I jolted awake, my heart pounding in my chest. My breaths came in quick gasps, my skin damp with sweat despite the cool air. Blinking, I scanned the clearing, trying to ground myself.

  Everyone else was still out cold.

  The clearing was quiet, except for the gentle flow of the nearby stream. Everything was calm, but my chest was tight, and my thoughts were spinning.

  I eased myself up, careful not to wake anyone.

  Moving quietly, I slipped toward the sound of flowing water. I crouched down and scooped up a handful of the cool water, splashing it onto my face.

  Leaning over, I stared at my reflection in the water. My already pale face looked even paler, and my hair clung to my forehead.

  “What the hell was that?”

  The way everyone acted, their voices, the way the shadows dragged Valerian through that door… and how I was pulled right along with him. It didn’t feel like just a dream. It felt like something or someone wanted me to see it.

  Bits and pieces of the dream flashed through my mind: the door, the hands, Valerian’s last order: Find him. Help him.

  Who was he talking about?

  The breeze stirred again, sending ripples across the stream and distorting my reflection. I sighed, splashing my face one more time before laying back.

  Was it really just a dream? Or something else entirely?

  I didn’t have the answers, not yet. But one thing was clear: this wasn’t something I could just brush off.

  The dream felt like it had more to it—it was too vivid, too specific to dismiss as my mind playing tricks. It was evident now that in this reality, the rules I once lived by no longer applied.

  Monsters, skills, levels—they all existed here. If I could accept that, then I had to expand my thinking further. I had to consider that certain occurrences weren’t coincidences but deliberate, meaningful events. If this dream was more than just a dream, then maybe it was a message—something or someone trying to communicate with me through this surreal medium.

  If that was the case, then I couldn’t dismiss the vivid dream I’d had back on the second floor. The one with the winter tide consuming the obviously modern city, and the woman dying in my arms as she called out for a champion.

  A champion.

  The word stuck with me. It felt familiar, yet it was something I couldn’t quite place.

  Where have I heard that before?

  I racked my brain, sifting through memories, trying to piece it together. Then, it hit me.

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  The moment. The one that had changed everything. The moment before I’d been transported into Leon’s body, into this world.

  It was the game The system prompt—it had said something. Something about a champion.

  I closed my eyes, the memory rushing back with clarity.

  [You’ve proven your worth as a champion. Passage granted to challenge the dungeon’s true depths.]

  My breath hitched as the realization sank in. The system had called me a champion.

  Was it a coincidence? No, I couldn’t think that way anymore. This was connected. The dream, the game, the message—it all pointed to something bigger, something I hadn’t yet grasped.

  The woman in the dream had called for a champion. The system had declared me one.

  Those two pieces connected like matching parts of a puzzle, but there were still too many blank spaces.

  I needed to dig deeper.

  What else had I seen in the dream? The snowstorm, the overwhelming cold biting at my skin, the streets, the faint outlines of modern buildings. The setting was clear. It wasn’t some fantastical place; it was Earth.

  The snowstorm wasn’t just weather. It was a veil, obscuring what was to come. Past that veil, creatures had begun to emerge. Monsters. Their shapes and sizes varied wildly—some were as small as humans, others towered like skyscrapers. They came in waves, surrounding me, their numbers growing exponentially until there was no escape.

  This was a warning.

  Lila’s Pathfinder ability back in the boss rush reward room had confirmed that there was a link between Dungeon End and Earth.

  And if that connection existed, then the monsters in this place weren’t just confined to this world.

  We're they heading to Earth?

  The pieces started falling into place, one after another. The dream was showing me the future. The snowstorm wasn’t an over dramatic artistic choice; it was a timestamp.

  When I’d left Earth, it was pretty much the end of winter and the approaching spring.

  Was it trying to inform me that once winter came. The monsters wouldn’t stay confined to Dungeon End.

  They’d invade Earth!?

  If there was a connection between the two worlds, then that connection was about to snap open, spilling chaos onto Earth.

  An invasion of monsters, born from Dungeon End, pouring into a world that didn’t have skills, levels, or adventurers. A world that didn’t stand a chance.

  The thought sent a chill down my spine.

  But there was another piece—something I couldn’t shake.

  The woman in the dream had called for a champion. The system had called me one. But why? What did being a champion even mean in all of this?

  That wasn’t just a title—it was a designation, a purpose.

  But for what? What was my role in all this? Why had I been brought here? Was it to stop the invasion? To prepare for it? To stand as Earth’s last line of defense.

  And today’s dream…

  Though it wasn’t exactly what I’d seen on the game screen, the connections were undeniable. The words from the recipe book I’d read and the events I’d just witnessed in my dream aligned too well to dismiss.

  Valerian had been forcefully dragged beyond the 100th floor, leaving his party behind.

  Valerian was most likely corrupted. The way to proceed past the door required the God’s Gift artifact. And there was someone—some key individual—that both Valerien and Cyrus knew of.

  Who that person was, and what their role might be, was a mystery.

  I stared at my reflection in the stream, the ripples distorting my face as the weight of realization bore down on me.

  And then there was God’s Gift. Guarded fiercely by the powerhouses of this world.

  If the dream was true, then I’d have to find a way to acquire it.

  And finally, there was Valerian.

  The greatest adventurer this dungeon had ever seen. The man who had reached the end of Dungeon End, only to be dragged into something even deeper. If I was to take on the role of champion, then it would all lead to a final battle against him. Against a corrupted version of the most powerful leader this dungeon had ever known.

  The thought sent a shiver through me.

  Let’s just hope that all of this is really just a dream and I’m being overly delusional, I thought, a bitter laugh escaping my lips.

  Please, let it be just a dream and not some directives. Not a call for action. Not a ticking clock warning me of the fading days of Spring , the Summer that would quickly follow, and the inevitable arrival of Winter.