I exhaled slowly, scanning the crowd again, and a few Vassals were pacing, their Patron sigils faintly glowing beneath skin or armor—telltale marks of borrowed power. Their eyes flicked to the Rift again and again, some eager, some terrified. All waiting for someone else to go first.
No one wanted to be the first corpse on Floor 5.
But they knew someone already beat them to it.
Me.
I stepped closer to the Rift's edge. The ground pulsed with ambient magic, thrumming like a heartbeat. The gold and crimson glow flared higher, arcing skyward like a reversed lightning strike, splitting the clouds.
Boss floors weren't like normal ones. No randomized monsters. No timed clear requirement. Just one singular goal: kill the boss, or die trying.
The system didn't even try to hide it.
[Warning: This boss floor was activated prematurely.]
[Difficulty may not be balanced for current average player level.]
[Proceed with caution.]
I laughed under my breath. "Yeah, no shit."
From the beginning, this was always the plan—outpace them all, force the Rift's hand, break the timeline before it could stabilize.
The others still thought this was a race. They didn't know I'd already memorized the course from a different life.
The Fifth Floor in my last timeline as a massacre. A dozen elite teams were wiped in minutes. Strong Vassals led the charge, but still died inside it.
But maybe that's why I have to do this now. Alone. While it's raw. While the Rift is still unready for someone like me.
I'd be the first into the boss arena. The first to face the Lich. The first to test whether this regression was enough. Whether the Blank Protocol, the Specter Fang Set, and everything I had learned in the last timeline was enough.
'This is my first labyrinth boss in this timeline, I'll clear this as swiftly as possible.'
As I was about to enter the crimson rift, a voice cut through the tension like a blade drawn slow and deliberate.
"Hey, you."
I turned my head just enough to see who called me out.
A group of Vassals stood behind me. Five of them. Armor gleaming, sigils glowing faintly under skin and cloth. Each one marked by a Patron. Each one thinking that made them someone.
The one who called out stepped closer, a tall bastard with silver-threaded hair and eyes that had seen too much—and too little. His Patron mark shimmered like a crown of thorns above his brow, flickering with violet light.
He was their leader.
"You headed into the Rift?"
I didn't answer. Not yet.
His eyes narrowed. "Don't be stupid. You saw the alert. That's a boss floor. Premature activation. Suicide if you go in alone."
Still, I said nothing.
Another Vassal behind him muttered, "Who even is this guy?"
And that's when he asked it.
"Are you a Vassal?"
"No," I said. My voice cut through the air like a knife through wet silk. Calm. Cold. Unimpressed.
"I'm not."
A pause.
One of his people scoffed, half-laughing like they'd caught a joke no one else had heard. "Then you're a dead man."
Another added, "Only a fool walks into a boss floor without a Patron's blessing."
I stepped closer, and the leader instinctively reached for his weapon.
I watched his fingers twitch near the hilt. A trained reflex. The kind you pick up after surviving too many close calls and still not understanding why.
"You think I'm a threat," I said quietly.
He stiffened, jaw tightening. "I think you're insane."
I tilted my head. "Maybe. But not wrong."
The others behind him shifted uneasily, glancing at one another.
Vassals started drifting closer. Observers, challengers, opportunists. The kind that never wanted to be first, but would fight to be next once the blood was already on the floor.
The Rift pulsed again behind me.
"You're seriously going in?" a girl with obsidian piercings asked, her voice caught between awe and disbelief.
"I'm not here to debate it," I said.
The silver-haired leader finally scoffed, taking half a step back, like he'd just realized I wasn't going to play by his rules.
"You've got balls, I'll give you that," he muttered. "But this place doesn't reward pride. You'll die in there. And no one will remember your name."
"Good," I replied.
He blinked. "What?"
"I don't need them to remember me. I need the Rift to."
That shut him up.
Silence rippled through the crowd, thick and brittle.
One guy in the back whispered, "What kind of freak—?"
Gasps. Shouts. Scrambling hands grabbing for weapons and gear—too late. The rift surged behind me as my foot crossed the boundary. The light swallowed me whole.
The moment I passed the threshold, the Rift sealed shut behind me with a thunderclap of light and force. Like a heartbeat slamming a gate closed. The world outside vanished.
And then the system made damn sure the world heard it.
-
[Alert: Challenger 'Blank' has entered Floor 5 – Boss Arena Engaged.]
[Access to Floor 5 is now restricted.]
[Boss Arena Lockdown initiated. Entry denied until current challenge concludes.]
[Current Status: Combat Pending.]
-
Outside the Rift
Gasps and shouts are being heard realizing that the one who entered the boss room was none other than me, Blank.
"it was Blank?!"
"Shit, it's true. He's really going solo…"
"What the heck?! We just met the guy who soloed everything?!"
Someone pulled up their interface in a panic, trying to ping the floor entrance—denied. The system glared back at them in red:
[Entry Restricted: Another challenger is currently engaged.]
[Please wait until arena is vacated.]
The silver-haired Vassal's face had drained of color. He stared at the Rift's sealed veil, then at the system messages hovering above it in crimson glyphs.
"Shit! He locked us out. I am going to kill him!"
One of his crew spat on the ground. "Son of a bitch. He's gonna steal the first clearer again!."
"No," the leader growled. "He's gonna die. And then we'll go in."
Boss floor lockout wasn't just a mechanic—it was a safeguard. After too many disputes over last hits, kill-steals, and stolen clears, the system had changed. Now, once a boss arena was entered, it locked. No one else could interfere. No clutch saves. No party reinforcements. No vultures waiting to stab the final blow and claim the credit.
Whoever stepped in… had to end it. One way or the other.
Clear it, or die. No third outcome.
Inside the Rift
I stood in the center of a dead world.
The arena was a collapsed cathedral of bone and rusted gold. Arches hung half-fallen over broken pews and shattered stained glass. Shadows moved on their own across the floor, dragging behind my feet like vipers.
The system pulsed again in my vision:
[You have entered the Boss Floor of the Labyrinth.]
[ Quest Type: Extermination ]
[ Requirement: 1 or more Participants. ]
[ Objective: Eliminate the Boss - The Lich of the Fifth Vein ]
[You cannot exit this floor until the objective is complete.]
-
The Lich rose from the cathedral's hollow altar like smoke given form—skeletal, robed in layered voidsilk, crowned with a lattice of bone and black gems. Veins of mana pulsed along its staff like magma beneath cracked earth, and its eyes burned with twin coals of ancient hatred.
The entire arena dimmed as the mana density spiked. Gravity warped. Space screamed.
I just… smirked.
Because I remembered this bastard.
I remembered how it slaughtered platoons of elite Vassals in minutes. How it bypassed shields, ignored resistances, and chewed through tanks like paper. I remembered how even Vassals blessed by top-tier Patrons got turned into puppets with a single misstep.
But most of all, I remembered its pattern.
It didn't know how many thousands of times I'd replayed its fights in simulations from the last timeline. Frame by frame. Death after death until its every twitch was carved into my bones.
I exhaled slowly, letting mana pool beneath my skin. My eyes never left its hollow sockets.
"Come on, then," I murmured. "Let's see if undeath is strong enough to withstand regret."