[: 3rd POV :]

Arcturus eyes lingered on the bloodstained warehouse for a long, heavy moment.

His expression was carved from stone, but his mind was racing, weighing options, risks, and the weight of six thousand souls.

Finally, he turned to face his people.

"Listen well," he began, his voice firm, yet carrying an edge of tension that none could ignore.

"We are standing at the threshold of something far larger than any of us imagined"

"One wrong move, and this entire mission collapses, along with every innocent life we came here to save."

The murmurs that had begun to rise among the guild members died instantly.

Every warrior, mage, and scout locked their eyes on their Guild Master.

Arcturus raised a hand, gesturing toward the looming steel doors.

"There is only one way in." His tone hardened.

"The warehouse has been built like a fortress. No hidden entrances, no ventilation shafts, no gaps in its defenses that we can exploit"

"If we try to split into smaller teams, we risk scattering our strength and worse, alerting the enemy before we've even set foot inside"

"If one group is discovered, the alarm will spread through the facility like wildfire"

"The soldiers will slaughter the prisoners before we can even reach them."

A sharp intake of breath passed through the ranks.

A younger swordsman clenched his fists, his voice rising before he could stop it.

"Then what do we do? If there's only one way in, then it's a funnel! They'll have the advantage!"

Arcturus's gaze snapped to him, sharp but not unkind.

"Yes. A funnel. Which means we cannot afford disorder"

"We enter as one, we move as one, and we strike as one"

His words were heavy, like iron hammered into their hearts.

A veteran dwarf grunted, slamming the head of his hammer into the earth with a dull thud.

"Then so be it. Better we stand shoulder to shoulder than scatter like fools."

The elven huntress, her bow resting lightly in her hands, nodded grimly.

"He's right. If we are to be shadows, then we must be a storm when the time comes to strike."

Arcturus continued, his voice dropping lower, quieter, yet carrying the weight of a commander who had seen far too many battlefields.

"I won't lie to you. When we breach those doors, we will face resistance the likes of which many of you have never seen"

His eyes swept across them all, lingering briefly on Daniel, who stood in silence, his aura tightly coiled.

Inside, Daniel's thoughts stirred with unease.

'One entrance… two thousand enemies… six thousand innocents. This isn't strategy—it's slaughter waiting to happen.'

His eyes darkened further.

He clenched his fist.

'No matter what trap they've set, I'll tear it apart before it touches the others. Zero… I'll make sure this place becomes your grave.'

Back in the silence of the group, Arcturus straightened, his cloak billowing faintly in the wind.

On the other hand, Daniel couldn't help but think it was a poor plan.

His instincts screamed that entering through the main door was exactly what the Zero Organization expected of them.

But despite his doubts, he chose not to speak—at least not yet.

This was Arcturus's raid, and for now, he would follow.

Together, they advanced.

The massive steel doors groaned as they were pushed open, the hinges screeching like the wail of something long-dead.

The air inside was thick—stale, heavy, and carrying the coppery tang of blood mixed with rust.

Shadows clung to the corners of the vast hall beyond, broken only by the faint glow of torches fixed along the walls.

As the group stepped inside, weapons ready, they quickly realized the facility wasn't just one open space. It was a maze.

Dark hallways branched off in several directions, and along each corridor, heavy iron doors lined the walls.

Some were engraved with crude glyphs, others reinforced with chains, all of them sealed tightly as if to hide what lay beyond.

A younger mage swallowed nervously, his voice barely above a whisper.

"…So many chambers. What are they keeping in here?"

A beastman warrior's tail lashed behind him, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air.

"Blood. Fear. And something else… I don't like it."

Daniel's eyes scanned the rows of sealed doors, his unease deepening.

'Rooms and chambers'

'Each one locked like a coffin. This isn't just a prison—it's a hive. And whatever's inside… they don't want it getting out.'

His jaw tightened as the silence stretched.

'Zero… just what are you hiding in here?'

The moment the guild's strike force crossed the threshold of the main hall, silence shattered.

Dozens of armored men and robed cultists snapped their heads up from the shadows, their eyes burning with the crimson glow of corruption.

Zero insignias gleamed across their uniforms, weapons already in hand as if they had been waiting.

"INTRUDERS!" a captain roared, his voice echoing through the vast chamber.

Steel clashed as the first wave of enemies surged forward.

But the guild was faster.

"ATTACK!" bellowed a dwarf warrior as his axe cleaved into the first soldier's chest, spraying blood across the rusted floor.

Beside him, an elven huntress loosed three arrows in rapid succession—each one piercing a cultist's throat before he could finish chanting.

The air exploded with magic.

Fireballs streaked across the hall, lighting the shadows with orange fury.

Lightning crackled from the staff of a mage, scattering enemy ranks like leaves in a storm.

Daniel moved silently through the chaos.

His skills blast through the first Zero operative that lunged at him, shadows clinging to the weapon like smoke.

His movements were calm, efficient, but each attacks landed with brutal precision.

"Monster—!" one cultist cried before Daniel's attack had blasted his mouth.

More enemies poured in from the side chambers, but the guild pressed their advantage.

A beastman warrior ripped through the lines with claws glowing in enchanted steel, his roar shaking the walls.

Behind him, a group of healers wove barriers of shimmering light, shielding allies from crossbow bolts and sorcerous blasts.

Then—a sound.

A scream.

From one of the side chambers, muffled voices cried out, shrill with terror.

"Help! Somebody, please!"

Daniel's eyes snapped to the sealed iron door.

Blood dripped fresh from beneath it.

His hand shot out, palm glowing dark, and with one crushing surge of energy, the hinges groaned and shattered.

The door slammed open.

Inside, a circle of captives—men and women bound by chains—were surrounded by three cultists, daggers poised above a ritual altar already slick with blood.

"Sacrifice the rest!" one shrieked.

They never finished.

Daniel's body blurred into the room.

The cultists barely had time to turn before shadows erupted, swallowing them whole.

Their screams were cut short as their bodies collapsed in mangled heaps across the altar.

The captives stared, wide-eyed, trembling.

"Y-you saved us…" a woman whispered, her voice hoarse with terror and disbelief.

Daniel gave them only a sharp nod, his voice flat.

"Stay close. You're safe now."

Behind him, more guild members fanned out, breaking into other sealed rooms.

Every door they tore open revealed more horrors—prisoners in chains, cages stacked with starved survivors, chambers smeared with runes of blood.

And at the heart of each, Zero cultists, their hands dripping red as they scrambled to finish their twisted rituals.

"Cut them down!"

Arcturus's voice thundered, shaking the chamber with his authority.

The guild answered with violence.

Steel and fire, arrows and spells—every skill honed from years of war was unleashed.

Enemy after enemy fell, cut apart before their rituals could be completed.

A young recruit screamed as he cut through a guard trying to slit a prisoner's throat, only to be pulled into a desperate hug by the man he saved.

A mage unleashed a wall of flame, immolating a squad of cultists before they could strike down a group of children bound to a pillar.

Even through the chaos, Daniel's eyes never softened.

His blade moved like a storm, every strike efficient, merciless.

To him, the Zero Organization were already corpses—they simply hadn't fallen yet.

But the deeper they went, the more resistance they met.

The raid was not quick.

It was a war of attrition, fought hall by hall, room by room.

What had looked like a single warehouse from the outside revealed itself to be a labyrinth.

Within the labyrinth, lies a sprawling fortress of chambers, corridors, and hidden cells, each one designed to mask the sins of the Zero Organization.

The guild stormed through it like a tide of steel and fury.

Every door they breached spilled more enemies into their path.

Some fought with fanatic rage, hurling themselves into the guild's blades.

Others stood behind ritual altars, chanting dark incantations that warped the air with shadows.

But for every enemy that appeared, the guild answered with blood and steel.

"Push forward!" Arcturus roared, his weapon carving a clean arc through three soldiers at once.

A beastman slammed into a squad of armored guards, his claws ripping through plate as though it were cloth.

Arrows whistled past his shoulders, finding the gaps in enemy defenses where his rage could not.

Mages hurled torrents of fire, lightning, and ice, scouring whole squads of cultists.

The air was thick with smoke and blood, the ground slick with crimson as bodies piled up in the corridors.

Hours passed in this relentless rhythm.

And all the while, the Zero Organization kept coming.

Daniel moved like a shadow at the heart of the storm.

His skills killed thr cultists before they could scream.

When a door burst open to reveal a ritual chamber, he was the first inside, tearing through the dark-robed priests before their daggers could descend.

"Stay down," he growled to the captives, shadows wrapping around his frame like a second skin.

For him, there was no fatigue.

His strikes were clean, efficient, ruthless.

But in his chest, the hours weighed heavy—not on his body, but on his spirit.

Each chamber opened revealed more horrors.

A room filled with children tied to chairs, their wrists raw and bleeding.

Another where corpses were stacked like firewood, stripped of blood for some dark purpose.

Cells lined with men and women so starved they could barely lift their heads, their eyes glowing faintly from repeated exposure to ritual magic.

The screams of the saved mixed with the screams of the dying, an endless chorus that gnawed at every soul present.

"Gods above…" whispered a recruit as he pulled a half-dead prisoner from a cage.

"How… how long were they kept like this?"

A veteran shoved past him, cutting down a guard who lunged with a dagger.

"Doesn't matter! They're alive. That's what matters!"

At times, the fighting grew so fierce that the guild almost broke.

A squad of enforcers, their armor laced with cursed glyphs, ambushed them in a narrow corridor.

The clash was brutal—steel against steel, curses flying through the air.

Two mercenaries fell before the enforcers were cut down, their deaths a grim reminder that victory was paid for in blood.

"Move their bodies to the side," Arcturus ordered coldly, his jaw tight.

"We'll mourn later. Not now. Not here."

Hours blurred into more blood, more screams, more doors shattered under brute force.

But with every step deeper into the warehouse, the number of survivors grew.

Healers worked tirelessly to stabilize the rescued.

Mercenaries carried the weak on their backs.

Warriors shielded the escape routes with their own bodies, cutting down any Zero agent who tried to pursue.

And though exhaustion burned in their muscles, though their lungs ached with the smoke of fire and steel, none faltered.

Because with every prisoner saved, their purpose burned brighter.

Daniel, silent among them, glanced at the growing group of survivors.

Six thousand lives… and every one of them a reminder of what Zero had taken.

'They think of them as cattle,' he thought bitterly, shadows tightening around his fists.

'But they're not cattle. They're people. And I'll tear apart anyone who tries to treat them otherwise.'

At last, after hours of endless slaughter, the final chamber door crashed open.

The last of the cultists screamed as they were dragged down, blades piercing their bodies, their rituals unfinished.

And in the silence that followed—the first true silence since they had entered—the guild realized what they had done.

The warehouse was theirs.

Zero's forces lay broken, their rituals disrupted, their prisoners freed.

But the air was thick with blood and sorrow, the floor slick with crimson reminders that victory had not come cheap.

Arcturus stood in the middle of it all, his weapon dripping, his chest heaving as he looked at the weary but unbroken faces of his people.

"We're not done yet," he said, his voice hoarse but steady. "But today… today we tore open the heart of Zero. And tomorrow, we'll burn the rest."

The survivors wept.

The warriors tightened their grips on their weapons.

And Daniel, standing in the shadows, said nothing.

His silence was heavier than words—because in his eyes, the war with Zero was only just beginning.

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