The rift throbbed like a wounded beast, its edges crackling with violet static, distorting the air around it with the scent of burnt ozone and ancient rot. A sound like bones grinding in a stone mortar preceded what came next—a nightmarish eruption that would stain memory itself.
From within the expanding tear, an unholy legion spilled forth.
The first wave of exoskeletal monsters burst through with inhuman speed. Gleaming armor-like plating covered their twisted, sinewy forms—flesh fused with bone, bone fused with blackened metal. Each one moved on multiple clawed limbs, their segmented bodies clicking and skittering like some hellborn insect-demon hybrids. Their faces were a mockery of creation—elongated skulls with triple-jawed maws, chattering mandibles, and no eyes, yet perfect predatory awareness.
The throne chamber was instantly drowned in chaos.
---
"Form up! Defensive arc!" Sato's voice strained against the echo of death.
His squad moved—out of discipline, not hope. Plasma rounds fired in synchronized bursts, lighting up the chamber with flashes of blue and red. The monsters took hits, screeched—but didn't slow.
One of his men—Ito—was the first to fall. A monster leapt from the rift, its legs slicing through Ito's torso like scissor blades through parchment. Blood sprayed across Sato's visor.
"No!"
He gunned the creature down, but five more took its place. Screams erupted around him—agonizing, short-lived, human.
A female soldier was dragged into the air, her legs still kicking as a monster bit through her midsection with an audible crack. Her blood painted the throne wall.
Sato fired, reloaded, fired again—his arms trembling, his heart thundering in terror.
This is not a standard dungeon encounter. This is extermination.
---
The blood of his infected brothers painted the floor.
Genghis roared—a primal, guttural sound. His mutation flared, his muscles bloating grotesquely, armored spikes ripping through his skin. With a feral leap, he crashed into the thickest mass of the enemy like a living battering ram. His clawed hands tore through chitin. He swung one of the creatures into another like a club, then slammed his spiked knee through its thorax.
But even for him—it wasn't enough.
Around him, his weaponized infected team fought with horrifying savagery, but they were being overwhelmed. Their own mutations made them berserkers—strong but reckless.
One of his lieutenants, Barak—a hulking brute with obsidian skin and a flaming maw—was pierced through by a monster's tail. His roar gurgled to a dying gasp as the tail split open and discharged acid directly into his torso, melting flesh and bone alike.
Another, Kyra—a lithe woman with blade arms—was swarmed, her limbs severed before she could regenerate.
Genghis snarled. "Fall back to the pillars! Regroup now!"
But the monsters weren't just killing—they were hunting. Tactically. Intelligently.
---
General Yoshi Matsuda – Military Base...
He slammed his fist onto the console.
"Goddammit! Pull them out—pull them out now! We're losing both teams!"
"No extraction corridor is open, General!" a tech shouted back. "The tunnel behind them has destabilized from the rift's energy!"
Matsuda watched the feed—frantic, flickering images of his best soldiers dying like livestock. He gritted his teeth until they bled. A storm of emotions churned inside him—rage, helplessness, and dread.
"We were never meant to be in that chamber…" he muttered.
And then he saw it.
The hooded figure on the throne stood.
Still watching. Still smiling.
As though the slaughter wasn't tragedy, but entertainment.
---
The chamber became a hellscape of screams, fire, and gore. Lieutenant Sato, drenched in blood, staggered behind a pillar, clutching the body of a fallen comrade. Genghis, half his armor torn off, stared at the rift with blood in his eyes and madness at the edge of his mind.
The monsters kept coming. The throne room became a burial ground.
And at its center, the hooded figure whispered:
"Let this be the overture. The true descent begins now."
---
The chaos in the throne chamber had twisted into something beyond apocalyptic. Blood drenched the cracked marble tiles, mixing with the shattered remains of discarded armor, scorched weapons, and broken bodies. The air was thick with smoke, screams, and the iron stench of death.
And then came the roar.
Not of a monster—but of something far more primal.
Genghis Asura stood in the center of a writhing mass of exoskeletal creatures. His armor had been ripped to pieces, revealing a grotesque and magnificent transformation beneath. Black and crimson veins pulsed beneath his skin like molten lava. His spine protruded slightly, forming jagged ridges. His arms had lengthened, hands mutated into clawed appendages that glowed faintly with dungeon energy.
He roared again, this time deeper, a sound that silenced even the monsters for a moment.
And then he moved.
Like a berserker god unshackled from mortal flesh.
Genghis launched himself into the horde, a blur of mutated muscle and sharpened death. He grabbed a two-headed exobeast by both jaws and ripped its skull in two, ichor spraying like a geyser. Another charged, its serrated limbs flashing—Genghis ducked low, drove his claws through its abdomen, and lifted the creature over his shoulder, using its body to smash through a cluster of three more.
"Rip them! Shred them!" he bellowed to his infected team.
They responded with brutal harmony. Even broken, bloodied, and partially dismembered, the weaponized infected moved like predators unleashed.
Kyra, her blade arms glowing with energy, danced through a circle of enemies, her mutated movements leaving behind arcs of severed limbs and fountains of dark fluid. Malik, the fire-breather, melted down the monsters with guttural gouts of inferno, even as acid from an enemy's tail burned down half his face. But he didn't stop. He just screamed louder.
Genghis tore a beast in half with his bare hands.
He bathed in their gore. He thrived in the chaos. For a moment, even the most monstrous of the enemy forces hesitated, sensing the raw savagery he now embodied.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Sato was locked in a battle of a different kind: desperation.
Crawling beneath a collapsed pillar, he reached for Corporal Hanada, whose legs had been severed at the knees. Her blood painted the ground, her mouth a silent scream as shock overtook her. Sato grabbed her vest and pulled her out with all his strength, ignoring the agony in his shoulder where a jagged claw had grazed him minutes earlier.
"Stay with me, Hanada! Stay with me!"
Her eyes fluttered. No reply.
He slammed a pain suppressor onto her chest and injected a blood-coagulating serum directly into her femoral artery. Her pulse stabilized, barely.
"Sato to base! We need emergency evac now!" he screamed into his damaged comms. Static. Screeches. No reply.
He cursed, picked her up, and staggered behind a barricade formed by debris and broken exoskeleton parts. Around him, Task Force members were scattered. Those who still lived fought desperately. Others lay in silence, staring into nothing.
He spotted Sergeant Akiyama—half of his body crushed beneath rubble, holding his rifle with one hand, shooting wildly.
Sato leapt to his side, kicked away a charging creature with what strength he had left, and began lifting rubble.
"No time for me, sir," Akiyama grunted through a mouthful of blood. "Get out. You're our last command."
"Shut up, soldier. You're coming with me."
Sato knew he was lying.
He pulled him free anyway.
A flash from the center of the chamber drew his gaze—Genghis had just bitten into a monster's neck, black blood spilling down his already stained chest. His infected team was driving the enemy back. The monsters were starting to fall.
More and more, their bodies littered the field like broken insects.
The tide, impossibly, was turning.
But at what cost?
Sato dropped Akiyama behind cover and took his rifle.
"I'm not letting you bastards take another one!" he shouted, as he fired into the advancing line.
Another mutant from Genghis' team leapt beside him—Roka, his arms grotesquely enlarged and covered in thick scales. He grinned, wild-eyed.
"Sato! Glad to see you still breathing!"
"Not for long at this rate. We need to clear a path out!"
"Let the monsters come! I'm not dying in a damn dungeon!"
They stood side by side, soldier and mutant, unloading hell.
The military base watched in horror and awe. The feed was grainy now, but still clear enough to witness the carnage.
General Matsuda had removed his hat, his hand frozen over the command console. Around him, officials stood in stunned silence.
"He... he's killing them. With his bare hands," one whispered.
Another muttered, "That's not a man. That's a weapon."
Matsuda exhaled slowly.
"That weapon just saved what's left of our task force."
But even as he said it, he knew—this was no victory. This was survival through monsterdom.
Genghis Asura, breathing heavily, stood among a ring of twitching corpses. His eyes glowed with a low red hue. His team formed a loose circle around him, some kneeling, some bleeding, some missing limbs—but all alive.
Lieutenant Sato limped into the circle, Hanada slung over one shoulder, Akiyama leaning on him.
They locked eyes.
Sato gave a nod.
"We're not out of hell yet."
Genghis cracked his neck.
"Then let's tear through the rest of it."
The chamber was silent again. The monsters dead. But the rift still pulsed.
And the hooded figure still watched.
Smiling.
Waiting.
For the next stage to begin.
---