If there's one thing stories never mention about ominous underground places, it's the smell."Ugh," Lyse muttered, pinching her nose as we stood before a moss-covered stone slab half-hidden in a grassy rise. "Why does every mysterious entrance smell like old socks and regret?""Because no one mysterious ever invented ventilation," I said.Rel braced his shoulder against the slab."This is the old drain access," he said. "They sealed most of them years ago, but kids still slip in sometimes. Usually just find puddles and rats.""Today, we're hoping for puddles, rats, and maybe one extremely apologetic demon," I said."No one has ever described a demon as apologetic," Sara said flatly."First time for everything."The ward stone in my hand pulsed, the crack sigil brightening as we neared the slab."Definitely the right place," I added.Rel grunted, pushing.The stone slab shifted with a grinding noise, revealing a dark opening and a waft of cool, damp air that smelled like old water, rust, and something metallic under the surface.MMA chimed softly in my head.[Environmental scan: low visibility, slick stone, residual energy matching wagon fracture pattern. Threat level: manageable with your current stats, dangerous for normal Bronze ranks.]"Translation," I thought, "don't let the others face-check the boss."[Correct.]Lyse conjured a small, floating flame at the tip of her staff, illuminating a set of stone steps descending into the dark."Ladies, gentleman, and reality hazard," she said with a flourish, "shall we?"Sara rolled her eyes and adjusted the strap of her shield."Formation," she said. "Rel in front, I'm behind him, Kai and Lyse in the middle. No running ahead, no touching weird glowing things without warning."All eyes flicked briefly to me at that last part."That was one time," I said. "And the glowing thing was literally a crack in the world.""Exactly," Sara said. "New rule: if something looks like a metaphor for existential dread, you definitely call it out before touching it.""Fine, fine."We descended.The air grew cooler, the sound of our footsteps echoing off stone walls. Water dripped somewhere, a slow, steady rhythm. The corridor at the bottom was just tall enough for Rel to walk without hunching, walls made of rough-hewn blocks streaked with damp.Lyse's flame cast flickering shadows, making the passage look narrower than it was."Cheery place," she murmured."You get used to it," Rel said. "We had a training exercise down here once.""And?""I fell in a drain and smelled like mold for a week.""Character building," I said.We moved deeper, the ward stone's pulse growing stronger, aligning like a compass needle.[The fracture you sensed from the wagon is directly ahead and slightly below.] MMA said. [Probably a chamber with a central anchor point.]"Any signs of, you know, hungry extradimensional entities?" I thought.[Readings suggest one active distortion cluster. No other signatures of your scale.]"So… mini-boss."Rel slowed, lifting a hand.We'd reached a wider junction where several tunnels met. The floor here was wetter, thin sheets of water reflecting Lyse's flame. On the far side, a larger passage sloped downward, a faint reddish glow barely visible at the edge of sight."That's not normal," Sara said softly.A low, almost inaudible hum vibrated in my bones.The ward stone grew hot in my palm.I swallowed."Yeah," I said. "That's our door."We approached carefully.The passage opened into a circular chamber, larger than I'd expected. The ceiling arched overhead, black with moisture. The floor sloped gently toward the center, where an old stone platform rose from a shallow pool of dark water.On that platform, reality was… wrong.A ragged tear hovered a meter above the stone, edges jagged, pulsing faintly with crimson light. Wisps of darkness seeped from it like smoke, vanishing before they hit the ground. The air around it rippled.Beneath the tear, kneeling, was a figure.Human.Probably.He was dressed in tattered leathers, hair matted, eyes unfocused and gleaming with an unhealthy light. Chains of red energy wrapped around his chest and arms, anchoring him to the platform. His mouth moved, whispering something under his breath.Around the base of the platform, symbols had been scrawled in something dark and dried."That's blood," Sara said quietly. "Old. Not all his."Rel lifted his spear."Thom?" he called.The kneeling figure's head snapped up.His eyes glowed red.Then he smiled, too wide, too sharp."Visitors," he rasped. "Good. The voice said someone would come."The temperature seemed to dip.Lyse's flame flickered."Don't step into the circle," Sara said quickly. "The symbols—""I see them," I said.[Confirmed.] MMA's tone went clinical. [The circle is a focus for the fracture. The man is partially possessed. The entity on the other side is using him as a stabilizing weight.]"So if we break the wrong thing," I thought, "we either kill him or widen the tear."[Correct. Precision required.]Rel's knuckles whitened on his spear."Thom," he said, more quietly. "It's Rel. From Westhaven. We worked together on the summer route. Remember?"Thom's laughter was a harsh, scraping sound."Remember," he echoed. "Yes. The body remembers. The voice remembers everything. All the little worlds. All the little cracks."His gaze locked onto me."And you," he said."What about me?" I asked, keeping my voice light."You don't belong," he whispered. "You're… too much. Too many. The voice… hates you."The tear behind him pulsed, a shudder of crimson.[He is sensing your bloodline resonance.] MMA said. [The thing behind him recognizes you as a threat.]"So we're off to a good start," I thought.Thom tilted his head."It says you're a… cheat code," he murmured. "A bug. A flaw in the script. It wants to… pull you apart. See what falls out."Lyse tightened her grip on her staff."Definitely demon talk," she muttered.Sara shifted her stance."We need to break the possession," she said under her breath. "If we sever the chains without shattering the anchor…"I exhaled slowly."This is going to require multitasking," I murmured."To be clear," Lyse said softly, "when you say 'multitasking,' do you mean 'do something insane while we cover you'?""More like 'I do something insane and you make sure nothing stabs me while my brain is busy,'" I said."Business as usual, then," she replied, a small grin flickering.I took a step forward, just to the edge of the circle."Thom," I said. "Or whatever's using him. You said you wanted to see what falls out if you pull me apart."The air hummed.The tear pulsed brighter."I'm offering a better deal," I continued. "You let him go, and I don't come over there and unplug your little door personally."Rel hissed softly."Is he… threatening a demon?" he whispered."Apparently," Sara said.Thom's head jerked.For a heartbeat, his eyes cleared, just a little."Run," he croaked. "It sees through me. It—"His back arched.The chains flared, tightening.A voice spoke.Not aloud.Inside my head.Inside the chamber.Inside the world.It was deep and thin at the same time, layered with too many frequencies.The words were not words, but the meaning slid in."Sorry," I said lightly, heart pounding. "I lost my copy of the script when I died." the voice hissed. [It recognizes your type.] MMA said quietly. [This is not a low-level local demon. This is a fragment of a larger, lower-plane administrator.]"A manager demon," I thought. "Fantastic."Aloud, I said, "Contradictions are where the fun happens. You should try it."The tear shuddered. it said. "Exactly."I reached into my pocket and closed my fingers tightly around the ward stone."Cover me," I said quietly to the others. "I'm going to tap the anchor.""Define 'tap'," Sara said."Gently override access privileges.""That's not a definition, that's a war crime," Lyse muttered, but she shifted her stance, staff ready, flame intensifying.Rel moved to my left, spear lowered. Sara lifted her shield, free hand already glowing softly with healing light in case things went sideways.I stepped into the circle.The air thickened immediately, like walking into water.Symbols flared beneath my boots.Thom gasped, eyes flickering.The chains snapped toward me like living things, lashing out.I raised my free hand, palm open.The bloodline surged."Denied," I said.The chains hit an invisible barrier an inch from my skin and recoiled, hissing, smoke rising where they touched the unseen field.The tear rippled violently."Yes," I said. "I do."I focused, heart hammering, on the idea of Authority. Not brute force, not "overpower with raw stats," but the deeper rule MMA had mentioned: Priority. The right to say "no" at a structural level."I'm not here to negotiate," I said. "You got in through a crack. You grabbed a person. That's a violation of local stability."Light—not physical, but perceptible—flared around me, lines connecting points only I could see. The world's script, faint and trembling."I'm invoking admin privileges," I said. "Eviction notice."MMA, surprisingly, stayed silent, letting me drive.I thrust the ward stone forward toward the tear.For a heartbeat, everything was red.The demon fragment roared, a soundless bellow that shook dust from the ceiling.Images slammed into me: a cavern of writhing shadows, a sea of eyes, a network of cracks across multiple worlds, all feeding into a vast, hungry void.Then my bloodline snapped into place like a lock turning.I wasn't stronger than the demon.I was… higher on the ladder."Priority Authority," MMA said at last, voice like a knife. [Execute: Local Patch.]I spoke a word I didn't know I knew.It wasn't in any human language.It was a command.The tear convulsed.The chains on Thom shattered, fragments dissolving into mist.A screech split the air, then cut off abruptly as the tear collapsed inward, folding and folding and folding until it was a single point of furious, concentrated red——and then that, too, winked out.Silence crashed down.Thom slumped to the platform, unconscious but breathing.I stood very still, arm outstretched, the ward stone smoking faintly in my hand.Then the backlash hit.Not pain, exactly.More like… pressure. A wave of vertigo and nausea, like my brain had tried to briefly exist in too many dimensions at once and was now filing a complaint.I staggered."Kai!" Rel lunged forward, catching my shoulder."I'm fine," I said, even as my knees tried to audition for the role of "collapsing furniture."Sara was suddenly there, one hand on my forehead, a cool wash of healing magic rolling through me—not quite the right tool for "multi-world hangover," but comforting all the same.Lyse stared at the now-empty air where the tear had been."The… thing is gone," she said slowly. "I felt it. Like someone slammed a door. Hard.""That's basically what happened," I said, voice hoarse.MMA finally exhaled, if a disembodied system could exhale.[You just hard-closed a demonic access portal with raw Authority at under 10% bloodline awakening.] it said. [That was… extremely reckless. And impressive.]"How bad is the fallout?" I thought.[The fragment will reform elsewhere eventually, but you severed its anchor to Eldoria for now.] MMA replied. [The worldline around Havenford is significantly more stable.]"Worth it, then," I thought.Out loud, I said, "Thom?"Sara moved past me to the kneeling man, checking his pulse, pupils, breathing."He's alive," she said. "Weak. Burned out, spiritually and physically. But the… thing isn't riding him anymore."Rel let out a breath that sounded like he'd been holding it for years."Thank the gods," he whispered.Lyse hopped up onto the platform, peering at the now-faded symbols."These were… sloppy," she said. "Like someone half-remembered a ritual and guessed the rest. It wasn't designed to handle that kind of entity. No wonder it blew holes in the world.""Think it was Thom?" I asked."Maybe," she said. "Or someone used him. Either way, we should erase this. Just in case.""I can help with that," I said. "Gentler magic this time. I promise."As Lyse and I worked to scrub and counteract the remaining traces of the ritual, Sara stabilized Thom, and Rel paced the room like he couldn't decide whether to sit, cry, or hit something.[World Affinity (F-01 – Havenford Region) increased: 7% → 12%.] MMA noted. [Local danger level: temporarily reduced.]Eventually, the symbols were gone, the glassy ring dulled, and the oppressive feeling in the chamber had faded to a lingering unease.We carried Thom out together—Rel and I taking most of his weight—back through the tunnels, up into the blessedly fresh air of the south fields.Darren, the caravan leader, was waiting near the mill, pacing holes in the ground.When he saw Thom, he froze."Thom?" he breathed."He'll need rest and a priest," Sara said. "But he's alive."Darren's face twisted, relief and guilt warring."I…" he started, then shook his head. "Thank you. All of you. I don't know what you faced down there, but…""You don't want to," Lyse said cheerfully. "It was gross and talkative."Rel clapped a hand on my shoulder."Harven's not going to believe half of this," he said."I'll leave out the part where an unranked freak of nature closed a demon portal with a rock," I said."Please don't," Lyse said. "I want to see his face when you tell him."As we walked back toward town, the ward stone lay cool and quiet in my pocket, its crack sigil now faint. The cracks in the sky above Havenford… looked the same, but something felt subtly different.Less pressure.Less strain.[You've reinforced this node.] MMA said. [It will take more effort for external entities to force their way in here now.]"Good," I thought. "This town has enough problems without sky-holes."[You've also painted a target on yourself.] it added. [The fragment you evicted recognized you. It will tell others.]"Let them talk," I thought, surprising myself with the steadiness in my chest. "If I'm going to be a bug, I might as well be a big one."[Emotional maturity increased: 19% → 21%.]At the town gate, Rel stopped."Harven will want a full report," he said. "And there'll be a bonus. Probably a glaring lecture, too.""I collect those," I said. "Very on brand."Sara squeezed my arm once, brief but firm."You scared me," she said. "Don't do that again without warning.""I'll schedule my next demon eviction," I said.Lyse bumped her shoulder against mine."If you ever want to try combining that Authority thing with my spells," she said, eyes gleaming, "I bet we could make something explode in really interesting ways.""Absolutely not," Sara said."Absolutely yes," Lyse and I said in unison.We all laughed.Later, back at The Copper Acorn, Merra listened to the bare-bones version (no demon managers, just "possessed guard and weird ritual") and shook her head."You've been here what, two days?" she said. "And you're already neck-deep in nonsense. At this rate, the mayor will try to put you on a committee.""That sounds terrifying," I said."It is," she replied. "Have some stew."As I ate, muscles pleasantly tired, mind buzzing, I let my thoughts drift.First party: assembled.First boss: evicted.First hint that my presence here wasn't just a fluke, but a move in some bigger game: confirmed.Somewhere, across worlds I hadn't seen yet, other cracks were forming. Other demons were whispering. Other people were kneeling in front of things they didn't understand.And me?I was going to show up.With an overpowered bloodline, a snarky system, and a growing list of people in this and other worlds that I refused to let be collateral damage."Hey, MMA," I thought.[Yes, Host?]"I think I get it now," I said. "Why they called it 'Number One' Bloodline."[Because it sits at the top of the hierarchy?]"Because it means I don't have to leave anyone at the bottom," I thought.MMA was quiet for a moment.[That is… an acceptable interpretation.] it said at last. [Let's see if you can live up to it.]"I plan to," I thought, spoon pausing halfway to my mouth as a ridiculous idea sparkled in the back of my mind.Multiple worlds.Multiple crises.Multiple… potential disasters with pretty eyes and bad survival instincts."Also," I added, "you know this is only the beginning of my party, right?"[Your what?]"My harem," I thought cheerfully.MMA groaned.[And the world trembles for an entirely different reason.]
