Chapter 3 Chapter 3: The Hollow Deep and the Weight of Power
The moment the stone wall sealed shut, every last bit of light vanished.
The air hung thick with rot and the sour musk of something that had been living down here a long time.
Julian stood still, eyes closed, letting them adjust. Five seconds later, a faint outline bled into view across his vision the passive night vision that came bundled with System Loophole. Not far-reaching, but enough to make out the ground under his boots.
Duke didn't get that luxury. He felt his way along the cold rock with both hands, breathing hard through his nose.
"Boss, it's black as a tomb in here. We sure we didn't just walk into some monster's den?"
"That's the whole point of coming down here. There's a few hundred thousand people up top clawing each other's eyes out over a single rabbit. Maybe that doesn't embarrass you, but it exhausts me just watching it." Julian kept moving down the narrow passage.
The tunnel sloped downward. After about three minutes of walking, the space ahead opened wide, and faint sickly-green phosphorescence began leaking through cracks in the rock.
A massive underground cavern.
By that dim green glow, Duke finally saw what was waiting for them and choked on his own breath.
The cavern floor was carpeted with giant rats dozens of them, each the size of a small calf, dark reddish fur matted with filth, gnawing on bones nobody wanted to think too hard about.
"Sweet mother of that's not a rat, that's a demon!" Duke swallowed hard and took an instinctive half-step back.
Julian swept his gaze across the pack. A blue data panel snapped into view.
[Monster: Bloodfang Rat Common Tier]
[Level: 3]
[HP: 150/150]
[Attack: 15]
[Skill: Bite inflicts Bleed (2 HP/sec for 5 seconds)]
[Weakness: Soft underbelly, very low fire resistance]
Level 3 monsters. A full ten-man party of level-1 players would get shredded by a pack that size high damage, guaranteed bleed stacking.
And there were easily thirty or forty of them.
"Duke. What's your current health?" Julian asked, eyes still locked on the pack.
"Just checked. Fifty. Defense's at five," Duke answered honestly.
"Can't take a hit like that. One bite through your defense costs ten HP, and the bleed alone finishes you after two." Julian ran the numbers fast in his head.
A swarm this size wasn't something you punched your way through. Not yet.
"So what, we back out? This meat's too tough for our teeth, Boss." Duke was stubborn, not stupid.
"Why would we back out? We came all this way. Walking home empty-handed isn't how I do business."
Julian raised his right hand, palm up.
"Report for duty."
The thought barely finished forming before deep purple light gathered in his palm, weaving itself into an intricate summoning circle.
Warden of All Beasts, active.
Regular summoners had to grind a target down to critical health before rolling the dice on a contract scroll. Julian's talent skipped the dice entirely forced contract. As long as the target wasn't something above the world's current power ceiling, it was his the moment he wanted it.
The one catch: he needed a first beast to build momentum from.
"Target locked: Bloodfang Rat."
Julian's eyes settled on the nearest rat, wandering loose at the edge of the pack.
A beam of purple light lanced out from his palm and wrapped around the creature like chains. Before it could so much as squeal, its bulky body compressed down into a streak of light and shot straight into the space between Julian's eyebrows.
[Contract successful. Beast acquired: Bloodfang Rat, Lv.3]
[Processing stat transfer...]
[STR +3, AGI +2, CON +3. Passive skill gained: Minor Bleed physical attacks have a 10% chance to inflict Bleed.]
His bones let out a faint stretching groan. Power rolled through his limbs, and the soft edges of his frame sharpened into something leaner, harder.
He checked his stats HP up to 80, attack now sitting at 12.
"That's it?" Duke stood frozen. All he'd seen was a raised hand, a flash of purple, and the biggest rat in the room just gone.
"That's the opening bid."
Julian didn't pause. His mental reserves could handle several contracts back to back.
Second. Third. Fourth.
The noise finally drew the pack's attention. Dozens of rats stopped gnawing at once and turned in eerie unison, dark red eyes flaring like a wall of tiny warning lights in the gloom.
SKREEEEE
The pack surged forward as one, a red tide breaking against the cave walls.
"Boss! They're coming!" Duke roared, gripping the rebar in both hands, throwing his own body in front of Julian's like a human shield.
"Back up."
Julian grabbed Duke by the collar and hauled him behind, then raised both hands, fingers spread wide.
"Take a lap."
Ten beams of purple light burst outward. The ten Bloodfang Rats he'd already contracted materialized in front of them, a full size larger than before, eyes gone pure purple, fully obedient.
"Tear them apart."
Ten purple-eyed rats charged fearlessly straight back into the horde they'd come from.
Blood, fur, and torn flesh went flying.
The cavern turned into a meat grinder in seconds. Julian's rats were outnumbered, but they carried his stat bonuses now, tearing chunks out of their own former packmates with every strike.
Notifications flooded in.
[Your beast slew a Bloodfang Rat. +30 XP, +2 Life Points.]
[Your beast slew a Bloodfang Rat. +30 XP, +2 Life Points.]
[Level up! Now Level 2. All stats +1.]
"This beats collecting rent by a mile." Julian watched his experience bar climb, drumming his fingers idly against his thigh.
Duke stood behind him, sweat dripping off the end of his rebar. He'd braced for a bloodbath he might not walk out of. Instead he'd just been a bystander.
"Boss... what's your class? Summoner? These things you're pulling out are insane."
"Trade secret." Julian didn't elaborate.
The fight lasted under five minutes. Rat corpses piled into small hills across the cavern floor, blood pooling into thin rivers that trickled off through the cracks in the rock.
Six of his ten summoned rats died in the fighting. The other four dragged themselves back to him, broken and limping.
His level had climbed to 4.
[Life Points Available: 4,076] (38 Bloodfang Rats slain +76 Life Points)
"Loot check. See if anything dropped." Julian nudged a rat carcass with his foot.
Duke perked right up and dove into the pile, digging through the bodies.
"Boss! We got something! We actually got something!"
Duke came running back clutching a gleaming dagger and a leather breastplate, both pulled straight from the bloodstained fur.
[Ratfang Iron-Tier Dagger]
[Attack: 10–15]
[Bonus: 5% chance to inflict a tearing wound on hit]
[Requirements: Level 3, Agility 10]
[Hardened Ratleather Armor Common Tier]
[Defense: 8]
[Requirements: Level 2]
"Dagger's mine. Armor's yours." Julian took the blade, gave it a lazy spin. He'd never trained with cold steel in his life, but with agility past ten points now, it moved in his hand like it belonged there.
Duke strapped the leather armor straight over his security uniform. His defense doubled instantly, and the visible relief on his face was almost comical.
"Boss, place looks clear. We heading back?"
Julian didn't answer. His eyes had drifted to a dark corner deep at the far end of the cavern.
There, the detection grid from System Loophole had gone deep red, bleeding into purple.
"Clear? The main course hasn't even hit the table yet."
The words had barely left his mouth when a low, guttural roar rolled out from the cavern's depths. It didn't sound like a rat. It sounded like something built for war.
BOOM.
A massive slab of rock exploded into rubble. Something the size of a small armored vehicle dragged itself out of the dark.
Rat-headed, but sheathed head to tail in hardened black scale, dragging a thick tail behind it that cracked against the stone floor like a steel whip, sending gravel flying in every direction.
[Regional Boss: Scaled Rat King Bronze Tier]
[Level: 5]
[HP: 1,500/1,500]
[Attack: 45]
[Defense: 30]
[Skill 1: Crush Charge straight-line charge, double physical damage, knockback]
[Skill 2: Venom Spray corrosive AoE damage over time, lowers target defense]
[Weakness: Gaps between scales, exposed lower jaw]
Duke's swallow was audible in the sudden quiet.
"Boss... those rats we just brought wouldn't even fill this thing's back teeth."
Fifteen hundred HP, thirty defense a wall built specifically to kill early-game players who thought they were ready. Even a few hundred level-1s throwing themselves at it together wouldn't scratch the paint.
"Not even close to a snack."
Julian reversed his grip on the dagger and widened his stance.
"Which means I'm handling this one personally."
"RAAAGH!"
The Rat King roared, planted all four limbs, and its bulk blurred into a black afterimage, closing the distance in a Crush Charge aimed dead at both of them.
Fast. Faster than either of them expected.
"MOVE!"
Julian shoved Duke sideways and used the momentum to roll hard right.
BOOM.
The Rat King slammed into the rock wall where they'd been standing a half-second earlier. The whole cavern shuddered. Debris rained from the ceiling.
The missed charge didn't slow it down. It whipped its head around and lashed its tail out like a bullwhip.
Julian was already moving. He kicked off the rock face with both legs, launching himself clear of the strike by inches.
Mid-air, he triggered System Loophole's modifier function.
"Spend 100 Life Points. Force a 30% reduction on the Rat King's turn speed."
[Life Points deducted. Modification applied.]
Just as the Rat King snapped its head around to catch him mid-air, its movement hitched a stutter of maybe a tenth of a second, like a gear catching on rust.
To anyone else, that fraction of a second wouldn't register at all.
To Julian, it was exactly the crack he'd paid for.
He dropped straight down and landed square on the Rat King's back, legs locking around its neck where the scale coverage thinned out. The Ratfang dagger caught the dim green light as he drove it down, hard, straight into the one red-marked weak point on his display the exposed underside of its jaw.
SHK.
The blade sank to the hilt.
Black blood erupted like a burst pipe, drenching Julian head to shoulder.
A massive red number bloomed above the Rat King's head.
-150! (Weakness Critical)
SKREEEEEEE!
The Rat King screamed and thrashed violently, trying to buck Julian off its spine.
"Duke! The eyes, NOW!"
Duke snapped out of his daze, gritted his teeth, hoisted the rebar with both hands, and charged, bringing it down with everything he had onto one of the Rat King's massive red eyes.
CLANG.
The rebar landed a hair off-center, catching the socket instead of the eye itself. Didn't blind it but it staggered the beast just long enough.
Julian ripped the dagger free and drove it in again, and again.
-120!
-135!
Continuous hits to the weak point, stacking with the dagger's tear effect, and the Rat King's health bar started collapsing fast.
But a bronze-tier boss didn't go down from pain alone.
The Rat King, half-mad with agony, let out a wet, gurgling snarl as a churning ball of green venom built up in its throat.
"It's about to spray! Back off!"
Julian caught the warning on his display, yanked the dagger free, and leapt clear off the creature's back.
Duke scrambled backward right behind him.
PFFFT
A fan-shaped spray of acid-green venom burst out, reeking of something chemical and wrong.
Where it hit the stone floor, the rock hissed and smoked, eating away at itself.
Julian got clear fast, but a few stray drops caught the hem of his pant leg. The fabric dissolved on contact, and a bright, searing pain flared against his skin. His health started ticking down at five points a second.
"No more stalling."
Julian checked the Rat King's bar 500 HP left.
He drew a breath and gathered whatever mental reserve he had left.
"Warden of All Beasts. Forced contract."
Deep purple light gathered in his palm again ten times brighter than before and locked directly onto the still-berserking Rat King.
Under normal rules, no summoner alive could contract a boss mid-fight, mid-rage. Contracts required the target's will to break first.
But Warden of All Beasts didn't answer to normal rules. The only limits were his own mental stamina and the target's resistance.
Chains of purple light lashed around the beast.
It fought them with everything it had left. The chains groaned and flickered, straining close to their breaking point.
Julian felt like his skull was being driven full of needles the unmistakable burn of mental exhaustion setting in.
"Trying to outlast me? You sure about that?"
Without hesitating, he reached for his authority a second time.
"Spend 500 Life Points. Force the Rat King's resistance chance down by 50%."
[Life Points deducted. Modification applied.]
The Rat King, mid-thrash, went suddenly, completely rigid. The purple chains snapped tight around it in an instant.
With one last furious roar, the massive bronze-tier boss dissolved into blinding purple light and poured straight into Julian's body.
[Contract successful! Beast acquired: Scaled Rat King Bronze-Tier Boss.]
[First-ever contract of a boss-tier beast. Bonus stats granted.]
[All attributes significantly increased.]
A wave of raw power detonated through Julian's frame. His bones cracked like distant firecrackers, and his muscle mass visibly thickened under his skin.
[SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: Congratulations to player "Undertow" (identity concealed) for claiming the First Kill in Origin Camp #10086! Bronze-Tier Boss the Scaled Rat King has fallen!]
[Rewards: Reputation +100, Gold +10, 1x Random Silver-Tier Chest]
The announcement blazed across the sky in massive red letters, repeated three times, stamped directly onto every player's vision at once.
The entire camp every last soul still scrapping over rabbits went dead silent.
"...First kill? A bronze BOSS?"
"We haven't even landed a hit on a level-1 rabbit and somebody already soloed a boss?!"
"Who the hell is 'Undertow'? Is that even a person?"
Across the camp, Vivian Ashcroft who'd just spent a small fortune organizing dozens of hired hands to claim a hunting zone narrowed her eyes at the announcement scrolling overhead.
"Undertow..." Her fingers tapped lightly against the hilt of a blade at her hip.
Her instincts told her that whoever had pulled off a first kill within thirty minutes of the servers opening already understood something about this game that nobody
else did.
Back in the cavern.
Julian looked at the silver-glowing chest that had just appeared in his inventory and let out a long breath.
He glanced over at Duke, still slack-jawed on the ground, staring at nothing.
"Come on, Duke. This is just the first haul. Plenty more out there still waiting to get harvested.”
