Kade didn't breathe.
The thing in the room—a hulking, rotting ogre wrapped in gray-green flesh—had stopped eating. It lifted its head, thick nostrils flaring, sniffing the air like a bloodhound.
Not the light.
The realization struck like lightning. It doesn't see me.
He glanced at the phone's flashlight. Dim. Flickering. Still on.
But the ogre-thing—Sniffer, his brain supplied—wasn't reacting to it. Not even a twitch.
Instead, it sniffed again. Long. Deep. Like it was tasting the air.
Kade's pulse jumped. His mind flashed back to hours buried in lore forums and class breakdown threads. MythOnline had dozens of undead types. Some were brainless. Some, horrifyingly clever. And then there were…
"Sniffers," he mouthed silently.
An undead evolution path. Rare. Optional. And hated.
They were blind. Not just low vision—blind. Their eyes had rotted out or fused shut. But their smell and hearing?
Monstrous.
In-game, players called them "bloodhounds in a meat sack." The devs gave them glowing sense-radar when they caught a scent—bright red threads mapping the player's outline, even through walls.
That was for the player experience. For the undead themselves, it was just instinct. Scent. Sound. Movement.
One wrong step, and it would be on him like a hellhound.
The Sniffer growled, low and uneven. Its head swept side to side, tracking some ghost of a trail.
Kade backed up—slow, soft, careful.
Don't step on a loose stone. Don't bump the wall. Don't even breathe too hard.
He counted his breaths. Kept them shallow. His hand gripped the sword, not to fight—but to maybe throw, if he had to.
The creature turned its head slightly. A wet, sniffing sound. It stepped forward—away from the corpse now, toward the cracked wall where Kade had peeked through.
It didn't know he was here. Yet.
Kade scanned the room again. His eyes locked onto the glint of metal. The supplies.
They were behind the Sniffer.
He could make a break for it.
He could also die.
Then again, standing here shaking wasn't much better.
Kade closed his eyes.
Okay. You remember the game. You remember how they worked.
They followed sound trails. Echoes. Stronger scents.
And most of all—
They didn't chase what didn't move.
At least… not right away.
Kade eased back from the crack in the wall, breath shallow, heart pounding in his throat.
Okay. No visual reaction. Confirmed—it's a Sniffer.
He squinted at the crumbling wall between him and the room. Jagged stone, hairline fractures. It looked like a solid hit could finish the job—if someone was strong enough.
He wasn't.
But that thing? Kade glanced at the Sniffer again. Its frame was massive. Muscles bulged beneath patches of sagging, undead flesh. It dragged one foot like it was broken, but the arms? Thick. Heavy. Crushing.
If that thing charged me… would it break through this wall?
His gut said yes.
Which meant two things.
One: he could maybe use that.
Two: if it caught a whiff of him, this fragile chunk of stone wouldn't stop it from tearing him apart.
He leaned back, eyes scanning the hall behind him.
There's gotta be another way into the room, he thought. A door. A side corridor. Something that didn't involve being a chew toy.
But if he wandered too far…
He frowned.
Getting lost was too easy in this place. Every hallway was a copy-paste nightmare. If he lost track of this room—of this opportunity—he might never find it again.
Or worse, if he ran into another Sniffer, or whatever else lived down here…
His stomach growled again, more like a plea than a threat this time.
He clenched his jaw. Options.
Option one: Go hunting for a second entrance. Low risk, high chance of getting lost.
Option two: Try to bait the Sniffer into breaking the wall, then dodge.
High risk. Stupid reward. Terrible plan. So me.
Kade looked down at the rusty sword. Still useless. Still the only thing he had that wasn't a phone or a mouse.
He tapped the hilt against his palm.
If he made a noise… just one… would it charge?
Would it slam right through?
Would it work?
Would he survive?
He swallowed dryly, lips cracked.
"Please let this be as game-logic stupid as it feels," he whispered.
He took a step back from the wall.
Lifted the sword.
And raised his arm—
Frozen.
Waiting.
Because once he did this, there was no going back.
Kade swung the sword down.
CLANG!
The blade slammed into the wet stone floor, ringing out like a cracked bell. The echo bounced through the hallway—louder than it had any right to be.
Then—
BWRAAAAAGHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
A roar.
Deep. Wet. Violent.
The Sniffer snapped up from its meal like a marionette yanked by its strings. Its head twisted, sniffing the air with rabid hunger. The bone dropped from its grip. It let out a snarl and charged.
BOOM!
The wall didn't stand a chance. Kade wasn't sure he would either.
The cracked wall exploded with dust and sound as the monster slammed into it. Stone shuddered. Cracks spread like lightning bolts across the surface, but the wall held—barely.
Kade stumbled back, coughing. "Shit—!"
Another roar.
BOOM!
This time, rubble broke free. Pebbles rained down from above. A chunk of ceiling slid an inch lower.
Kade's breath hitched.
The Sniffer kept coming.
The wall was the only thing between him and it now—and that wasn't going to last.
It slammed again, screeching. Not random. Not blind flailing.
Targeted.
It had a scent now.
His scent.
Human. Warm. Fresh.
It had tasted rot for so long, but now—now—it had a whiff of living meat.
And it wanted more.
Kade backpedaled, slipping on wet moss. His flashlight flickered as his phone rattled in his grip.
Another hit and this wall's gone, his mind screamed. What the hell do I do?!
The Sniffer snarled and hurled itself again at the wall.
BOOM!
Stone cracked outward. A fist punched through—massive and grey, fingers twitching, reaching.
Kade turned and ran.
No more doubt.
Bad situation?
This was a dead one.
The ogre was faster.
Faster than anything that big had a right to be. The space was tight, but not tight enough.
Kade barely had time to think, let alone breathe.
He turned—too late for a sprint, but just in time to slide.
Stone slick with moss scraped his side as he dove.
The Sniffer barreled past him like a battering ram wrapped in rot.
CRACK!
The wall took the full hit—dust exploded, stone split, a spray of shattered rubble ricocheted down the hall.
Kade hit the ground hard. Wet. Cold. Winded.
He looked up just in time to see the ogre pull back.
Not stunned.
Not hurt.
Just mad.
It snarled, rot trailing from its open maw, then charged again—drawn now by fresh scent. By blood. By heat.
By him.
This wasn't over.
It was just starting.
Kade rolled to his feet, heart pounding in his throat.
The Sniffer turned with unnatural speed, slamming one massive arm through the air.
Kade ducked—the swing missed by inches, the wind off it like a passing truck.
He didn't get to dodge the second.
CRACK!
The ogre's backhand caught him square in the ribs.
Kade flew.
Slammed into the wall hard enough to rattle the stone.
The breath ripped from his lungs. Pain bloomed hot across his side. He slid down, gasping, sword clattering somewhere behind him.
The ogre loomed.
Kade groaned. Tried to move.
The only thing that answered was the throbbing in his bones.
This thing doesn't just sniff you out.
It breaks you.
Then—another sound.
Thud.
Thud.
Not from the ogre.
From behind it.
The cracked wall—already fractured from the ogre's charge—burst open with a wet, snarling explosion of dust and stone.
And something came through.
It slammed into the ogre like a cannonball—tackling it sideways with enough force to send both monsters skidding across the chamber in a heap of limbs and rotten muscle.
Kade blinked. Coughed. Squinted through the haze.
It wasn't another ogre.
It was worse.
Long limbs. Skin like stretched, dead leather over muscle too precise to be natural. Its form was humanoid, almost perfect, but twisted—every movement twitching with hate and hunger.
And those eyes.
Red. Burning. Alive with fury.
Kade recognized it instantly. From one of the late-game update logs.
"A Mutant…" he whispered.
Not friendly. Not even to the undead.
Hyper-aggressive. Hyper-fast. Designed to kill anything that moved.
Even other undead.
And the ogre?
It had made too much noise.
The ogre snarled, swiping with its massive arms, but the mutant was faster—too fast. It darted around the swing, claws dragging sparks off the stone floor, and sank its teeth into the ogre's shoulder with a crunch that echoed like splitting wood.
The two monsters tore into each other, bones cracking, flesh ripping—an undead frenzy of rage and instinct.
Kade didn't wait.
He dragged himself backward, crawling across the wet stone, breath shaking, heart pounding.
The two creatures slammed into the far wall, and the chamber shuddered.
Kade didn't know which was worse.
The ogre.
The mutant.
Or the sound that came next.
It rose from the mutant's throat—low and shrill and wrong. Like metal screaming through a throat that shouldn't exist.
A roar that shook the air itself
"SKRRRRREEEEAAAAUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHH—!"