Chapter 275: Chaotic Domain (Part 1)
Morning found the evacuation nearly complete, the streets of Mythal almost entirely empty. Only hunters remained now, scattered across a city built to fight rather than live in.
Outside the walls, the Crimson Gate stood silently. Unlike ordinary gates, no mana leaked outward from it. Instead the surrounding world felt like it was slowly being pulled inward, toward it, one inch at a time. Nearby grass had already gone black. Flowers had wilted entirely. Even insects gave the area a wide berth.
Kai, Sera, Lily, Elden, Raze, and Mira approached together, slow and deliberate. Gabriel waited nearby with several Astral Church members, alongside Mayor Ko and a handful of Association officials.
Nobody spoke right away. The pressure radiating off the gate said enough on its own.
Gabriel studied it carefully. "...It’s exactly like our records described."
Mayor Ko exhaled slowly. "So this is how every civilization began."
Kai never took his eyes off the gate. "...We’ll finish it differently."
Everyone gathered in front of the gate one last time before the six of them stepped forward.
Mayor Ko looked at each of them in turn. "...Remember. This isn’t about proving yourselves. It’s about coming back alive."
Raze grinned. "...We’ll do both."
Mira elbowed him. "Don’t tempt fate right before we walk in."
Sera adjusted her shield strap. "...Everyone already knows their role."
"So don’t improvise unless it’s absolutely necessary," Lily added.
Kai smiled. "...Coming from you?"
"...Exactly," Lily said, smiling back.
Even Elden chuckled quietly at that.
Gabriel stepped forward, looking at each of them in turn. "...Whatever happens inside, don’t chase victory." A pause. "If something feels wrong, retreat."
Kai nodded. "We already planned for that."
"...I know," Gabriel said, smiling.
The six of them walked toward the gate, and the closer they got, the heavier the pressure became, breathing itself growing slightly harder with every step.
Raze’s grin faded. "...Yeah. This one’s different."
Sera’s grip tightened on her shield. Lily activated several relic scanners, and the readings on them fluctuated wildly, refusing to settle.
Kai finally reached the gate’s edge, and a system window appeared.
[B-Rank Dungeon Found.]
[B-Rank Dungeon: Chaotic Domain.]
[Status: Active.]
Kai read it twice. "...It still calls itself a B-Rank."
Elden frowned. "...I don’t believe that for a second."
"...Neither do I," Kai said.
Without another word, the six of them stepped through together.
Darkness swallowed them entirely. Silence held for a long moment.
Then light returned, and nobody said anything for several seconds.
The landscape felt wrong immediately. The sky wasn’t blue, wasn’t black, shifting instead between deep crimson and dark gray in slow, uneven waves. Massive floating landmasses drifted overhead, entire mountains hanging upside down against a sky that shouldn’t have supported them. Black rivers flowed upward, defying gravity outright. Broken ruins floated in open air with nothing beneath them at all.
Gravity itself felt inconsistent underfoot. Small rocks occasionally drifted upward past them without cause.
Nobody needed to say it out loud.
This wasn’t a dungeon.
Lily whispered, "...Beautiful."
Sera turned to look at her. "...That’s your first thought?"
"...And terrifying," Lily added.
Raze looked around slowly. "...I preferred fortresses."
Kai studied the shifting sky above them. "...Nothing here follows normal rules."
Instead of simply standing there...
The world moved first.
The ground beneath Kai’s feet rippled like water.
He immediately stepped back.
The stone where he’d been standing folded upward.
Not cracked.
Folded.
Like someone had bent reality itself.
A floating island overhead suddenly inverted.
Hundreds of tons of rock dropped—
Only to stop halfway.
Gravity reversed.
The mountain drifted upward again.
Silence.
Raze slowly looked upward.
"...I’m officially uncomfortable."
Then...
The river nearby climbed into the sky.
Not splashing.
Flowing.
Completely naturally.
Kai quietly muttered,
"...This place isn’t following physics."
Elden slowly adjusted his glasses.
"...No."
"...It’s following something else."
Several creatures emerged from the crimson haze, and unlike anything they’d fought before, their bodies constantly distorted mid-motion. Scales gave way to feathers. Arms reshaped into claws. Wings appeared, then vanished entirely. Extra eyes opened along limbs that shouldn’t have had eyes at all.
[Chaotic Beast — Level: 68.]
[Chaotic Beast — Level: 69.]
Kai narrowed his eyes. "...They’re mutating in real time."
The creatures charged. Not together. Not in formation. Each one moved differently, their bodies twisting even as they ran.
One sprinted on four legs before suddenly standing upright halfway through its charge. Another folded its wings into bladed arms, dragging them across the ground and carving deep trenches through the black stone. A third simply disappeared.
Kai’s eyes narrowed. "...Watch the invisible one."
The warning came a heartbeat too late. Space rippled beside Sera, and a claw burst from empty air, already inches from her neck.
CLANG!
Her shield met it at the last possible second. The impact echoed like a bell across the broken landscape, throwing both combatants backward.
"...Fast."
The beast smiled. Or at least its mouth split wider than any living thing’s should. Then another row of teeth grew beneath the first.
Kai vanished. Air Step. The Fractured Blade flashed, and one clean slash cut through the creature’s waist before it could recover. Its upper body slid free.
Silence.
Then it stopped. The two halves trembled, black flesh stretching between them, bones cracking, muscles rewoving themselves together before everyone’s eyes. The corpse stood again. Not healed. Changed. Two arms became four. Its jaw split open into four separate mandibles. Six crimson eyes slowly opened across its forehead. A pressure wave rolled across the battlefield.
System windows appeared.
[Mutation Complete.] [Chaotic Beast → Chaotic Predator.]
Kai frowned. "...It just evolved."
The newly evolved monster lunged again, much faster, four claws striking simultaneously from different angles. Kai ducked beneath the first, blocked the second, Air Stepped around the third, but the fourth still clipped his shoulder, leaving four shallow cuts across his armor. He immediately created distance. "...It’s stronger."
Nearby, another Chaotic Beast watched the evolution, and its own body suddenly convulsed. Additional limbs erupted from its back. Its tail divided into three. Ice instantly covered one arm while flames erupted around another.
Lily slowly lowered her bow. "...They’re copying each other."
That realization barely had time to settle before the battlefield exploded. One beast exhaled fire, and halfway through the breath the flames became lightning, then ice, then a black energy Kai had never seen before, the beam carving straight through a floating ruin and leaving nothing behind except empty space.
"...Scatter!"
Everyone moved. Sera intercepted another charging beast, her shield slamming into its shoulder, but instead of bouncing away the creature’s bones softened, its entire body flowing around the shield like liquid before instantly hardening again behind her. A claw swept toward her back. Golden light exploded.
Position Swap. She vanished, and the attack struck empty air. She reappeared behind it, Light Wave cutting across its spine. The beast staggered, but its wounds immediately began closing. "...Seriously?"
Mira stepped in before it recovered, Iron Fortress spreading across both arms. The creature slammed six fists into her armor in rapid succession.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Each impact rang louder than the last. She didn’t move. "...My turn."
Iron Pulse erupted from her armor, the expanding shockwave launching three Chaotic Beasts through floating ruins, shattering ancient structures into countless fragments. Before they landed, Raze arrived. Battle Roar exploded across the battlefield, and Blood Armor spread over his chest as his crimson greatsword carved a massive arc through the air.
Blood Wave. The crimson slash stretched hundreds of meters, bisecting two mutated beasts before tearing into a distant cliff.
The cliff dodged.
Everyone froze. The cliff had moved. The Blood Wave missed completely.
"...What?"
The entire cliff slowly folded sideways. It hadn’t been terrain. It had simply been pretending.
Raze blinked. "...I don’t like that."
Kai didn’t answer. Three more monsters descended from above, except they hadn’t been flying. Gravity simply stopped affecting them, and they walked upside down through open air.
Lily fired. Twelve Spirit Archers answered with her, arrows crossing the battlefield from every direction. Normally nothing survived that attack. The first beast twisted. The second suddenly grew another pair of wings. The third split into two identical copies. Half the arrows struck nothing.
"...Their movements keep changing mid-flight."
She immediately repositioned every Spirit Archer. Another volley. Another mutation. Every prediction became outdated before the arrows arrived.
Kai cut down another monster. It exploded. Not into blood. Into hundreds of smaller creatures.
"...They’re multiplying!"
Elden finally moved. "If they won’t follow rules, we’ll make our own." His staff struck the ground, and dozens of gravity runes bloomed across the battlefield. The floating rocks crashed downward. Sideways cliffs suddenly slammed into the ground. Entire sections of distorted terrain collapsed inward.
For the first time since entering the Domain, the monsters hesitated.
Kai smiled. "...Opening!"
He burst forward. Ashen Seal ignited, and Tempest Fang streaked overhead, lightning crashing through three airborne monsters. Bloodthorn curved around another, piercing it from behind. Rootbreaker appeared in Kai’s hands mid-stride, and one devastating swing shattered a six-armed Predator into fragments. He immediately switched again, Verdant Fang extending into a spear, compressed wind blades exploding outward and severing mutated limbs before they could regrow.
Sera charged through the gap Kai had created without needing to be told, golden swords materializing behind her by the dozens before descending like rain, and every beast forced to dodge entered another line of fire. Mira closed every escape route with towering shockwaves. Raze demolished anything too large to dodge. Elden continuously reshaped the battlefield beneath them, forcing the ever-changing monsters into positions they couldn’t mutate their way out of.
Slowly, very slowly, the six hunters began matching the chaos itself.
Then every monster stopped.
Mid-strike. Mid-roar. Mid-flight.
Silence.
One by one they lowered their heads.
Nobody understood what was happening.
Kai turned slowly, scanning the horizon. Far beyond the countless floating ruins, something enormous moved.
Not clearly visible. Just a silhouette, massive wings unfolding against the crimson sky, a neck stretching impossibly long across the horizon. The pressure alone, from that distance, was enough to make the ground tremble beneath their feet.
Nobody spoke.
The silhouette vanished behind a cluster of floating islands, and silence returned to the domain.
Raze asked quietly, "...Was that—"
Gabriel’s words echoed back through Kai’s mind. Don’t chase victory.
Kai lowered his sword slowly. "...Keep moving."
Nobody argued.
They pushed deeper into the Chaotic Domain, and the environment only grew more unstable the further they went. Floating ruins hung in impossible clusters overhead. The landscape broke apart and reformed in places that shouldn’t have shifted. Twisted forests grew sideways out of cliff faces. Crimson lightning occasionally split the sky without a single sound following it.
Nobody joked anymore.
Everyone understood, without needing it said aloud, that everything they’d fought through up to this point had only ever been preparation.
This was the beginning of the First Disaster.
They stopped atop a broken cliff a while later, and the view opened up ahead of them, an unimaginably vast crimson world stretching out toward a horizon none of them could see the edge of.
Larger than any B-Rank dungeon any of them had ever set foot in.