The door slammed shut behind them with a finality that echoed through the chamber, sealing away the screeching abominations clawing at the other side. Their grotesque forms twisted and writhed against the barrier, their gnarled fingers scraping against the ancient wood, but the magic held—for now.
Airi gasped for breath, her chest heaving as her heart hammered against her ribs. The battle had drained her, leaving her limbs heavy and her mind frayed. Yet, beside her, Shiro stood untouched, his sword dripping with blackened ichor, his grin wide and carefree, as if this were nothing more than an elaborate game. The stench of rotting flesh clung to the air, thick and suffocating, but he seemed unbothered.
"Well, that was fun," Shiro said, rolling his shoulders with a casual ease that made Airi's blood boil. "What's next?"
Airi glared at him, her voice sharp despite her exhaustion. "We could have died."
He shrugged, his grin never faltering. "You could have."
Before she could snap back, her attention was drawn to Stalin.
He was silent. Unshaken.
While Airi and Shiro caught their breath, Stalin moved forward with a deliberate calm, his gaze fixed on the hallway ahead. The walls were lined with tall, ancient mirrors, their surfaces gleaming faintly in the dim light. But these weren't normal reflections. The images within shifted unnaturally—delayed, distorted, as if the glass itself were alive.
Stalin's reflection stood still, even as he walked forward.
Shiro's reflection, however, was grinning wider than he was.
Airi felt a pit form in her stomach. Something was wrong.
Then, her breath caught.
Shiro's reflection moved.
Not the real one.
The mirrored version raised a knife—one the real Shiro didn't have.
Then it spoke.
"Hey, Airi."
Her blood ran cold.
It was Shiro's voice, but layered, wrong, twisted with something else. A guttural, otherworldly tone that sent shivers down her spine.
Airi whipped around, her eyes darting to the real Shiro. He was staring at his empty hands, confusion flickering across his face. There was no knife.
And yet—
Pain bloomed in her shoulder.
She gasped, her hand flying to the wound as blood soaked through her sleeve. A knife—real, solid, dripping crimson—was now in Shiro's grasp.
His eyes widened. "What the—"
The mirrors shattered.
The sound was deafening, a chorus of wailing screams exploding from the shards as countless hands lunged from the broken glass. Airi barely had time to react before Stalin moved.
His hand snapped out, catching the first monstrous limb—
And it withered.
A slow, crawling decay spread from his touch, black mist seeping from Stalin's fingers as the creature's flesh curled and rotted into nothing. The other hands hesitated, their grotesque forms recoiling as if sensing the danger.
But Stalin didn't hesitate.
With a flick of his wrist, the corruption surged outward—a wave of death that consumed everything in its path. The hands collapsed into dust before they could even touch them.
Shiro let out a low whistle, unimpressed. "Took you long enough."
Stalin ignored him. His eyes had already moved past the broken glass, past the ruined hands.
He was staring at the abyss beyond.
And then—
The world twisted.
A single massive hand, ancient and unreal, burst from the void, its fingers closing around existence itself.
There was no time to react.
Everything collapsed inward.
---
The Frozen Wasteland
Airi woke to cold.
She gasped, her lungs burning as the blizzard tore through her body. Icy knives of wind slashed at her skin, stealing warmth, breath, thought. The dungeon was gone.
Instead, an endless frozen wasteland stretched before them. Snow-covered ruins jutted from the ground like the ribs of some long-dead god, half-buried beneath ice and time. Towering monoliths of jagged obsidian loomed in the distance, their surfaces etched with pulsing, dying symbols.
And the silence—
Too empty. Too wrong.
Airi forced herself up, trembling from more than just the cold.
Shiro was already standing, brushing frost from his coat, completely unbothered. He stretched lazily, then smirked. "Well. That was dramatic."
Airi scowled, her voice sharp. "We could have died."
"Yeah," he said, unfazed. "And?"
She gritted her teeth, her nails digging into her palms. "And maybe start acting like you care?"
Shiro laughed, the sound echoing unnaturally in the desolate expanse. "I don't."
Airi's frustration boiled over, but before she could retort—
Stalin moved.
The wind howled around him, but he stood motionless.
Unshivering. Unbothered.
He wasn't looking at them.
He was looking forward.
Airi followed his gaze—past the snow, past the ruins, past the dark monoliths.
And then, she felt it.
A presence.
Heavy. Immense. Ancient.
It was waiting beyond the storm.
And it was watching.
The wind screamed through the desolate expanse, whipping up clouds of snow that blurred the distant horizon. The eerie silence that had settled over them was broken by a sound—a deep, rhythmic crunching.
Footsteps.
Airi's breath hitched. At first, it was barely noticeable, swallowed by the howling blizzard. But as she focused, she realized—it wasn't just one set of footsteps.
It was thousands.
Emerging from the distant mountains, figures began to take shape—slow, shambling, and wrong.
The first ones came into view.
Their skin was pale blue, almost translucent, frostbitten and cracked. Their bodies were distorted, some too thin, others grotesquely swollen, as if the ice itself had fused into their flesh. Empty eye sockets glowed with a sickly, spectral light. Clawed fingers twitched. Mouths hung open, steam rising from between jagged, broken teeth.
Snow demons.
The hoard crawled from the ice, from the mountains, from the endless white abyss. There was no sound but the crunch of frost beneath their rotting feet. They did not rush. They did not snarl.
They simply moved.
Slow. Unstoppable.
Closing in.
Airi took a step back, her body locking up in pure terror. Her breath came too fast. Her chest felt tight.
They were surrounded.
She had fought before. She had seen horrors. But this—this was different.
This wasn't a battlefield. This wasn't an enemy she could understand.
This was death itself, crawling toward them.
Her hands clenched, but she couldn't stop the trembling. The fear spread through her, suffocating, clawing at her mind like the icy wind.
And then—
A warmth.
A firm, steady pressure on her injured shoulder.
She flinched, gasping—before she realized.
Stalin.
His hand rested on her wound.
The warmth seeped through her skin, through her bones, through the very core of her fear.
The golden glow of his healing magic pulsed softly, not just knitting her wound back together—but unraveling the panic that had gripped her.
Her pain faded.
Her heartbeat steadied.
Her fear… disappeared.
Airi's breath evened out, her body relaxing against her will. The crushing weight that had paralyzed her was simply gone.
She looked up at Stalin, eyes wide.
He wasn't looking at her.
His gaze remained fixed ahead—at the approaching horde.
Cold. Unshaken.
Waiting.
Shiro exhaled, watching the undead crawl through the storm with an amused grin.
"Man." He stretched, rolling his shoulders lazily. "Doesn't this feel kinda familiar?"
Stalin didn't reply. Not at first.
Then—
"Zombie Highway. The snow map."
Shiro snapped his fingers. "Exactly! The way they move, all slow at first? Like the ones that start weak, but get worse the longer you survive?"
Airi blinked. "What?"
She looked between them, confused.
She had never heard of anything called 'Zombie Highway.' And what 'snow map' were they talking about?
But Stalin simply nodded.
"Yeah. Looks the same."
Airi frowned. She knew every kingdom's military strategy, every historical battle, every ancient war. But she had never heard of these tactics.
What the hell were they talking about?
The moment passed quickly.
Shiro sighed dramatically. "Well, let's just hope these ones don't start mutating halfway through."
Stalin didn't reply.
Instead, he took a slow step forward.
The snow demons finally reacted. They... flinched?
Airi glanced to her right to see—
Shiro was gone.
She blinked, her head snapping around. He had been right beside her a second ago—
Then—
"Up here."
She whipped her gaze upward.
Shiro was lounging on a tree branch. A tree that, as far as she could tell, hadn't existed a moment ago.
Snow clung to his coat, but he didn't seem to care. His arms were folded behind his head, eyes already half-lidded with sleep.
"Yeah, you got this, Stalin," he mumbled lazily. "Wake me when something interesting happens."
And just like that—he was asleep.
Airi stared.
What. The. Hell.
Her body tensed, expecting Stalin to respond, maybe call Shiro down, maybe warn him that they were surrounded.
Instead—
"Autism kid."
The words were barely muttered, but Airi heard them clearly.
She turned to Stalin, frowning. "What?"
He didn't answer.
Of course.
Just another phrase she didn't understand.
Her confusion was quickly replaced with something else.
Warmth.
The freezing wind still howled. The blizzard still raged. But she no longer felt cold.
She turned—
The source was Stalin.
His hand was raised, and from his skin, fire bloomed.
Airi inhaled sharply.
Blue flames.
---
Magic had structure. It had rules.
A mage didn't summon flames from their body—they conjured it into existence in front of them by shaping mana into a catalyst.
Even the most gifted fire mages needed a rune circle, a chant, a medium.
Magic wasn't alive. It was a formula, a command that the world obeyed.
But this—
This fire didn't obey the world's rules.
It didn't emerge from mana constructs or floating sigils.
It bled from Stalin's skin like it belonged there.
As if his body itself was the source.
Airi froze.
"That's not magic."
"That's something else."
Stalin rolled his wrist, the blue flames curling along his arm like living veins of heat. It didn't surge into existence like normal magic. It bled from his skin, curling in his palm like something alive.
Airi couldn't look away.
Mages didn't do this. They couldn't.
Magic required focus, a chant, a medium. The flames should have formed in front of him, responding to an incantation, a sigil—something.
But Stalin wasn't casting a spell.
He was handling it.
Like clay.
The fire shifted between his fingers as if it had weight, stretching, twisting—malleable.
He molded it without hesitation, rolling it between his hands, pressing his thumb into the center—until the shape became an arrow.
Perfect. Unstable. Waiting to be fired.
Airi felt something primal settle into her bones.
This wasn't magic.
This was something else entirely.
Without a word, Stalin simply lifted the fire-crafted arrow, drew it back like a bowstring—
And let go.
The arrow whistled through the frozen air.
Straight into the horde.
Airi braced for an explosion. For fire to consume them, for the ice to crack, for the demons to melt into nothingness.
But—
The demons didn't burn.
They didn't melt.
Instead—
The mountain behind them did.
Airi's eyes widened as the entire side of the frozen cliff face behind the horde liquefied. A deafening hiss of steam filled the air as ice turned to cascading water, rivers of boiling liquid rushing down the slopes. The very foundation of the mountain sagged, collapsing into itself.
And then—
It came back.
The water froze mid-motion, reversing as if time itself had snapped back into place.
Before Airi's eyes, the entire mountain rebuilt itself in mere seconds—solid ice reforming exactly as it had been, like it had never melted at all.
Her breath caught in her throat.
"What…?"
Her heartbeat hammered in her ears.
This place... it wasn't just cursed—it was something else entirely.
It could undo destruction. It could rewrite itself.
Airi's hands curled into fists. She had studied dungeons her entire life, trained to fight in them, trained to clear them.
But this?
Her voice was barely a whisper. "What… even is this dungeon?"
How?
How could a place be so twisted? So absolute?
For the first time since they had fallen into this hell, Airi wasn't sure if escape was even possible.
Even Stalin's gaze flickered slightly, as if processing what he had just seen.
Exactly as he expected—the fire hadn't affected the demons.
Airi's mind raced, trying to process what she had just seen.
The mountain had melted.
Then rebuilt itself.
It wasn't regeneration. It reappeared.
Then—
A small sound.
Barely a shift in the air.
Airi's ears caught it, faint but unmistakable.
"Heh?"
Her eyes widened.
For the first time—she heard emotion in Stalin's voice.
Not much. Just the faintest flicker of confusion.
A tiny deviation from his usual cold monotone.
He muttered something under his breath, quiet enough that she almost missed it.
"I thought it would be weak to fire… just like in the game."
Airi stiffened.
Game?
Her gaze snapped toward him. Was he talking about Zombie Highway?
Shiro had mentioned it earlier, comparing the demons to something from it.
And now Stalin, the coldest, most unreadable person she had ever met, had just done the same.
Her thoughts tangled, trying to grasp at something solid, something that made sense—
But none of it did.
"Of course, this isn't the game," Stalin muttered to himself, his expression unreadable. "If only we had flamethrower."
Airi blinked.
What?
Then—
"Nah, if we had the Golden Pistol, these guys wouldn't stand a chance, the golden gun is the GOAT! Nothing comes after it!"
Shiro's voice rang out from the tree, his shout filled with so much unnecessary enthusiasm that even the slow-moving snow demons looked like they had paused for a second.
Airi stood there, frozen and confused.
Nothing—nothing—had confused her as much as these two right now.
What even was Zombie Highway?
And why did they both talk about it like it was something they had lived?
For the first time, she wasn't just questioning the dungeon.
She was questioning them.
The snow demons flinched.
Not at Stalin.
Not at the fire.
But at something else.
The blizzard shifted—as if the very air had become aware. The howling winds grew thicker, heavier, their pressure sinking into Airi's chest like an invisible weight.
Then, without warning—
They ran.
The snow demons, once slow and shambling, sprinted.
Airi's heart slammed against her ribs as the horde rushed them all at once.
Their soulless, glowing eyes locked onto Stalin.
Not her. Not Shiro. Only him.
Like a signal had been given.
"Tch."
Stalin barely reacted as he raised a hand, his fingers curling slightly.
A pulse of Decay rushed outward, black veins of rot ripping through the ice beneath the demons, spreading over their bodies, curling around their limbs—
They crumbled into dust.
And then—
They reappeared.
Airi's stomach dropped. What?
The creatures returned instantly, untouched, unbroken, unbothered.
Not regenerating.
Not healing.
It was as if they had never been harmed in the first place.
Stalin narrowed his eyes. "So, fire doesn't work. Decay doesn't work either."
The horde swarmed.
Airi barely had time to react before Stalin grabbed her.
His grip was unshakable. Absolute.
Then—
Erasure.
The very space around them ripped apart.
Everything in a wide radius—gone.
The ground itself vanished beneath them, the air warped, reality momentarily ceasing to exist—
And yet—
The demons returned.
Airi's breath caught. Impossible.
Stalin said nothing.
His grip on her tightened as he activated Erasure again.
Gone.
Reappeared.
Gone.
Reappeared.
No matter how many times Stalin erased them, the demons came back without delay.
Airi's chest tightened. This dungeon... what even was it?
From above, a lazy voice.
"This is kinda funny."
Shiro.
Still lounging on his tree branch.
Airi barely had time to wonder how he was so relaxed—because the instant the zombies surrounded the tree,
They were cut apart.
A million slashes in an instant.
No movement. No effort.
Shiro's katana rested on his shoulder.
Yet the snow demons had been reduced to nothing but a storm of shredded limbs.
They reappeared.
They rushed him.
They were cut again.
Reappeared.
Cut.
Reappeared.
Cut.
Shiro yawned. "Man, I could do this all day."
Stalin didn't have time to waste.
The instant the next wave of zombies lunged for them, he flew.
Airi barely processed the movement before they were airborne, the wind roaring around them.
Mages could fly using mana by default. But this wasn't normal flight.
This was pure force.
Airi gasped as Stalin's grip kept her steady, unmoving, absolute—the storm below becoming a chaotic blur.
Her entire body tensed.
It wasn't just the flight.
It was him.
The sudden closeness of his body against hers made her stiffen, heat creeping up her face despite the cold.
He was holding her so firmly, as if dropping her wasn't even a possibility.
She had never been this close to a man before.
A sheltered princess—untouched, protected, kept away from anything impure.
And yet now, she was in his arms.
Airi swallowed hard, her mind frantically trying to focus on anything else.
"L-Let go."
Stalin ignored her.
His eyes weren't on her.
They were locked onto the mountain.
Then—
A presence.
A weight unlike anything Airi had ever felt slammed down from above.
It wasn't just magic. It wasn't just power.
It was something else.
Airi's vision blurred. Her breathing hitched as an overwhelming force crushed into her body, into her mind.
Her entire soul screamed under the suffocating weight of an impossibly massive mana aura.
Her limbs went numb. Her thoughts scattered. It was as if the air itself had turned against her, pressing into every inch of her being.
She gasped, her body trembling—
And then—
She realized.
Stalin wasn't affected.
At all.
While she was being crushed by the sheer pressure, Stalin was completely unshaken.
As if it didn't exist for him.
Airi shuddered.
Just… how powerful was he?
Her gaze snapped upward—
And there—
At the peak of the tallest mountain—
A colossal figure stood.
The wind howled violently around its massive form, its long, tattered cloak whipping in the storm.
It was humanoid, but not human.
Its rotting flesh was fused with jagged, ice-blue bones, its entire frame a twisted mutation of frost and decay. Its arms were unnaturally long, its fingers sharpened into talon-like claws, gripping a massive bow carved from the ribs of something long dead.
Its head was elongated, skull-like, split open at the jaw as if it had been forcibly stretched. Inside, a row of serrated, frozen teeth clattered together with each breath.
Black ichor leaked from its hollow eye sockets, dripping onto the snow below—
Which immediately froze solid on impact.
Airi's breath left her body.
Shiro whistled from his tree.
"Well… that's new."
The figure slowly pulled back the bowstring.
An arrow formed—not an arrow. A spear.
A spear of pure, condensed poison, so potent that even the air around it curdled and warped.
The pressure doubled.
The monster took aim.
At them.