The fragments trembled on the mirror's surface.
Black metallic slag slid from various points on the floor towards the center, each broken piece of armor precisely returning to its original position. Dark red energy threads seeped from the gaps in the fragments, welding, mending, and fusing together.
Thirty seconds.
The Watcher stood up.
The armor was intact. The greatsword returned to its hand. The dark red pupils lit up again.
But the posture had changed.
Last time, it was a standard defensive stance, hands on the sword, facing the enemy. This time—the center of gravity had lowered by three centimeters. The left foot was half a foot's width ahead of the right. The shoulders were slightly tucked in. The chin was turned inward.
A stance for dealing with a boxer.
Victor didn't hesitate. His right fist, enveloped in a golden energy field, slammed out.
The Watcher sidestepped.
Not dodging—but parting slightly, just barely missing the edge of the punch. Victor's fist grazed the surface of its breastplate. The golden energy field sparked a trail of sparks from the dark red armor. Zero damage.
Power punch. Immune.
Victor's left leg followed. The whooshing sound of the knee exploding in the mirrored space. Side kick. Contact energy blast.
It hit.
The Watcher's spine snapped in the middle. The upper and lower body flew to the sides at different angles. Dark red fragments scattered in the air.
Allen watched the adaptation counter jump one step on the monitor in the bunker.
3.
Thirty seconds.
The Watcher stood up. The armor was intact.
Victor made his third move. Both palms pushed forward. No contact.
Qi blast. A strike from a distance.
The shockwave traveled three meters through the air, directly impacting the Watcher's armor. Dark red metal exploded from the inside out. The core energy structure was shattered.
Adaptation counter: 4.
Thirty seconds.
The Watcher stood up.
Victor's right hand gathered golden light. The light stretched, solidified, and took shape in his palm. A two-meter-long energy-constructed spear. The sharpness of the spearhead cast a blinding white reflection on the mirror-like surface.
Piercing.
The spearhead pierced the core of the Watcher's breastplate. Entering from the front and exiting from the back. Dark red energy crackled along the shaft.
The Watcher's body slid down the shaft. Shattered.
Adaptation Counter: 5.
Thirty seconds.
The Watcher stood up for the fifth time.
An additional layer—a dark red light membrane—appeared on the surface of his armor, extending from the top of his helmet to the soles of his metal boots. Even, dense, and without a single gap.
Victor stood still.
Three seconds.
He didn't move.
Allen saw Victor's right hand on the monitor—his fist was open. His five fingers hung naturally.
Not relaxed. He was choosing again.
Punching, kicking, internal energy, energy weapon piercing. Four dimensions of attack. All immune.
Adding to Lina's Shadowstep variant and Guts's frontal hammer strike.
Six immunity attributes. This C-rank boss's defenses are beginning to erode the S-rank's offensive options.
Victor's chest heaved slightly.
A golden force field exploded from his body.
Domain. The ultimate ability of an S-rank Awakened. Centered on the user, with a radius of fifteen meters, all matter and energy obey the user's will.
The mirrored floor distorted within the force field. The black surface wrinkled, emitting a dense, crisp sound like shattering glass. The air was compressed into visible ripples by the golden light.
Cracks began to appear on the Watcher's armor.
A dark red light membrane shimmered under the crushing pressure of the golden domain—it was resisting. Each crack was repaired by the light membrane as it expanded to one centimeter. But the repair speed couldn't keep up with the pressure of the domain.
Three seconds. Five seconds.
The cracks spread from the chest armor to the shoulder armor. From the shoulder armor to the helmet.
Seventh second.
The Watcher shattered.
The golden field pressed the fragments to the ground, crushing them into powder.
The adaptation counter jumped to 6.
Allen stared at that number on the monitor screen in front of the ice wall.
6. S-Rank Domain—Complete Immunity.
Thirty seconds later.
The Watcher stood up for the sixth time.
The density of the light membrane thickened. The dark red patterns on the armor's surface changed from single lines to a net. Each line pulsated slightly.
Victor Stone stood opposite it. No smile. No anger.
"It has learned all my attack methods."
His voice echoed twice in the mirrored space.
"If I continue to fight, it will become immune to everything I do."
He looked up. Looking at the endless darkness above.
"This boss's design—was it specifically designed to deal with me?"
Allen's finger pressed the internal broadcast button on the management panel.
He hesitated for 0.3 seconds.
He pressed it.
"Not for you." A deep, metallic voice resonated from the walls on all sides. The dungeon's sound system flattened, widened, and layered his voice with three echoes. This wasn't Allen Grey's voice. This was the sound of the entire dungeon.
"It's for dealing with all those who think they're invincible."
Victor didn't turn around. He didn't look for the source of the sound.
The Watcher stood before him. Its dark red eyes were fixed on him.
Its posture—no longer defensive. Its hands released their grip on the greatsword. The tip of the sword embedded in the mirror. The dark red patterns on its armor pulsed silently.
Waiting for his move. Learning his move. Then becoming immune.
"What do you want me to do?"
Not a threat. Not taunting. The emphasis was on "what." Negotiation.
"Get out of my dungeon. And don't ever come back."
Victor looked at the Watcher for three seconds.
Then he smiled. Not the controlling smile from before. The smile was the same, but the position of his teeth had changed—his back molars.
"Fine." His right fist slammed against the side wall of room eighty.
The wall shattered.
Not cracked—the entire wall expanded thirty centimeters outward from the point of contact, then exploded into fragments from the center.
The structure of Room 79 was exposed behind the opening. Gray concrete and steel bars trembled in the aftershocks of the golden energy field.
He stopped attacking the Boss.
He attacked the dungeon itself.
The Watcher didn't pursue. Its feet were nailed to the mirror in Room 80. Patrol range locked. A gatekeeper is a gatekeeper. Can't guard anything outside the door.
Victor's second punch shattered the partition wall between Rooms 79 and 78. The third punch ripped half of the ceiling off Room 77.
He was hitting back. Crushing towards the heart of the dungeon.
The core had shifted. Allen's fingers ground a layer of white powder from the ice wall. The fist of the heart was no longer at his chest—but the physical structure of the Brooklyn ruins was being dismantled.
Eighty rooms. Two weeks' design. Wall after wall crumbling.
An emergency option popped up on the management panel.
[Administrator Avatar - Standby. Activate? Cost: 20,000 BP. Duration: 10 minutes.] Allen pressed the activation button.
BP balance jumped from 23,700 to 3,700.
Room 75—Victor Stone had just overturned the last load-bearing slab of Room 76—a figure emerged from the rubble.
A translucent body formed by blue light. The silhouette was a hoodie and jeans. The face was a blurry mist of light. The system automatically obscured the architect's appearance.
Avatar Level: B+.
Victor glanced at it.
"B+?" The avatar didn't answer. Allen didn't need it to speak.
Three additional rules activated simultaneously. A 20-meter radius centered on the avatar.
Gravity x3.
Time Flow x0.5.
Attribute Lock—Strength Limit A.
Victor's step stepped into the edge of the rule field. His boot sank a centimeter. The speed of his arm's upward movement was halved. His fist clenched, muscles engorged—the force of his attack slammed into the A-grade ceiling, bouncing back.
He glanced down at his hand.
"The rules?" The avatar charged forward.
Allen controlled the avatar on the bunker's management panel. Not AI-automated combat. It was himself. Every step, every punch, every dodge angle was transmitted from his cerebral cortex through the management link to the avatar's muscle model.
He understood every inch of this underground city at the nanometer level.
The west wall of room seventy-five—the third brick, seventh from the top—would collapse inward under a force exceeding four thousand Newtons, the fragments flying in a parabolic trajectory, their furthest point landing two meters to the right of the door frame.
The avatar punched that brick.
Fragments flew out. Victor dodged to the side. The avatar had already circled behind the fragments to his right blind spot. A long dagger thrust towards his ribs.
Victor parried with his forearm. His strength, limited to A-level, increased the range of his block—he needed more movement to deflect the same impact.
The avatar shattered.
Victor's elbow strike pierced the blue light's chest. The light dissipated. Fragments fell.
A second later. The avatar reconstructed on the spot. Blue light surged from the ground, reforming into a human form.
Inside the dungeon. The avatar rapidly regenerated.
Victor's elbow strike shattered the half-reconstructed avatar. The light dissipated again.
Reconstructed again.
Allen's fingers flew across the management panel. Adjusting the avatar's reconstruction position—not in place, but three meters behind Victor. The moment the avatar landed, its feet struck a pre-buried level four trap.
Not triggering the trap. Using the trap's energy to launch itself.
The avatar charged at Victor from behind. The blade of the long dagger scraped the ground, leaving a trail of blue sparks.
Victor turned. His fist slammed out. The avatar slid half a step to the left before the fist's force arrived—a 0.3 millimeter elevation difference line on the floor of room 75, the avatar's left foot landing precisely on the lower side, using the slight acceleration from the elevation difference to change direction.
The dagger grazed the left sleeve of Victor's jacket. The fabric tore. A faint red line appeared on his arm.
S-rank blood.
Victor glanced down at the mark.
The avatar shattered again. This time, it was shattered by a kick.
Reconstruction.
Seven times. In ten minutes, the avatar was shattered seven times. Each time, the reconstruction location was different—a corner, a crack in the ceiling, above a trap module, in a gap in a pile of rubble.
Allen fought Victor Stone for ten minutes inside the entire dungeon.
Victor Stone didn't advance an inch.
The eighth time. Halfway through the avatar's reconstruction, the blue light suddenly thinned. The light flickered twice. Dissipated.
Ten minutes were up.
BP Balance: 0.
Allen collapsed against the ice wall of the bunker. His back pressed against the frozen concrete. He trembled from fingertips to toes. Not from the cold. It was the overload reaction of his nervous system after processing over two thousand tactical commands in ten minutes.
A notification popped up on the management panel.
Robert Chen. Emergency Channel.
"GWA Rapid Reaction Force deployed. Victor Stone's energy fluctuations in the dungeon have triggered an S-level alert. Claire DuPont is on her way. Eight minutes."
Eight minutes.
On the monitor, Victor Stone stood amidst the ruins of Room 75. Only floating blue dust remained in the empty corridor after his avatar dissipated.
He glanced down at the red line on his left sleeve.
Then he withdrew his fist.
"Ten minutes. You win."
He turned. His steps were steady. Not fast, not slow. He walked towards the entrance.
He took three steps. He paused. He didn't look back.
"But you'll come out of this underground city sooner or later. There are no rules outside."
He leaped up through the diamond-shaped opening. Sunlight streamed in, then was momentarily blocked by his figure. Then the light returned to normal.
He was gone.
Allen's head slammed against the ice wall. The chill seeped into his skull from his scalp. He closed his eyes.
On the management panel, the Abyss Watcher's Adaptability Counter was frozen at 7.
BP zeroed.
Avatar cooldown 24 hours.
Exhausted.
His phone vibrated in his empty pocket.
Not a notification from the management panel. It was the phone itself.
Allen pulled it out. His fingers trembled violently; he had to swipe twice to unlock the screen.
A text message. Unknown number.
"Allen Grey. 22 years old. Brooklyn. Obtained an unknown job on the day of the Awakening Ritual. Currently residing on the second basement level of an abandoned parking lot in the Red Hook District." He bit down on an old scar on his tongue from three days ago. The taste of rust spread in his mouth.
The text message had a second half. "You think the 'Architect_00' persona can protect you forever? I'm not GWA. I don't need to go through the motions. We need to talk. About your parents. About the real reason for the Manhattan outbreak. About that siren that was turned off. —D.H."
D.H.
The ice wall of the bomb shelter creaked behind him.
Allen stared at the two letters on the screen, the USB drive Robert had given him digging into his thigh in his pocket.
Daniel Hawke. Director of GWA's New York branch. Authorized issuer of the S-level investigation warrant.
The last line of the text message was still lit.
"About that siren that was turned off." Allen's thumb hovered above the reply button. The white light from the screen refracted a thin, broken line of light onto the scratch on his left lens.