The Crusade was a multidimensional realm that connected millions of universes into a single point. Entities that humanity had never seen before appeared within it.

Those who answered the call of the Crusade and awakened a Trait were known as Runners. If a Runner survived their first tunnel run and registered with Nexus, the governing system of the Crusade, they ascended to the rank of Crusader.

For a Crusader, the path was a climb toward immortality. For the rest of humanity, a single Crusader in the family was a golden ticket.

It was a guarantee of safety and prosperity that could sustain a bloodline for generations. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Wait... wait..." Ayla flailed her arms as if trying to stop the memories of Jaxon. "Why did you need to secure the lives of your future generations?" she asked into the air.

She floated in the water without any clothes, drifting as she lazily dozed. She had become bored after the monotonous hunt before.

They weren’t exciting at all. That was why she decided to sift through Jaxon’s mind with more care, but the data only confused her.

Because she had only devoured his memories, the underlying motivations remained a puzzle she had to solve alone.

Human relationships were particularly baffling. In some ways, they reminded her of slimes; their primary drive was simple continuity. Hunger.

Yet, unlike slimes, they didn’t consume their own kind.

"But they do kill their own," she murmured. Her lips pursed in thought. They simply did not eat them. What a waste of fresh brains.

Humans were too complex. They felt both different and familiar to a monster like her.

She was too confused by them. This would not have been a problem if she were older and had more experience.

The memories she devoured were, after all, just memories. Like perfectly captured scenes, they did not carry the experience one gained by living through them. The layered and rigid rules within those memories were what made them special.

Ayla’s curiosity grew with that complexity. How would it feel to experience every kind of human emotion instead of watching them as an observer?

Happiness, sadness, love, lust—all of it felt completely different from monsters. For monsters, there was no happiness, sadness, love, or lust. There was only a single, unchanging drive to continue.

They followed that drive until something blocked their path. Only then did something like emotion appear. If not, they simply continued their set course.

Ayla wanted to break that cycle. She wanted to be like the humans. No, she wanted to be better. She sought to surpass every intelligent race in existence.

To do that, she had to stop being a simple monster. She had to forge a path of her own, and her Trait would be the hammer that shaped it.

A breathtaking smile spread across her face. The sight of an ethereal woman smiling beautifully while floating in the slime-choked water of the Tunnel would have been lethal to any onlooker.

But there was no one left to see it. Every soul who had entered this tunnel was currently being hunted by the swarms of an Apocalyptic-level boss.

*

* *

"Damn it. Damn it..." Martin Hazelwood cursed as he ran.

Behind him, a swarm of Bloodnet spiders followed. He was one of the retainers of the Hazelwood family. Retainers were Runners with a Trait below D-grade. Their only purpose was to follow the run of their liege. In simple terms, they were meat shields.

Albeit this was a grim duty, those who failed to awaken a powerful Trait often willingly chose to be a retainer.

Getting support from a powerful family was one benefit, but the true draw was the aftermath of a successful mission. If they survived alongside the talented disciples of great families, they could harvest the residual rewards of a Run.

Now, however, Martin was beginning to doubt the price. The clicking of chitinous legs echoed through the damp tunnel, growing louder with every frantic breath he took.

His liege had vanished into the shadows moments ago, leaving the shields to deal with the consequences of a disturbed nest.

The air grew thick with the scent of iron and rot. Martin pushed his legs to their limit, his boots splashing through the slime that coated the floor.

He knew the statistics. Meat shields rarely became veterans. They usually just became obstacles that slowed the monsters down long enough for the important people to escape.

"Just one more turn," he wheezed, his lungs burning. "If I can find a crevice, I might live to see the rewards."

Martin skidded around a jagged rock formation and nearly lost his footing on the slick ground. The frantic clicking of the spiders seemed to fade, replaced by an eerie, heavy silence.

The air here was different. It was warmer, smelling ofsomething sweet, like lilies blooming in a graveyard.

He burst into a wide, cavernous grotto where the tunnel floor dipped into a deep, crystalline pool. The water was congested with thick ribbons of translucent slimes. No—dead slimes.

Martin froze. His heart, which had been hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, seemed to stop entirely. In the center of the glowing pool, a woman floated.

She was entirely naked, her skin looking like polished marble against the dark, murky bioluminescence of the water.

Her hair drifted around her like a silken shroud, and her face possessed a level of beauty that seemed to take his breath away.

Although she looked like a human, Martin preferred to consider her as a piece of perfectly crafted heaven. She was lazily dozing, her body bobbing gently in the slime-choked current.

Martin stood paralyzed.

The terror of the Bloodnet spiders behind him was suddenly eclipsed by awe. Everything about this woman screamed "wrong."

He understood it clearly. Yet he was too attracted to even move. He wanted to look away, to run, to scream, but his muscles refused to obey.

The woman opened her eyes. Her golden pupils alone lit the dark tunnel. Her unfocused gaze sharpened in an instant as she snapped toward him.

The spiders reached the opening, forcing Martin to jump into the water. He swam toward her without thinking, desperate and blind with panic.

"Lady, run..." Perhaps it was instinct. He truly did not want someone so beautiful to die here. In that moment of urgency, he ignored everything strange about her.

She only looked at him, her gaze calm and distant, as if weighing something.

She did not move even after he reached her. Behind him, dozens of spiders plunged into the water, their bodies slicing through the surface as they gave chase.

"You..." Martin choked, unsure where to look. She was too beautiful to ignore, yet it felt wrong to stare at her like this. His eyes flickered away, then back again, caught in conflict even as death closed in.

The woman tilted her head slightly and looked past him.

Her hand moved.

It was a small motion. Almost lazy.

And then everything changed.

"Too hot..." was all Martin managed to say as the smell of burning flesh filled his nose.