CHAPTER 52: INTO THE 8TH FLOOR PART V - APPEARANCE OF VEYDRIL, KEEPER OF THE DEPTHS

I sat on the rubble, elbows resting on my knees, catching my breath. The burn on my knuckles still simmered. I rotated my wrist slowly, watching the charred fragments of the Apex-Class Entity begin to disintegrate into ember dust.

"Five minutes," I murmured. "Just five to breathe."

I closed my eyes for a moment, but everything suddenly stopped.

The flickering embers froze mid-air. My HUD flickered erratically. Even the internal flow of mana in my body halted for a heartbeat before adapting.

"What...?"

I stood immediately. That’s when I felt a pressure.

Not like gravity, not mana, not intent, but something heavier.

The sensation of being beneath the sea, miles deep—crushed beneath eons of weight.

The shadows in the arena peeled backward—like curtains yanked open to reveal a presence standing behind the veil of time itself.

A figure emerged.

Tattered robes of ink-black silk, embroidered with deep cerulean threads that shimmered like a trench in the ocean floor.

Long hair floated as if suspended underwater. A half-mask made of coral and bone covered his face, and from beneath it, a voice echoed—dry, reverberating like drowned bells.

"You were not meant to kill it."

I didn’t speak. I knew the name. Everyone did.

Veydril, Keeper of the Depths. Herald of the Warden. Ignil’s Executioner.

He raised his hand, and time around us remained utterly frozen—his mere presence keeping the system itself in check.

"You tampered with balance, Vassal," he said, voice devoid of malice, yet dripping with certainty. "An Apex-Class Entity of this floor is not meant to fall—not now. Not to you."

"But it did," I replied, slowly raising my fists.

His eyes, a deep abyssal blue, didn’t blink.

"Then you must be... erased."

The words were simple. Heavy. Not dramatic. Just... inevitable. Like a law passed by the cosmos itself.

"Your defiance offends the Depth."

"Your Patron’s influence seeps too deeply, too soon."

A system error suddenly flashed on my HUD:

[!SYSTEM PRIORITY ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED INTERVENTION DETECTED]

[Entity: Veydril – STATUS: SYSTEM EXEMPT]

[Warning: Combat outside standard progression protocol.]

And that’s when I snapped.

"Hey—" I growled, raising my voice. "IGNIL!"

The Herald paused.

"I know you’re listening," I said, stepping forward, fists clenched, fire still faintly burning around my knuckles. "You always are. You’re watching through this bastard like he’s your puppet."

Silence.

The air tensed like a bowstring.

I smirked beneath my breath, eyes locked on the half-mask.

"Before you pull the trigger... how about this? How about I show you a little something first?"

The silence rippled—as if the system itself hesitated.

Then the Herald tilted his head slightly—too smoothly.

His posture straightened. The shadows around him flickered like they were bowing.

And when he spoke again, it wasn’t Veydril anymore.

The voice shifted.

No longer distant.

It became sharp and searing.

A voice like a blade of molten gold dragged across bone.

"...Interesting show?"

I didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Because I knew.

"So, you finally bark loud enough to be heard, little Vassal."

The Herald’s form shimmered—briefly. One eye burned through the coral mask, a slitted iris glowing like a furnace.

"Do you think I’ve forgotten you?"

The presence weighed heavier now. Reality groaned beneath his essence. My body screamed at me to kneel. To submit. But I stood still.

"You talk of a show?" Ignil hissed, the air warping with heat. "Speak. I’m listening."

I stood there, glaring into the Herald’s eye—no, Ignil’s eye. My blood boiled, not from fear, but from the pressure trying to crush me into submission. It was like standing in the center of a sun’s gravity. One misstep and I’d be dust.

But I didn’t kneel.

I clenched my fist, lifted my chin, and let the heat in my chest roar.

"I’ll clear everything this damn Rift has to offer."

The words echoed with conviction, unflinching and sharp.

"If I need to kill this bastard in front of me—I’ll do it."

I stepped forward.

"And after that..."

Another breath. My voice dropped—steady. Cold.

"I’ll be the one who kills you, Ignil. I will come to find you on the 100th floor. I’ll be the one beheading you."

A pause.

"I don’t care how many come at me. Ten. A thousand. A whole army of Rift-Born trash—I’ll face them all."

"Me. Alone."

I locked eyes with the Herald—no longer speaking to the puppet.

"If that’s not interesting to you, then rot. Die."

Silence.

For a second, nothing moved. No reaction. No words. The frozen world felt like a knife’s edge waiting to slice reality in half.

Then, he laughed.

Not a chuckle.

Not mockery.

But a deep, bone-rattling howl of laughter that cracked the frozen silence like a glacier shattering.

"BAHAHAHAHA!"

The shadows around him contorted violently, as if even the Rift couldn’t contain his amusement.

"So arrogant," he growled, voice molten. "So small. So fragile."

He leaned in slightly, the single exposed eye gleaming like a dying star.

"I like it."

The pressure around me began to ease—not vanish, but relent. The space he occupied began to dissolve like charcoal in acid.

"Very well, Vassal of the Unseen."

"Climb. Kill. Burn it all if you must."

"I’ll be waiting..."

The Herald’s form began to crumble into black flakes, drifting upward like ash.

"...in the depths."

Then—

BOOM

Reality snapped back like a whip.

The frozen air roared to life. The system UI screamed back into place.

[WAVE FIVE RESUMING IN: 3... 2... 1...]

And I stood there—still burning.

Still standing.

But with a target now carved into the core of my soul.

Ignil. Still Ignil.

The countdown hit zero.

[WAVE SIX: INITIATED]

The air dropped ten degrees in an instant.

A deep, echoing pulse thudded through the ground like the heartbeat of something enormous. My feet sank slightly into the cracked marble beneath me, which was now webbed with glowing red fissures—mana scars left from the last clash.

Across the far end of the battlefield, a portal tore open—not smooth and circular like the Rift gates, but jagged, unstable, as if the system itself was struggling to contain whatever was coming through.

Then it stepped out.

The pressure. The gravity. The raw weight of mana condensed into a walking catastrophe.