Twelve minutes.
The countdown burned in Vlad's vision like a death sentence. Around him, Jakarta continued its slow descent into interdimensional chaos. The World Cracks pulsed with malevolent energy, each crack in reality spawning smaller fissures that spread like infection through the city's bones.
[DIMENSIONAL COLLAPSE: 71%]
[GREATER THREAT MANIFESTATION: 11 MINUTES, 23 SECONDS]
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL AVAILABLE]
"What protocol?" Vlad asked, still shaken by the vision of his future self. The taste of absolute power lingered in his mouth like ash.
[DUNGEON BREACH DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: VOIDLING NEST - TIER 3]
[RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION]
[REWARD: REALITY STABILIZATION CRYSTALS]
A new window materialized in his vision, showing a 3D map of the surrounding area. Three blocks north, a building that once was a shopping mall was highlighted in pulsating red. The structure looks wrong from this distance—walls that curve inward on themselves, windows that show different times of day, architecture that hurts to process.
[DUNGEON: THE HOLLOWED PLAZA]
[ESTIMATED VOIDLING COUNT: 47]
[THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE]
[TIME LIMIT: 45 MINUTES BEFORE OVERFLOW]
Voidlings. Great. As if regular interdimensional horrors weren't enough.
The Abyss Hound rose from its resting position, all six legs coiling with predatory tension. Its multiple eyes fixed on the distant mall, and a low growl rumbled from its throat—a sound that made nearby windows crack.
Prey scent detected, its mental voice carried notes of eager hunger. Weak things. Easy kills.
"Easy for you, maybe," Vlad muttered, checking his status.
[CURRENT POWER LEVEL: 31%]
[HEALTH: 67%]
[EXTINCTION ABILITIES: 3/7 ACTIVE]
Still recovering from the summoning. And from seeing what he could become if he wasn't careful.
But they didn't have a choice. The system was right—if the dungeon overflowed, those 47 Voidlings would spill into the streets. Add them to the dimensional collapse, and this part of the city would become uninhabitable within hours.
"Alright," Vlad said, climbing onto the Abyss Hound's back. "Let's go hunting."
The Hollowed Plaza had once been the Kelapa Gading Mall. Now it is a monument to spatial impossibility.
The building's exterior flickered between states—sometimes concrete and glass, sometimes crystalline structures that include alien geometries, sometimes nothing at all except the suggestion of architecture. The main entrance was a gaping maw that led into darkness deeper than the absence of light.
[DUNGEON BREACH CONFIRMED]
[ENTERING HOSTILE TERRITORY]
[AUTOMATIC MAPPING ACTIVATED]
They stepped through the entrance, and reality rewrote itself around them.
The interior isn't a mall anymore. It was a cavern system carved from black stone, lit by veins of sickly green energy that pulsed like diseased arteries. The air tasted of copper and ozone, with an underlying sweetness that made Vlad's stomach turn.
Void essence, the Abyss Hound's mental voice carried disgust. Corrupted reality. Weak corruption.
"How can you say it's weak?"
Not hungry enough. True Void devours even its own presence.
That was... reassuring? Maybe?
[VOIDLING DETECTED]
[RANGE: 23 METERS]
[HOSTILITY: ACTIVE]
The creature that emerged from the green-lit shadows was humanoid in the way nightmares were humanoid. Bipedal, two arms, a head where a head should be. But the proportions were wrong—limbs too long, joints bending in directions that anatomy didn't allow, skin that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
Its face was the worst part. Human features stretched and distorted, eyes that wet liquid darkness, a mouth that smiled with too many teeth.
"Flesh-walker," it spoke, voice like grinding glass. "Flesh-walker brings the bright-pain. Brings the real-hurt."
The Voidling's form shifted as it moved, sometimes solid, sometimes translucent, always wrong. It raised one elongated arm, and the darkness around its hand condensed into something sharp and hungry.
[VOIDLING - CORRUPTED HUMAN]
[THREAT LEVEL: LOW]
[WEAKNESS: REALITY-BASED ATTACKS]
Vlad activated Reality Forge, bending space around the creature. Gravity intensified tenfold, slamming the Voidling into the cavern floor with bone-crushing force.
The creature laughed. Actually laughed, even as its form spreads like liquid across the stone.
"Bright-pain! Yes-yes! More bright-pain!"
It reformed, standing upright as if the crushing gravity was nothing more than a gentle breeze. Its smile widened until the corners of its mouth reached its ears.
Pain feeds them, the Abyss Hound observed. Reality-pain especially. They consume stability.
"Then how do we kill them?"
Simple. Remove their anchor.
Before Vlad could ask what that meant, the Hound pounced. Its claws didn't aim for the Voidling's body—they tore at the space around it, shredding the corrupted reality that allowed the creature to maintain cohesion.
The Voidling's laughter cuts off mid-note. Its form begins to unravel, darkness bleeding away like smoke.
"No-no-no!" it shrieked. "Anchor-thread! My anchor-thread!"
The creature imploded, sucked into a point of absolute nothingness that winked out of existence.
[VOIDLING ELIMINATED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 15 POINTS]
[TECHNIQUE LEARNED: ANCHOR SEVERANCE]
Smart dog, Vlad thought.
Not dog. Apex predator.
"Right. Apex predator who's very good at—"
[MULTIPLE HOSTILES DETECTED]
[COUNT: 12]
[SURROUNDING YOUR POSITION]
The cavern erupted with movement. Voidlings pour from every crack and crevice, their forms shifting between human and abstract horror. Some crawl on too many limbs, others float through the air like malevolent spirits. All of them smiled with mouths full of darkness.
"Flesh-walker!" they chorused. "Bright-pain bringer! Feed us the reality-hurt!"
Vlad and the Abyss Hound stood back-to-back—or back-to-flank, given the creature's six-legged configuration. The Voidlings circled them like sharks, staying just out of immediate striking range.
"I count twelve," Vlad muttered. "You?"
Fourteen. Two more approaching from behind.
"Of course there are."
The nearest Voidling lunged, its arm stretching like rubber to swipe at Vlad's face. He ducked, activated Void Walk to phase through dimensions—
And found three more Voidlings waiting for him in the space between realities.
"Surprise-surprise!" one of them giggled, raking claws across his shoulder. "Void-space is our-space!"
Pain exploded through Vlad's body as he tumbled back into normal reality. The wounds were already festering, edges turning black as Void corruption tried to take hold.
[CORRUPTION DETECTED]
[PURGING...]
[SUCCESSFUL PURGE]
His Extinction nature burned away the corruption, but not before it had done damage. These things weren't just monsters—they were antibodies, designed to hunt reality-manipulators like him.
Alpha-pain, the Abyss Hound's concern rippled through their bonds. Pack-leader hurt.
"I'm fine," Vlad lied, watching his health drop to 43%. "Just need to think smarter."
But the Voidlings weren't giving him time to think. They attacked en masse, a coordinated assault that spoke of pack intelligence. Some went high, leaping through the air with impossible grace. Others struck low, flowing across the ground like liquid shadow. A few simply appeared behind him, using the same dimensional tricks he'd tried to employ.
The Abyss Hound became a whirlwind of destruction, its six legs allowing it to strike in multiple directions simultaneously. Each swipe of its claws tore through reality itself, severing the anchor-threads that kept the Voidlings cohesive.
But there were too many. And more were coming.
[VOIDLING COUNT: 23]
[ADDITIONAL SPAWNS DETECTED]
[IMMINENT DUNGEON OVERFLOW]
Vlad tried Reality Forge again, this time on a larger scale. He pulled at the fundamental forces of the cavern, attempting to collapse the ceiling on their attackers.
The Voidlings laughed in unison as the stone passed harmlessly through their shifting forms.
"Bright-pain feeds us!" they chanted. "Makes us stronger!"
They're right, Vlad realized. Every time I use my abilities, they absorb some of the energy.
But if reality-based attacks make them stronger...
"Hey, dog!" he called the Abyss Hound. "How do you kill something that feeds on reality manipulation?"
Use unreality, come up with a simple response. Fight impossible with more impossible.
More impossible. Right.
Vlad reached deeper into the Extinction Protocol, past the abilities he understood, into the places where logic went to die. He found something there—not a power, exactly, but a concept. A way of existing that makes the universe uncomfortable.
He stopped trying to manipulate reality.
Instead, he became the thing that reality couldn't quite contain.
[ABILITY UNLOCKED: PARADOX MANIFESTATION]
[WARNING: UNCONTROLLED POWER]
[USE AT YOUR OWN RISK]
The effect was immediate. The Voidlings stopped laughing. Their forms, which had been shifting and flowing with chaotic energy, suddenly became uncertain. They looked at Vlad with something approaching confusion.
"What-what is this?" one of them whispered. "Flesh-walker is... not-flesh? Not-walker?"
Vlad smiled, and felt the universe flinch away from the expression.
"I'm the exception to the rule," he said. "The thing that proves every law wrong."
He walked toward the nearest Voidling. Not quickly, not threateningly. Just walked. The creature tried to phase away, to shift into its intangible form.
Vlad reached out and grabbed it anyway. His hand passed through dimensions, through states of being, through the space between possible and impossible. He grasped the Voidling's essence directly and squeezed.
The creature didn't implode. It didn't fade away or unravel.
It simply stopped being true.
[PARADOX KILL CONFIRMED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 47 POINTS]
[REALITY ANCHOR POINT SECURED]
The other Voidlings backed away, their forms flickering with what looked like fear. Real fear, not the twisted pleasure-pain they'd shown before.
"Impossible-thing," one of them hissed. "Should-not-be-thing!"
"Yeah," Vlad said, advancing on the next closest creature. "That's kind of my thing now."
He reached for another Voidling—
And something reached back.
From the deepest part of the cavern system, past the spawning pools and corruption cores, something vast stirred. Something that made the Voidlings look like children playing dress-up.
[ALPHA VOIDLING DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: APEX CORRUPTED]
[POWER LEVEL: ???]
[WARNING: DIRECT CONFRONTATION NOT RECOMMENDED]
A voice rolled through the cavern, carried on waves of absolute darkness. Not the broken-glass speech of the lesser Voidlings, but something older. Hungry.
"Interesting. A paradox-walker. It has been...some time since I tasted one of your kind."
The temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant. The green light-veins pulsed faster, responding to the presence of something that existed on a fundamentally different level.
"Come deeper, little exception. Let us see which of us is more impossible."
All around them, the surviving Voidlings smiled with renewed hunger. Their forms solidified, gaining substance and purpose they'd lacked before.
The Abyss Hound pressed against Vlad's leg, a gesture of support that carried undertones of genuine worry. Alpha-threat detected. Very dangerous. Much hungry.
"How much dangerous are we talking about here?"
Extinction-class. Maybe higher.
Great. Vlad has barely figured out how to use his paradox abilities, and now he is facing something that might be on his power level. Or beyond it.
But they didn't have a choice. The countdown was still ticking, and if this dungeon overflowed...
[GREATER THREAT ETA: 7 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS]
[DUNGEON OVERFLOW: 73% PROBABILITY]
[RECOMMENDATION: TACTICAL WITHDRAWAL]
"Tactical withdrawal" was military speak for "run away screaming." And maybe that was the smart choice. Maybe he should retreat, regroup, find another solution.
But the memory of his future self burned in his mind. The obsidian palace. The trillion subjects bowing in terror. The absolute loneliness of a god who had chosen power over everything else.
If I run now, when do I stop running?
"We go deeper," he decided.
The Abyss Hound's mental voice carried approval mixed with resignation. Pack-leader decides. Pack follows. Even into impossible-death.
They advanced through the cavern system, past pools of liquid darkness where new Voidlings were still forming. The corruption grew thicker with each step, until the air itself seemed to resist their passage.
And somewhere ahead, in the deepest chamber of the Hollowed Plaza, something ancient and hungry waited to test which of them was truly more impossible.
The voice rolled through the darkness again, carrying amusement that tasted of dissolved stars:
"Voidlings are attracted to your blood, Vlad."
The Voidling is interested in your blood, Vlad.
Vlad froze. Not because of the threat—he'd expected that.
Because the voice knew his name.
And it was speaking Indonesian.