The guild headquarters of Eclipse was… underwhelming.

  A single, regur room made of dull stone, about the size of a small training hall. No banners, no personal quarters, no ste vaults—just a table, a few chairs, and a guild interface crystal mounted on the wall like a mockery of their situation. It was as bare-bones as it could get.

  Elias let out a slow sigh, dragging a hand down his face. "Okay. So, just to be clear… this is it?"

  Rael didn’t even look up. "This is it."

  Elias ran a hand along the rough stone wall, as if expeg a hidden partment to pop open and reveal anything of value. Nothing. "This is so sad. We’re a guild. We should have, I don’t know, an actual building. Maybe a sed room? A rug?"

  Leon, fortably sprawled in one of the rickety chairs, smirked. "Wele to Eclipse."

  Elias groaned. "I feel like I just got scammed."

  Gale, ever practical, leaned against the wall. "That’s what happens when you start at Level 1. No perks, no resources, just a name and a pce to sit."

  Elias gestured broadly. "Right, but this is a guild. Shouldn’t we have more than four people? You guys have been pying for a while—why not recruit?"

  Rael finally looked up from the interface. "Because we weren’t ready."

  Elias gave him a look. "Not ready for what? You and Leoop pyers. Shouldn’t people be lining up to join?"

  Rael tapped on his system interface a few times before sharing the information with everyone.

  65,214 recruitment requests.

  Elias stared. Then squihen rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. "...Huh."

  Leo out a low whistle. "Yeah, that tracks. Your name alone draws attention, and since people know I’m here too…"

  Gale frowned. "Still. That many?"

  Rael leaned ba his chair. "Most of them are bandwagoners. Pyers who just want in because of reputation. We’re not looking for that."

  Elias whistled. "I was expeg, like, a couple hundred. But this? This is a damn army."

  Leon smirked. "Too bad we only take in a few."

  Gale sighed, scrolling through the sheer volume of applications. "There's no way we manually gh all of these."

  Rael leaned back, tapping his fingers against the table. "We need a system. Something fast and effective."

  Elias nodded. "Right. Step one: filter out the weak."

  Gale raised a brow. "Define weak."

  Elias grinned. "Level 10s applying to a level 20+ guild. Sorry, little bro, but we are not a charity."

  Rael shook his head. "Level doesn’t determine skill."

  Leon leaned forward. "Agreed. Some of the best pyers started off at the bottom. It’s about potential, not numbers."

  Elias scoffed. "Okay, first of all, that sounds real inspiring and all, but we literally do not have the time to check if some level 10 is the prodigy. Sed, if they don’t evehe minimum entry requirements, why waste a slot?"

  Rael sighed. "Fine, we’ll set a baseline. Level 15 and up. Anyone below that, auto-rejeless they have a really good reason."

  Gale nodded. "That’s fair. What about csses?"

  Elias immediately jumped in. "Yeah, let’s filter out the weirdos. No offense, but I do not want some dude rolling up as a ‘Pacifist Monk’ or whatever."

  Leon frowned. "You’re the one who says weird builds are ued."

  "Yeah, when I do them," Elias shot back. "Not when some random guy who named himself ‘HideOnBush’ tries to vince me his uealth build is viable."

  Gale nodded. "Holy, he has a point. Some csses just don’t work in actual bat."

  Rael sidered it. "We’ll filter based on roles instead. If they actually tribute—tanks, damage, support—we give them a shot. No meme builds uhey prove they’re petent."

  Elias grinned. "So, you mean meme builds allowed if they’re good?"

  Rael sighed. "Yes, Elias. If someone solo a dungeon with nothing but bare pinkies, I am willing to resider."

  Elias threw his arms up. "Thank you! Finally, some vision."

  Leon ignored him. "Okay, so we’ve got a level cutoff and a css viability check. What else?"

  Rael hesitated. Then, after a beat, he said, "I asked them to send a reason for applying a while ago."

  Silence.

  Elias blinked. "I'm sorry. What?"

  Rael pulled up the filter settings. "We make them submit a reason. If it's just 'I wanna join a guild' or 'sounds cool,' we cut them."

  Leon raised a brow. "You seriously think that’s gonna narrow down 65,000 people?"

  Rael clicked firm.

  The list shrunk instantly.

  Now, only 500 names remained.

  A long silence followed.

  Then, three sets of eyes turoward Rael.

  Rael blinked. "What?"

  Gale squinted. "What standards do you even have?"

  Leon leaned forward, resting his on his hand. "Yeah, what exactly did you filter for?"

  Rael scrolled through the list and shrugged. "I asked them why they wao join."

  Elias sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh my god. Bro is literally an HR manager."

  Gale stared. Leed a hand down his face.

  Rael ighem. "I already had a filtering system in mind. I set it up days ago when I first saw how many applications were ing in. The system fgged duplicates, removed bot ats, and auto-rejected anyone who didn't meet basipeteandards—bad equipment, terrible win rates, zero recorded bat experience."

  Gale exhaled. "So you phis from the start."

  Rael nodded. "Of course. No way was I going to read through 65,000 applianually."

  Elias shook his head. "You're insane."

  Leon smirked. "No, he's just effit. Which is way scarier."

  Gale sighed. "Fine. So, what now?"

  Rael leaned back, pulling up the final list. "We split them into groups of 20 and run trials. Each group gets a leader—Leon, Gale, and me."

  Elias immediately raised a hand. "What about me?"

  Leon and Gale shared a look.

  Rael didn’t hesitate. "No."

  Elias gasped. "What do you mean, no?"

  Gale crossed his arms. "We’re actually trying to test people, not lead them into whatever chaos you’re about to cook up."

  Leon smirked. "Yeah, we’d like them to survive, if possible."

  Elias held a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I would never deliberately sabotage—"

  "Yes, you would," Rael, Gale, and Leon said in unison.

  Elias poi them acgly. "This is profiling."

  Rael sighed. "Fine. Just don't get everyone killed."

  Elias grinned. "Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be so responsible."

  Rael didn’t believe him for a sed.

  * * *

  The 500 pyers gathered before the dungeorance, a chaotic mess of noise and movement. There was no order—just a mass of gamers, some adjusting their gear, others eyeing the petition. A few had already started whispering among themselves, sizing up their ces.

  The dungeoraned behind them—a stone archway embedded in the rock, its interior pitch bck, flickering faintly as the instance waited to be activated. No difficulty ranking. Ns. Just a void waiting to be entered.

  Rael stood at the front, arms crossed, watg them.

  He had no expectations. Most of these people wouldn’t make the cut.

  "Check your system interface," he said. "Your team assigs are out."

  A flicker of system notifications washed over the croyers swiped their menus open.

  Annoyed murmurs rippled through them. Some were hoping to run with their friends, unfamiliar names in their party lists.

  Elias, standing beside Rael, smirked. "Bet half of them thought they could pick their own squads."

  Leon scoffed. "This isn’t some pre-made party finder. If they ’t adapt to eammates, they’re useless to us."

  Some pyers overheard that, their expressions tightening.

  Rael tinued, "We’re running four dungeon insta a time. Leon, Gale, Elias, and I will each take a group. Once we clear a run, the eam goes in."

  A pyer raised their haantly. "Uh… what does that mealy?"

  Rael answered pinly, "It means four separate dungeon runs will happen at the same time, ea its own instance. My team won’t be in the same dungeon as Leon’s, Gale’s, or Elias’s. The yout and enemies will be identical, but the groups won’t i. Oeam finishes, we bring in the batch."

  The pyers nodded in uanding, but a few looked uain. Four dungeon runs at a time—fast and effit.

  Elias rolled his shoulders. "That means no waiting around. If yroup is up, you move. If you’re te, you’re out."

  Gale took a step forward. "This isn’t a solo test. If you treat it like one, you won’t make it."

  Rael sed the crowd. Some of these pyers just wanted a puild tag. Others actually wanted a team. It didn’t matter. The dungeon would sort them out.

  Leon smirked. "And if any of you were pnning to coast through this, hoping to impress us ter—this dungeon will show us exactly what you're made of.".

  A ripple of tension passed through the gathered pyers.

  Some grinned. Others stiffened.

  Rael exhaled. "First four teams, step forward."

  A few deep breaths. ons adjusted. Magic auras flickered to life.

  The first real test was about to begin.

  * * *

  [Phase One] - [Rael’s Team]

  The dungeon rawling ruin, half-buried in creeping vines and shattered stone. Faint, eerie blue light filtered through cracks in the broken ceiling, casting long shadows as Rael’s team advanced.

  From the start, things were… disappointing.

  The pyers were petent, sure. They weren’t tripping over their ow or swinging at air. But that was the bare minimum.

  One pyer, a heavily armored knight, was too slow to react to an ining ambush. Rael had to step in and deflect the blow himself. Another, a rogue, seemed to have a det grasp of positioning but cked any real decisiveness.

  They weren’t bad. But they weren’t good, either.

  A pack of stone golems emerged from the ruins, their bodies glowing faintly with runic patterns. The team reacted well—no one pahe tanks held formation, the mages bsted from behind, and the melee fighters darted ihey could. It was . trolled. Effit.

  A, Rael felt… nothing.

  He rested his sword on his shoulder, watg the fight unfold. The golems crumbled one by one. No real mistakes. No real brilliance, either.

  They reached the mid-boss chamber—a wide, circur room with a massive armored seanding motionless at its ter. As soon as they stepped is eyes fred to life, and it moved.

  The fight began.

  Rael didn’t eveo step in. The team followed standard raid tactics: tanks engaged first, DPS focused on oints, mages trolled the battlefield. The sentinel was strong but predictable.

  Five mier, it colpsed into dust.

  Rael sighed. Not a single one of them stood out.

  "This isn’t looking good."

  He rolled his shoulders, debating whether he should just power through the rest of the dungeon. But then a thought hit him—how were the others doing?

  Especially Elias.

  [MEANWHILE] - [Elias’s Team]

  The atmosphere in Elias’s instance was nothing short of hellish.

  Not because the dungeon was hard.

  Because Elias was worse than the dungeon.

  The moment they stepped ihe nightmare began.

  The first mistake was expeg a normal dungeon crawl. The sed was assuming Elias would help.

  He had warhem exactly once before they entered:

  "If you’re bad at watg your step, this is gonna suck."

  It sucked.

  The first corridor was deceptively peaceful. Dimly lit stone walls, a smooth tiled floor, and a faint breeze filtering through unsees. The air smelled faintly of moss and old part.

  Theraps started.

  An archer took point, stepping forward with practiced ease. He pressed his foot down lightly—

  Click.

  The grouh him colpsed.

  Before anyone could react, he was already falling, vanishing into a dark pit. His scream echoed for a sed before a muffled thud sounded from below.

  The team froze in horror.

  Elias didn’t even blink. He peeked into the pit. "...Still alive?"

  A pained groan came from the depths.

  "Good." Elias straightened. "That’s one down."

  The remaining members hesitated. One of the mages swallowed. "Uh… shouldn’t we pull him back up?"

  Elias shrugged. "He climb."

  The trapped archer let out a weak, "I ’t climb!"

  "Then he fails."

  The group stared at him in disbelief.

  Elias raised an eyebrow. "What? You think this dungeon is about fighting? I thought so too—turns out, it’s mostly about surviving. Sihe yout ges every run, I adjusted this one a bit. Fewer monsters, more traps. If you ’t even walk without dying, you don’t deserve to be here."

  A tense silence followed. Then, one brave soul hesitantly asked, "H-How many more traps are there…?"

  Elias smiled.

  No one asked again.

  They tinued forward.

  The hallorse.

  Spike traps. Arrows firing from unseen slits in the walls. Magic glyphs that turhe floor into ice without warning.

  A knight strode forward fidently, raising his shield—only for the grouh him to turn friless. His legs shot out from under him, and he crashed onto his back. Before he could get up, an arrow whizzed past his face, embedding into the stone beside his head.

  He froze.

  Elias hummed. "Better start moving. one might actually hit."

  The knight scrambled to his feet, sliding awkwardly across the icy surface. The rest of the team hesitated, sing the ground for more traps.

  A rogue decided to be clever and leaped over a suspicious tile—

  Only to nd directly on a hidden pressure pte.

  A sharp click echoed through the hall.

  A sed ter, the walls groaned as spikes shot out from both sides. The rogue’s eyes widened in horror, but before he could react—

  Nothing happened.

  The spikes stopped inches from his body, trembling in pce. He exhaled in relief. "Oh, thank god—"

  The floor beh him suddenly flipped over, dumping him into a cealed chute. His scream faded into the depths.

  Elias nodded in approval. "Traps are simple. Just don’t mess up."

  "Easy for you to say!" someone snapped.

  Elias tilted his head. "Yeah."

  No oalked back after that.

  Panic spread through the team like wildfire. No one knew if they should step forward or stay still. The dungeon wasn’t even that dangerous.

  Elias was.

  He wove through the chaos like he knew where everything was. He epped on a sirap himself, making it look effortless. Every time someoated, every time someo hit, he just stared.

  An Assassin got hit by a dart trap.

  Elias g them. "That’s two minutes off your time. grats."

  Another pyer, cautious but unlucky, avoided oe only to activate another.

  Elias clicked his tongue. "You’re thinking too hard. Just move properly."

  They barely even fought monsters. Most of the enemies were shredded by their own triggered traps before the team could react.

  Instead, they fought Elias’s mind games.

  By the time they reached the mid-boss, half the team looked ready to break. But somehow, despite the chaos, they were fast.

  Bzing fast.

  The mid-boss went down in record time. Not because of strategy, but because the team was so desperate to get out that they fought with everything they had.

  By the time they reached the final boss, they had bee a well-oiled mae. Out of pure, abject fear.

  And when the dungeon was finally cleared?

  They sprinted out.

  * * *

  The leaderboard obelisk flickered.

  [Elias’s Team – 1st Clear]pletion Time: 17:32

  A murmur spread through the crowd.

  "Already?"

  "Seventeen minutes? No way—"

  Before anyone could process it, the dungeon portal fred.

  Elias stepped out.

  Alone.

  Unscathed. Unbothered. His rapier rested zily on his shoulder as he sed the crowd. He looked bored.

  A siletled over the applits.

  Then—the portal fshed again.

  And someone crawled out.

  A rogue. Face pale. Hands shaking. He dragged himself forward, arms trembling as if he barely had the strength to move.

  Someoated, stepping forward. "Uh… you good?"

  The rogue lifted his head. Eyes hollow. Soul shattered.

  His mouth opened.

  But no words came out.

  Just a weak, haunted wheeze.

  Then—a broken, barely coherent whisper:

  "…They… hhggh… s-speed… t-t-traps… hhkk—"

  The puy colpsed.

  A pause.

  Before anyone could process that—

  The portal burst open again.

  And the rest of Elias’s team came flying out.

  Not walking.

  Running for their lives.

  A Knight leaped out like he was esg a colpsing building, nded hard, and scrambled forward without looking back. A mage nearly tripped over him, caught herself, a going. One cleric actually screamed.

  The moment they spotted Elias waiting outside, they all skidded to a stop.

  Then, like they had rehearsed it, they all bowed.

  "THANK YOU FOR YUIDANCE!"

  And immediately, they ran off again.

  The entire crowd just… stared.

  Then someone cautiously turo Elias. "Uh… what exactly did you—?"

  Elias shrugged. "Traihem."

  The rogue's body twitched.

  The crowd collectively took a step back.

  At that moment, for the first time sihe trials began, everyog realized there was something scarier than the dungeon itself.

  Chad God.

  WatgTomorrow