No matter how much they begged for mercy, in the end, they would die.
Just like him-no matter how much he feared and avoided his fate, it would still come.
Ah.
[...]
Angga realized he was the only one left among the 23 squad members who had entered this portal.
He stood amidst flattened flesh and flowing blood pooling beneath his feet.
The red liquid from their bodies stained his shoes.
Tap...
Tap...
Tap...
Footsteps approached from the dungeon's darkness, slow and deliberate.
TINK! TINK! TINK!
MAGIC ENERGY LEVEL IN THE AIR:
: SSS+
[EXCEEDS MEASUREMENT LIMITS]
Angga stared at the source of the footsteps in confusion.
Tap.
The sound stopped, and the figure stepped out of the darkness.
A man with long blonde hair wearing a white robe stood before him.
"Justice for my fallen brother... is complete."