They were all still seated around the dining table when it happened.

Arianna's phone rang first, then Luke's and Elena's. The second time Arianna's phone rang she frowned at the display, muttered a quick apology, and stepped away, as did the other two. Three calls at the exact same moment. Cassis exchanged a sharp glance with his father. That wasn't a coincidence.

Luke was the first to return, his expression tight. "That was my secretary from the Bureau. We've got a problem—no, a disaster. F-rank gates all over the world have had their dungeon timers accelerate. Every single one is now set to break within the next two weeks. The earliest will go in four days."

Cassis froze. That's impossible. "What do you mean? How can that happen?"

In the other timeline, they'd had around two months before the first F-rank dungeon was set to break. He'd asked Luke about the timers in this timeline and they had followed the same pattern. E-rank gates had been many months away from trouble.

Luke's voice was low, grim. "The soldiers stationed at each gate reported it. They watched the timers drop. Minutes and hours vanished in seconds. Until they stopped somewhere between four days and two weeks from now. All F-rank dungeons." He swallowed. "And that's not even the worst of it. E-rank gates are still mostly on schedule… except one."

Cassis already felt the dread settling in. "How long?"

"It'll break right after the last F-rank. So, two weeks, give or take."

His father's jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

Elena came back in, her phone still in hand. Her gaze swept the table, reading the tension instantly. "You've heard about the gates?"

Cassis nodded.

"Benny just called," she said. "One of his journalist friends caught the story and tipped him off. The news will break this evening." Her eyes shifted to Luke. "If the government wants to control the narrative, you'd better get an announcement out now. Before panic starts."

Arianna rejoined them, catching the tail end of Elena's words. "The gates?" she asked. "Faith called about them, too. She wants us to go into the E-rank gate."

Cassis's thoughts, already chaotic, stumbled. "The E-rank gate? Is this an official request from the government?"

Arianna shook her head. "No. Faith says they're overwhelmed right now. She only knows because Bryce has been ordered to tackle it. She… she called crying. She thinks they're sending him to his death."

Cassis didn't answer immediately. He had no love for Bryce. If the man died, the future would be a lot safer, but an E-rank dungeon break this early? That was a nightmare. If Bryce failed, a D-rank boss monster and countless E-rank monsters would be loose in a world where most people didn't even have classes. It would be a massacre.

"Shit." The word came out flat, all the weight of the situation condensed into it.

Luke stood abruptly. "I'm calling the government. We need a plan. Now." He disappeared into the other room, phone already to his ear.

The rest stayed. Samuel leaned back, gaze distant, then spoke quietly. "This is bad. Really bad. People aren't ready for something like the Bloody Weekend again. Panic will spread fast. And with the shortages already hitting… if the government screws this up, society could collapse. When the monsters come out, we won't stand a chance."

His father nodded grimly, rubbing at his stump. "We barely survived the first wave. Imagine if every dungeon starts spewing monsters at once." His gaze flicked to Cassis. "Stronger ones?"

Cassis nodded once. "Stronger. And they won't retreat back into the gates. They'll stay. And spread. Monsters can breed."

"Sapphire?" his father asked with a tired face.

Another nod. Cassis couldn't dredge up the energy to lie more efficiently, even though his parents suspected that something wasn't quite right about him. His mind kept returning to the last timeline, how cities fell one by one, whole countries swallowed in the chaos. Monsters spread and bred and evolved, pushing humans away from their lands. He'd hoped to prevent that this time, to buy more time by strengthening people early.

But this… this was everything, all at once. This had never happened in the other timeline. This shouldn't have happened. The system was harsh, but it never lied. And the dungeon timers were part of the system. This shouldn't be possible.

So why was it happening?

It was already early afternoon, but Elena cancelled their online lessons. Their students were confused when she didn't give them a reason, only a vague promise that it would be revealed shortly.

Cassis and Arianna sat across from Luke, telling him everything they knew about dungeons and dungeon breaks, claiming the knowledge came from Sapphire. They explained how monsters inside a dungeon were always stronger than those outside because the mana within was denser than that of their world. But they also warned him of the real danger: once monsters came to this world, they would adapt frighteningly fast, breeding, evolving, making this world their new home. They wouldn't go back into the dungeon. New waves of creatures would keep pouring out. Again and again.

Cassis kept his next worry to himself: with more monsters evolving outside, the second wave would begin sooner than he wanted. And they couldn't let that happen.

Instead, he offered a different piece of knowledge attributed to Sapphire.

"You know the timer keeps ticking even when people are inside the gate, right? It only resets when the dungeon boss is killed. Now, what nobody knows is that a dungeon won't break as long as awakeners are inside. If all else fails, we can use this as a stalling tactic. It won't buy us much time because the monsters inside will grow more aggressive, but it could be enough to prepare or to evacuate in an emergency."

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Luke quickly scribbled it all down. Cassis went on. "After a dungeon break, there's only one way to make the monsters leave, and it has to be done within a week. You kill the boss monster. That boss is the bridge keeping the connection between this world and the dungeon active. Kill it in time, and most of the other monsters will retreat. Miss that window… and sure, you've closed the gate, but every monster already here will remain. Permanently."

Cassis's fists clenched under the table. Arianna slipped her hand over his, and only then did he realise she was trembling too. "There is also a strategy that should be employed. One party should enter the dungeon and fight and train as much as possible. At the same time, they should scout the fastest way to the boss monster and collect information on it.

"Then they should leave the dungeon by completing one of the other two objectives. After the first party, a party with only high-level awakeners should enter. Thanks to the first party's information, they can immediately go to the boss monster and fight it since dungeons don't reset like in games. They are strange ecosystems, but they recover naturally through breeding and time. Though they do so a lot faster than our own ecosystems."

Cassis closed his eyes. They had developed that strategy in the other timeline, and it could work well in these circumstances. Right now, there was still a government and an army that could coordinate this on a large scale. People were still hopeful and didn't realise that they needed to kill dungeon bosses to evolve their classes from level 20 onwards. Most common evolutions required three E-rank dungeon bosses, and more advanced ones five bosses. For now, there was still a sense of community in this world, so people would work together for the greater good.

In the other timeline, this method had worked well for some years until the second wave hit. Then the government had been overturned, and the time of the slave collars had started. Bryce had also employed this strategy, but the losses had been significant during that time. And when Bryce's reign had been over, everybody needed to put themselves first to survive. Nobody had been willing to hand over a dungeon boss to someone else. Only the big guilds had been doing that. They had forced their weaker members to scout, and then their strong members could kill the dungeon bosses, evolving further, while the weaker members stayed stuck at one of the bottlenecks of evolution.

"Thanks, guys. This helps a lot. I'll have a call with the other heads of the Awakener Bureaus and the leaders of the military. We need to do everything we can to prevent widespread dungeon breaks." Luke sounded tired, but at the same time determined.

They had barely started discussing what their own group should do when all their phones erupted with shrill beeps. An emergency alert. Every single device displayed the same message: The president will make a live emergency statement in 15 minutes.

Luke let out a slow breath. "That's good. There will still be panic… but he'll present it like we can handle it."

Cassis nodded. Panic wouldn't help anyone now. Even though… many people would die.

The group went back to their respective families, wanting to hear the presidential address together with them. They arranged to meet again right afterwards at Cassis' parents' house to discuss their next steps.

Arianna and Cassis made a quick stop at Liam and Camden's place and brought them and Irene along. By the time they arrived, the others were already gathered in front of the TV. The broadcast would start any moment now.

When Shakir Zenet finally appeared on screen, a ripple of quiet passed through the room. Cassis had always respected the man. Perhaps not for his honesty—what politician truly was?—but for his principles. Zenet had a core belief in human rights, and he had never wavered on that point. In this speech, that conviction came through again.

"My fellow citizens," Zenet began, his voice steady but grave. "Just half an hour ago, we discovered a mysterious phenomenon. All the F-rank dungeons our soldiers have been trying to clear, often at great cost to their lives, have suddenly had their timers decline rapidly. We now expect so-called dungeon breaks starting in four days, and ending in two weeks.

During this time, all F-rank gates are set to break. This means the creatures we call monsters will pour out of the dungeons.

But fear not. We are doing everything we can to prevent this. Our soldiers are ready to enter the dungeons relentlessly to stop these breaks. As the minutes pass, we are finding more and more ways to keep you civilians safe.

I felt it was my duty to inform you of the looming threat. You have every right to be afraid. The Bloody Weekend has taught us well what monsters are capable of. But we will fight back with all our strength to protect our world.

I only ask that you keep society running. Without your support, our brave warriors will not be able to fight efficiently. Let us stand together and survive."

Cassis nodded slowly. A strong speech. Zenet hadn't sugar-coated the truth, but he'd left people with hope. Cassis would do his best to keep his family and friends safe.

With that decided, Cassis finally had a little breathing room to think about Faith's request. An E-rank gate breaking was out of the question. The world wasn't ready for that kind of threat yet. Even the incoming F-rank breaks would cause more damage than most people could imagine. So, of course, he'd go in. Arianna would too; he was sure of it.

But as the idea settled in his mind, he began to see it for what it really was: a chance. He strongly suspected that with the kind of advanced classes he and Arianna possessed, they wouldn't evolve to E-rank by killing weaker monsters. No, they'd need something like a D-rank creature to push them over that threshold. The boss monster of an E-rank dungeon was almost always D-rank.

At the same time, nobody would question it if some members of the party didn't make it back. Dungeons were dangerous. People died all the time. It would be… convenient if Dan Bryce just happened to be one of them.

He'd have to speak with Arianna first. She might not like it, but she also understood the stakes. She'd seen the future he would bring about.

Now equipped with a plan, Cassis felt steadier, his earlier unease fading. Every crisis carried an opportunity with it. He'd seize those opportunities without hesitation and make sure that he and those he truly cared for lived to see the other side.

Before the others came over, he gestured to Arianna. He needed to talk to her alone. And his family was still processing the news.

They went outside into the garden to talk privately. Arianna looked at him expectantly, but he didn't really know how to tell her he was planning a murder. He knew she would hate it. Not knowing how to start, he decided to just blurt everything out.

"I think we should go to the E-rank dungeon, together with Bryce and his team. There will probably be a D-rank boss, and we both feel that we need to kill one to evolve our classes and reach E-rank." He saw Arianna nod. Good, she agreed with him. Now, to the more morally grey part.

"And while we're in the dungeon, it would be good for Bryce to die in the line of duty." He watched for her reaction intently, saw shock, disgust, realisation, sadness, pity, and determination cross her face in short succession. What was she thinking?

"Are you saying you want to kill him?" she asked softly.

He answered. "Not directly. But in a dungeon, especially one that is a higher rank than the awakener, it wouldn't be strange for him to die from a monster attack. I'm just saying that I won't protect him and that you shouldn't heal him."

Arianna looked at him strangely. "We can't just do that. I know. I know that in the other timeline he did terrible things, but right now he hasn't done them yet! Right now, he seems to be a good man. He's my friend's uncle. He raised her."

Cassis nodded and hugged her. Quietly, he told her, "I realise this is hard for you. But it would be for the best. One less threat for the future."

Arianna shook her head. "You don't know what you're asking of me. I'm a healer. That's what I do, heal people. I don't think about whether they deserve healing, I just do it, because that's what's right." She grabbed his waist and whispered. "I understand. And I wish I didn't. But I don't know if I can do this."

Cassis hugged her tighter. He knew he was asking something that ran counter to her personality. She had always been a caretaker. In her old world, she'd taken care of her father and him. And now in this world, she'd taken the cleric class. Not because she liked healing people that much, but because they had needed one, he had needed one, and she was taking care of them, him. Her first response when someone hurt her was to ask why, not to retaliate. Would she be able to do what needed to be done?

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