Dungeon King

Lin Ye stood in the corner of the Hunter Association's hall, with the electronic screen above his head flashing a blinding red light. "D-Class Mission: Clear the goblin lair. Reward: 5,000 credit points. Mortality rate: 37%." He stared at the line of characters, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the snake-patterned handle of the dagger. This knife was a relic left by his father - twelve years ago, that man had died in the S-level riot in this underground city. The blade reflected his pale face, with a light brown old scar beneath his left eye, like a dead centipede. "Taking on this kind of trashy task again?" When Zhang Hao's hoarse voice boomed behind him, Lin Ye nearly cut his finger. This C-rank hunter with a full beard of stubble always wore a faded tactical vest with the childish slogan "I'm the third best in the world" printed on the chest. At this moment, he was wiping his sword with an oily sleeve, and there was still slime from yesterday's battle stuck to the blade. "Better than starving to death." Lin Ye slid the dagger back into the sheath at his thigh. He could feel the gazes of the other hunters around him - those eyes like cold spider silk wrapped around the back of his neck. In this hall, even the breath of a D-rank hunter was a mistake. It was at this moment that Su Yao came into their view. The girl was wrapped in a large grey cloak, and when the hood slipped off, her flame-like red hair was revealed. She was holding a composite bow that was extremely disproportionate to her size, and there were three rune-engraved explosive arrows in the quiver. "Flame control, D grade." Her voice was as thin as a mosquito's, but when she saw the slogan on Zhang Hao's chest, she suddenly burst out laughing: "Why not the best in the world?" The iron bars at the entrance of the dungeon were rusty and looked like the fangs of a giant beast. Lin Ye crouched down to examine the runes of the barrier. A slight tremor ran through his fingertips - something was amiss. The barrier of a normal D-level dungeon should be as calm as a still lake, but now it was as agitated as boiling asphalt. Just as he was about to speak, Su Yao suddenly grabbed his wrist: "Listen." A slimy swallowing sound came from the deathly silence. The moment three flaming arrows lit up in Su Yao's fingertips, five hunched goblins leapt out from the corner. These creatures, which should have been only half a person's height, now had bulging muscles, and the mucus dripping from their fangs corroded the ground with a sizzling sound. The most terrifying thing was their eyes - the pupils were split into compound eyes, flashing an ominous dark gold. "Back off!" Zhang Hao's broadsword cleaved through the monster lunging at Su Yao, but the blade got stuck in the mutant goblin's collarbone. More deformed figures emerged from the shadows, and the air was filled with a foul stench of rotten flesh and sulfur. Lin Ye threw his dagger backward, and the blade precisely pierced through a goblin's throat, only to be corroded into iron slag by the dark gold blood in the next second. The ground began to tremble violently. Su Yao's explosive arrow blasted a gap in the wall. Amid the flying debris, a scene that left everyone breathless was revealed - the passage that was supposed to lead to the exit had turned into an endless void. Countless bronze gears were meshing and rotating in the air, tearing the space into two overlapping dimensions. On the left was the familiar D-level dungeon, while on the right emerged the outline of a Gothic spire, with a demonic statue with dragon wings perched on top. "Double Dungeon..." Zhang Hao's sword clattered to the ground. His pupils reflected the frenzied flowing runes, which were seeping out of the void like living creatures and entwining around Lin Ye. When the mechanical voice of the system exploded in Lin Ye's mind, his right hand, which was burned by the dark golden blood, was pressed against the void barrier. 【Adapter detected, Dual Profession System activated】 [Shadow Assassin (Main) / Light Priest (Support) Loaded] 【Newbie Task: Survive for Thirty Minutes】 When the goblin's sharp claws were still three inches away from Su Yao's throat, Lin Ye's body moved before his mind could react. A shadowy tide washed over his entire body. His bones made a teeth-chattering sound as they dislocated. The dagger transformed into a pitch-black scythe. When the first goblin's head flew up, he saw his shadow split into countless tentacles, dragging the monsters into the darkness. Meanwhile, his left hand uncontrollably formed a magic seal, and the chains of holy light pierced through the eyes of the demonic statue - which was not a statue at all, but the abyssal lord slumbering in the S-rank domain. What the hell are you? ！” Zhang Hao's roar echoed through the double space. Lin Ye didn't reply. He was being torn apart by two forces - the shadow was devouring his pain nerves, while the holy light was repairing every injury. A blood-red countdown was flickering on his retina. He could clearly see the surging fire elements within Su Yao's body, the slime DNA remaining on Zhang Hao's sword hilt, and even that terrifying entity awakening on the other side of the void. The moment the countdown reached zero, the entire space began to collapse. Lin Ye used his last bit of strength to hold onto his two companions, and the shadow and the holy light intertwined to form a protective cocoon. Before his consciousness fell into darkness, he heard the system's cold prompt: Newbie tasks completed, level up to LV15. 【Unlocked Skill: Shadow Absorption (Can absorb enemy energy)】 Warning: Abyssal Lord Mark Detected When they fell back to the real world, the alarm of the Hunters' Association rang throughout the city. Su Yao's quiver now held an additional dark golden arrow, while mysterious runes emerged on Zhang Hao's sword blade. And Lin Ye spread out his palm, where a miniature bronze gear was spinning - it was slowly devouring the shadows and light around it. The tip of Su Yao's fingers still retained the scorching heat of the explosive arrow. She slumped down on the damp stone slab, staring at the palm of her hand - there was a wiggling mass of dark golden slime, as if it were a living creature that had been peeled off. Three minutes ago, this slime was the eyeball of a goblin. When Lin Ye's shadow tentacles tore apart that monster, this drop of liquid seemed to have consciousness and jumped into her wound. "Don't touch!" Zhang Hao's broadsword was held horizontally above her wrist. The runes on the blade suddenly glowed with a dim blue light. The mucus let out a cry like that of a baby in the light and dissipated into smoke. "The blood of these bastards... it's parasitic." Lin Ye leaned against the collapsed pillar of the corridor, his black robe riddled with countless holes from corrosion. His left eye had turned into pure black, while his right eye was flowing with liquid golden light. Two forces were fighting within him, and every breath felt like a blade scraping against his lung leaves. Semi-transparent data boxes kept popping up on his retina: 【Shadow Energy Overload: 92%】 【Overload of Bright Energy: 88%】 It is recommended to carry out dual-energy harmonization immediately. "There's... something moving in your eyes," Su Yao's voice was trembling. She saw the faint image of bronze gears emerging deep within Lin Ye's iris, and those gears were meshing in reverse, defying the laws of physics. A thunderous roar came from the depths of the dungeon. Zhang Hao grabbed his sword and leaped onto the ruined wall. Cold sweat dripped down his beard. In the crack where the two spaces overlapped, he witnessed a scene that would haunt him for the rest of his life - tens of thousands of goblins were kneeling and bowing. Their spines were cracked open, and dark golden blood had coagulated into a network of veins, channeling energy to the dragon-winged demon gradually taking shape in the void. Even more terrifying were the faces of those goblins: each one bore the features of Lin Ye. "It's using your genes to cultivate the container," the mechanical voice of the system suddenly spoke, startling the three of them into staggering back. "The Abyssal Lord Asmodeus, the seventh-rank demon god, is descending through the passage of the double dungeon." Lin Ye's black scythe automatically condensed in his hand, and a blood-red eye opened on the handle: "How to stop it?" Optional Task: Destroy the Gene Resonance Column Reward: Unlock the Fusion Skill of the Profession Failure Punishment: Become the vessel for Asmodia's descent. Su Yao's explosive arrow suddenly caught fire. The flames had no heat but instead exuded a bone-chilling cold. "Three o'clock direction, three hundred meters." She pointed at the altar surrounded by the goblin group, where a stele made of human skulls stood, with a beating heart embedded at the top of it - the surface of that heart was covered with the DNA helix patterns of Lin Ye. Zhang Hao's sword missed its target for the first time. As he rushed towards the altar, the ground suddenly bulged with tentacles like tumors. These monsters, formed by the fusion of goblin corpses, had dark golden blood gushing from their wounds, which solidified in mid-air to form a cage. Su Yao's cold flame arrows froze the moment they touched the blood web, and the exploding ice crystals instead strengthened the structure of the cage. "Use the light!" Lin Ye's black scythe pierced through two goblins, and the shadow tentacles dragged their corpses into the darkness. When he reappeared, the holy light chain in his right hand, like a snake emerging from its hole, burned a charred gap in the blood web. "Su Yao, guide me!" The girl's red hair fluttered without a breeze. Her pupils blazed with icy blue flames, and the world in her eyes disintegrated into the veins of energy flow: "Thirty degrees to the left, a resonance weak point will appear in three seconds!" The Black Scythe and the Holy Light Chains intertwined in the air to form a spiral. As Lin Ye leaped to the highest point by stepping on the shadow tentacles, Asmodia's dragon wings just swept over the altar. The shadow swallowed the projection of the demon god's wings, while the holy light pierced the heart of the obelisk. At the moment when the gene resonance column exploded, all the goblins simultaneously let out Lin Ye's agonizing scream. 【Unlocked Professional Fusion Skill: Eternal Night Aurora】 Effect: Transform shadows into blades of light, dealing true damage to abyssal creatures. Su Yao's quiver automatically generated a crystal arrow. When she drew the arrow and pulled the string, she saw Lin Ye's profile appear on the arrow shaft - it was his hunched posture in the darkness during his childhood. The true form of Asmodia appeared for one-tenth of a second. This was already long enough for ordinary people. The finger of the demon god pierced through the spatial barrier. Just a contact as small as the tip of a fingernail was enough to make the entire underground city begin to collapse in a quantum manner. Zhang Hao's rune sword vaporized the moment it touched the demon god's skin, and the muscles of his right arm cracked like a dried-up riverbed. "Catch!" Lin Ye threw the black scythe into the air. The Eternal Night Aurora bloomed at the tip of the scythe, turning the dungeon into a silent world like a black-and-white film. In this realm, only Su Yao's arrow could fly normally - because that crystal arrow was forged with Lin Ye's bright side. The moment the arrow pierced through Asmodia's illusory figure, the three of them saw the terrifying truth: At the convergence point of countless parallel universes, tens of thousands of "Lin Ye" were nailed onto bronze gears. Some were being transformed into goblins, some grew dragon wings, and others were sewn together with the corpses of Su Yao and Zhang Hao. At this moment, the mechanical voice of the system became unusually gentle: You've finally discovered it. Each dungeon is a testing ground for the screening containers. Congratulations on passing the initial screening. Candidate number: 007. When the darkness receded, the rescue team from the Hunters' Association found the three unconscious people. The gear mark on Lin Ye's palm was slightly warm. Su Yao's quiver had an extra bone arrow engraved with runes. Zhang Hao's broken arm was wrapped with dark golden blood vessels. And the task rewards in their pockets - 5000 credit point chips - were quietly melting, turning into a pool of sticky liquid with a sulfurous smell. The white light in the medical department was so blinding that it was impossible to open one's eyes. "Abnormal brain waves, unknown codes in the gene sequence." The masked doctor rapidly swiped on the screen. "Especially this Lin Ye, his mitochondria are evolving independently and have exceeded the human range." Through the one-way glass, the association's top brass were observing the ward. Leading the group was an elderly man with white hair, leaning on a snake-headed cane, the tip of which tapped out a regular rhythm on the ground. "The seventh compatible subject," he licked his purple-tinged lips, "inform 'The Tomb' to prepare the retrieval procedure." Lin Ye, who was in the hospital ward, suddenly opened his eyes. His left eye reflected the mechanical prosthetic under the doctor's white coat, while his right eye saw the wriggling tentacles in the ceiling cavity. As the nurse was about to inject a sedative, dark golden blood vessels suddenly burst out from Lin Ye's body, melting the syringe into molten iron. "They implanted something in each of the hunters' bodies," the system's voice crackled with static. "Look at Zhang Hao's severed arm." Lin Ye turned his head and saw bronze-colored metal growing from his comrade's wound. The patterns formed by those substances were exactly the same as the gears of the Double Dungeon. Su Yao shook the two awake at midnight. Her red hair was blown about by the night wind, and in her palm was a butterfly formed from cold flames: "My flames are giving a warning. The life sign monitors in this entire building are all lies." When the butterfly hit the window, a dense array of runes appeared on the bulletproof glass - this was not the medical department, but a high-level confinement magic array. Zhang Hao crushed the call button on the bedside table with his newly grown metal arm, and a half-segment of still twitching tentacle dropped out. "I've always felt that bunch of bastards at the Association were up to no good." He fished out a mini pulse bomb from the interlayer of his mechanical legs. "The password for the back door is 'I'm the third in the world'. Let's go!" They found the truth in the morgue. Seven bodies covered in white cloth were neatly arranged, each with a number on its chest: 001 to 006. When Lin Ye lifted the cloth covering the body marked 006, Su Yao's cold flame almost got out of control - it was the S-level hunter who had gone missing three months ago. At this moment, his corpse was growing goblin fangs, and holy light chains were entwined between his fingers. "All are rejects," the system's mechanical voice was mixed with a sigh. "Now you are the last candidate." When the alarm blared suddenly, Lin Ye's black scythe automatically slashed the ground. The shadows carried the three of them into the sewer. In the sewage, they saw the reflected moonlight stained with blood. This was not moonlight, but the laser of the Hunter Association's dome-shaped execution order - the mark of all defectors. The stench of the slums masked the scent of the pursuer. Deep in the dark alley where cockroaches and mutant rats roamed, a hunched figure wrapped in a sack blocked their way. The moment the old man lifted his hood, Zhang Hao's metal arm trembled uncontrollably - it was his master, Chen Jiu, known as "Broken Sword", who was declared dead five years ago. "The Association feeds the dungeon with the blood of hunters," the old man's hollow eye sockets crawled with bronze-colored maggots. "Each D-level mission is a sowing ceremony, until the vessel that can bear the descent of the deity is selected." His rotten fingers poked at Lin Ye's chest. "And you, are the chosen seedbed." Su Yao aimed her cold flame arrow at the old man, but saw a terrifying scene reflected on the arrow shaft: Chen Jiu's spine was cracked open, filled with miniature gears that were converting his memories into data streams. Suddenly, the system emitted a sharp alarm: [Similar signal detected. Immediate erasure recommended!] When the black scythe pierced through the old man's skull, what gushed out was not brain matter but nanomechanical worms that glowed blue. These worms formed a holographic projection in the air, showing the energy map of all the underground cities around the world - all the veins pointed to the huge bronze door beneath the Arctic ice cap. "Congratulations on passing the test," the mechanical bug spoke in the voice of the association president. "The real selection process begins now." Lin Ye found his father's work diary in the garbage dump. On the yellowed paper, a double gear pattern was scribbled roughly. The chilling annotation at the edge read: "1999 Arctic Expedition Report: Life signs detected inside the Bronze Gate, genetic samples 99.9% similar to humans." The last line was smeared with blood, but it could still be faintly discerned: "They are not gods, but prisoners of the cycle." Zhang Hao's new arm suddenly went berserk, its metallic fingers clamping down on his throat. "The chip... is fusing!" He roared and tore open the skin on his chest, revealing the wriggling bronze substance beneath. Su Yao's icy arrow precisely froze the contaminated area, but at the depth of the wound, she saw something even more terrifying - a tiny gear engraved with the number 007. The system's voice at this moment became unusually humanized: "To fight against the cycle, one must first become the cycle itself." Lin Ye's black scythe suddenly changed direction, its tip piercing his own heart. No blood gushed out; only a torrent of dark gold and holy light intertwined, cocooning the four of them. When the light dissipated, a double moon appeared in the night sky of the slum. One was blood red, the other dark gold. At the intersection of the moonlight, the illusory image of a bronze giant gate emerged. Through the gap where the gate opened, countless "Lin Ye" were reaching out their arms towards the present world.