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Chapter 3 - The Dungeon's Breath

Chapter Three ▪︎ The Dungeon's Breath

Silence crept slowly through the corridors after the sounds had ceased.

No more screams.

No footsteps.

Not even the trembling of steel.

Only… a heavy stillness, as though the very air itself had died.

But I was no longer as I had been.

Something stirred within me.

Something I had never felt before.

The earth, stained with blood, began to consume everything—the bones, the flesh, even fragments of iron left behind.

At first, I didn't understand. Then the sensation began to pour into me. As if the blood spilled was not theirs… but mine.

It seeped into me. Melted inside me. Left me heavier… stronger.

No. Not only that. It smothered something I had mistaken for emptiness.

Hunger? Was this hunger?

I didn't know. But with every scrap of them devoured, I felt as though I possessed them. As if their deaths were not endings… but new beginnings within me.

And with the last trace of them gone, the voice came.

[ Energy acquired ]

[ Options available: Expansion – Enhancement – Guardian Strengthening ]

I froze.

It wasn't my voice. Nor was it anything external. It reverberated inside me, clear, undeniable—like a law of existence itself.

Options? For me?

I couldn't fully grasp it, yet the words lingered in my mind.

Expansion… Enhancement… Strengthening the Guardian.

If I had the power to choose… then I was not just a stone swallowing blood.

I wanted to see if I could act—if I could do something.

I turned my focus toward the walls enclosing me. I tried… pressing against them? I wasn't sure how—but something happened. A section of stone shivered, then crumbled, as though responding to me.

My whole essence quaked. This… this is me? This is my power?

I was no longer just a still thing. No longer a prisoner without will.

I could change.

I could build.

I could decide.

Yet for a fleeting moment, distorted images flickered in my depths—faces I did not know, forgotten cities, a pale sun above distant towers.

Were these my memories? Or remnants from the flesh I had consumed? I could not tell. But they left me unsettled.

Then the voice returned, cold and absolute.

[ Evolution possible ]

[ Every soul absorbed becomes part of you ]

My pulse quickened. If this was true… then everyone who came near me would never leave as they arrived.

And as the final drops of blood vanished from my floor, I felt a cold spark ignite deep within me, as though I were breathing for the very first time.

Everyone who approaches me… will become part of me—whether they wish it or not.

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