The world ended quietly.
No earthquakes, no divine punishment. Just a rupture in the sky—an unnatural tear that pulsed with violet light—and then everything changed.
The first dungeon opened in the heart of Berlin. Within days, similar rifts tore through cities across the globe. From these gates poured monsters: wolves with obsidian bones, serpents that devoured buildings, creatures made of fog and hunger.
Humanity should have been wiped out. But some didn't fall.
They rose.
Hunters.
Men and women who awakened strange powers—flames in their hands, iron in their blood, eyes that saw through death itself. They fought back the dungeons, earning fame, wealth, and godlike status. Soon, the world bent around them.
Governments collapsed.
Hunter guilds rose.
Every city became a fractured kingdom ruled by a Hunter or guild. They carved out territories, claiming land as their domain. If a dungeon opened in your city and the ruling Hunter didn't like you… you died.
They called it order.
But Arden Vale saw only chaos.
Arden was born in the ruins of Detroit—territory of Guild Iron Fang, led by the infamous "Scar King" Juno Halek. An orphan, like so many others, Arden never awakened any power. No skills. No talents. Just a quiet, cautious mind and the will to survive.
With no way to fight, he took the only job available to the powerless: Dungeon Janitor.
After Hunters cleared a dungeon, someone had to enter and clean the remains—burn monster corpses, extract cores too weak to be claimed, and dismantle traps. It was brutal, dirty work. And dangerous. Dungeons were unstable. If you lingered too long, you'd be sealed inside. Or worse.
Even among the janitors, Arden was unwanted. He worked silently. Kept to himself. Refused to flatter the guild elite. That made him suspicious. In a world where cruelty was power, kindness was a flaw. Respect was reserved for those with blood on their hands.
The dungeon in Sector 17 was supposed to be clean.
The Iron Fang hunters had stormed in days ago and reported a full sweep. Arden's crew arrived late to do the cleanup. The gate trembled with instability, but protocol demanded they enter anyway. Coins only came with risk.
Arden moved fast. Years of experience made him efficient—clearing sludge, burning carcasses, and double-checking rune traps left behind. His team hurried out before the timer ran out.
But then he saw it.
A pulse—barely a flicker—in a corner of the dungeon.
A corpse twitched. A monster's eye—half melted, jaw broken—flared with green light.
Arden's heart stopped.
"Revival?" he whispered.
It lunged.
He didn't have time to scream.
Its claws pierced his stomach. Something wet and warm gushed down his legs. He hit the wall with a dull thud. Pain should have followed, but it never came. Just cold. A deep, spreading numbness.
He saw his crew at the gate, staring back. One stepped forward… then stopped. Looked away.
They left.
No rescue came.
The Gate Sealed.
The dungeon began to collapse. Lights dimmed. The very air thinned into silence.
Arden lay there, still breathing—somehow.
The Celestial System had begun its purge. It always came at the end, erasing remnants with perfect, digital precision. It sterilized the dungeon before it vanished entirely.
He felt his body unraveling. First the tips of his fingers, then his arms. Like static eating into flesh.
He wanted to scream.
Not from pain—there was none. But from fear.
Would he cease to exist? Would he return? What would he become? Would he still be human?
Would anyone remember his name?
The answer, he knew, was no.
He wasn't angry.
Even the Hunter who could've saved him—Mara Titan, the one who stood just outside, silent and watching—had no reason to intervene. To them, he was just another orphan. Another failure. Another number on a chart.
No one mourns the janitor.
As his vision blackened, something stirred in the void.
A voice—cold, mechanical, divine.
[Soul Fragment Detected.]
[Trait: Reincarnation – Confirmed.]
[Permission Granted: Reformatting Soul Structure...]
[Initiating Digital Ascension Protocol...]
Arden's fear deepened. This wasn't death. It wasn't life.
It was something else entirely.
He was becoming something he didn't understand.
Something no longer human.
Something eternal.
And as the last fragment of his physical form vanished, a system began to awaken—one not of this world.