Rain slapped the glass windows of the 36th floor, reflecting pale and dead ambition. Inside the dim cubicle, only two desk were still lit.
Axel Ward hunched over blueprints and a nearly empty cup of canned
coffee, eyes flicking between a flickering screen and a wrinkled schedule.
"They didn't hire me to think. They hired me to debug warehouse drone code at 2 a.m. in an office that smelled like burnt circuits and hopeless ambition.
And the cruelest part? I am not even a programmer."
I leaned back in my cheap office chair, rubbing the tension out of my eyes as lines of half-commented neural loop code flickered across the screen. The soft whir of server fans filled the air, followed by the occasional soft ping of another error flag.
My degree hung virtually on my profile—Licensed Civil Engineer. Certified Architect. Specialization: Megastructural Planning.
Not that it mattered here.
"Axel," Sean's voice crackled from over the cubicle partition. "You patching the drone firmware or marrying it?"
"Why not both?" I muttered.
He laughed, the kind of dry wheeze that belonged to someone just as tired as me. "You're too good for this place, man. Remind me again—why are you here instead of designing smart cities?"
I closed my laptop halfway, stared at him over the screen. "Because I made the mistake of being born without money or family connections. And apparently, my dream of building vertical eco-cities doesn't count as a 'core deliverable' in the age of AI food delivery."
He whistled. "Damn. That bitterness? Vintage."
I snorted. "Aged five years in the corporate barrel."
He tossed a can of vending machine coffee at me. I caught it one-handed, popped the tab, and sipped. It was bitter. Cheap but perfect.
"Speaking of soul-crushing work," he said, "Server Bay 4's AI tripped again. You're on the ticket."
"Of course I am," I muttered. "Nothing screams 'civil engineer' like resetting a server with cooling issues."
Sean raised his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, you're the one who said this was temporary. A year at most, right?"
That was five years ago. Before the student loan payments. Before my startup failed. Before this NeuroTech company offered me 'temporary contract work' that turned into permanent stagnation.
"Yeah," I muttered. "A year ."
I stood up sighing
"I will just go and check it now, got other crap to do anyway. "
"Ya man, be quick. I don't like sitting here alone." Sean replied with his eyes still stuck on the monitor.
---
Server Bay 4 – 2:51 a.m.
The chill hit me the moment the doors slid open. A wall of cold air pressed against my face. Racks of humming servers lined the bay, blinking red like silent alarms.
I walked the central aisle with my tablet in hand, the screen guiding me to the offending unit. Overclocked again—probably some idiot trying to patch firmware live.
I knelt, fiercely opened the panel. The inside was a mess of loose cabling and temporarily fixed fans. Cooling system wasn't even isolated. Any real architect would've vomited at the design.
"Whoever laid this out should be banned from touching blueprints for life," I muttered. "Where's the redundancy or backup? Where's the airflow modeling?"
My hands moved on autopilot—rerouting power, isolating nodes, overriding heat limits.
And then suddenly the panel sparked.
"Shit—!"
It hit me like a fist through my chest. I didn't even hear the surge. Just felt it—raw, searing pain that exploded behind my eyes.
I blanked out and everything went dark.
A few seconds later, I felt my consciousness but not my body. I for sure know I died in that explosion. Where the hell am I? I wasn't on the floor.
I wasn't anywhere.
Darkness surrounded me—pure, infinite, and yet somehow I feel like I am being squeezed from all sides. I couldn't feel my body. No arms, no legs. Just a strange floating awareness, suspended in a place that hummed with strange energy.
"This is not heaven" I thought to myself "Is this hell? but I don't remember doing anything bad in my life. Just studied and worked till I reached 28. No friends, no love affairs and my parents were gone before I reached ten. What a miserable life."
After few moments of being in that darkness, I felt something. Then suddenly—
[Welcome to the E.D.E.N. System.]
[Entity Design and Expansion Nexus: Activated.]
[Consciousness Detected: Axel Ward.]
[Profession: Architect-Class. Soul Tier: II.]
[Designated Form: Dungeon Core.]
I blinked. Or would have, if I still had eyelids.
[You have died due to electrical and neurological trauma.]
[Your soul has been selected for dimensional reincarnation.]
System Calibration... 14%... 58%... Complete.
Welcome, Architect. You are now the Soulbound
Core of the Ruined Dungeon
[Objective: Design. Expand. Survive. Evolve.]
"Wait. Wait wait wait. Dungeon Core? Reincarnation? What kind of fever
dream—"
[You are now a Dungeon Core—the base form of all Dungeon Lords.]
[Construct territory, summon allies, defend your heart, and evolve.]
"Hold on. I didn't sign up for this! I was supposed to—what? Wake up in a hospital bed with nobody by my side. Who's gonna the pay the bills?"
"Forget everything, I will take this chance." I said to myself with some motivation.
I heard the dungeon Lord part so I was expecting to be reborn as a badass monster but instead I am reborn as a… crystal?
I can feel it—solid and yet alive. I am a floating gem of some kind, hovering in a dark chamber filled with faint, glowing runes. I could sense the stone around me, the structure of the space. I could feel the energy flows in the rock and earth.
Holy hell. I can feel structure.
[Dungeon Status: The Nameless Deep (F-Rank)]
Core Room: 0
Mana: 14/100
Summon System: Locked
Territory Influence: 0m
Defender Count: 0
Trap Count: 0
Core Integrity: 82%
[Would you like to rename your dungeon?]
Let's see "Looking around this place, might as well call it... The Hollow Void.
Sounds cool, right?"
.....
[Confirmed. Welcome to The Hollow Void, Lord Axel.]
"Lord. Yeah, sure. Didn't even get a tutorial. How am I suppose to do anything."
[Tutorial Unlocked. Processing Legacy Memory...]
Suddenly, knowledge flooded into my mind. System access, mana flow, core
expansion, and—yes—summons.
[Dungeon Feature Unlocked: Gacha Summon Protocol [E.D.E.N.]
[Newbie Bonus: x1 Free Elite Summon Token]
[Do you wish to summon now?]
"Just one token?" I replied a little annoyed.
[Correct. One Elite Summon. Rarity scale: Common, Rare, Elite, Epic, Legendary, Mythic. Evolution path enabled.]
I did play some gacha games in the past for some stress relief, but it ended up giving me more stress, so I quit. After all it's gaming version of gambling, if you really think about it.
"Alright then. I'm a crystal in a death cave with no friends. Let's roll the damn gacha."
[SUMMONING INITIATED]
Consuming Token...
Mana Sync Detected...
Channeling Personality Bias...
Warning: Summon May Reflect Inner Desires.
"Wait, what the hell does—"
[ELITE SUMMON SUCCESSFUL!]
Name:Lilyth of the Crimson Moon
Race: Succubus (Elite Variant)
Loyalty: 40/100
Personality: Flirtatious, Proud, Devoted.
Potential: Evolves to Mythic-Class: Crimson Queen of the Endless Depths
[Summoning Now...]
The summoning circle flared into existence beneath me, blood-red and laced with shifting glyphs.
Flames danced in midair, taking shape—legs that stretched, hips that swayed,
horns that curved elegantly over long flame like hair. Dark red wings fluttered
behind her as she stepped out of the summoning circle, heels clicking against
cracked stone.
She wore little—very little. A crimson silk half-dress clung to her flawless skin. Her golden eyes sparkled with
amusement as she looked around the ruined dungeon... and then her gaze settled
on the core, on me.
"Hmm... you're not much to look at, Master," she purred, kneeling gracefully
before the glowing crystal. "But you summoned me. That must mean you
have potential."
I am speechless right now. I cannot blush— I have no blood in this form—but if I could, I
would have melted on the spot.
The succubus smiled wickedly at me.
"My name is Lilyth. I am yours to command. Flesh, fang, and flame."
[Bond Established. Loyalty: 40 > 42]
[Dungeon Defenses: +1]
[You are no longer alone.]
[Core Room Unlocked.]
I could feel it—stone shifting around me. A spherical chamber formed from obsidian and marble, etched with glowing runes. My first room.
I designed nothing—yet it matched my instincts.
And in that moment, something clicked.
I wasn't in the wrong job anymore.
I wasn't debugging someone else's mess.
I was designing a dungeon, from the ground up. From soul to stone.
For the first time in years, I wasn't building or working for someone else's approval. I am the foundation. The source. The architect.
And someone was already knocking at my metaphorical door.
[Hostile presence detected. Intrusion imminent.]
Lilyth's smile widened, revealing pointed teeth. "Looks like your first invaders have arrived, master."
"Do I have defenses?" I kind of panicked.
"Not yet. But I'm here."
She ran a claw down her thigh slowly. "Would you like me to deal with them?"
I didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
Her laugh was low and dangerous. "Good boy."