Kenji's lungs burned as he stumbled up the spiral stairs, his boots slipping on stone damp with blood. His heart hammered like a drum in his chest. The screams behind him were fading, replaced only by the hollow echo of his own frantic breath.

Gods… I made it. I'm alive.

He pushed through the archway into the third floor, nearly collapsing as his legs threatened to give out. He pressed his back against the wall, clutching his chest, his whole body trembling.

No sound of pursuit. No thunderous steps. No metallic roars.

Only silence.

Kenji let out a shaky laugh, almost sobbing. "They're not chasing me. By the stars, I'm… I'm still alive."

His mind tried to make sense of what he'd seen. The great metal lion, its eyes glowing like suns, its body unlike anything he'd ever known. The cadaverous giant astride it, a corpse made king, wielding a spear like a mountain's branch. These were not things men or beastkin were meant to look upon. They were abominations, nightmares given form. The Cerberus was a fusion of steel and muscle, a living weapon, while the Corpse King was a mockery of life itself—a cadaver reanimated with terrible purpose. The sheer scale of their power was incomprehensible.

He swallowed hard and pressed onward. Down the final stretch, toward the second floor, toward the door that led to daylight and freedom.

Hope filled his chest with every step. He imagined bursting from the dungeon, the wind on his face, running until his legs gave way. He imagined carrying word back — warning his master, warning anyone who would listen. He was the sole survivor, the only witness to the slaughter, and this knowledge gave him a desperate, frantic surge of purpose. He would tell them that the Necro Market was no mere rumor of undead merchants, but a fortress guarded by true titans of destruction.

But when he turned the last corner, hope died.

The Corpse King stood there, blocking the way to the first floor.

Its massive frame filled the hall, shoulders scraping against the cavern walls. The great spear dripped fresh blood, a silent testament to the carnage below. Its hollow eyes burned like embers as it looked down at him, its gaze holding no malice, no fury—just a cold, ancient hunger that stripped all courage from his bones.

Kenji's breath caught in his throat. His legs nearly buckled under him. It's here. It was waiting for me. He had been a fool to think he was running toward freedom. He was simply running into a different part of the trap, a more refined form of death.

The Corpse King roared. The sound was so deep it rattled Kenji's bones and made the torches flicker. It was not a roar of triumph, but a sound of immense, effortless power, a sound that demanded surrender from all who heard it.

Kenji dropped to his knees, despair crashing over him. He let his sword clatter to the floor, the metal ringing once before going silent. His hands shook as he pressed them to the stone, his head bowing low. The fight had left him entirely. He was a small, fragile thing before a god of death.

"I… I surrender," he whispered, tears stinging his eyes. "Make it quick… just make it quick."

He closed his eyes, bracing for the spear to tear through him. Bracing for steel jaws to clamp down and rip him apart.

But death did not come.

Instead, a massive hand seized him by the back of his collar and lifted him into the air as though he weighed nothing. He gasped, eyes snapping open in disbelief.

The Corpse King did not kill him. It swung him up over its broad shoulder, hauling him like a sack of grain. From this vantage point, Kenji could see the full, grotesque majesty of its armored frame—the jutting spine, the exposed tendons, the leather straps holding plates of steel to bone. He saw the flicker of life in the Corpse King's empty eye sockets and a terrible thought bloomed in his mind: this thing was not mindless. It was collecting something.

Kenji blinked, stunned. "Why… why am I spared?"

He didn't know. He couldn't know. But relief, strange and shameful, flooded him all the same. His body went slack as he was carried deeper into the dungeon. The shame of his surrender—of being the only one left, the one who didn't fight to the last—burned a new kind of mark on his soul.

The Corpse King threw him into a cage of thick iron bars. He hit the floor hard, coughing as he scrambled up.

The cage sat in the hall of the fourth floor, just outside the kobolds' quarters. From between the bars, Kenji could see everything.

His companions, his brothers-in-arms or what was left of them.

Bodies piled in a corner, arms and legs tangled, faces he recognized staring blankly with empty eyes. At the top of the heap, Garruk's broad frame lay lifeless, his chest still pierced clean through. The pile was a macabre monument to their foolish ambition. Legs, arms, and torsos were stacked like firewood, each dismembered piece a stark reminder of the Cerberus's destructive force.

Kenji's throat closed. His hands gripped the bars until his knuckles bled. "Boss Garruk…" he whispered. "Gods forgive us."

The Cerberus machine lay beside the pile, its colossal body folded as though it slept. Steam hissed softly from vents along its metal frame, its horns casting jagged shadows across the hall. Even in stillness, it radiated menace.

Kenji's mind churned. If we had surrendered… would they have spared us too? Was I saved because I yielded?

But the question had no answer.

He stared at the corpses of his men, his voice cracking as he whispered, "Too late. All too late."

He sat back in the cage, shaking, unsure of what fate awaited him. Whatever it was, he doubted it would be mercy.

The banging at the door had stopped.

For a long time, there was only silence — silence, and a faint tremor in the stone beneath their feet. Every so often they heard something else: a deep, metallic clank, like the steps of an armored knight… only impossibly heavy.

The kobolds held their breath, straining to listen.

"Why is it so quiet?" Mina whispered, her claws trembling against her arms.

"Because they're all dead," Manicia muttered. "You felt that roar. Nothing survived that."

"Don't say that," Misha hissed, clutching one of the children close.

Orkesh exhaled slowly, forcing his voice calm. "We need to see. Move the beds."

There was hesitation — then, reluctantly, the kobolds worked together to pull the bunk beds away. The wood scraped against stone, echoing loudly in the silence. When the barricade was finally clear, Orkesh pushed the door open a crack and peered out.

The sight waiting for them made their stomachs lurch.

The corridor was painted red. Blood pooled in thick sheets, soaking the stone. Intestines lay sprawled like discarded ropes, brain matter smeared across the floor. Corpses — or pieces of them — were piled like rubbish against the far wall. The air was thick with the coppery stench of death and the musky smell of singed hair. At the top of the heap lay Garruk's body, skewered and lifeless, his one good eye glazed.

Mina gagged, turning aside to vomit. Misha covered her mouth and wept. Even Manicia's color drained, her sharp tongue silenced.

"This… this isn't war," Orkell whispered hoarsely. "This is slaughter."

Their eyes lifted — and froze.

At the far end of the hall, a titan sat resting. Sixty feet of steel shaped like a lion, horns jutting forward, eyes glowing dimly. The Cerberus loomed in silence, steam hissing faintly from vents along its sides. Beside it, the Corpse King worked methodically, gathering limbs and torsos into neat piles, its cadaverous frame stooped like a laborer.

The kobolds couldn't comprehend it. They knew monsters. They knew bandits. But this — this was something else. This was methodical, inhuman. They were not fighting for their lives, not a battle between equals; they were mere cattle being processed for a purpose they couldn't even begin to guess.

And then their gaze caught the cage.

Inside sat a lean foxkin. Kenji. His hands clutched the bars, his face a mask of despair. He looked broken, hollowed, his eyes flicking between the pile of bodies and the two abominations guarding them.

When the kobolds saw him, he saw them too. For an instant, his eyes widened — not in hope, but in shame. He slumped back against the bars, too defeated to speak.

Then, suddenly, the cavern wall shifted.

Stone parted with a hiss, and out rolled something so out of place the kobolds nearly laughed from the shock.

A small, squat robot — Eddie. Lights blinked across his frame, his voice chipper and shrill. "Maintenance mode active! (≧▽≦)"

Kenji blinked hard, disbelief scrawled across his face. He'd watched men torn apart like animals, seen titans of steel and rot devour his comrades. And now… this toy-sized contraption marched forward like it owned the place. He couldn't reconcile the two images: the slaughterhouse and the cheerful, blinking machine.

"This… this can't be real," he whispered. "That thing… is that their master?"

Eddie didn't even glance at the kobolds or Kenji. His sensors locked straight onto the carnage.

"What the hell is this mess?! (≧ロ≦)" Eddie shrieked. "You two had one job! Guard duty! Not turn the hall into a butcher's market!"

The Corpse King rumbled, a guttural sound like stone grinding.

"Oh, don't you grunt at me! ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)" Eddie snapped. A hatch opened in his side, projecting a narrow red beam onto the floor right beside the Corpse King's massive foot. The stone sizzled and cracked.

The Corpse King froze. Even at three times the kobolds' size, the cadaver bowed his head like a scolded servant.

Kenji's jaw dropped. "The… the monster's afraid," he whispered, staring wide-eyed. "It fears him. It fears… that."

Eddie buzzed smugly. "That's what I thought! (≖⩊≖)."

He whirled toward the Cerberus. "And you! Don't think you're off the hook, big guy! You blew through half your reserves! Do you even realize how fragile your core is? You try a stunt like that again, you'll go nuclear! Nuclear! And who do you think cleans that up? Me! Always me! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻"

The Cerberus groaned lazily, shifting its massive head. With surprising gentleness, it nudged Eddie aside with its snout.

"Don't shove me!" Eddie screeched, spinning in a full circle. " щ(ಠ益ಠщ) I am your savior, not your chew toy!"

The kobolds watched in stunned silence, unable to reconcile the sight. Two abominations that had butchered fifty men like cattle, cowed by a tiny, ranting machine.

Orkesh whispered, "I… I don't understand."

Kenji clutched the bars of his cage, his voice a hoarse whisper. "Neither do I."

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