The moment Malachai stepped through the Gate, the world forgot how to be real.

  It was as if he’d fallen into the throat of something vast and ancient—a creature that had never learned how to die.

  The walls pulsed with breath. Not air. Breath. Damp and heaving, like lungs that had never known clean wind. Everything around him was wet, but not with water. The floor beneath his boots squelched with every step, layers of viscera shifting beneath thin membranes of muscle and blood-slick stone. The deeper he went, the more the dungeon warped.

  Ceilings stretched too high and too low. Corridors twisted on themselves like intestines. The light came from nowhere, and yet everything was dim—as if the place swallowed brightness, devoured it like it did everything else.

  He moved slowly, crowbar raised, one foot dragging from an injury he hadn’t stopped to bandage. Blood had dried on his thigh, caking the wound shut, but it cracked with every movement.

  And then the walls screamed.

  They didn’t echo. They bled. A mouth opened along the wall—vertical and toothless, like a shark split down the middle—and from it spilled a creature like a skinned cat with six legs, ribs exposed, eyes glassy and too wide.

  Malachai didn’t think.

  He smashed its head into the floor until bone gave way to pulp. Blood splattered up his arms, mixing with his own. He didn’t stop swinging until the creature twitched no more.

  ? Trait Fragment Acquired: Mawling +1 Agility

  No time to process. No time to rest.

  He limped forward.

  The next chamber was darker—smaller—and the stench hit first. Sulfur. Copper. Shit. He stepped over a ribcage that wasn’t human. Something slithered above him, too fast to see. Something else moved behind the walls, just out of reach, watching.

  He turned a corner and walked into a nest of Corpse Leeches.

  Dozens of them. Each the size of a cat, their mouths lined with ringed teeth, black tongues flicking. They dropped from the ceiling in waves.

  He screamed.

  One landed on his back, another on his arm. Teeth dug in. He thrashed, rolled, slammed himself into the wall. Ripped one off with both hands and hurled it, only for three more to latch on. Their blood burned like acid. His skin blistered.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ? HP: 51/110

  He activated Feast of Flesh and ripped one of the leeches open, absorbing its vile energy. It tasted like bile and rot. His vision blurred.

  Another bite. Another scream.

  He grabbed a rusted pipe off the wall and beat them back. Flesh splattered the walls. One burst beneath his heel. He lost count of how many he killed before the last of them fled back into the cracks.

  ? Trait Fragment Acquired: Corpse Leech New Passive: Toxic Resistance (Minor)

  He collapsed against the wall, panting, blood dripping from a dozen new wounds. His skin felt like it was melting. His head swam.

  This place was not meant to be survived.

  It was a crucible.

  He pulled himself to his feet and kept walking.

  The dungeon narrowed into a spiral tunnel that descended, walls turning from meat to something darker—a kind of obsidian flesh, glossy and whispering. Words crawled across it. Names. Prayers. Begs for mercy written in languages that had no alphabet. A child’s handprint smeared in blood led the way.

  He followed.

  A cluster of blind Wretchlings ambushed him near a pool of stagnant black water. They moved like broken spiders, their heads too large, their eyes sewn shut. They hissed. Bit. Tore.

  He killed them all. But not before one drove a claw deep into his shoulder, hooking muscle and yanking.

  ? HP: 33/110

  He screamed. Bit the thing’s face. Punched its teeth down its throat. The others swarmed. He fought through them like an animal, slipping on gore, screaming louder than they did.

  ? Trait Fragment Acquired: Wretchling (2) +1 Willpower

  He didn’t know how long he wandered after that.

  The dungeon had no time. No sun. No rhythm.

  Just agony.

  Just monsters.

  Just blood.

  His screen pulsed again.

  Reaper Progression: 17% New Passive Acquired: Hungering Core You gain a minor regenerative effect when standing among the dead.

  He stood alone in a hall of corpses, his breath catching. Slowly, gently, the pain ebbed.

  A gift. A mockery. A reminder.

  This dungeon was not a place.

  It was a being.

  And it wanted him to kill.

  Malachai wiped blood from his eyes, raised his weapon, and kept walking deeper into the dark.