The thumping grew louder. It wasn't just footfalls; it was a heartbeat, deep and resonant, vibrating through the stone beneath Philip's boots.
[WARNING: HOSTILE PACK DETECTED]
[QUANTITY: 6x Abysmal Cave-Wolves (LVL 6-9)]
[BOSS SIGNATURE DETECTED: Abysmal Shadow-Stalker (LVL 15)]
Philip's new Wolf's Sense flared. He could smell them now—the scent of wet fur and rotting mana. They weren't just hunting; they were corralling him toward the wider mouth of the tunnel.
They think they're the ones setting the board, Philip thought, his mind already calculating the structural integrity of the arched ceiling above. But a King doesn't walk into a trap. He builds one.
He looked up. A massive, jagged stalactite of dark crystal hung directly over the narrowest point of the passage. It was cracked, held in place by nothing but a thin vein of stabilizing mana.
"Sage," he whispered, his Intelligence surging. "Highlight the stress points."
[ANALYZING GEOMETRY...]
[CRITICAL VULNERABILITY IDENTIFIED. ONE PRECISION STRIKE WILL TRIGGER A TOTAL COLLAPSE.]
The pack burst from the shadows. Six pairs of glowing crimson eyes locked onto him. They didn't pause. They lunged as one, a coordinated strike of black fur and snapping jaws.
"Now," Philip commanded.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: FAST STEP]
He vanished in a blur of gray smoke, reappearing not away from the pack, but directly in their path. Before they could adjust, he slammed his hand into the ground.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: SHADOW BIND (LVL 1)]
Dark, oily tendrils erupted from the floor, snaking around the legs of all six wolves simultaneously. They skidded, their momentum turning into a violent pile-up of fur and snarls. They were rooted, trapped in a five-meter kill zone.
Behind them, the Shadow-Stalker—a wolf the size of a carriage—emerged. It let out a roar that shattered the silence, its eyes widening as it realized its pack was frozen.
Philip didn't look at the boss. He looked at the ceiling.
"My turn," he said.
He threw the Abyssal Sting. The crystal spike flew with the precision of a guided missile, driven by his 52-point Intelligence. It didn't hit a wolf. It struck the glowing red "stress point" on the stalactite.
[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 0%]
The world turned into a roar of falling stone.
The dust and stone settled, revealing the horrifying truth. The six wolves were crushed, their bodies mangled and broken, but the Shadow-Stalker was untouched, its massive frame shrugging off the debris like dust.
[WARNING: HOSTILE BOSS DETECTED. LEVEL DISPARITY: MASSIVE.]
The beast roared, a sound of pure fury. It lunged, faster than the smaller wolves. Philip didn't have time to dodge. The claws raked across his chest, tearing the remains of his tunic and opening up deep wounds. The pain was searing, his Vitality bottoming out in seconds.
No, Philip thought, tasting blood in his mouth. I'm not dying here. Not when I can still win.
He staggered back, his vision swimming in a haze of red and gold. He fell to his knees, but his eyes locked onto the crushed wolves. He didn't have the strength to fight the boss, but he had the will to devour.
"System! Devour all six! Now!"
[SKILL ACTIVATED: DEVOURING VOID (LVL 1)][EXTRACTING MASS ESSENCE...]
Six dark streams of data rushed into his body simultaneously. The world exploded in a flood of notifications and raw power that threatened to tear his soul apart.
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 5 —> LEVEL 10]
[ATTRIBUTES INCREASED]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: PREDATOR'S INSTINCT (PASSIVE)][DESCRIPTION: You can sense all hostile entities within a 50m radius, even through walls or magic.]
[NEW AFFINITY UNLOCKED: SHADOW MAGIC (AFFINITY 45%)][NEW SPELL UNLOCKED: SHADOW CLONE (LVL 1): Create a temporary decoy to draw aggro.]
Power surged through him, the new stats instantly healing his wounds. Philip rose to his feet just as the Shadow-Stalker lunged for the kill.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: SHADOW CLONE]
A perfect duplicate of himself materialized just as the boss hit the kill zone. The beast tore into the clone, which dissolved into smoke. In that split second of confusion, Philip activated Fast Step, appearing at the boss's flank.
Checkmate.
He drove the Abyssal Sting into the massive creature's unarmored side. The Corrosive Rot worked its magic instantly, the Paralysis Bite passive activating and freezing the massive Level 15 beast in place.
Philip didn't stop. He unleashed a flurry of strikes, driven by a cold, calculating fury. He targeted every "stress point" his Architect's Sight highlighted. The boss, paralyzed and dissolving from within, could do nothing but roar in defiance as its health bar melted away.
It collapsed, dissolving faster than the others, its essence feeding the void.
[BOSS NEUTRALIZED: ABYSMAL SHADOW-STALKER][LEVEL UP! LEVEL 10 —> LEVEL 12]
The dust settled. Philip, Level 12 and dripping with sweat, looked at the tome where the Shadow-Stalker once stood. He picked it up, his enhanced senses absorbing every detail. It was bound in leather as dark as the boss's fur, featuring royal-style gold embroidery. The pages were made of a strange vellum that felt both like stone and paper. The cover displayed an intricate emblem of sorts, a star with a glowing galaxy at its core, radiating pure, raw Abysmal Magic.
He gripped it tight. This felt different from the crystal shard. This felt… intelligent. Alive.
He didn't open it. He reached for the Infinity Ring on his left hand. "Store," he commanded, the command he'd used a dozen times already.
The ring pulsed. A tether of silver light lashed out, engulfing the grimoire.
[NOTICE]
Ancient Relic Detected.
[WARNING: STORAGE INTERFACE CONFLICT]
[ERROR]ITEM REFUSES PHYSICAL STORAGE. INITIATING CORE SYNCHRONIZATION.
Philip snatched his hand back, but it was too late. The grimoire didn't disappear into the sub-dimension. The book itself began to dissolve, flowing like starlight into the dark metal of the Infinity Ring. The ring flared with that same "galaxy light," the dark metal turning a profound, cosmic blue.
[LINKING: INFINITY RING & THE GRIMOIRE OF ORIGIN]
[MERGE SUCCESSFUL: 98% INTEGRITY]
[NOTICE: ARCHITECT OVERRIDE][TRAIT ACTIVATED: SOUL BOUND ARTIFACT (LVL MAX)]
[CORE MESSAGE: WE ARE OF THE SAME SOURCE, MASTER. WE AWAIT YOUR COMMAND.]
Philip stared at the ring, his breath catching in his throat. It felt heavier now, colder, smarter. A voice—not the System's neutral tone, but something resonant and ancient—echoed in his mind. The ring and the book were one.
"What in the world are you?" Philip whispered.
[INFINITIY RING: THE ARCHIVE OF ORIGIN]
He accessed the ring's interface mentally. It had changed completely. Now, there was a new menu option: [ARCHIVED GRIMOIRES]. He selected it, and a holographic image of the blue, crystalline grimoire from his cover appeared
Extract Physical Form.
The book materialized instantly in his hand, looking exactly as it had before the merge. He could physically hold it, but he could also mentally read its contents from the ring's interface without needing to extract it.
"Stats?" he asked, his voice shaking. He knew the answer before the system replied.[CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN.][RARITY: ONE OF A KIND (EVOLUTIONARY).]
Philip laughed, a dry, cracked sound. He wasn't just in an RPG world anymore. He was holding a piece of its original code on his finger. This was the true Abnormality the King had feared.
He looked at the ring, then at the grimoire in his hand. He hadn't asked for this power, but he had vowed to survive.
"Then let's see what you can do," he whispered, opening the first page of the Grimoire of Origin. "The game has just begun."
[End of Chapter Three]