Webnovel's Extra: Reincarnated With a Copy Ability-Chapter 89: White Thread

The Triangle didn’t feel like a school anymore.

Not after you learned how the world ended.

Not after you learned there was an ending.

It felt like a machine—cold, efficient, and hungry—meant to grind people into "results."

And today, the machine was smiling.

Because today was the monthly dungeon exam.

The day the Triangle pretended it was measuring progress.

The day it secretly measured which students were worth keeping.

I stood in the staging hall with Class A1, brass knuckles tucked into my belt, uniform collar stiff against my throat.

Above us, massive screens flickered with the dungeon’s name:

[Gate: Hollow Orchard — Rank: C+]

A low-grade gate.

Supposedly safe.

Supposedly controlled.

Supposedly nothing like the one that would ruin everything later.

I didn’t trust the word "supposedly" anymore.

Not after Maya.

Not after Wendy’s memories.

Not after realizing the plot didn’t care if you begged.

It only cared if you survived.

"Dreyden."

I turned.

Maya stood beside me, hood up, red hair tucked away like she was hiding it from the world. Her eyes were calmer than they used to be—but that calm had changed.

It wasn’t the timid calm of someone trying not to be seen.

It was the calm of someone who’d already seen her own death in high definition.

She held her student ID in one hand.

In the other... she held nothing.

And yet I could feel the weight of her metaphysical energy sitting behind her ribs like a second heartbeat.

"You’re drifting," she murmured.

"Thinking," I corrected.

"That’s drifting."

I smirked faintly. "You’re starting to sound like a protagonist."

Her eyes narrowed. "Don’t say that like it’s an insult."

I didn’t answer.

Because it wasn’t the insult that bothered me.

It was the truth underneath it.

Maya had changed. Not just from power.

From perspective.

Wendy’s memories didn’t just give her spoilers—they gave her instincts.

The kind readers develop when they’ve watched a story punish characters for being naive.

The kind that make you suspicious of every "safe" event.

The kind that make you look at a dungeon and think:

Which part kills us?

A speaker crackled.

"Class A1. You will enter in squads of five. Your performance will determine merit allocation and ranking stability."

Ranking stability.

Triangle language for:

"If you embarrass us, you drop."

I scanned the class.

Lucas was calm, as always.

Raisel stood with her bow strapped across her back, face unreadable, wind flickering around her ankles in small restless pulses.

Dhara and Riven were... close. Not in the old way. Not sibling-like.

Something else.

Jayden stood with his faction—laughing. Laughing.

That still made my skin itch.

Because that wasn’t the Jayden Wendy remembered.

And when villains act out of character, it means the timeline is already rotten.

Mr. Lean’s voice hit the hall.

"Squads are posted."

A screen rolled down.

Names flashed.

I scanned fast—

Squad 3: Lucas Væresberg / Raisel Silvius / Arlo Stanford / Dreyden Stella / Maya Serenity

My jaw tightened.

Of course.

The Triangle always did this when it wanted to watch a fire.

Put anomalies together and see which one explodes.

Maya leaned closer, whispering under her breath. "They want to observe us."

"Let them," I said.

Her eyes flicked to mine. "You say that like they can’t hurt us."

"They can."

I kept my tone flat.

"But they can’t predict us."

She didn’t smile.

She just nodded once, like that was the only prayer she trusted.

The gate room was colder than it should’ve been.

Not physically.

Emotionally.

That sterile Triangle chill—the kind that made you feel like you were stepping into a lab experiment.

A giant circular portal of pale green light hovered at the center, framed by metal pylons and monitoring equipment.

Instructors stood around like referees.

They weren’t here to protect us.

They were here to record.

"Remember," an instructor said, voice sharp. "You are allowed to retreat if you’re overwhelmed. But retreat counts as failure."

Failure counts as demotion.

Demotion counts as death.

Everyone understood.

Lucas stepped forward first.

Raisel followed.

Arlo gave me a grin like he was trying to pretend this was fun.

"Bro, this is a squad straight out of a movie."

"Yeah," I muttered. "A horror movie."

Maya touched my sleeve.

Not to hold me back.

To anchor herself.

Then we stepped through.

The world snapped into place like a camera focusing.

We emerged into a forest.

But calling it a forest felt wrong.

The trees were too pale. Their bark looked like bone. Their branches hung low, heavy with fruit that didn’t look like fruit.

They looked like eyes—round, glossy, reflective.

Hollow Orchard.

The air smelled sweet, like rotting apples soaked in perfume.

I hated it immediately.

Arlo gagged. "Why does it smell like somebody tried to cover up a dead body with cologne?"

Raisel didn’t react. She drew her bow, eyes scanning.

Lucas’s red eye shifted slightly, focusing on something only he could see.

Luck points.

He was reading the world like a map.

And I was reading him like a threat.

"Formation," Lucas said calmly.

We moved without argument.

Even Maya.

Even me.

Because this wasn’t the time for pride.

This was the time for survival.

We walked deeper.

The "eye fruit" followed us.

Not moving.

Just... reflecting.

Watching.

The deeper we went, the more the forest felt like a living thing holding its breath.

Then—

A crunch.

Arlo froze.

"I didn’t step on anything."

I slowly lowered my gaze.

The ground wasn’t dirt.

It was... shells.

Tiny, brittle shells.

Like insect husks.

And beneath them—

a seam.

A line in the earth.

A perfect circle.

Raisel whispered, "That’s not natural."

My heart sank.

Because I remembered this.

Not from the novel.

From Wendy’s notes.

A comment thread she’d never forgotten.

"The C+ orchard gate was weird. Felt like the dungeon was... layered."

Layered.

Like a trapdoor.

Like a mouth.

"Maya," I said quietly.

She looked at me.

Her pupils tightened slightly.

She felt it too.

Something in the air.

Something that didn’t belong in a C+ gate.

"Don’t," she mouthed.

But it was too late.

The ground dropped.

There was no warning blast.

No dramatic cracking.

Just—gone.

The earth disappeared under us.

Gravity punched my stomach.

Arlo screamed.

Raisel twisted in midair like a leaf caught in a storm.

Lucas didn’t scream. He didn’t flail.

He adjusted.

As if he’d already seen this coming.

That made my throat dry.

I spun, trying to grab Maya—

She grabbed me first.

Her hand locked around my wrist like a vice.

Metaphysical energy flared around her fingers, stabilizing our fall for half a second—

Enough.

Enough to angle us.

Enough to land without shattering bones.

We hit a slope of wet stone and slid hard.

I slammed into the ground, rolled once, and stopped.

My knuckles burned where I’d tried to brace.

Arlo landed with a grunt, alive.

Raisel landed clean, wind cushioning her.

Lucas landed like gravity owed him an apology.

Maya landed last.

Breathing hard.

Eyes wide.

Then the "forest" light above sealed shut like a closing eyelid.

Darkness swallowed the world.

A faint red glow flickered on the walls—

Not crystals.

Not torches.

Veins.

The cave walls looked like living flesh.

Arlo’s voice shook. "What... what kind of dungeon is this?"

Lucas stared ahead.

Raisel raised her bow.

Maya moved closer to me without thinking.

Not dependence.

Instinct.

She whispered, "This wasn’t supposed to happen yet."

That sentence sent cold needles down my spine.

Because it meant Wendy’s memory had a "supposed to."

And the dungeon just laughed at it.

Then we heard it.

A sound like wet teeth scraping stone.

A slow, patient crawl.

Something was coming.

I activated Eyes of Truth.

The world lit up in flow lines.

Energy patterns clung to the air.

And ahead—deep in the tunnel—something huge exhaled.

Its magic energy wasn’t C+.

It was...

Wrong.

It was dense.

Thick.

Predatory.

Like a creature that had eaten better than it deserved.

Raisel’s voice came out low. "That energy..."

Lucas tightened his grip on his sword.

Even he looked serious now.

Arlo swallowed audibly. "Guys... tell me I’m imagining this."

Maya’s metaphysical energy flickered.

A blade started to form at her fingertips, trembling slightly—not from fear.

From pressure.

Like the dungeon itself was pushing back against her existence.

I stepped forward.

I didn’t want to.

But if I didn’t, someone else would.

And I didn’t trust anyone else to take the first look.

The tunnel opened into a chamber.

And my stomach dropped.

A massive creature lay coiled in the center.

It looked like a centipede made of black bark and bone.

Its body was wrapped in pale vines—like the orchard above had roots down here too.

But the worst part was its head.

It didn’t have eyes.

It had masks.

Dozens of masks fused into its face—human masks, elf masks, animal masks—each one frozen in a different expression.

Crying.

Laughing.

Screaming.

Smiling.

A nightmare scrapbook.

A panel flickered in my vision.

Not the system.

Not my status.

The dungeon.

[Boss: Orchard Devourer — ???]

Question marks.

That wasn’t supposed to happen in a student exam.

That meant—

Unidentified threat.

Unregistered.

Uncontrolled.

And the Triangle had sent us in anyway.

Lucas exhaled slowly. "So this is why the luck turned white."

My eyes snapped to him.

He said it too casually.

Like he’d accepted it.

Like he’d been living with white luck longer than he admitted.

Maya whispered, barely audible. "It’s not just you."

Her gaze flicked upward.

For a split second, her eyes unfocused.

Like she was seeing threads again.

Then she shuddered.

"I saw it," she whispered. "A white thread..."

My blood cooled.

A white thread.

The same kind she saw right before she blacked out.

The same kind that didn’t belong in her domain.

The boss lifted its head.

The masks turned toward us.

All at once.

And the voices came.

Not from its mouth.

From everywhere.

A chorus of whispers—hundreds of them—layered, overlapping, intimate.

Like the dungeon knew us.

Like it had read us.

"Dreyden Stella."

My spine went rigid.

That wasn’t possible.

I didn’t answer.

I didn’t move.

But the creature spoke again.

"Maya Serenity."

Maya’s breath hitched.

Then—

"Lucas Væresberg."

Lucas’s calm finally cracked.

Just barely.

But I saw it.

His eyes narrowed, sharp and dangerous.

The dungeon knew names.

That meant it wasn’t a normal gate.

It wasn’t even a normal monster.

It was something aware.

Something narrative.

Something that treated us like characters.

And I felt it then—deep in my gut—like a warning written in instinct.

This wasn’t an accident.

This was a test.

Not from the Triangle.

From something else.

The Orchard Devourer uncoiled.

The masks screamed.

Raisel fired.

A wind-wrapped arrow screamed through the air—

And the monster caught it with a vine like a hand.

Crushed it.

Like it was nothing.

Arlo’s voice cracked. "That’s not C+!"

Lucas stepped forward, sword glowing faintly.

Mana wrapped the blade.

Not obvious.

But I saw it.

And Maya saw it too.

Her eyes flicked toward his weapon.

Then back to the monster.

Then back to me.

A single silent message passed between us:

This is happening early.

I clenched my brass knuckles.

Blue flames crawled across them.

Fire Fists.

But my body didn’t feel like fighting.

It felt like the world had just leaned close to my ear and whispered:

Premium Chapters start now.

I took one step forward.

And smiled.

Not because I was confident.

Because fear was a luxury.

"Alright," I muttered.

"If you want to rewrite the story..."

I raised my fists.

"Then come try."

The Orchard Devourer lunged.

The chamber shook.

And the exam finally became what it always was underneath the Triangle’s lies:

A slaughterhouse.