---

  BZZZT.

  The dorm intercom crackled alive like it was being electrocuted by regret.

  > “ALL ROOKIE COUNTERS. WAKE UP AND REPORT TO THE MAIN HALL. IMMEDIATELY.”

  Kun shot up, hair exploding like he’d fought a lightning elemental in his dreams.

  > “THE FUCK—IT’S STILL DARK OUT.”

  Suho rolled over with a groan.

  > “You snored like a dying motorcycle.”

  Smiley? Still wrapped like a cursed burrito. Probably in a coma dream fighting God.

  Zhangwa? Awake, brushing her teeth while aggressively doing squats in front of the mirror.

  Jackson sat on his bed, elbows on his knees, staring forward like a man already tired of everyone’s shit.

  Kun cracked open the door—

  —and locked eyes with a girl across the hall.

  Disheveled hair. Oversized shirt. No bra. Eyes empty. Soul gone.

  They stared.

  Zhangwa appeared over his shoulder, toothbrush in mouth.

  > “She got that sleep paralysis drip.”

  Kun closed the door, leaned back against it like he just saw the edge of time.

  > “I’ve seen God.

  And She forgot her underwire.”

  ---

  Main Hall – Rookie Pza

  The rookie hall was chaos.

  Magic surged. Air crackled. Somebody was throwing miniature suns at a wall for fun.

  A recruit levitated past them on a hoverboard wearing two belts and no pants.

  Kun turned to Suho, whispering:

  > “This pce is Hogwarts for PTSD speedrunners.”

  > “You’ll be expelled in five minutes,” Suho said, deadpan.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  Footsteps.

  Mr. Park entered like someone who’d killed wars for breakfast. Clipboard in hand. Face like sculpted fury.

  > “LISTEN UP, YOU GLORIFIED SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS.”

  Kun immediately saluted.

  > “Yes, especially you, Mr. Fermented-Hair-Product.”

  Zhangwa exploded in ughter.

  Kun whispered, “He remembers me. We’re bonding.”

  > “Today, you’re assigned squads. One leader. One private training room. You survive together, or you’ll be mopped off the walls.”

  The giant war cathedral of a hall pulsed with tension. Steel arches curved overhead like a gothic spaceship. Glowing banners flickered midair, shifting emblems and kill counts every second.

  One by one, names were called. Groups gathered. Some looked like elite warriors.

  Then—

  > “Squad 13. JACKSON DRAKE.”

  Jackson stepped forward. Calm. Silent.

  > “You’re the leader,” Park said. “Squad name is… Oblivion.”

  The air changed.

  Even the banners flickered in glitchy silence.

  Oblivion echoed across the chamber like a death sentence.

  Suho’s jaw tightened.

  > “Oblivion?” Kun muttered. “We dead already?”

  Even Jackson’s eyes flickered.

  Oblivion, huh. Better name than Tombstone.

  Then came it:

  > “WAIT!” Zhangwa yelled. “Can we name ourselves Bunnymaniacs instead?!”

  Everyone turned. Even a floating rookie paused mid-fireball.

  Mr. Park’s nostrils fred. If expressions could kill, Zhangwa would be ash.

  > “UGH, HELL NO!”

  Suho, Kun, and still-unconscious Smiley shouted in unison.

  Smiley didn’t even look up.

  > “Still asleep. Still hate it.”

  Zhangwa’s lips trembled.

  She reached into her hoodie and pulled out a glow-in-the-dark sticker: a bunny with a bloody cleaver.

  > “I stayed up st night,” she grinned. “Used glow-in-the-dark ink and fear.”

  Jackson squinted.

  > “Why does it have fangs?”

  Mika, from across the pza, tilted her head.

  > “I like it.”

  Everyone turned.

  > “YOU LIKE IT?”

  > “Chaos is better than silence,” she said.

  She didn’t eborate. She never did.

  Zhangwa lit up like a 2-year-old demon child on sugar.

  > “SEE?! She gets it!”

  Then Kun—against all known logic and social ws—stand beside her and gently wiped her fake tears.

  > “There, there. You little menace.

  You’ll make a great cult mascot someday.”

  > “DON’T TOUCH ME, PERVERT!! I’M SIXTEEN!!!”

  She chucked a pack of gummies straight at his face. It hit like napalm. Half-melted. Slightly alive.

  > “WHY IS IT WET—”

  > “I’M CALLING HR!!”

  > “We don’t have HR,” Suho muttered.

  > “THEN I’LL BUILD ONE WITH MY GUMMIES.”

  CRACK.

  Mr. Park smmed his clipboard.

  The chaos snapped silent.

  He stared them down like a loaded rifle.

  > “Laugh it up. Call yourselves whatever you want.

  But remember this—Oblivion isn’t a name. It’s a warning.”

  No one dared speak.

  > “You’ll be diving into the Counterside soon.

  Where Category 2s chew rookies like popcorn. Smile while you can.”

  A hush rolled across the room like pressure before a bomb.

  Mr. Park turned to Jackson.

  > “Dismissed. Squad 13 is now Oblivion.

  Get them to the training room.”

  > “…God help you.”

  Mr. Park’s voice still thundered behind them, ricocheting off steel walls like a war drum echoing through a battlefield.

  > “Squad 16! Move your damn feet before I repce you with vending machines!”

  Squad 13—no, Oblivion Squad now—trailed through the corridor like a mismatched parade of doomed rookies. The hall stretched ahead in surgical precision. Wide. Sterile. White lights hummed above in long strips, casting harsh shadows beneath their boots. The kind of lighting that made hospitals feel too honest—like you weren’t meant to hide anything here.

  Kun stretched mid-step, yawning. “Man, this pce is cleaner than a corpse in a soap opera.”

  Smiley, hands in his pockets, voice low: “Only thing missing is a priest and a body bag.”

  Jackson led at the front—rigid, focused, silent. A tablet in one hand, eyes sharp. He didn’t gnce back. Behind him, Suho walked with a quiet rhythm, scanning the walls like they held secrets he needed to memorize before they exploded.

  Zhangwa was skipping.

  Kun whispered, “We’re going to die in here and she’s gonna die happy.”

  Then the hallway opened into something wider. Taller. Quieter.

  A chamber. Empty. Hollow in sound.

  And at its center—the door.

  Not a door. A monolith.

  Jet-bck. Unnaturally smooth. No panels, no hinges. Its surface shimmered like oil under fractured light, warping reflections like it was made of liquid shadow. And above it, etched in bleeding rust—

  13

  The number looked like it had been carved in pain.

  Mika blinked. “That’s our training room?”

  Zhangwa gasped. “It looks like the entrance to a demon's mouth! I love it!”

  Kun nodded, arms wide. “Correction. That’s the cover art of a death metal album. We just need fog, screams, and maybe a goat skull.”

  Jackson didn’t smile. Didn’t even flinch. His voice was steady. “This is the Oblivion Room. Our official training ground.”

  Mika’s expression twitched.

  Zhangwa cpped her hands. “Oh, it has a name? How ominous!”

  Kun leaned toward Suho and muttered, “Why do I feel like this was designed by a guy with unresolved trauma and a horror movie obsession?”

  Suho didn’t respond, but his hand subtly drifted toward the hilt of his bde.

  Then—the door opened.

  No keycard. No terminal. No command.

  It just... responded. As if it had been waiting.

  The sound it made wasn’t mechanical. It groaned like old bones shifting after centuries.

  And beyond it?

  Darkness.

  Not just dim.

  Not shadowed.

  Living bck. Oppressive. Heavy. The kind of dark that had weight, that crawled up your skin like it had cws.

  The hallway noise vanished the moment they stepped past the threshold. Like sound itself refused to follow them inside.

  The air shifted. Dryer. Colder. And wrong.

  Suho felt it immediately. Not just temperature—history.

  There was blood in this pce.

  Not fresh. Not visible.

  But ancient. Etched into silence. Screamed into the walls.

  A memory that had never left.

  The lights from the corridor didn’t follow. Only faint rings above, pulsing slow and red like the heartbeat of something asleep. Or pretending to be.

  Jackson’s boots echoed like gunshots.

  Zhangwa whispered, “This is so cool.”

  Smiley, voice ft, muttered—

  > “This isn’t a training room.”

  > “This is a grave.”

  They stepped in.

  One by one.

  The door hissed behind them.

  And sealed shut.

  ---

  The door sealed shut behind them with a hiss—cold and final.

  The moment it did, soft lights blinked on overhead. One by one.

  A soft click… click… click… echoed through the darkness.

  And suddenly—

  light.

  A massive room unfolded before them. Smooth steel walls. Polished floors. Vending machines humming against the far wall. Weapon racks lining the sides. A digital panel glowing in one corner.

  A full training ground—wide, cold, pristine.

  And in the middle?

  A fridge.

  Kun blinked. His jaw dropped.

  “…Holy—THIS PLACE IS SO F**KING COOL, MAN!”

  Zhangwa sprinted ahead like a kid in a toy store.

  “We got GYMS, vending machines, training dummies, an impact cage, and a FRI-I-IIDGE!!”

  She leapt onto a stationary bike and pedaled like she was five years old on a fake horse ride at a rundown carnival.

  “I call dibs on this steed! Name’s Razorhoof!”

  Mika sat calmly on a bench, pulling out her phone like this was all routine.

  “…Not bad,” she muttered, already scrolling.

  Smiley flopped backward onto a training mat and started snoring.

  Suho stood near the wall, gazing upward, eyes narrowed. Watching. Thinking.

  ---

  Jackson stepped forward, slowly scanning the room.

  The lights were bright, but not harsh. The air was unnaturally clean. Too clean.

  “…I thought this pce would feel like an execution site,” he muttered.

  Then his voice dropped a little lower.

  “But this… this is heaven.”

  Zhangwa was trying to climb the fridge by now.

  “THE GUMMIES LIVE HERE NOW! I AM THEIR QUEEN!”

  Kun walked slowly, turning in a slow circle.

  “…Why does it feel like a YouTuber gym designed by military psychos?”

  The lights buzzed softly above them.

  There was no echo in the room. Every sound was absorbed.

  Like the walls had no intention of letting anything out.

  ---

  Jackson walked deeper. His boots tapped softly.

  He reached out and ran his hand along the wall.

  “No scuffs. No wear. Not even dust.”

  He frowned.

  “Pces don’t stay this clean unless someone’s watching.”

  Suho’s gaze tracked upward—toward the far corner of the ceiling.

  A tiny red dot blinked. Subtle. Steady.

  The hum in the vents shifted.

  Like the room was breathing.

  Jackson stared at the floor.

  “This isn’t a training room,” he said.

  “It’s a test chamber.”

  Silence.

  Then—

  > “ALRIGHT DADDY! SHOW US WHAT YOU GOT!” Zhangwa screamed, raising her gummy bag like a war banner.

  Jackson flinched like he’d taken psychic damage.

  “…What?”

  Kun turned to Suho. “She’s legally not our problem, right?”

  Suho: “Depends if we survive.”

  Jackson sighed like a man whose protein shake just exploded in his gym bag.

  “…Fine. I’ll go first.”

  The room hummed louder.

  Like it was listening.

  Waiting.

  ---

  ---

  The room hummed with anticipation.

  Oblivion Squad stood in the heart of their private training chamber—steel floors smooth enough to reflect ghosts, light panels above casting pale illumination across the pristine facility. A quiet dread lingered in the air, hidden beneath the hum of vending machines and the distant drone of energy generators.

  Jackson cracked his neck.

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  He stepped forward. His boots thudded softly against the ground—each step deliberate, weighted. The moment he reached the front of the room, a red light blinked above the weapon racks.

  The test had begun.

  Jackson exhaled once—and moved.

  Like a sledgehammer with the grace of a dancer, he unched into motion. A single punch shattered the reinforced dummy’s torso. A roundhouse kick dented a metal column. His strikes weren’t fshy—they were brutal, calcuted, efficient.

  Then: TING-TING-TING!

  Gun turrets dropped from the ceiling, whirring to life. A barrage of live rounds tore through the air—aimed straight for his chest.

  He didn’t flinch.

  The bullets collided with his skin and bounced off, leaving only minor welts.

  “God damn,” Kun muttered, impressed. “He’s built like an armored truck.”

  Jackson powered forward through the rain of bullets, crushing the turrets with his bare fists. One final sm, and sparks showered across the floor.

  “…Next,” he said, wiping blood from his lip like it annoyed him.

  Zhangwa rocketed forward before anyone could react.

  “MY TURN! ZOOM ZOOM SLASH SLASH DIEEEEEE!!”

  She bounced off the walls, flipping through the air like a deranged pinball. Her katana carved through six dummies in a blur of silver and screams.

  “Hi-YAAAA!” she howled, bringing her bde down in an overhead strike that split a training dummy clean in two.

  Suho, silently observing, narrowed his eyes.

  His gaze locked onto the serpent-shaped emblem coiled around the hilt of her bde.

  A mark he recognized.

  No way… that mark…

  He said nothing. But his mind raced.

  “Is she done?” Kun asked, ducking as Zhangwa flipped over him.

  “BEHOLD! RAZOR STRIKE—CARNIVAL DEATH PARADE!”

  “Okay yeah, she’s not done.”

  Zhangwa crashed into a dummy with a flying kick that sent it spiraling. She nded, grinning like a gremlin, panting, wild-eyed.

  “Gummies,” she breathed. “I need gummies.”

  “Bro,” Kun muttered. “She’s possessed.”

  “BROOOO,” Zhangwa barked. “I AM THE POSSESSION.”

  Jackson facepalmed. “You two—next.”

  Kun rolled his shoulders. “Alright. Showtime.”

  Shadow surged from his boots, swirling like liquid smoke. His fingers twitched—forming bdes.

  First a dagger. Then a scythe. Then a gun. Then—

  “Argh, screw it.” The shadows morphed into a katana, long and jagged.

  Mika, watching from the bench, raised a brow. “That’s not C-rank.”

  Jackson didn’t respond. But his jaw clenched.

  “You feel it?” she asked quietly.

  Kun vanished.

  Then reappeared across the room.

  Another blur—gone.

  Then back.

  He zigzagged through the dummies, leaving sshes of pitch-bck trails, his katana cutting shadows into the air itself.

  “SLASH-SLASH-SLASH—”

  “KUN! YOU’RE MAKING ME DIZZY!” Zhangwa yelled, spinning like a malfunctioning fan.

  “SHUT UP, BUNNY CRAP,” he shot back, mid-flip.

  “BUNNY WHAT?!”

  Her furious squeal echoed as she unched a gummy barrage. Kun caught one mid-air and bit it like a smug anime protagonist.

  “Strawberry fvor,” he grinned. “Power boost.”

  Suho stepped forward next. Quiet. Calm.

  The air shifted.

  He raised one hand—Void magic bleeding into existence like ink across water.

  Dummies dissolved without being touched. One, two, four—entire clusters vanished into a whisper of nothing.

  Then—he raised his palm. A vortex formed—bck, swirling, depthless.

  A low hum filled the room.

  Everyone stopped.

  The vortex expanded.

  Reality bent.

  A section of the wall fractured—cracked open like gss under pressure.

  “…Void manipution,” Jackson whispered.

  Mika’s eyes widened. “That’s not just rare.”

  Jackson muttered, stunned—“This is impossible. No Counter has this power…”

  Then—

  “DID SOMEONE SUMMON THE APOCALYPSE?” Smiley sat up mid-snore.

  Half-asleep, he stumbled forward, yawned, and poked a dummy.

  Pop.

  It turned into a loaf of bread.

  A fresh one.

  Everyone stared.

  Zhangwa shrieked, “BREADS!!”

  She dove onto it like a wild animal, ripped a chunk, and shoved it in her mouth.

  “W-WHAT—THIS TASTES LIKE A BURNT CORRUPTED OBJECT!”

  Kun blinked. “Wait—have you… eaten one before?”

  “YOU ASSHOLE!” she screamed, full gremlin mode activated, hurling gummy wrappers at his face.

  Smiley yawned. “Eh. Tastes better than the cafeteria.”

  Jackson stared at all of them.

  Then toward Suho and Kun.

  His eyes darkened. His pulse pounded.

  He had fought monsters. Led squads. Watched soldiers die.

  But nothing prepared him for this.

  He looked at the ground, voice barely above a whisper.

  “…If those two really are what I think they are…”

  His fists tightened.

  “…Squad 13 might be more dangerous than anything outside that wall.”

  ---

  The training room still buzzed with leftover tension as Oblivion Squad slumped along the benches. The lingering scent of metal, sweat, and slightly burned dummies clung to the air like battlefield smoke after a war drill.

  Smiley was already face-down on a mat, snoring like a cursed relic sealed in slumber.

  Mika sat on the bench, scrolling through her wristband with casual detachment.

  Kun dropped beside her, still catching his breath. “Umm, hello… how’s your day?” he asked, voice hopeful.

  She didn’t even blink. “Can you go annoy someone else?”

  “Oof,” Kun clutched his chest. “Right in the soul.”

  Then, from across the room—

  > “GUYS! LET’S GO TO THE CAFETERIA! THEY HAVE SNACKS, BURGERS, SMOOTHIES, AND—”

  > “Shut up,” Smiley grunted, not even looking up. “You’re louder than the vending machines.”

  Zhangwa pouted. “Fiiine…”

  Then muttered, “Still getting a burger though.”

  Jackson stood and stretched his back with a loud pop. “Alright, Oblivion. Let’s roll out. I need protein before I start chewing the walls.”

  The heavy doors hissed open, and the cold hallway light spilled in. One by one, the squad filed out like soldiers leaving a battlefield behind.

  > “Don’t leave me behind…” Smiley groaned, dragging himself upright like a haunted mummy.

  > “Then walk faster, nap demon,” Jackson snapped.

  The corridor’s lights glowed in a steady pulse above them, casting faint shadows along the sterile white floor.

  Kun kept pace beside Mika, undeterred. “Uhh… do you have a boyfriend?”

  Suho groaned. “God, not again.”

  Jackson sighed. “We survived death training for this?”

  Zhangwa nearly choked on a gummy, hacking like she’d just inhaled an entire bag of powdered sugar.

  Smiley muttered something about “emotional trauma” and walked into the wall.

  Mika remained quiet for a moment…

  Then finally spoke.

  > “No.”

  Kun blinked. “Wait, no what?”

  She gnced at him. Her voice was calm. Ft. Confident.

  > “No boyfriend.”

  A pause.

  She turned slightly, walking ahead—then tossed a casual smirk over her shoulder.

  > “Yet.”

  Kun froze. Zhangwa’s mouth dropped open like she just witnessed a meteor nd.

  > “W-WAIT SHE LIKES YOU?!?”

  > “Haters stay silent,” Kun grinned like he just won the lottery.

  Mika turned to Zhangwa and gently patted her on the back. “Careful, gremlin. Don’t choke.”

  > “WHY DOES EVERYONE CALL ME GREMLIN?!” Zhangwa shouted.

  > “Because you act like one,” Smiley mumbled without missing a beat.

  Then—

  FWOOOOOSH.

  A massive fireball tore through the corridor. It scorched the air as it roared past them, crackling like a war drum made of fme. The heat bsted across their faces—brief, violent, and real.

  Its origin was hidden—somewhere deep in the chaos ahead.

  The hallway lights flickered. The scorched floor still sizzled.

  Everyone froze.

  > “What the fu—” Kun breathed, eyes wide.

  Suho’s hand was already on his bde.

  > “Welcome to the cafeteria,” he muttered.

  ---