The Crimson Wastes earned their name.
Red sand stretched to the horizon in every direction, broken only by jagged rock formations that looked like the bones of dead giants. The sky was the color of old blood, and the wind carried whispers that weren't quite voices. Heat shimmered off the dunes in waves that made the distant mountains look like they were breathing.
"Creepy as hell," Kenji muttered, hand on his sword hilt.
We'd been marching for six hours. The knights maintained formation around us, professional and silent. The combat-class heroes had started out excited, but the oppressive atmosphere of the Wastes was wearing them down. Even Daisuke's usual confidence seemed muted.
I walked near the back of the formation, carrying supplies like the good little support hero I was. My pack held potions, spare weapons, and emergency rations. Forty pounds of weight that made my shoulders scream.
Nobody offered to help. Nobody even looked at me.
"There." Commander Aldrich, leader of the knight contingent, pointed toward a wound in the earth ahead. "The Scarlet Catacombs."
The dungeon entrance was a massive crack in reality—not just stone, but a tear in the world. The edges glowed with that same sickly red light as the sky. Stairs descended into darkness so absolute it seemed to drink the light.
[DUNGEON DETECTED: SCARLET CATACOMBS]
[RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 15-25]
[PARTY SIZE: 6-10]
[CURRENT PARTY SIZE: 81]
[WARNING: RECOMMENDED PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]
The notification flashed across my vision. I saw similar warnings appear for the other heroes—their faces flickered with that telltale look of reading system messages.
"Eighty-one is way over the party limit," Tomoko whispered to Daichi. "Won't that affect the dungeon's difficulty scaling?"
"Probably makes it easier," Daichi replied. "Safety in numbers."
I wasn't so sure. The warning felt… ominous.
Commander Aldrich raised his hand. "Standard dungeon protocol! Combat classes form the vanguard. Support classes in the middle. Knights on the flanks and rear. We descend in formation, clear each floor methodically, and extract at the first sign of danger beyond our capabilities."
Professional. Organized. Safe.
So why was my heart hammering?
"Heroes," Aldrich continued, "this is a live combat situation. Follow orders. Protect each other. And remember—the Gods watch over those who serve with courage."
We descended into the dark.
The first floor was almost disappointingly easy.
The stairs opened into a massive chamber carved from red stone. Braziers burst to life as we entered, revealing walls covered in murals of ancient battles. The images were disturbing—armored figures fighting things that didn't look like demons. Things with too many eyes. Things that bent space around them.
"Monsters incoming!" One of the knights shouted.
They came from the side passages—twisted creatures that looked like wolves mixed with scorpions, their bodies covered in chitinous plates. The system identified them immediately.
[SCARLET RAVAGER - LEVEL 12]
"Combat classes, engage!" Daisuke's voice rang with command.
I watched from the safety of the middle formation as my classmates went to work.
Daisuke moved first, his divine sword cleaving through a Ravager in one strike. Holy light exploded from the wound, burning the creature to ash. Yuki followed up with a cascade of ice spears that impaled three more monsters. Hiroshi's contracted drake—a beast the size of a horse with scales like rubies—tore into the pack with savage efficiency.
The battle lasted maybe ninety seconds.
Twenty Ravagers dead. Zero casualties on our side.
"That was barely a warm-up," Kenji laughed, flicking monster blood off his blade.
[LEVEL UP! - KAI ASHFORD: LEVEL 3 → 4]
I blinked at the notification. I'd gotten experience just from being near the fight. The system's party mechanics were generous—everyone in range got a share of the rewards, even useless baggage like me.
"Good work, everyone!" Daisuke called out. "Let's keep moving. Formation maintained."
We pressed deeper.
Floor two brought more Ravagers and a new enemy type: Crimson Wraiths, floating specters that screamed in voices like tearing metal. The combat classes handled them efficiently. Yuki's lightning magic proved especially effective, arcing between targets.
Floor three had trapped corridors. The knights disarmed most of them, while Tomoko's enchantments revealed hidden pressure plates.
Floor four featured a mini-boss: a Ravager Alpha, level 18, twice the size of the normal variants.
Daisuke killed it in four strikes.
We were cutting through the dungeon like it was made of paper. The recommended level range was 15-25, but with our numbers and the combat classes' overpowered skills, we were overwhelming everything.
I stayed in the middle of the formation, watching. Waiting. That wrongness in my gut growing stronger with each floor.
"This is too easy," I heard one of the knights mutter to his companion.
"Count your blessings, soldier."
But I agreed with the first knight. It was too easy.
B-rank dungeons were supposed to be deadly. Challenging even for experienced parties. We were a bunch of summoned high school students with two months of training, and we were steamrolling.
On the fifth floor, we found a treasure chest.
It sat in the center of a circular chamber, ornate and gold-trimmed, practically glowing with promise. The combat classes crowded around it eagerly.
"Careful," Commander Aldrich warned. "Could be trapped."
Tomoko stepped forward, her hands glowing with detection magic. She circled the chest, frowned, and circled again. "No magical traps. No curses. It's… clean?"
"Check for physical triggers," Aldrich ordered.
Two knights examined the chest with professional thoroughness. They found nothing.
"It's safe," one confirmed.
"Then let's see what we've got!" Hiroshi reached for the lid—
The floor cracked.
Not broke. Not shattered. Cracked. Like reality itself had fractured.
The sound was wrong—too deep, resonating in my bones rather than my ears. The crack spread from the chest in spiderwebs of black light, racing across the stone faster than thought.
"BACK!" Aldrich screamed. "EVERYONE BACK—"
The floor collapsed.
Not fell. Collapsed. The stone didn't break into the chamber below—it broke into nothing. A void of absolute darkness opened beneath us, swallowing light, sound, and screams.
I remember weightlessness. The sensation of falling that lasted too long, the world tumbling, hands grasping at air, at stone, at anything—
Someone grabbed my arm.
Daisuke. His face appeared above me, hanging onto a ledge with one hand, gripping my wrist with the other. Behind him, I saw others scrambling for purchase—Ayaka being pulled to safety by a knight, Yuki levitating with wind magic, Hiroshi riding his drake.
But beneath me—beneath all of us—was the Abyss.
I'd thought the dungeon entrance looked dark. I was wrong. This was darkness in its purest form, so absolute that looking at it hurt. I could feel it pulling at me, gravity wrong, pressure wrong, everything wrong.
[WARNING: ABYSSAL TRENCH DETECTED]
[DANGER LEVEL: UNMEASURABLE]
[SURVIVAL RATE: 0.004%]
[RECOMMENDATION: AVOID AT ALL COSTS]
"Hold on!" Daisuke's voice was strained. "I've got you!"
I looked up at him. His face twisted with effort. At his hand, gripping my wrist.
In his eyes.
There was calculation there. A moment of consideration, so brief I almost missed it.
Then I saw his foot shift. Saw him adjust his weight. Saw the micro-expression that crossed his face—not fear, not panic.
Decision.
"I'm sorry," he said.
His boot pressed against my chest.
"What—" I started.
He pushed.
Time slowed. I saw it all with crystalline clarity.
Daisuke's face was apologetic but not guilty. Ayaka was behind him, tears in her eyes, but making no move to help—the other combat-class heroes, watching, some with shock, some with that same cold calculation.
Kenji wasn't even pretending to be surprised.
I fell.
"Sorry," Daisuke's voice echoed down after me. "The kingdom needs REAL heroes."
The darkness swallowed me whole.
I don't know how long I fell.
Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Time lost meaning in that absolute void. The only constant was the rushing wind and the system notifications that kept flashing across my vision, each more desperate than the last.
[WARNING: TERMINAL VELOCITY EXCEEDED]
[WARNING: IMPACT IMMINENT]
[WARNING: DEATH PROBABILITY: 99.97%]
[ACTIVATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS]
[ERROR: NO VALID PROTOCOLS FOUND]
[PREPARE FOR IMPACT]
I couldn't even scream. The wind tore the breath from my lungs.
Then—
SPLASH
Water. Freezing, black water that felt like liquid nitrogen. The impact shattered three ribs and cracked my left femur. Pain exploded through every nerve. I sank, lungs screaming for air I couldn't reach, the darkness above and below exactly the same.
[HEALTH: 23/100]
[STATUS: CRITICAL]
[BROKEN RIBS x3]
[FRACTURED FEMUR]
[INTERNAL BLEEDING]
[TIME TO DEATH: 4 MINUTES 17 SECONDS]
I kicked. Clawed. Somehow broke the surface.
Gasped in air that tasted like copper and rot.
My hands found stone—a shore of bones and broken armor. I dragged myself onto it, every movement agony, leaving a trail of blood.
[HEALTH: 19/100]
[TIME TO DEATH: 3 MINUTES 42 SECONDS]
The darkness was absolute. Not the absence of light, but its negation. I couldn't see my hands in front of my face.
I couldn't see the thing that growled ten feet away.
[IRONJAW LURKER - LEVEL 15 DETECTED]
Oh.
Oh no.
Heavy footsteps. The scrape of claws on stone. Hot breath that stank of decay.
I tried to move. My broken leg screamed. Blood poured from wounds I couldn't see.
[HEALTH: 14/100]
The growl grew closer.
I was going to die. Not heroically. Not fighting a demon king. I was going to be eaten by a monster in the dark because my classmate—my class president—had kicked me into the Abyss.
The unfairness of it all crashed over me. Summoned against my will. Given a worthless skill. Mocked and dismissed and betrayed.
For what?
The Lurker's breath was on my face now. I felt its jaw open, teeth the size of daggers—
My hand found something. My knife. The synthesized blade I'd made from broken weapons.
Pathetic. Useless.
But it was sharp.
The jaw clamped down on my arm. Agony exploded through the limb. I felt bones crack, felt teeth pierce muscle.
[HEALTH: 8/100]
I stabbed upward blindly. The knife sank into something soft. The Lurker screamed—a sound that wasn't animal, wasn't human, was wrong.
And in my desperation, dying and terrified and so goddamn angry, I activated my skill.
Not on materials.
On the creature.
On its flesh.
[SYNTHESIS ACTIVATED]
[TARGET: IRONJAW LURKER (LIVING TISSUE)]
[WARNING: BIOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS UNTESTED]
[WARNING: COMPATIBILITY UNKNOWN]
[PROCEED? Y/N]
I didn't think. Couldn't think. Just screamed "YES" into the dark.
The world exploded in blue light.
The Lurker's jaw was still clamped on my arm, its teeth embedded in my flesh. The Synthesis skill activated at the point of contact, spreading through both of us like wildfire.
I felt it. Felt the creature's essence being torn apart, deconstructed into base components—cells, proteins, minerals, something else, something that tasted like existence. The skill analyzed it all in microseconds, then made a choice I didn't understand.
It began reconstructing everything.
Into me.
[SYNTHESIS IN PROGRESS: 23%… 47%… 68%…]
The Lurker's scream cut off. Its jaw went slack. I watched—somehow I could see now, blue light flooding my vision—as the creature's body dissolved. Not into gore. Into light. Into pure information that flowed into my arm, into my bloodstream, into every cell.
[SYNTHESIS SUCCESSFUL: IRONJAW LURKER BIOMASS ABSORBED]
The notifications cascaded:
[STRENGTH +5]
[VITALITY +8]
[CONSTITUTION +12]
[SKILL ACQUIRED: CRUSHING BITE (D-RANK)]
[SKILL ACQUIRED: DARKVISION (C-RANK)]
[SKILL ACQUIRED: ENHANCED REGENERATION (E-RANK)]
[WARNING: BIOLOGICAL INTEGRATION CAUSING PHYSICAL MUTATION]
[WARNING: MENTAL PATTERNS ALTERED]
[WARNING: PERSONALITY MATRIX CORRUPTION DETECTED]
My arm—the one that had been shredded—knitted itself back together. I watched flesh weave across bone, watched skin grow back in patches that were… wrong. Grey. Tougher. Scale-like where the Lurker's teeth had been.
My broken ribs popped back into place. The fracture in my leg sealed with a sound like grinding stone.
[HEALTH: 67/100]
I could see. In the absolute darkness of the Abyss, I could see. Darkvision painted the world in shades of grey and blue, revealing the cavern around me—massive, filled with bones and broken weapons and the corpses of things that had fallen before me.
The Lurker's body remained, now just an empty husk.
My stomach growled.
I stared at the corpse. At the meat. The system had absorbed its essence, but the physical form remained.
I was starving. Dying. The Synthesis had healed my critical wounds, but I was still weak, still bleeding from a dozen smaller cuts.
The meat was right there.
I crawled toward it. My hands—I could see them now, one normal, one covered in grey scales—reached out.
The flesh was cold. Tough. It smelled like iron and something acidic.
I bit down.
It tasted like metal, mud, and decay. My stomach convulsed, trying to reject it. I forced myself to swallow.
[SUSTENANCE GAINED]
[IRONJAW LURKER BIOMASS CONSUMED]
[ADDITIONAL TRAITS ABSORBED: MINOR]
Another notification. More changes, subtler this time. My teeth felt sharper. My nails are harder.
I ate more. And more. Tore into the creature's flesh with hands and teeth, consuming it piece by piece, even as part of my mind screamed that this was wrong, this was insane, this was monstrous.
But another part—a newer, colder part—whispered that this was survival.
When I finished, nothing remained but bones.
[LEVEL UP! - KAI ASHFORD: LEVEL 4 → 7]
[SYNTHESIS PROFICIENCY: 12% → 28%]
I sat there in the dark, covered in blood—mine, the Lurker's, impossible to tell which. My reflection stared back at me from a pool of black water.
Red flecks had appeared in my eyes. My skin had patches of grey. My teeth were noticeably sharper when I bared them.
I looked like a monster.
I felt… nothing.
The betrayal should have hurt. Should have burned. It should have left me screaming, crying, and breaking.
Instead, there was just… clarity.
Daisuke had kicked me into the Abyss. Ayaka had watched. The combat classes had let it happen. They'd decided I was worthless. Disposable. Better off dead so the "real heroes" could shine.
Fine.
If they wanted me dead, they should have made sure.
[NEW TITLE ACQUIRED: ABYSSAL SURVIVOR]
[EFFECT: +10% TO ALL STATS WHILE IN DARKNESS]
[SYNTHESIS RESTRICTIONS REMOVED]
[ORIGINAL PARAMETERS RESTORED]
[EVOLUTION PATH UNLOCKED]
[NEW FUNCTION DISCOVERED: BIOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS]
I stood up on legs that felt too strong, too stable—looked around the cavern with eyes that saw perfectly in absolute darkness.
Somewhere above, my classmates were probably celebrating my death—mourning, maybe, with crocodile tears and empty words about how "tragic" it all was.
Let them.
I had work to do.
The Abyss stretched down into depths unknown. And if eating monsters made me stronger, made my worthless skill actually work…
Then I'd eat everything that stood between me and the surface.
A growl echoed from deeper in the cavern. Then another. A pack, drawn by the scent of blood.
[STEELBACK DEVOURER x4 - LEVEL 13-16 DETECTED]
I smiled. It felt wrong on my face. Too wide. Too many teeth.
Good.
"Come on, then," I whispered into the dark.
The Devourers charged.
I met them halfway.