After Lina left the parking lot at 4:30 AM, Allen didn't sleep.
On the management panel, the black dots at the three intersections of the warehouse area remained for a full forty-seven minutes. At 5:02 AM, the three dots simultaneously disappeared. Not one by one—but at the same time. As if they had received the same command.
Black Serpent's monitoring shifts. Four-hour shifts? Or a tentative first attempt? Allen mentally noted the timestamps.
He spent the next forty-eight hours doing three things.
First: Farming BP. After the loot customization feature went live, the number of posts on the forum about the "Brooklyn Warehouse Dungeon" increased from three to five per hour to twelve to fifteen per hour. The rate of return visits from independent adventurers jumped from 20% to 61%. An E-rank ranger wrote a 3,000-word strategy post on the forum, titled "This dungeon knows what you want—I ran it four times, and the loot drops were so precise it made me want to cry." The post was pinned.
Two days. His BP increased from 2,600 to 11,000.
Second: Reconnaissance. The passive scan of the dungeon's perception system thoroughly examined the internal structure of the Ash Sewers—thirty-seven rooms, six monster types, two boss nodes, and one hidden area. The Black Serpent Guild's cleanup team enters every Tuesday and Friday, clearing approximately forty percent of the monster density each time. The next cleanup day is Friday. Today is Thursday.
Allen scheduled his entry for late Thursday night—the last window before the Black Serpent cleanup team arrives, when monster density is highest, but also meaning no Black Serpent members are inside.
Third: Preparing an Escape Route. He set up an automated protocol on the management panel—if he leaves his dungeon for more than three hours without returning, the dungeon automatically enters "hibernation mode," closing all entrances and suspending operations.
Insurance. Just in case he can't get out of the Ash Sewers.
—Thursday. 11:40 PM.
The entrance to the Ash Sewers is underground in the old sewage treatment plant in the northwest corner of the Red Hook District. GWA's concrete roadblocks surround the area, and yellow "Class D Danger Zone" warning signs reflect under the streetlights. Outside the barricade hung the Black Serpent Guild's serpentine emblem—the de facto sign.
Allen stood in the shadows fifty meters from the barricade. His hood was pulled up, the brim pressing down to his eyebrows. He'd changed his sneakers—the old pair had been ruined the night of the rat monster outbreak; the mud on the uppers wouldn't wash off, and the treads on the soles were worn down. The new ones were bought at a convenience store for twenty-nine dollars. They didn't fit; the left shoe was too tight.
The external monitors on the management panel showed no glowing spots around the barricade. Black Serpent's monitoring personnel weren't in this area—they were concentrated in the warehouse district monitoring Allen's dungeon.
Two minutes later, a glowing spot approached from the southeast.
Rank C.
Lina turned the corner. Black tactical clothing, high-top boots, a crescent dagger slung at her waist. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail—combat gear.
Guts wasn't there.
Allen emerged from the shadows. Lina paused for a moment, then continued walking. She stopped three meters away.
"Where's Guts?"
"His sister took his nephew to the doctor today, and he went with her. He didn't get back until early this morning."
Allen mentally adjusted the battle plan. Losing a D-rank warrior meant a 35% reduction in frontal firepower. But Lina's C-rank combat strength was enough to be a main force in an E-rank dungeon. He only needed to handle navigation and early warning.
"Are two people enough?"
Lina glanced at him. The shadow of his hood obscured most of his face, and the streetlight only illuminated his chin and the temples of his thin-rimmed glasses.
"You're D-rank. I'm C-rank. An E-rank dungeon. Whether it's enough depends on how capable you are and don't become a burden."
Allen didn't respond. He walked towards the barricade.
"Are you one of Architect's people?"
This question should have been asked two days ago in the parking lot. Lina had held it in until now.
Allen replied as he climbed over the concrete barricade.
"He hired me. I don't ask who he is, and he doesn't ask where I'm from."
Lina's boots landed on top of the barricade.
"What did he give you to come and raid Black Serpent's territory in the middle of the night?"
"The same as what I gave you. A completion reward, priority selection." Allen landed on the other side of the barricade, bending his knees to cushion the impact. His left leg wound had mostly healed, but the strenuous activity still aggravated it. "Also—there's a rare medicinal herb near room twenty-three in the Ash Sewers. Rift Herb. It's very effective in treating Rift Radiation Syndrome." Lina's jump from the barricade faltered for a moment.
The landing was a little heavier than usual. Her heel slammed into the gravel, sending two pebbles flying.
She didn't speak immediately. Allen counted to three.
"How did you know the Rift Herb was here?"
"The Architect told me."
"How did he know? This is Black Serpent's managed dungeon; their internal ecological data isn't publicly available."
Allen walked towards the underground entrance to the sewage treatment plant. The rusty iron gate was half-open; Black Serpent's lock had been cut—not by Allen, but by some unknown intruder.
"Do you want that herb?" Lina's boots followed.
— The air in the Ash Sewers was damp, carrying a sour stench of sulfides and rotting organic matter. Allen's Shadow Sense activated automatically the moment he entered the underground passage—every crack, every puddle, every crevice that might hide something within a fifteen-meter radius lit up in his sensory network.
Dungeon Sense activated simultaneously. A deeper flow of information surged in—not visual, not auditory, but closer to a structural "understanding." The thickness of every wall, the direction of every passage, the number and location of monsters in every room—all were superimposed on his vision as a semi-transparent layer of data.
First room. End of the passage.
Allen stopped before the corner.
"Three mutated lizards behind the wall. Two against the left wall, one on the ceiling. The one on the ceiling will move first." Lina circled around from behind him, her crescent dagger already in hand. She peeked halfway up the right wall.
The end of the passage was a room six meters square. The light source was the phosphorescent moss on the walls, a ghastly green. Two grayish-brown lizards, about seventy centimeters long, crouched against the left wall, their scales gleaming oily in the phosphorescence. The ceiling—a lizard hung upside down in a crack in the ceiling, its four claws wedged into the stone, its tail curled like a spring.
Exactly as Allen had described.
Lina didn't ask, "How did you know?" She rushed in.
The lizard on the ceiling moved first. Its tail snapped open, its body plummeted, its mouth opened to a full 120 degrees—Lina's Crescent Moon sword met it from below, the curved blade slicing through the lizard's jaws and down to the back of its head. The lizard's body split in two and crashed to the ground.
The two on the left wall lunged simultaneously. Lina stepped on the first one's head, using the momentum to leap up, her Crescent Moon sword drawing a semicircle in the air—the second one's neck snapped. The first one was trampled into the puddle on the ground, struggled a couple of times, and Lina finished it off after landing.
Three. Four seconds.
Allen emerged from around the corner.
"Third tile. Don't step on it." Lina's right foot hovered two centimeters above the third tile. She glanced down—the edge of the tile had a barely visible seam, differing from the seams of the other tiles by a mere 0.5 millimeters.
She pulled her foot back and stepped over it.
"You have a good sense of direction." Allen walked behind her, his short sword still drawn. In this level of dungeon, Lina could easily handle the damage output alone. His job was navigation.
Fifth room. Ninth room. Fourteenth room.
Before each corner, Allen would announce the number, location, and attack pattern of monsters behind the walls. He would mark each ground trap in advance. From the third room onwards, Lina stopped questioning his judgment—a 100% hit rate needed no explanation.
But her silence didn't mean she wasn't thinking.
Allen walked behind her, watching the back of her head. Her ponytail swayed in the phosphorescent light. Her gait gradually changed from the standard combat stance of the first room—her shoulders relaxed slightly, her weight shifting from the balls of her feet to her entire feet. Relaxation. Not relaxation towards the dungeon, but relaxation towards him.
She began to trust his warnings.
This was more useful than trusting his identity.
Room Twenty-Three.
Allen stopped at the doorway. The dungeon's data layer had marked a green dot behind the right wall of this room—not a monster, not a trap. It was a plant resource signal.
"There's a hidden compartment behind the right wall. The Rift Spirit Grass is inside." Lina paused.
She walked to the right wall. The tip of her crescent dagger traced a crack in the stone, finding a loose brick. She pressed down with her thumb. The brick caved in. A fist-sized groove popped out of the wall.
Three plants lay in the groove. The stems were translucent, the edges of the leaves had pale blue fluorescent veins, and the roots were wrapped in a clump of damp black soil.
Rift Spirit Grass.
As Lena reached for the plant, her fingers stopped two centimeters away.
Allen noticed a subtle change in her hand behind her—the angle of her fingertips shifted from "grabbing" to "touching." Very lightly. As if afraid of damaging it.
She removed all three medicinal herbs and carefully wrapped them in the waterproof lining of her tactical jacket. Her movements were three times slower than when she was chopping down the lizard.
"Your brother?" Allen asked.
Lena's back tensed.
"The Architect told you?"
"A guess. Rift radiation syndrome is most common in children under ten during the Great Fission. Based on your age, if any immediate family member has it, it's most likely your brother or sister." Lena zipped up the inner pocket. The sound of metal teeth snapping echoed through the stone walls.
"Younger brother. Twelve years old. Three years ago, during the Great Cataclysm, he was on the school playground, directly exposed to the radiation from the rift for forty minutes. GWA's free medication can only maintain basic vital signs; to truly slow the progression of his illness, he needs rift herb extract. The black market price is eight thousand per plant."
Three plants. Twenty-four thousand.
Lina's monthly income.
Allen didn't speak again. He turned and walked towards room twenty-four.
—The Boss's room is number thirty.
The door was a stone slab. Four meters high. Three meters wide. The surface was engraved with lizard patterns, phosphorescent moss growing along the lines, making the entire door resemble a glowing lizard face.
Allen's dungeon perception penetrated the stone slab, reading the data inside.
One. Three meters four inches long. Mutant Lizard King. E+ level. Special ability: Area Acid Mist—Releases a corrosive mist with a radius of five meters centered on itself, lasting twelve seconds, with a twenty-second cooldown.
"The Boss is inside. One. An E+ level Lizard King. It has an area-of-effect acid mist, five meters in radius, lasting twelve seconds, with a twenty-second cooldown." Lina twirled her crescent dagger at her waist.
"E+ level. I can handle it alone, but I can't get close during the acid mist. I need a window." Allen placed his right hand against the wall next to the Boss's room.
The stone wall felt cold, rough, and covered in a layer of slippery moss.
But the instant his palm touched the wall, another layer of perception opened up. Not shadow perception, not dungeon perception. It was the core authority of the Dungeon Architect system—the "understanding" of the dungeon's structure.
This was a natural dungeon. Not one he created. He didn't have administrator privileges.
But he was the Dungeon Architect.
The underlying structural language of all dungeons—natural or man-made—was the same. The way energy veins were woven, the load-bearing logic between rooms, the stress distribution within the walls. He couldn't read it all, but he could read a part of it.
A notification popped up on the management panel—one he had never seen before.
[Resonance detected between the Dungeon Architect and the natural dungeon structure. Limited intervention privileges temporarily granted.]
[Available Action: Structural Intervention x1 (Non-core walls only). Cost: 2000 BP.] Two thousand. He now has eleven thousand.
Allen's hand slid across the wall. Stress distribution data flowed through his fingertips—the north wall of the Boss's room. Non-load-bearing structure. Forty centimeters thick. Behind the wall was an abandoned drainage pipe, just wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.
If the north wall collapsed, Lina could go around to the Boss's rear using the pipe.
The Lizard King's acid mist was released in a frontal fan shape. Behind it was a blind spot.
"Once you're inside, you attract its attention from the front. When the acid mist is released, dodge to the left to create distance."
Lina looked at him.
"And then?"
"Then you'll see a wall collapse. Go through that opening and go around to its back."
"A wall collapsed? What wall? How did it collapse?"
Allen withdrew his hand from the wall.
"Do you trust me?" Lina stared at the shadow of his hood. The streetlights didn't reach this area, only the ghastly green of the phosphorescent moss. She couldn't see his expression.
Three seconds.
"I trust your sense of direction." The stone door opened.
The Lizard King crouched in the center of the room. Its 3.4-meter-long body was coiled up, its scales three shades darker than those of ordinary mutated lizards, almost pure black. Its vertical pupils contracted to slits in the phosphorescence.
The moment Lina rushed in, the Lizard King's throat sac swelled.
Acid mist.
A yellowish-green mist erupted from the Lizard King's mouth, spreading outwards from it. The moment the mist touched the ground, the stone slabs hissed and corroded, and the phosphorescent moss withered and turned black within three seconds.
Lina rolled to the left. The edge of the acid mist grazed three centimeters from the outside of her right shoulder. A drop splashed onto the cuff of her tactical uniform, instantly creating a scorched hole the size of a fingernail.
Twelve seconds.
Allen stood in the doorway. His right hand pressed against the inner surface of the north wall.
The management panel's notification flashed.
[Structural Intervention - Confirm Execution? Consumes 2000 BP.] Y.
The north wall began to crumble from the inside. Not an explosion—it was deconstruction. The energy channels within the wall were severed by Allen's system permissions, and the stones, deprived of structural support, naturally disintegrated along stress lines. The entire wall collapsed from the middle to both sides within four seconds, rubble tumbling to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.
Behind the wall—a dark, gaping drainage pipe.
Lina didn't hesitate. The twelve-second cooldown of the acid mist had just ended, and the Lizard King was charging up for its second burst. She squeezed through the gap in the collapsed wall into the pipe, ran five steps sideways, and flipped out from the other end of the pipe—
Landing directly behind the Lizard King.
Two meters away. The back of the Lizard King's neck. The seam of its scales.
The crescent dagger plunged downwards. A curved blade sliced through the gaps in the scales, tearing forty centimeters along the spine. The Lizard King's body convulsed, its tail sweeping across—Lina had already jumped away.
The second cut. The third cut.
The Lizard King collapsed in the center of the room. Black blood gushed from the wound on its neck, looking like ink under the phosphorescence.
Allen entered the Boss room. He walked around the Lizard King's corpse to the deepest part of the room.
The Heart of the Dungeon.
A fist-sized, grayish-green crystal was embedded in a groove in the back wall. Its surface had fine cracks—a sign of aging that naturally develops in the cores of dungeons after long periods of operation.
Allen reached out and touched the crystal. A prompt appeared on the management panel.
[Extract the E-grade core fragment? After extraction, this natural dungeon will enter a dormant state (72 hours), monsters will stop spawning, and the entrance will be temporarily closed.] Y.
A fingernail-sized fragment peeled off the crystal's surface. Grayish-green, translucent, with faint pulses of light pulsating within. The fragment landed in Allen's palm, its temperature cooler than body heat but warmer than a stone.
[E-grade Core Fragment x1. Acquired.] Allen put the fragment into his hoodie's inner pocket.
Lena stood beside the Lizard King's corpse, black blood still dripping from her crescent dagger. She watched Allen's retreating figure as he retrieved something from a recess in the wall.
"That wall."
Allen turned around.
"You made it collapse."
Not a question.
Allen zipped up the inner pocket.
"Architect's technical support. Remote operation." Lena twirled the crescent dagger in her hand. Black blood arced across the ground.
"Remote operation can be precise enough to make a wall naturally collapse along its stress lines, the debris won't hurt anyone in the room, the opening is just big enough for me to squeeze through sideways, and the location is perfectly positioned in the blind spot directly behind the Boss."
She sheathed the dagger.
"What kind of monster is your boss?"
Allen didn't answer. He walked towards the exit of the Boss's room. After two steps, the dungeon's senses detected an unusual signal—not ahead, but beneath his feet.
Beneath the floor of the Boss's room. A hidden area.
The signal was very weak. Not a monster, not resources. It was some kind of…inscription.
Allen crouched down. His right hand rested on the floor. The resonance of the Dungeon Architect system reactivated—two meters below the floor, there was a stone slab. The slab was inscribed with text.
The management panel automatically began deciphering it.
The text wasn't English, not any modern language. The shapes of the symbols were somewhere between cuneiform and circuit diagrams—each stroke carrying a faint pulse of energy.
The system translated a portion. Intermittently. Like a radio with a poor signal.
[[...The Architect's Seed...has been planted in the rift...]
[...The rift is not accidental...it's all...a test...]
[...The abyss awaits...the first Architect...will decide...]] The rest was sealed. The system's translation permissions were insufficient.
Allen lifted his hand from the floor. His fingertips were icy.
"The Architect's Seed."
The dungeons worldwide weren't natural disasters.
They were planted.
And the profession of "Dungeon Architect"—his profession—was part of this plan.
Who planted it?
"The Abyss awaits."
Waiting for what?
"What are you looking at?" Lina's voice came from behind.
Allen stood up. Dust from the Boss's room floor clung to his knees.
"Let's go. It's time to get out."
— The exit of the Ash Sewers. 2:17 AM.
The ground of the old sewage treatment plant. The night wind swept in, washing away the acrid stench of the dungeon from his nostrils. Allen took two deep breaths.
Lina climbed over the exit and sat on the barricade for a while. The crescent dagger lay across her knees. She took the three Rift Spirit Herbs from the inner pocket of her tactical vest and examined them. The leaves were intact, the fluorescent veins still pulsating.
"How long will this last for your brother?"
"A month." Lina rewrapped the herbs. "I saved up for half a year to buy one. I'm taking three at once today."
She jumped down from the barricade. Standing before Allen. The streetlight shone from the side, casting a long shadow of hers, the crescent-shaped outline of her dagger projected onto the gravel.
"Thank your boss for me."
Allen nodded.
Lina turned and walked southeast. Five steps. She stopped.
"I don't know who you really are."
She didn't turn back.
"But thank you." The sound of her high boots on the gravel faded into the distance. Her ponytail swayed one last time under the streetlight and disappeared around the corner.
Allen stood beside the roadblock. After Lina's glowing dot had traveled three hundred meters on the management panel, he turned and walked towards the warehouse area.
Twenty minutes later. Second basement level of the parking lot. A diamond-shaped opening.
Allen pulled an E-grade core fragment from his hoodie pocket. The grayish-green, translucent crystal refracted fine points of light under blue light.
He placed the fragment on the edge of the diamond-shaped opening.
A prompt popped up on the management panel.
[E-grade core fragment detected. Inject it into the Heart of the Dungeon for an upgrade?] [Upgrade Path: F+ Rank → E Rank]
[Consumes: E Rank Core Fragment × 1 + 5000 BP]
[Current BP Balance: 9,100 (after deducting the cost of structural intervention in the Ash Sewers)]
Y.
The fragment slid off the edge of the rhomboid opening and fell into the blue light.
The ground trembled. Not the violent impact of a dungeon eruption—it was a steady, rhythmic pulsation emanating from within. Like a heartbeat.
The blue light from the rhomboid opening changed from a deep blue to a dark blue, then from dark blue to indigo. The intensity of the light increased by an order of magnitude, casting Allen's long, dark shadow on the concrete pillar.
The management panel began to refresh. Faster than ever before.
[Dungeon Upgrade in Progress…]
[F+ Rank → E Rank. Completed.] [New Features Unlocked]
[Room Cap Increased: 20 → 30]
[New Monster Slots: +5]
[Trap System Upgrade: Level 2 Trap Blueprint Unlocked]
[Dungeon Theme Customizable (First Time Free)]
Allen stared at the data on the panel for a full thirty seconds. E-rank dungeon. Thirty rooms. Five new monster slots. Customizable theme.
His dungeon was no longer the F-rank toy he'd used to scare Jason Collins three days ago.
A second notification popped up at the bottom of the management panel. Red border.
[System Warning: Abnormal Access Detected to External Guild Database.]
[Details: The Black Serpent Guild's internal system has marked "Ash Sewers (NYC-BK-0512)" as "Asset Abnormality - Unauthorized Clearing". Guild verification procedures have been initiated. An investigation team is expected to be dispatched to the Ash Sewers entrance within 24 hours.]
Allen's lips twitched.
This was what he wanted.
The Black Serpent Guild's managed dungeon has been emptied. The boss is dead. The core fragment is gone. The dungeon has entered a 72-hour hibernation. Victor Stone will know someone has trespassed on his territory. He will be furious. He will investigate.
And where will the investigation lead?
The only "independent dungeon" operator in Brooklyn. Architect_00.
That's what Allen wants.
Not to hide. To set rules.
You monitor my dungeon, I'll empty yours. You send three people to block my entrance, I'll take your most valuable possession.
Reciprocity.
"Name your price"?
This is my price.
At the very bottom of the management panel, beneath all the prompts and warnings, the last line of text appears.
Not blue. Not red. Not gold.
Black.
The font is one size larger than any text on the system panel. The border is flashing at an irregular frequency—not the system's standard flashing pattern. Like breathing.
[Voice of the Abyss—] Allen's finger hovered above the panel.
Black text appeared, one word at a time.
["The first architect has awakened."] Pause. Two seconds.
["Interesting."] Another pause.
["Let me see... how far you can build."] All other prompts on the management panel went out the instant this line appeared. The Blueprint Shop, BP Counter, Client Files, External Monitoring—all turned gray.
Only this line of black text remained.
In the blue light of the second basement level of the parking garage, in the dripping of the drainpipes, in the reflection of Allen's glasses.
Then the black text disappeared. The management panel returned to normal. All functions lit up again.
As if nothing had happened.
Allen stared at the spot where the line of text had disappeared from the panel. Blank. Clean.
A drop of water dripped from the drainpipe, splashing onto the concrete floor at his feet.
His hand was still suspended in mid-air.
It wasn't trembling.
But the temperature at his fingertips was even lower than when he had touched that core fragment.