They said the dungeon was cleared.
They lied.
The stench of burnt iron and rotting blood filled Kael's lungs as he stumbled through the crumbling corridor. A warning siren echoed in the distance—shrill and panicked, as if the dungeon itself were screaming. All around him, elite hunters who once mocked his rank now lay torn apart, limbs twisted and eyes frozen in horror.
Kael wasn't supposed to be here.
He was a janitor. A clean-up boy. The one who collected cores and mopped up the aftermath. And yet, when the Crimson Fang Guild demanded a "meat shield" for their raid on the D-class rift, the lowest-ranked dogs—like him—were thrown in without question.
"Deadweight always dies first," they said, laughing as they tossed him a cracked chestplate and no weapon.
Now they were dead, and Kael was alone.
His breath came in ragged gasps as the wall behind him exploded. Something massive, something wrong, slithered through the rubble. Its limbs were made of shadow and bone, too many joints bending the wrong way. Kael ran, dragging his bloodied leg as the hallway tilted and groaned, the dungeon's collapse accelerating.
[Critical Collapse Imminent. 00:02:45 Remaining.]
His system HUD flickered erratically—red static, corrupted symbols, and then nothing. His default scavenger interface was dead. Useless.
The floor beneath him trembled again. Chunks of ceiling rained down. Kael ducked behind a pillar, pain shooting up his spine. He wasn't sure if his leg was broken, but every step felt like knives. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to move.
He tripped over a corpse—Cyrus, the Guild's vice-captain. Half his face was gone. But clutched in his hand was a glowing shard, pulsing faintly. Not a core. Not loot. It hummed with something deeper.
[SYSTEM FRAGMENT DETECTED.]
Kael's eyes widened. "What…?"
The shard vibrated violently. Lines of code danced across his vision, glitching in and out.
[Multiple Hosts Terminated. Searching for Compatible Core…] [WARNING: Soul Integrity Below Threshold. Risk of Desynchronization—]
The wall collapsed. The creature lunged.
Kael grabbed the shard without thinking. A searing pain surged through his body—like his soul was being melted and reforged. His scream never left his throat.
Darkness swallowed everything.
---
He didn't know how long he drifted. Hours? Seconds? Time lost all meaning.
In the void, memories surfaced—his father's broken voice after losing a limb to a gateburst, his sister coughing blood after an unregistered rift poisoned their town, the cold nights Kael spent working through bone-deep exhaustion to afford a single potion. He had always been weak. Always been nothing.
But now…
A voice echoed inside him. Not synthetic. Not human.
"Devourer Protocol… bound. Initialization complete."
Kael gasped, his back arching off the stone floor. Light surged from his veins—black and violet, twisting like ink in water. Symbols tattooed themselves across his arms, shifting with every breath.
[New System Acquired: Devourer Frame Lv. 1] [Passive: Consume Deactivated Systems for Growth] [Active: Hijack - Integrate and Override System Permissions]
His eyes snapped open.
The creature stood over him, ready to end what it had started. Its maw unhinged, revealing rows of fangs nested within fangs.
But this time, Kael wasn't running.
He extended a hand.
[Hijack Activated.]
The monster paused mid-lunge, trembling as its body spasmed. Kael's vision expanded. Data poured into his mind—combat patterns, core alignment, weaknesses. He saw its system framework, laid bare like a blueprint.
And he ripped it out.
The creature let out a distorted shriek and shattered into ash.
Silence.
Kael stood slowly, the stone cracking beneath his feet. His wounds were gone. His HUD returned—no longer red and broken, but obsidian black trimmed with flickering violet.
A single line blinked at the top of his interface:
[You have devoured your first system. Welcome, Soulbound.]
Kael looked at his hands—shaking, but not from fear. From power.
From hunger.
A nearby terminal sparked to life, revealing logs from dead hunters. Dozens of systems—combat, stealth, healing, alchemy—all dormant. All broken. All waiting.
He could feel them. He could taste them.
[Devour Available: 17 dormant fragments nearby.]
Kael stepped over the remains of the monster and reached for the next shard. Another surge. Another flash of pain, followed by clarity.
His mind burned with blueprints—skills, forms, stats. The world was opening.
He was no longer a janitor.
He was a Devourer.
And this dungeon, once his grave, would be the forge of his rise.
End of Chapter 1