Enya’s legs sprinted forward as she tried to navigate through the sharp, jagged edges of the ground. Debris and clouds of dust kicked beneath her shoes as she ran and hopped over small crevices.

As she ran, she could feel the fine dusty stone air clinging to her skin. The air quality outside in the dungeon halls was always noticeably thicker, making it slightly harder to breathe as compared to the inside of the study. It’s possible that the barrier acted as a filter, keeping out any dust or microscopic debris that was floating in the air.

She pressed on, taking a sharp right at the first turn. Her thoughts kept pace with her movements, split between the bone ahead, the demon rat in the distant hall, and herself. The rat was still far enough away, its lumbering movements slow compared to her mad dash. She had time. For now.

Minutes blurred together as her feet pounded the ground, bringing her ever closer to her goal. The broken bone lay just ahead, nestled by the shattered remnants of a wall. She was nearly there. But then—misstep.

Her foot caught on a jagged stone, and she felt the world tip sideways. She twisted, arms flailing for balance, but it was too late. “A-Ah!” A startled yelp escaped her mouth as she fell, her body pitching toward the ground.

Quickly turning, and with a thud, she landed on her side, her arm and shoulder taking the brunt of the fall. The ground beneath her was cracked and uneven, but the elevation softened her landing, sparing her from any real harm. A bruise, maybe, but nothing worse. Physically, she was fine. Mentally? Not so much.

Absolute Focus has been disrupted.

The backlash hit her like a wave crashing over rocks. Her carefully tuned senses, once so sharp and focused, flooded back all at once. She gasped, gripping her head as a dizzying surge of information overwhelmed her. Every sound, every scent, every tiny movement of air pressed down on her at once, leaving her reeling.

"Ugh… why…" Enya groaned under her breath, her voice barely above a whisper. She wanted to shout, to scream at the dungeon itself—Why is the ground so jagged and crumbled everywhere?! But the words stayed lodged in her throat. Deep down, she knew the answer all too well.

The dungeon was a wreck, crumbling and decayed with time. Every hallway was a minefield of cracked stone, debris, and treacherous holes. Especially in the mapped out path she was heading to now. It was an unfamiliar area to her, one that had apparently suffered the most from the dungeon quake over a month ago. The other halls had mostly healed, but the ones on this side had not.

It was only a matter of time before she tripped again. Maybe next time, she wouldn’t be so lucky. The memory of her last trip flashed through her mind—the one on her way from Pell’s shop. She hadn’t been paying attention and scraped her leg pretty badly. Pell had been there, though, with a health potion ready. Why didn’t I bring one this time? she mentally scolded herself. Surely, it would’ve been annoying to run with, but the convenience of having it on hand…she made a mental note to always bring one everywhere she would go from now on.

A sharp sting in her shoulder pulled her back to the present. Pebbles dug into her skin, and a thin line of blood trickled down her arm. It wasn’t serious, but the sting was enough to make her wince. She groaned again, pushing herself up from the cold, unforgiving stone, her body protesting with every move.

Her legs wobbled as she stood, eyes narrowing in concentration. She glanced back, taking a brief measure of the distance she’d covered, then refocused ahead. There wasn’t time to dwell on the pain, or on her mistakes.

Skill: Absolute Focus has been activated.

Thankfully, her skill reactivated, though why it worked now, when it had failed before, was a mystery she would have to unravel later—if she made it to safety.

Her senses expanded with a surge of clarity, stretching out behind her like an invisible web. The bone’s position was already marked in her mind, motionless and waiting to be picked up. This meant that she could just focus her senses on the demon rat.

A thread of doubt swam through her thoughts. She hadn’t screamed loudly, right? Surely, a mere squeak wouldn’t have drawn its attention.

Her senses shot down the twisting corridors, racing around corners until they locked onto the rat’s presence. Her body stiffened in horror. The beast—a nightmare of bloodshot eyes and snarling fangs—was charging down the halls, its four muscular legs pounding the ground with terrifying force.

“No…!” she gasped, the word escaping before she could stop herself. Without hesitation, Enya twisted around, pushing her legs to move faster than they ever had before. The bone was her only hope now. The rat had heard her, and the sound of its furious stampede approaching her was haunting. She was being hunted, and every fiber of her being felt it—the looming presence closing in, relentless, unyielding, and deadly.

She darted around a corner, breath ragged, heartbeat pounding. This was it—the hallway where the bone lay. Unlike the others, this hall was relatively intact, the torches spread out evenly and dancing. However, several of the flames had long since died, leaving the passage half-illuminated, half-swallowed by darkness. The unsettling contrast sent a shiver down her spine.

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Her senses retracted as the distance between her and the rat narrowed dangerously. It was clear now—the demon rat had most likely caught on to the stomping of her shoes as she sprinted. Or worse, it was tracking her scent. If it was the sound, she might have a slim chance of darting into a side hallway, hiding, and hoping it would simply run past her. But the risk of doing that was near suicidal. One wrong move, and she'd be cornered.

Enya wasn’t just scared—terrified barely did it justice. Her thoughts spiraled, leaping from one desperate idea to another, each one seeming more impossible than the last. Her legs pushed forward, trembling and uneven, her body stiffening as doubt crept in. Still, she ran, driven by pure survival instinct, her senses locked onto the rat behind her.

If only she had taken a few extra moments to map out more of the dungeon, maybe she’d have been prepared. The original plan seemed so simple in hindsight: run to the bone, grab it, and backtrack. But now, with the rat thundering behind her, she had no choice but to keep moving forward. There would be no going back. She’d have to find another path, loop around, and pray she could make it back to the study alive. She was simply repeating what she had done previously, but this time, without Pell.

As she dashed halfway down the dim hallway, her eyes frantically scanned the ground, searching near the right wall. The bone should’ve been right… there! Her heart pounded as her gaze landed on the bone, partially wedged into a crevice along the wall.

With breaths coming in ragged gasps, Enya lunged forward, wrapping her fingers around the bone and yanking it free. Small chips crumbled beneath her grip, fragments scattering on the ground—but it didn’t matter. She had most of the bone, and that was enough for her spell to work. Clutching the shard tightly, she resumed her sprint, running as fast as she could down the hall.

Although she had scouted the bone’s location before, she was running into the unknown. Her senses hadn’t yet mapped out this section of the dungeon, leaving her to navigate blindly. She had no idea what dangers might lie ahead. The only thing she could rely on was the dungeon’s relatively simple, grid-like design. All she needed to do was take three lefts—or three rights—and she would loop back to familiar ground, the path leading her toward the study.

Enya skidded to the first intersection and faced a dilemma: left, right, or straight ahead. Each path looked the same—three darkened hallways, their contents cloaked in an ominous shroud of shadow that promised only surprises.

Choosing right without any particular reason other than a pure whim, she dashed into the darkness. This hallway had fewer torches, and those that burned flickered weakly, casting a faint glow that barely stretched a few meters ahead. The rest was a deep void of black, making it hard to discern the terrain. The ground was somewhat less treacherous than other hallways, but still demanded her constant vigilance due to the dark shadows.

As she ran, her senses suddenly betrayed her with an alarming sound, and she instinctively knew what the message was about to announce before it even appeared.

Absolute Focus has been disrupted.

Enya’s face contorted to one of unease and irritation as she read the system message. Trying to divide her attention between the rat and the enveloping darkness proved to be a challenge for her concentration. Additionally, she couldn’t extend her senses to encompass the space ahead of her. She attempted to do just this, just now, but her mind felt like it was ripping itself apart.

She had never sustained her absolute focus for such a long time before, and she could feel the strain in her mind and body as time went on. It was only inevitable that the skill was going to fall apart. Fortunately, she didn’t receive a harsh and crippling mental backlash this time.

“Damn it!” Enya muttered, her voice tinged with frustration. She flinched as if expecting Pell’s familiar scolding, but the realization of his absence weighed heavily on her. “Damn it…” she repeated, missing Pell’s relentless bickering and his brand of hypocrisy. But now wasn’t the time to reminisce.

Her thoughts were abruptly shattered by a bone-chilling roar echoing from behind. The dungeon’s acoustics trapped and magnified every sound, turning the demon rat’s growl into a reverberating menace. Despite the distance, its ferocity was palpable, the sound pulsing through the stone walls.

Enya forced herself to ignore the echoing growl and concentrated on her ongoing forward momentum. She couldn’t afford to stumble or fall, not with the precious seconds that she was already borrowing.

Run, Run, Run, she thought. She needed to keep running, no matter what.

As she burst into the next hallway, she barely glanced at the intersecting paths before darting right. Without a moment’s pause, she continued her frantic sprint.

As usual, the current hallway she dashed through had the usual obstacles. However, they were all located off on the sides of the hall. Spiked rock and upturned rubble only littered the sides of the hall, presenting an open and safe path for her to run across in the center.

The loud shuddering clamoring of her footsteps on the ground became background noise in her ears. Her heart thumped, sending blood pulsing throughout her body. The loud, staccato thuds reverberated in her ears, overpowering everything except for the resounding roar that came from behind her.

As she reached the end of the hallway, the sound of the rat’s footstep resounded from the hall. It had already caught up to her in almost no time at all. The beast was now in the same hallway that took her a few minutes to traverse.

Enya’s throat caught as she gulped in the middle of a much needed-exhale. Whipping back around, she continued to sprint down the final hallway until she made it back onto her path. Thoughts intruded into her brain. Her legs were heavy, her breathing labored, and the finish line seemed impossibly far. The rat was just too fast. How was she supposed to make it out and back to the room? Her thoughts vanished as the sound of her blood pumping drowned it all out.

The torches in this hallway were much brighter. With their solemn lighting, she could peer through the darkness much more effectively. She looked back as she continued to run, and she could see the faint shadow of the rat coming towards her.

Enya took a deep breath and began to channel her mana. She steadied her hand as much as possible to her side as she ran. An outer spell frame circle flickered into existence in front of her palm. The circle formed and became opaque, before finally the rest of her mana poured into the patterns within it.

In a single split instant, Enya forced her legs to stop. She whipped her body around and lifted her palm up towards the vague shadow down the hall. With a flicker of blue light, her spell circuit flashed and exploded.

“Bone Spear!” Enya shouted.

Mana ruptured out of the spell circuit and shot down the hall. The ground rumbled in the distance, and the vibrations could be felt rippling down back towards her. The loud crackling of stone and an enormous impact that shook the walls immediately followed.