By the end of day three, something beautiful happened:

A proper team composition emerged.

Out of the forty-seven Dungeon-Born, their specialties organized themselves as naturally as rivers finding their course.

10 Archers

Still ranged specialists, but now wearing reinforced bracers, light chestplates, and armed with short daggers for emergencies.

Their job: constant pressure, softening targets, and punishing exposed flanks.

10 Heavy Frontliners

Those who gravitated toward shields, hammers, reinforced clubs, and metal-studded maces.

Thick armor, heavier builds, unyielding stances.

Their job: form the bulwark, absorb impact, prevent breaks in formation.

10 Spearmen

Medium armor, long reach, disciplined spacing.

Their job: maintain the formation's structure, punish anything that tried to push past the heavy line.

6 Skirmishers/Flankers

Fast movers who took to dual blades, hatchets, or short spears.

Their job: hit weak points, draw attention, chase stragglers, disrupt enemy formations.

5 Trappers/Utility Specialists

People with a natural knack for ingenuity, using nets, snares, caltrops, weighted bolas, anything to control the battlefield.

Their job: shape the fight before it begins.

1 Leading Saber, Taigi

Their captain.

Their point of cohesion.

The one who gave orders, adapted on the fly, and led from the front when necessary.

This distribution, born from two days of violent experimentation, was efficient, balanced, and flexible.

And now, on day four…

It was beginning to shine.

Below, the adapted formation tightened around the advancing ape-beasts.

Archers drew back as one.

Heavies locked shields.

Spearmen angled their points.

Flankers spread with measured steps.

Taigi raised her saber above her shoulder, stance sharp, eyes locked as she ordered, "Fire!"

Kaiden watched with a calm, proud expression as the archers released their shots, hitting multiple vulnerable spots on the cornered apes.

"Good…" he murmured while listening to their pained screeching. "Very good."

Kaiden nodded once, satisfied, then finally tore his gaze away from the battlefield to the other battlefield happening three meters to his right.

Bastet lay sprawled luxuriously across her sun-warmed stone slab with one leg bent as she soaked in the heat with a blissful hum.

Or she would have been soaking in the heat if Calypso weren't sitting directly beside her, leaning back on her hands, tail swishing like a smug doggy.

And worse…

The demoness was blocking the sun.

Bastet's eye twitched.

She gave a low warning hiss.

Calypso pretended not to notice at all, humming thoughtfully as the apes barked in pain below.

"Mmm~ Nothing beats the screams of the dying in the morning. Don't you agree, kitten?"

*Hsss!!!* Another hiss came, longer and sharper.

"Move," Bastet growled.

Calypso turned her head just enough to make eye contact before displaying a smile full of sharp teeth.

"Oh? Am I in the way~?"

Kaiden pressed two fingers to his temple.

"Alright, you two. Let's go."

Both girls snapped their heads toward him.

"It's time."

They quieted instantly.

"The Dungeon-Born need more time. More fights. More refinement. But we've gotten what we came for."

None of them had simply spent the past four days watching the natives struggle.

All of them had been training relentlessly.

Kaiden and Alice had spent every spare moment perfecting their new combination synchronization.

The others fought too, but unlike the natives, they did not do so against monsters but each other.

Sparring matches.

Magic clashes.

Calculated tests of technique and control.

Because, for all their power, they were still inexperienced.

None of them had spent years fighting as a veteran awakened had.

They were developing their classes and fighting styles even to this day.

Nyx, for example, had her telekinetics sharpening day by day.

Was she stronger?

Not in the most straightforward way.

She didn't level up just because she practiced.

But her control, instincts, and finesse improved.

The girls exchanged looks. Different faces, different temperaments, yet every single one of them wore the same expression:

Excitement. Hunger. Curiosity.

What came next?

What challenges awaited them?

What battles would sharpen them further?

What heights would they reach at their beloved Paragon of Sin's side?

Every gaze drifted toward him.

Their man.

Their anchor.

Their leader.

Kaiden stood relaxed but full of control, looking like a man who was already thinking multiple steps ahead. Then, he winked at his girls and turned, walking toward the dungeon's exit.

They followed after him without hesitation.

…

Elsewhere, far from the dungeon, far from the screaming apes, far from any light of hope, a different kind of darkness gathered.

A single desk lamp flickered inside a dim, smoky room.

Its light cast long shadows across maps, documents, and neatly stacked files.

A man sat comfortably at the center of it all.

Viktor Thorne.

Leader of the unofficial organization known as the Blood Pact.

Before him stood his assistant, Olga, straight-backed, professional, and incredibly tense.

"Sir, we have confirmed it."

Viktor's fingers tapped rhythmically against the desk, patient and calm.

"Contact with Destro and Signa was lost two days ago," Olga continued. "They did not return from the Dungeon where the target, Kaiden Grey, was assumed to be at the time."

A long silence followed.

Viktor's cold eyes lifted toward her at last.

"I know," he said simply.

Olga stiffened.

Because of course he knew.

He always knew more than he ever said.

Her gaze flicked down to the desk, toward the sketch lying there.

An intricate, ominous outline of an artifact could be seen:

The Blood Monarch's Gauntlet, the item that Kaiden had gotten from his exploits in the undead dungeon.

Viktor reached out, brushing his thumb across the drawing.

"I truly want this piece," he murmured wistfully. "But now… It's more than that."

His eyes darkened, growing colder than the room.

"We were defeated and humiliated."

Olga hesitated, then tried carefully, "Sir… respectfully… they entered a dungeon. That always carries uncertainty. I don't believe it's as bad-"

"Olga."

His voice cut clean through the air.

The woman froze.

Her pulse quickened.

Her throat tightened.

She bowed deeply.

"I apologize, sir."

Viktor's grin widened, then he slid the gauntlet's sketch aside and leaned back in his chair.

"Moving on. Didn't we have one of his buddies in our midst already? I remember laughing at some loser whom I visited in the hospital. Wasn't he the one who got beaten up by the F-tier awakened, Kaiden, and had his ugly girlfriend hook up with a rockstar or something?"

Olga exhaled shakily.

"Yes. David Bennett. Kaiden's classmate in college. They'd known each other for years, going back to the start of their schooling nearly two decades ago. But their relationship soured after David insulted Kaiden's women."

Viktor waved lazily.

"Yes, yes. They fought, and Kaiden pummeled the shit out of him. Boys will be boys." He shrugged. "They've basically made up already."

Olga blinked at him, utterly lost at how he reached that conclusion, but she didn't question it. Shrugging one's shoulder multiple times a day came as the natural consequence of having an evil lunatic of a boss who was the meaning of the term 'eccentric.'

It was this quality of the woman, combined with her dutiful and responsible approach to management, that made her the perfect assistant for the man.

"Right…" she said instead. "There is one more among our midst, Sir."

Viktor arched a brow.

"We also have Theodore Aster. You might remember him as the man who nearly revealed our information when he went on a rant about the Blood Pact while Kaiden streamed the conversation. We've already freed him from prison; he's been going through re-education ever since. He's Luna Aster's brother. Her last remaining family member."

Viktor's expression remained hard to read for multiple long seconds, until everything shifted.

Slowly.

Dangerously.

A devilish smile crept across his face, wide and extremely predatory.

"Is that so?"

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