The ruined city had been online for 24 hours.
The customer tracking module on the management panel displayed a dense heatmap in front of Allen. Sixty-three teams challenged it, seventeen cleared it, and forty-six were wiped out. The clearance rate was 27%.
For an E-rank dungeon, this number was abnormally low. The average clearance rate for GWA-registered global E-rank dungeons was 71%.
But there wasn't a single negative review on the DeepRift forum.
Allen scrolled through the post list. The pinned post had over four thousand comments. An adventurer with a B-rank badge next to their verified ID wrote a sentence that was pushed to the top of the comment section.
"I've done the outer perimeter of S-rank dungeons. This E-rank dungeon in Brooklyn scares me more than the outer perimeter of an S-rank dungeon. Because S-rank is random fear. This dungeon—it knows what you're afraid of." BP Balance: 18,400.
The number quietly lit up in the upper right corner of the management panel. Allen stared at it for three seconds. Three days ago, he only had 2,600 left in his pocket. Now he had 18,000. The immersion rating system in the ruined city is more than three times more efficient at generating BP than the old version of the corridor dungeon.
The deployment threshold for the Abyss Watcher is a D-rank dungeon. Upgrading requires a D-rank core fragment plus 15,000 BP.
Almost enough BP. No fragments.
My phone vibrated.
Not a forum notification. A private message from DeepRift. Sender: SnakeBite.
Allen opened it.
Not a single line of text. It was an attachment. PDF format. Filename: "Partnership Agreement— Black Serpent Guild× Architect_00".
Allen opened the PDF.
The first page featured a serpent emblem and the header of a law firm: Kessler & Vance, Midtown Manhattan, specializing in Awakened commercial law. Allen had looked this up in the GWA's public information database—the Black Serpent Guild's go-to law firm.
The contract. Seventeen pages. Allen read it in four minutes.
Core Terms: The Black Serpent Guild "leases" the exclusive management rights of the Brooklyn Warehouse Dungeon for $50,000 per month. Architect_00 retains day-to-day operational rights, but all challenger teams must queue through the Black Serpent Guild's channels. Black Serpent takes a 40% cut of the equipment and resources produced in the dungeon.
Contract Term: Five years.
Penalty for Breach of Contract: Five million.
Next to the signature panel on the last page, a line of handwritten English appeared. The handwriting was thick and heavy, the strokes heavy, with downward-pointing obtuse angles at the ends—the writer's grip on the pen was far stronger than average.
"Fair price. Fair deal. Let's be professional." $50,000 a month. Allen did the math in his head. His total income last month was $680 from his part-time job at the convenience store. This contract was equivalent to seven years' worth of his salary in one month.
It sounded very generous.
The management rights meant that Black Serpent controlled who could and couldn't enter. The 40% cut meant that every piece of equipment produced from his dungeon had to pass through Black Serpent's hands. A five-year contract plus a five-million-dollar penalty meant—signing it was like selling yourself.
Victor Stone wasn't buying the dungeon. He was buying him.
Allen closed the PDF. No reply.
He opened the DeepRift forum and logged into Architect_00.
He posted.
Title: "Independent Operation Statement for the Brooklyn Warehouse Dungeon." The text was only four lines long.
"This dungeon does not accept any guild's proposals for management, cooperation, acquisition, or 'leasing.' This dungeon is open to all independent adventurers. No barriers. No middlemen. Rules are set by the owner. —Architect_00." Send.
Two hundred replies flooded the comment section within thirty seconds. Allen hadn't expected this speed. He scrolled through them.
Top comment: "Finally, someone dares to say no to Black Serpent."
Second: "Architect is the only dungeon operator who gives the green light to independent adventurers. All the other dungeons are naturally monopolized by guilds."
Third: "If Black Serpent dares to touch Architect, a thousand people will block their guild gates. I'm signing up." Sixty-three challenge teams. Each team consisted of three to five people. Two to three hundred independent adventurers had entered his dungeon in the past twenty-four hours, obtaining custom-made equipment unavailable elsewhere. These individuals lacked guild affiliations and had long been relegated to the bottom of the resource chain by the management system of large guilds.
His initial intention in posting was to draw a line. To tell Victor Stone: Your table is too small, I won't sit there.
The actual effect went far beyond simply drawing a line.
The comment section garnered over five hundred comments within five minutes. The independent adventurer community spontaneously organized itself in the comments—some posted the Black Serpent Guild's management fees for dungeons in the Red Hook area, comparing them to Architect_00's free access; some dug up old posts about Guts having his registration certificate confiscated when he left Black Serpent and re-pinned them; some directly launched a petition in the comments: "If Black Serpent dares to touch the warehouse dungeon, we will jointly report them to GWA."
Allen closed the post.
A civilian army of public opinion. He didn't recruit, didn't incite, and didn't even mention Black Serpent's name in the main text. But the independent adventurers had pieced the puzzle together themselves—SnakeBite's private message screenshots had been circulating in the forum's inner circle two days prior. While there was no concrete evidence, the information that "Black Snake was watching Architect" was an open secret.
This knife wasn't sharp enough. Public opinion could delay, but it couldn't stop an S-rank.
Two hours and fourteen minutes after the post was published.
A red signal popped up on the external monitoring screen of the management panel. Allen assumed it was Black Snake's routine shift—they had been changing monitoring personnel every eight hours for the past forty-eight hours, two or three C-rank or D-rank personnel.
No. Three vehicles. Eight points of light. Entering from the east entrance of the Red Hook area.
Rank markings appeared.
C-rank. C-rank. B-rank. B-rank. B-rank. A-rank. A-rank.
The color of the eighth point of light made Allen's hand flutter away from the management panel.
Dark purple.
The management panel had never displayed this color before. The system automatically generated a note he'd never seen before, with a red border and a font size two sizes larger than a regular alert.
[Warning: An S-rank Awakened has entered external monitoring range. The current dungeon level (E-rank) defense system cannot pose an effective threat to an S-rank being. Recommendation: Avoid.] Victor Stone himself had arrived.
Eight dots of light formed a loose wedge array on the management panel, the deep purple one at the forefront. Three cars slowed down and stopped on the main street of the warehouse district.
Allen sat in the darkness on the second basement level of the parking lot. Pillar P2-17 pressed against his back.
Then he felt it.
Not the data on the management panel—it was physical. The air became heavier. Not metaphorically. It was as if his chest was using more force when inhaling. The resistance to alveolar expansion increased by an order of magnitude he couldn't describe but his body could perceive.
The water droplets from the drainpipe were skewed.
Allen stared at that thin stream of water. Since he moved into this parking lot, the dripping trajectory of the drainpipe hadn't changed—78 centimeters vertically from the pipe opening to the ground. Now, that waterline was off by two millimeters at twenty centimeters from the ground. To the northeast.
The direction of the main street of the warehouse district.
The passive energy field of an S-class Awakened. Five hundred meters away. Separated by two concrete floors and three iron walls. It could still deflect the water droplets.
The external audio monitor on the management panel picked up a low-frequency vibration. Not a car engine. It was a person speaking.
"Architect." Allen turned up the volume.
"I know you can hear me." Deep. Steady. The spacing between each syllable was equal, as if calibrated with a metronome. Not the kind of bluffing steadyness—it was a rhythm cultivated from being used to everyone keeping quiet in his presence.
"Your little dungeon is interesting. Your forum statement is also very courageous. But I'm not here to talk about forums." Pause. Two seconds. On the management panel, the eight dots remained motionless.
"Red Hook District is mine. Of the six natural dungeons surrounding it, I manage three. Seventy percent of the Awakened economy in this area passes through my channels. You opened a shop on my turf. I don't mind. But you publicly stated you wouldn't cooperate with me—"
Another pause. This time only a second. But in that second, the angle of the water droplets in the drainpipe changed from two millimeters to three millimeters.
"This isn't a business decision. This is a slap in the face."
Allen's back pressed against a concrete pillar, the pillar transmitting vibrations. Extremely faint. But his bones could feel them.
"You have forty-eight hours. Sign the contract—or your adventurer clients will find that Red Hook District has suddenly become extremely unsafe."
Eight points of light turned simultaneously. They got into the car. The engine started. They drove away from Red Hook District.
The entire journey took less than three minutes. No entering the warehouse. No breaking down doors. No physical violence.
Allen placed his hands on his knees.
His ten fingers were trembling. More so than the night of the rat monster outbreak. Not adrenaline. The tremor that night was a post-war reaction—the body knew the danger was over and breathed a sigh of relief. The tremor now is different. The body is saying: the danger is still there, you can't escape, you can't withstand it.
E-rank versus S-rank. Four major tiers in between.
"Make the Red Hook Zone unsafe"—stop managing the clearing of the natural dungeon, let the monster density accumulate to the outbreak threshold within three weeks. Send B-rank thugs to harass independent adventurers coming to the warehouse district. Use Black Serpent's network within GWA to exert pressure, apply for an official ban on the warehouse district on the grounds of "illegally operating an unregistered dungeon."
None of these require Victor Stone's personal intervention. He has two A-ranks and three B-ranks.
Forty-eight hours.
Allen pulled two things from his hoodie pocket. A business card. A white card folded into four sections.
The phone number on the business card, eleven digits.
Two lines of text on the white card. The first line: "I'm not here to shut you down. I am here to understand." The second line: "Nice work tonight. But next time, don't leave so many fingerprints. —R.C." Robert Chen wasn't an ally. But he wasn't Victor Stone.
GWA's Code of Conduct for Awakened, Article 7: High-ranking Awakened are prohibited from using force or economic coercion to force low-ranking Awakened to sign involuntary contracts. Allen had read the full text three days ago while browsing the GWA website, but hadn't paid much attention then.
Now he was very concerned.
Allen didn't need to tell Robert he was the Architect. He only needed to tell him—Victor Stone had come to the Red Hook District tonight with eight people, and what he said.
An E-rank Awakened was threatened to his face by the leader of an S-rank guild. That in itself was a case.
Allen dialed the number.
It rang three times. He answered.
"Robert Chen?" There was a half-second of silence on the other end. The background noise was the low hum of the air conditioner and the sound of turning pages—an office.
"...Who are you?"
"An E-rank Awakener living in the Red Hook District. Tonight, Victor Stone brought eight people and stood outside my door for three minutes. You'll be interested in what he said." Four seconds.
The rustling of papers on the other end of the line stopped.
Then Robert Chen said something Allen hadn't prepared for.
"Allen Grey." Allen's thumb pressed the volume button on the side of the phone, the pressure on his fingertip jumping from three Newtons to eight Newtons.
"E+ rank—no. Based on your demonstrated combat capabilities, D rank. Right?" A drop of water dripped from the drainpipe. The trajectory returned to vertical. The S-rank energy field had withdrawn from its influence. The parking lot fell silent again, save for Allen's breathing and the equidistant silence on the other end of the phone.
"Your voiceprint is in the GWA's database. Recorded on the day of the Awakening Ceremony. Ten thousand people were present, and every word each person uttered as they stepped onto the altar was archived. You said 'I'm ready' on the altar. Two words, that's enough." Allen's head pressed against a concrete pillar. It was cool. The same temperature as every night.
"You want to talk about Victor Stone," Robert's voice came through the receiver. "I want to talk about it too." A pause. A thud.
"But I'd like to talk about something else." The closed black eye icon in the lower left corner of the management panel flashed.
"That dungeon in your basement. Shall we meet and talk?"