The world didn't end with a bang. It ended with the sensation of weightlessness.
As the creature lunged—a blur of rotting flesh and purple malice—the ground beneath Ren's feet simply ceased to exist. The seismic tremors that had sealed the exit had also fractured the dungeon's foundation. The Weeping Caverns were old, their geological structure compromised by decades of mana erosion.
And they had just reached their breaking point.
Ren didn't scream. The air was ripped from his lungs as he fell. He tumbled into the void, a ragdoll in the dark. Debris rained around him—chunks of limestone, stalactites, and the mud of the dungeon floor.
CRASH.
He hit something hard. A ledge? A slope? He rolled, his body slamming against sharp rocks, tumbling further down, down, down. The darkness was absolute. There was no up, no down, only pain and the rushing wind.
Then, a final, bone-jarring impact.
Ren hit water.
It was freezing. The shock of the cold seized his muscles instantly. He sank, the heavy scavenger gear dragging him down like an anchor. He flailed, his hand brushing against slimy, submerged rocks. He kicked upward, his lungs burning, his vision swimming with black spots.
He broke the surface, gasping for air.
"Hah... hah..."
The sound of his own breathing echoed wetly against unseen walls. He scrambled toward the edge of the water, his fingers digging into a bank of coarse sand. He dragged himself out of the pool, collapsing onto his back.
For a long time, he just lay there. Every inch of his body screamed. His left shoulder throbbed with a dull, sickening heat—dislocated, maybe. His ribs felt like broken glass.
Am I dead?
He blinked. He couldn't see anything. The bioluminescent moss of the upper levels didn't grow down here. This was the true dark. The kind of darkness that felt heavy, like it was pressing against his eyeballs.
Ren fumbled for his utility belt. His hands were shaking so badly he dropped his flashlight. He heard it clatter and roll away.
"Dammit," he hissed.
He patted his vest, finding a chemical glow stick. He cracked it.
A sharp snap, and a pale, chemical blue light flooded the immediate area.
Ren held it up, his breath catching in his throat.
He was in a cavern, but it looked nothing like the Weeping Caverns above. The walls here weren't natural rock. They were smooth, black obsidian, carved with geometric patterns that hurt his eyes to look at. The ceiling was lost in the gloom above.
He was deep. Impossibly deep.
The monster.
The thought hit him like a bucket of ice water.
Ren scrambled to a sitting position, ignoring the agony in his ribs. He held the glow stick out, scanning the darkness. The pool of water he had fallen into was calm.
Did it fall with me?
As if to answer him, a sound echoed from high above.
BOOM.
Something massive impacted the water. The splash was a tidal wave, drenching Ren where he sat.
He didn't wait to see what surfaced. He scrambled to his feet, adrenaline overriding the pain. He ran.
He didn't know where he was going. He just chose a direction away from the water and sprinted. The ground was uneven, littered with what looked like... bones? He stepped on something brittle, and it crunched loudly.
Skreeeeee...
The sound came from behind him. It was wet, angry, and close.
Ren dove behind a pillar of black stone. He slapped a hand over his mouth, stifling his breathing. He clicked off the glow stick, plunging himself back into total darkness.
Light was death. In the deep, only prey carried a light.
He listened.
Splash. Splash. Drag.
The creature was out of the water. He could hear it sniffing the air. The sound was like a bellows pumping—a deep, rattling inhalation. It was smelling the blood. Ren's blood.
Ren pressed himself into the crevice of the obsidian pillar. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jar of "Scent-Mask." It was a paste made from crushed dung beetles and sulfur, used by scavengers to work without aggroing mobs.
He smeared the foul-smelling gray paste over his neck, his face, and his open wounds. It stung like acid, but he didn't flinch. He couldn't.
The dragging sound got closer.
Ren closed his eyes. He imagined he was a stone. A piece of trash. Nothing.
A heavy pressure filled the air. The monster was passing right in front of him. Ren could feel the heat radiating from its body. He could smell it—a stench of ancient decay that made the goblin corpses upstairs smell like roses.
A drop of viscous liquid landed on Ren's boot. It sizzled, burning through the leather. Acid saliva.
The creature paused.
Ren's heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. Please. Please move on.
The creature let out a low, frustrated growl. The Scent-Mask was working. The overpowering smell of sulfur was confusing its nose.
With a final snort, the heavy dragging sound continued, moving deeper into the cavern, away from Ren.
Ren didn't move. He waited for ten minutes. Then twenty. Only when the silence had returned completely did he dare to exhale.
He slumped against the stone, his legs giving out. He was safe. For now.
He tried to check his interface again.
[System Error.]
[Location: Unknown.]
[Connection to World Server: Lost.]
[HP: 14/110]
[Status: Bleeding (Minor), Fracture (Ribs), Exhaustion.]
14 HP. A stiff breeze could kill him.
"Okay," Ren whispered, his voice trembling. "Okay. Think. You're Ren Walker. You're the cockroach of Sector 9. You don't die."
He needed to assess his inventory. He fumbled in the dark, checking his pockets.
One rusted knife.
Two unused glow sticks.
Half a jar of Scent-Mask.
A canteen of water (half full).
No food.
He had left his main bag—the one with the goblin parts and his rations—upstairs when Kael took it.
"I'm going to starve," he realized.
But starvation was a problem for later. Right now, he needed shelter. The open cavern was a death sentence.
Ren stood up, using the wall for support. He reignited the glow stick, but kept it shielded inside his jacket, letting only a sliver of blue light escape.
He began to walk.
The architecture of this place was disturbing. It wasn't a dungeon; it was a ruin. The obsidian pillars were lined with statues of entities that shouldn't exist—humanoid figures with too many arms, or faces that were just gaping maws.
After an hour of limping, the terrain changed. The smooth floor gave way to a field of debris.
Ren paused, shining his light downward.
It was a graveyard.
But not for humans.
Massive skeletons lay scattered across the floor. Rib cages the size of houses. Skulls of dragons, hydras, and things Ren couldn't name. This was where the monsters came to die. A boneyard for the Abyss.
"What is this place?" Ren muttered, stepping over a femur bone as thick as a tree trunk.
He saw a small cave opening at the base of a massive, fossilized spine. It looked defensible. Small enough that the Rot-Behemoth couldn't squeeze inside.
Ren crawled into the small cave. It was dry and smelled of dust. He collapsed against the back wall, clutching his ribs.
He was safe from the big monster. But he was trapped miles underground, with no food, no way out, and a body that was slowly shutting down.
He took a sip of water. It did nothing to stop the gnawing emptiness in his stomach.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom of his small cave, he noticed something in the corner.
It wasn't a rock.
It was a small, glowing flower. It grew out of the dust, pulsing with a faint, violet light. It looked beautiful. And it looked delicious.
Ren shook his head. Don't be an idiot. Dungeon flora is toxic. You eat that, you die foaming at the mouth.
But the smell...
It didn't smell like a plant. It smelled like steak. It smelled like a Sunday roast. It smelled like life.
Ren's stomach roared, a painful, cramping sound. His [Hunger] stat, usually a dormant mechanic for normal humans, seemed to throb in his mind.
[Hunger: 92%]
[Warning: Starvation Imminent.]
Ren stared at the flower. Then he looked at his rusted knife.
"If I die," Ren whispered to the darkness, "I'm not dying on an empty stomach."
He crawled toward the flower. He didn't know it yet, but this wasn't a plant. It was a parasite. A sprout growing from the marrow of a buried, ancient god.
Ren reached out, his trembling fingers brushing the violet petals.
And he took a bite.