Two saucer-sized red eyes ignited in the middle of the thick purple mist. Krik-krik-krik! The sound of the predator's exoskeleton gnashing together sounded like knives being sharpened against stone.
Klein didn't wait for the monster to pounce. He pivoted, ignoring the searing pain in his jaw, and bolted in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry him.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit!" he hissed. His breath was shallow, every lungful of air feeling like he was swallowing hot sand.
Behind him, the Grave Digger Spider—a gargantuan arachnid with claws resembling steel shovels—slammed into the tunnel walls, collapsing the cavern ceiling in its relentless pursuit. Klein didn't look back. He lunged into a dark opening covered in faded yellow warning signs: [UNSTABLE ZONE - NO ENTRY].
The air here was different. Heavier. More... charged. Klein felt as if thousands of invisible needles were trying to pierce his skin. The Mana pressure in this zone was so high that his lungs felt like they were about to burst from the inside.
Klang!
Klein's stride came to a jarring halt as his foot struck empty air.
He had tripped right at the lip of the mine's waste disposal pit—a massive funnel leading to the deepest depths of District 4-B. Klein tried to grab the rocky ledge, but the remaining strength in his cracked fingers betrayed him.
Wusss!
He was in a free fall. Darkness swallowed him for several seconds that felt like an eternity before his body slammed into something soft yet wet.
Bugh!
Klein groaned. A stench so foul it immediately stung his nostrils hit him—a mixture of ammonia, chemical fluids, and rotting flesh. He tried to push himself up, but his hands sank into a cold, slippery pile.
It wasn't dirt. It wasn't Cores.
Under the dim glow of his shackle, Klein saw pale faces with bulging eyes. Hundreds of slave corpses, no longer productive, piled up like industrial waste. This was AI Corp's "Asset Disposal Sector." The place where the zeros were gathered.
[Oxygen Status: 00:01:02]
[Warning: Extraordinary Mana Pressure Detected!]
[Status: Imminent Cellular Death.]
The world in Klein's eyes began to tilt. The sight of the corpse piles around him blurred into a faint radiance. His consciousness was thinning. The oxygen timer on his shackle flickered red, then settled on the most terrifying number.
[Oxygen Status: 0.5%]
So, this is how it ends? he thought bitterly. Even an F-Rank Merchant like me doesn't have enough value to be sold to death.
He felt the overwhelming Mana vibrations around him beginning to rupture his blood vessels. An unbearable heat spread from his chest. However, just before his eyes closed completely, a static glitch appeared in the center of his vision.
[Zzzzt... Analyzing Body Condition...]
[Desperate State Detected: Verified.]
[Trading Logic: Selling the remains of life for a chance...]
[Zzzzt... Awakening Phase Two: Cursed Merchant...]
The system's voice was no longer the monotonous AI Corp recording. This voice was deep, ancient, and seemed to echo from another, far darker dimension.
Srakkk...
Right in the middle of the corpse pile, about two meters from where Klein lay, space and time seemed to tear. A small fissure—a micro-Rift—opened, emitting a black light that flickered like a flame.
A small creature crawled out. It looked like a monkey but with pitch-black skin and a single broken horn on its head. The creature was critically injured; its entrails were nearly spilling out and its breath was ragged, leaving a trail of black blood across the face of one of the slave corpses.
The little monster stopped. Its flat nose sniffed the air, and then its glowing yellow eyes fixed on a single point.
On Klein's right hand.
More precisely, on the remains of Old Man Hobb's moldy bread, which Klein was still clutching tightly in a deathly reflex. The monster let out a heart-wrenching, hungry whimper—a primitive urge that transcended even the pain of its wounds.
In the midst of his delirium, Klein saw a new status window appear above the creature's head, shining with a gold color that contrasted with the surrounding darkness.
[Target Detected: Shadow Imp (Critically Injured)]
[Desire: Acute Hunger (98%)]
[Opportunity: First Cursed Transaction about to begin...]
Klein stared into the monster's eyes. In the same state of desperation, predator and prey were now bound by only one thing.
The need to survive.