Year 1,042,119 After Cataclysm
Verdant Reach, Valdris City Outskirts
Dungeon Entrance: Zone 17-C
Raygen stood at the dungeon mouth, sixteen years old and already exhausted by the constant need to prove he deserved to breathe the same air as everyone else.
The entrance yawned open like a cracked jaw—an ancient stone archway half-swallowed by vine-thorns, their barbs dripping with natural mana that shimmered faintly in the twilight. The guild scouts had marked it C-rank two weeks ago. Safe enough for a solo dive. Profitable enough to cover rent, food, maybe a piece of halfway decent gear if luck felt generous for once.
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the nervous tension kick under his skin. He checked his pack again even though he'd checked it twice already: iron dagger sharp enough, two minor healing salves sealed tight, fifty meters of rope knotted to deploy quickly, and an empty three-slot spatial ring that still smelled like the pawn shop he'd gotten it from.
He took a breath.
Another memory hit him—sharp, uninvited, as usual.
"Check the air first, brat. Ozone means the dungeon's lying. And dungeons always lie."
Asa's voice. Always half-annoyed, half-amused. She'd been twelve when she started dragging him around the orphanage yard, drilling him on knots and pickpocket techniques and how to spot lies in someone's shoulders before they even opened their mouth. Seven years of her shaping him like a knife she intended to throw.
Nineteen now, somewhere in the world. Four years since she aged out of the orphanage, leaving with nothing but a punch to his arm and one last command:
"Don't die before I come back to check on you, idiot."
He hadn't seen her since.
The air tasted clean.
He stepped inside.
---
Floor One
Routine.
Predictable.
Goblins came shrieking from the dark—six of them, spears rusted, teeth worse. Their movements were jerky, disorganized, barely above instinct. Raygen's mind shifted into the familiar clarity of combat. His heartbeat slowed while his body sped up.
He dodged their first swarm-charge, slammed the pommel of his dagger into a temple, spun, drove his blade between ribs, and swept a leg. A goblin shrieked behind him; he cracked its jaw with a back elbow. Within thirty seconds, they were all on the ground, twitching or still.
He harvested the ears, grimacing at the wet sound, pocketed a handful of copper teeth—worth almost nothing, but worth something to him.
He kept moving.
---
Floor Two
The air dropped five degrees. The stone floor felt damp beneath his boots.
Three dire wolves paced out of the shadows, teeth bared, eyes shining with cold hunger. Each one the size of a pony, their growls vibrating the floor.
Raygen catalogued the room instantly. Narrow tunnel behind him. Pressure plates scattered ahead. A half-collapsed bridge crossing a twenty-foot pit.
Classic misdirection: wolves force you toward the trap.
He smirked.
He mapped the plates in his head, slipped along the edge, and hooked the rope to a stalagmite. He crossed hand-over-hand like Asa had drilled into him a thousand times, his breath steady, muscles controlled.
The wolves lunged when he reached the far side.
Exactly what he wanted.
Raygen dropped into their flank like a shadow, slitting one throat, kicking off the ground to dodge the second's bite, dragging his blade across the third's eye before finishing the second cleanly. The final wolf tried to retreat—he didn't let it.
Three B-rank pelts. One minor strength crystal.
His pack grew heavier.
His grin grew sharp.
---
Floor Three
The temperature lurched wildly.
One corridor baked like an oven, heat waves shimmering. The next froze each exhale into mist. Stone cracked beneath sudden shifts. Mana patterns twisted unnaturally.
Raygen marked safe paths with chalk scratches—patterns only he understood. He rationed water, forced himself to breathe evenly, and adjusted his pace to conserve stamina.
A mid-tier Stone Golem guarded the final staircase, its hulking form blending into the rocky chamber like a natural part of the dungeon. It awakened with a grinding roar when Raygen approached, glowing eyes locking onto him with mechanical certainty.
Its fists smashed into the ground where he'd stood a breath earlier, the shockwave rattling his teeth. He circled rapidly, ducking behind its massive legs, looking for the core crystal—there. A faint glow pulsing between plates of stone at its back.
He darted in.
Three strikes. Perfect precision.
The core shattered.
The golem collapsed into rubble.
Raygen pried out the intact C+ rank core, grinning at the weight of two months' rent in his hand.
He headed down the steps, adrenaline pushing him faster.
---
Floor Four
Where the official guild map ended.
Where the dungeon stopped pretending to be normal.
The corridor narrowed, then widened into unfamiliar territory. The air changed—lighter, fresher, tinged with something ancient. Moss glowed brighter. The mana currents shifted from chaotic to almost… welcoming.
Anyone with sense would've turned back.
Raygen was sixteen. Orphaned. Hungry. Determined.
For the first time in years, the world wasn't trying to crush him—it was opening its hands.
He walked faster.
---
New Chamber 1
Two Shadow Leopards dropped from the ceiling—silent blurs of muscle, teeth, and claws. C+ rank, faster than anything he'd seen on official floors.
Raygen's smile flickered.
He baited one forward. It lunged, jaws wide.
He rolled under, slashed its throat, grabbed its falling weight, and used the corpse as a moving shield while the second pounced. It bit deep into its dead partner, giving Raygen just enough time to pivot and drive his blade up through the base of its skull.
Two perfect pelts.
Four fangs worth fifty gold each.
He felt lighter despite the growing load.
---
New Chamber 2
A nest of Crystal Serpents—six of them—uncoiled from a glittering pile of scales and stones. Their bodies reflected the dungeon light like diamonds. B-rank. Venom lethal enough to drop a mid-tier mage in seconds.
Raygen moved like a wraith.
Rolling, sliding, darting between their strikes. His dagger flashed like a falling star, finding soft spots between scales. Venom sprayed walls. Crystals shattered. Serpents thrashed violently before falling still.
Four minutes later, the chamber was silent.
He gathered crystals the size of his fist. Six venom sacs—including one rare variety alchemists would bid blood for.
He laughed under his breath.
See, Asa? I'm not just surviving. I'm winning.
He should've turned around.
But victory was addictive, and the dungeon whispered invitations with every flicker of glowing moss.
One more chamber.
Just one more.
---
The Final Chamber
Curse-whispers crawled across the air like maggots the moment he stepped inside.
Raygen froze.
The temperature dropped so fast his breath fogged instantly.
The far wall exploded outward.
And the Bone Sovereign stepped through.
Fifteen feet of skeletal malice. A-rank. Maybe worse. Tattered robes dragged behind it like starving spirits. Claws long as swords. Eyes burning in pinned sockets like twin blood-red suns.
Raygen's grin died instantly.
Hidden boss.
The kind that erased overconfident rookies from existence.
Fear punched through him—then hardened into razor focus.
---
He fought.
The first sweep of its claws nearly took his head. He ducked so fast he scraped stone with his cheek.
Second sweep—he rolled under it, ribs screaming.
He slashed joints, cracked bone, darted back from stomps that cratered the floor into jagged pits. Each dodge left his lungs burning. Each strike left his hands numb.
Minutes blurred into an aching, frantic dance.
But he was winning.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Perfectly.
Bone fragments scattered. Curse-whispers faded when he pressured the beast.
Then greed whispered.
He saw the opening—too perfect.
The core crystal glowing beneath its ribcage.
He lunged.
And the Sovereign punished him for daring.
A backhand claw slammed into his chest, lifting him off his feet with monstrous force. His vision went white, then red. He flew across the room—
—and the wall wasn't a wall.
Stone turned to nothing.
---
The Fracture
He fell through a silver hair-thin wound in reality. A scar older than civilizations. Older than memory. A mistake the universe had never repaired.
Cold.
A primordial cold that stripped feeling from bone.
He hit something smooth as glass—something that rang with a silence too perfect to be natural.
Pain flared. Blood dripped. Ribs broken.
He forced himself upright.
And saw it.
A void.
Walls covered in crawling cuneiform, rearranging faster than thought.
And in the center—
A man.
Six-foot-five. Bronze skin. Hair like liquid night. Lightning swirling lazily across his body. Eyes closed. Breathing in a rhythm older than breathing itself.
Raygen's mind froze.
That's not loot.
Then the man opened his eyes.
They weren't eyes.
They were the moment before the first change.
Raygen tried to stand. His legs laughed at the idea.
One word, older than language, carved straight into his soul.
"Name."
His mouth answered before fear could stop it.
"Raygen."
A pause that lasted either a heartbeat or a hundred thousand years.
The cuneiform on the walls froze.
The man tilted his head.
"Interesting."
The temperature rose ten degrees. The lightning on his skin quieted, almost respectfully.
He stepped down from the pedestal. Bare feet touched the glass-silent floor and left no print.
"You woke me, Raygen-of-no-house. That is… inconvenient."
Raygen coughed blood. "I can leave. Pretend I was never—"
"Too late."
The man crouched, eye-level now. Up close he looked twenty-three, maybe twenty-five. Except for the eyes.
"Everything changes," he said softly. "Even consequences."
A sky-blue rectangle appeared between them.
System Initialization
User: Raygen
Authority: Absolute
Sponsor: [Unnamed]
Warning: This system cannot be detected, sealed, or removed by any force.
Welcome to the only truth left.
Raygen stared.
The word "system" had never existed. Not in stories, not in madmen's ravings, not in a million years of history.
Yet there it was.
The man watched with the patience of mountains deciding to walk.
"From this moment," he said, "every step you take will reshape this million-year-old graveyard you call a world. Some will thank you. Most will try to kill you. A few will succeed."
He rose.
"Run, little mortal. The dungeon is already forgetting you were ever here."
Raygen's legs remembered how to work. He scrambled backward, hit the silver fracture, and fell through.
He landed hard on cold dungeon stone.
The Bone Sovereign stood frozen mid-swing, its skull cleaved by a perfect diagonal cut that hadn't existed a heartbeat ago.
Bones lay scattered, curse-whispers dead.
On the far wall, glowing cuneiform faded into nothing:
A name will come when it is earned.
Behind him, the fracture sealed with a sound like the world exhaling after a million-year breath.
Raygen stood among the bones, blood dripping, a sky-blue rectangle floating in front of his eyes, and felt the full weight of being noticed by something that had never had a name.
He exhaled, tasting iron and ozone.
Then he started limping toward the exit.
Far above, a nineteen-year-old girl who had once promised to come back was walking through Valdris gates after four long years.
She had no idea the kid she used to call "little idiot" had just changed everything.
But the dungeon did.
And it was screaming.
End of Chapter 1