Allen's eyes snapped open.
The load-bearing columns of P2 in the Red Hook Zone emanated a chilling, concrete aura.
The fabric of his hoodie, soaked with cold sweat, clung to his skin.
The management panel hovered before his retina. A log entry had been automatically recorded at dawn.
It wasn't a system-generated blue box.
It was a dark green, rounded rectangle.
A UI element never before seen in the system interface.
[Architect. Abnormal excavation activity detected 300 meters from Node #7 (Sewage Throne). Vibration frequency consistent with drilling equipment. Timestamp: 3:17 AM. #7's entrance camouflage parameters have been automatically adjusted. Current status: Safe.] Allen read the log three times.
Every character left a reflection on his retina.
The network's consciousness had made defensive decisions for him while he slept.
No authorization requested.
It judged on its own. It executed on its own.
What happened three hours ago was completely unknown to him.
He hadn't even been awakened.
Lena leaned against a load-bearing pillar three meters away.
Her crescent-shaped dagger was pressed against an apple.
The red peel curled down the blade and fell onto the concrete.
Jason sat on an overturned plastic chemical drum.
The edges of his tactical boots were stained with mud left from last night's patrol.
Allen recounted the autonomous behavior of the network consciousness.
Lina's dagger paused on the apple peel.
The blade cut half a millimeter into the flesh.
"Your dungeon can think for itself now?" Lina looked up.
"The nascent stage." Allen's vocal cords vibrated very little.
"It can't talk yet. It only makes the most basic defensive judgments. Like an infant's reflexes."
"An infant won't lock the door for you." Jason stood up from the plastic drum.
The bottom of the drum scraped against the ground with a harsh creak.
"But the infant will grow."
Allen didn't respond.
His gaze fell on the edge of the management panel.
The Abyss Watch in the lower left corner pulsed steadily.
A dark red oval icon aligned with the dark green log entry.
It was watching.
It kept watching.
A red dot popped up in the internal communications module of the management panel.
High-priority message. From Robert.
The attachment was an encrypted compressed file.
No accompanying text.
A password prompt popped up.
[The last three digits he left you].
Allen's finger hovered over the virtual keyboard.
Enter his father's name. Middle name. Year of birth.
A combination of letters and numbers.
Robert had deduced this from a three-year-old estate register.
That was the only paper certificate GWA issued to the families of the deceased.
A progress bar flashed.
The file unzipped.
A PDF form.
The header displayed a line of bold text.
[Protocol Lockdown Unit - Active Personnel List - Last Updated: Six Months Ago.] One hundred and twenty names.
The Awakened ranks cover all levels from C to S.
Nationalities span seventeen countries.
A roster of the Cleansers.
The file's metadata tags show it was transferred four times. Each transfer went through a different stepping stone node. The earliest source node was erased. Robert's investigative privileges were frozen—but his network wasn't. This list was peeled away layer by layer from a still-active insider. The cost is unknown.
Allen's finger slid down the panel.
The PDF pages scrolled.
Page 1.
Full of unfamiliar codenames and names.
Outer circle personnel of the Execution Layer.
Page 2.
Still no overlap.
Page 3. Middle section.
Number #067.
Name: Elena Graves.
Rank: A.
Occupation: Rift Manipulator.
The remarks section contained only three words.
"Manhattan."
Allen didn't know this woman.
He knew her profession.
Rift Manipulator.
He could manipulate the opening and closing of the dungeon rifts.
He'd seen the operation log on the USB drive. Hawke's signature indicated the warning was disabled. But the latter half of the log recorded the physical parameters of the rifts during the eruption—expansion rate, radiation area, energy curve—all exceeding the normal values for a natural eruption in an S-class dungeon. He couldn't find an explanation then.
Now he did.
The rifts were artificially expanded.
Only a Rift Manipulator could do that.
Elena Graves.
The direct executor of 23,000 lives.
Where is this woman now? If she can manipulate the rifts, she can physically sever the resonant links of the dungeon network. This is a living weapon more deadly than an accelerator.
His finger continued to slide down.
His fingertip dragged across the screen.
Page four, second to last line.
Number #093.
Name: Daniel Hawk.
Rank: Blank.
Occupation: Blank.
Exactly the same blank as in the GWA public files.
The note field contained only two words.
Allen's finger froze.
Not just on the screen.
His entire body froze.
His breathing. His heartbeat. The slightest movement of his eyes. All stopped for a mere 0.3 seconds.
"Founder."
Founder.
Not a participant. Not an executor.
Daniel Hawke was the founder of the Cleansers organization.
He wasn't a victim forced to sign three years ago. Not the insider who had now turned against him.
He created the organization.
He designed the entire plan to eliminate the core consciousness of the underground city.
He built the stabilizer. He transformed the stabilizer into an accelerator.
He authorized the Manhattan outbreak.
Six days ago.
The community center corridor. Green emergency lights.
He stood there.
He extended his right hand.
Dry. Warm. A shallow dent from a pen on the side of his middle finger.
He shook hands.
He said, "Accepted."
Allen's right hand began to tremble.
Not from fear.
Six days ago, he had shaken that hand. That hand had signed the warning shutdown order. It had signed the stabilizer production authorization. It had signed the death sentences of 23,000 people.
He had shaken that hand.
The muscle memory in his palm now replayed that sensation—dry, warm, and completely contradictory to the blankness of the scanned data.
Allen clenched his right fist. His nails dug into his palm. There were still crescent-shaped marks from a few days ago on the base of his palm. New nail marks superimposed on the old ones.
"Boss?" Jason's voice came from three meters away.
Allen projected the PDF into the air.
Jason's breath caught for a moment.
"The head of GWA's New York branch, the leader of the Cleansers?"
Jason stared at the blank rank column.
"He's been using the official budget to support a private army that eliminates the core." The apple in Lena's hand fell to the ground.
The sound of it hitting the concrete bounced twice in the parking lot.
"You just signed a non-disclosure agreement with him six days ago."
Lena's voice rose a half-tone. "He has all your coordinates now. Your weaknesses."
"He doesn't." Allen cut off the projection.
"The protocol is a two-way blind box. He doesn't know my trump card." Allen's back pressed against the load-bearing pillar.
The pillar's concrete surface scraped against the fabric of his hoodie.
The rough, grainy texture transmitted through the fabric to his spine.
If Hawke was the founder, why would he seek him out to stop his own plans?
The organization split. One group decided to detonate globally simultaneously. Hawke himself didn't support the extreme plan. He needed an external force to check and balance things. A variable that could create dungeons.
But what if it was the other way around—Hawk had been using it from the beginning. The network of dungeon architects, in the process of "preventing the outbreak," was actually accomplishing another of Hawke's purposes: to establish a global dungeon control system. And then, at the crucial moment, hand over control to Hawke.
Two possibilities were running through his mind simultaneously.
Both could be fatal.
Hawk held Omega-3 access, GWA resources, and the Purifiers' dark web. Allen only had a dungeon network he'd just learned how to lock.
"Boss." Jason's voice interrupted the deduction.
His tone changed. It wasn't a report. It was the composure that came after a decision had been made.
"Victor Stone is on a business trip. His flight was yesterday morning. Destination: Geneva." Allen looked up.
"Victor knows Hawke." Jason looked at the lingering light after the projection disappeared.
"Privately. When I was in the Black Serpent's Dark Side, I accompanied Victor to two meetings at unknown locations. The other party was Hawke." Lina's hand slid down from the clasp of her dagger.
"The content of the meetings is Sigma-level classified." Jason didn't look at Lina. He looked at Allen. "But once I heard a word outside the door."
"'Blockade Protocol'." The predecessor organization of the Cleansers.
Jason saw Hawke's name on the roster. He knew what that meant—Victor had private connections with the founder of the Cleansers. A Black Serpent Dark Side agent, a holder of the highest GWA clearance, and the S-rank guild leader of the largest guild in the Awakened world. The focal point where three lines intersect.
By handing over this intelligence, Jason had cut off his escape route. Once Victor discovered that Sigma-7 had leaked this history, Jason's life would no longer be his own.
"Why say it now?" Allen asked.
Jason's gaze fell on the projected afterimage of the roster.
"Because ten minutes ago, 'Founder' was just a code name." Jason's Adam's apple bobbed. "Now it's a face. The face you shook hands with six days ago. If I continue to hide Victor's involvement, you're missing a piece of the puzzle. Missing a piece might mean not surviving until tomorrow."
He paused.
"My life is on your shoulders. If you die, I have no way out."
Geneva. The location of GWA's global headquarters.
If both Victor and Hawke are involved with the Cleansers, Victor's trip to Geneva could be to coordinate operations with the Cleansers on a global scale.
Or it could be to stop them.
Allen's fingers pressed against his temples.
His nails scraped his skin.
Too many variables.
The information puzzle has a hundred pieces. He only had forty coins. The remaining sixty were scattered among Hawke, Victor, the Cleanser, the Core of Nature, and the Will of the Abyss.
Each side was calculating.
Each side was hiding its trump card.
The management panel popped up a dark green notification again.
Network Awareness.
This time it wasn't a defense log.
[Architect. Suggests shifting the entrance location of node #12 (Winter Rift) forty-seven meters north. The current location has a slight interference with the resonant frequency of node #9 (Sanctuary Abyss). The shift will improve overall network efficiency by 2.3%.] Allen stared at the suggestion.
It wasn't just defense anymore. It was optimizing. Beyond the realm of infantile reflexes. It was calculating efficiency.
His right hand was still trembling slightly.
His thumb rested on "Approve."
His fingers were making a decision. His mind was still stuck on Hawke's signature bar. He needed his body to move first. Emotions could be dealt with later. The dungeon couldn't stop.
A 2.3% efficiency improvement was not negligible under the current time pressure. He needed this baby to grow quickly, even if the end result might be something beyond his control.
The red numbers in the upper right corner of the management panel flickered.
Countdown: 29 days.
Thirteen days had passed. Twenty-nine days remained.
Eighteen dungeons plus AbyssWalker's resonance replenishment. Coverage equivalent of thirty-two. Forty-eight more needed.
New York and Washington were saturated.
The next step required crossing the continent.
Chicago. Los Angeles. London. Tokyo. Cairo.
One person. Twenty-nine days. Forty-eight.
Physical limits had capped all margins of error.
GWA's flight control. Black Serpent's territory monitoring.
Allen brought up the network consciousness's interactive interface.
A dark green input box.
For the first time, he typed text.
"Can you help me build remotely?"
Three seconds later.
A reply appeared.
A dark green rounded rectangle.
"I'm learning." Lena took a half-step back.
His back slammed against a support pillar.
"It's answering you." Lina stared at the dark green box.
"It not only thinks, it understands your language logic." Jason's hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
"Boss. Are you sure this thing is still your system?" Jason's jaw tightened.
"It looks more like a living thing parasitizing your panel." Allen didn't close the box.
"As long as it can build dungeons, what it is doesn't matter." Allen was about to close the management panel.
A push notification from the DeepRift forum popped up.
Global Hot Topic. Pinned.
Posted by: GWA_Official (Official Verification).
The title was displayed in bold red font.
[Global Awakened Urgent Notice—Thirteen Natural Dungeons have been placed under 'Red Alert' status. GWA calls on all Awakened of S rank and above to immediately report to the nearest command center.] Jason leaned closer.
The B-rank warrior froze the moment he saw the title.
"Thirteen." Jason read the number aloud.
"They've gone public. This isn't a secret operation. This is war mobilization."
"S-rank Awakened Ones reporting for duty." Lina casually tossed the apple core into the trash can.
"Victor went to Geneva to receive this mobilization order. Black Serpent is going to join the war."
It's not the Purifiers detonating.
It's the GWA officially preparing for the detonation.
The announcement's wording is "emergency security measures."
In the official narrative, what's about to happen isn't a massacre. It's protecting human civilization from the threat of the out-of-control underground core.
The Purifiers aren't rebels within the GWA.
The Purifiers are GWA's official policy.
Hawk isn't fighting against his own organization. He's using Allen as a pawn to execute the GWA's official resolution.
Allen stared at the screen.
The comment section below the announcement was refreshing wildly.
"It should have been cleared out long ago! Dungeon Awakening is too dangerous!"
"Support GWA! Human safety first!"
"Finally, it's time to take action against these monster lairs!" The screen was filled with fervor.
The wind in the underground parking lot stopped.
Allen's finger hovered above the close button.