The Breath Beneath the Stone
The world beyond the gate was wrong.
Yeon-woo staggered as reality twisted around him, the air thick like wet cotton, each breath dragging at his chest.The ground under his boots was no longer stone or dirt.It was flesh.Something pale and pulsing, slick with moisture.
He drew his dagger instantly, instincts screaming.
The landscape stretched into a vast cavern, ceilings lost in the darkness above.Pillars of bone jutted upward like malformed trees, their surfaces crawling with veins that pulsed in time with the slow, heavy heartbeat echoing through the air.
Yeon-woo stood still for a long moment, letting his senses adjust.
Then he pulled up his Profile again.
[Name: Yeon-woo][Level: 40][Class: None][Title: Regressor, First Explorer][Unique Skills: Greed (Lv.2), Bloom (2nd Cycle)][Traits: Resist Death (Low Grade), Bone Reinforcement (Passive)][Skills: Dagger Mastery (Intermediate), Evasion (Advanced), Swift Footwork (Intermediate), Danger Sense (Intermediate), Command Dead (Intermediate)][Stats:]Strength: 88Agility: 100Endurance: 85Intelligence: 61Perception: 96
No sudden breakthroughs.But he could feel it — the slow, steady solidification of his power.
Regression wasn't just a second chance.It was the long grinding sharpening of the blade.
Notifications whispered again.
[Area: Heart of the Forgotten One][Objective: Reach the Core within 6 hours.][Warning: Failure to reach the Core will result in death.]
A timer appeared in the corner of his vision.
5:59:58.
5:59:57.
Move.
He began walking, the slick ground squelching underfoot.
Bloom pulsed faintly within him, keeping his muscles primed, his focus sharpened.Greed stayed dormant for now — no clear targets yet.
Minutes passed.
Then the first predator came into view.
It was a thing of flesh and broken armor — a beast with too many limbs, dragging a shattered blade through the meat of the floor.One eye hung from its socket by a thread of nerve, yet it turned toward him with horrifying precision.
Yeon-woo didn't hesitate.
He dashed sideways, letting the creature's first lunge crash into the ground where he'd stood.
Dust and blood sprayed upward.
Bloom surged, enhancing his reaction speed.He circled around the monster's blind spot, dagger flashing for the exposed spinal ridges jutting from its back.
The dagger struck bone—and bounced.
Not enough force.
The creature shrieked, a high keening sound that vibrated inside Yeon-woo's skull.
He gritted his teeth and rolled backward, avoiding a wild, sweeping slash from the creature's jagged sword.
Durability's too high for brute force.
Change tactics.
He darted forward again, but this time he didn't aim for the body.Instead, he targeted the monster's sword hand.
A quick slice across tendons.
Another across joints.
The blade dropped from its grip, thudding into the ground.
The creature shrieked louder, spasming.
Yeon-woo didn't give it a second chance.With Swift Footwork boosting his momentum, he drove his dagger up into the soft palate of its ruined mouth.
There was a sickening crunch.
The monster jerked once — then went limp.
[Abomination defeated!][Level Up!][Level: 40 → 41][Skill Proficiency Increased: Dagger Mastery → Advanced.][Skill Proficiency Increased: Swift Footwork → Advanced.]
He stepped back, breathing evenly.
No sense of triumph.
Just necessity.
Yeon-woo checked his Profile again.
A quiet satisfaction stirred when he saw his Dagger Mastery had finally broken through.
He moved quickly, not bothering to harvest the corpse.There was no time.
The cavern twisted ahead, the heartbeat growing louder.
The walls changed too — from flesh to a strange fusion of muscle and metal, as if some ancient machine had tried to fuse with a living creature and failed.
Shapes moved at the edges of the corridor.
Larger things.
Yeon-woo slowed his pace, crouching low.
One monster he could handle.Two, maybe.
But he wasn't suicidal.
A quick pulse of Bloom enhanced his Perception temporarily.
He caught sight of them.
Three figures, massive and misshapen, prowling down the corridor in a slow patrol.
Not just monsters.
Guardians.
He recognized the pattern.This wasn't random.The system wanted challengers to waste time fighting.
To die before reaching the Core.
He thought carefully.
Fighting will cost time.
But bypassing them risks being cornered later.
Another heartbeat.
Another second ticking away.
Yeon-woo moved.
He used Swift Footwork at minimum mana cost, sticking to the walls, slipping between cracks and pillars of bone.
His breath slowed.
Each step calculated.
The guardians passed by without noticing.
Only when they disappeared around a corner did Yeon-woo allow himself to breathe again.
The path ahead narrowed.
A bridge made of fused ribs arched over a chasm filled with pulsing black ichor.
He hesitated only for a moment.
Then crossed.
Each step made the entire structure groan, but it held.
At the far side of the bridge, a figure waited.
Not a monster.
A man.
Or what had once been a man.
The figure's flesh was gray and cracked, armor rusted, blade dripping a slow, steady stream of black fluid.
Its head turned toward Yeon-woo with a jerky motion.
Eyes blank.
Hollow.
A whisper in his mind confirmed it.
[Guardian Shade (Elite)][Former Challenger turned into a Servant of the Forgotten One.]
Tragic.
But not enough to make him stop.
The Guardian Shade charged.
Faster than the previous beasts.
Sharper.
Yeon-woo activated Bloom fully, flooding his body with life force.
Everything sharpened.
He saw the opening in the Shade's charge.
A slight stumble.An unnecessary shift of weight.
He dodged, spinning inside the arc of the Shade's downward slash.
The Guardian recovered faster than he expected, retaliating with a vicious upward cut.
Yeon-woo barely blocked it with his dagger, the impact numbing his arm.
Strength's nearly equal.
He needed an advantage.
Greed flared to life within him.
He lashed out, not at the Shade's weapon — but at its exposed neck.
His dagger bit deep.
The Shade shrieked — a terrible, broken sound — and staggered back.
Yeon-woo pressed the attack, using Evasion to weave through desperate counterstrikes.
Each wound he carved bled black smoke instead of blood.
Each step forward cost him — bruises, shallow cuts — but it didn't matter.
He was built for this now.
Finally, he drove his dagger through the Shade's heart.
The creature convulsed — then collapsed.
[Guardian Shade defeated!][Level Up!][Greed activated: Memory Fragment (Incomplete) absorbed.]
Yeon-woo stumbled back, breathing hard.
The Memory Fragment lodged itself somewhere deep in his mind — a broken, half-formed vision of another man's life: climbing, fighting, dying.
Useless now, but maybe useful later.
He checked the timer.
4:12:09.
Still enough time.
The passage beyond the dead Shade split into three paths.
Each one radiated different auras: one cold and sharp, one warm and pulsing, one neutral but dense.
Yeon-woo frowned.
Choice.
Risk.
No clear future here — regression didn't grant perfect foresight.
He picked the neutral path.
Not because it was safest.
But because it was the one least expected.
He moved forward again, Bloom whispering through his veins, Greed hungry for the next battle.
Above him, unseen, something laughed.
And the heartbeat grew louder still.