In a cold night the city never really slept. Its veins pulsed with color, neon blues, crimson streaks, and flickering yellows that stretched across damp asphalt. Among the towers of light and steel, a large internet café stood like a shrine to obsession.
The glass doors reflected the glow of its sign: NEXUS HAVEN. Inside, the air buzzed softly with the hum of high-spec PCs. The walls shimmered with streaks of cyan and violet, and sleek counters gleamed beneath overhead strips of LED light. Everything about the place was modern, almost futuristic—an oasis for digital escapists.
But at this hour, it was nearly empty. Only a few employees lingered, sweeping floors or lazily chatting while the smell of instant noodles lingered in the air. The monitors flickered with idle game menus, abandoned by players who had already gone home to sleep.
All except one.
At the farthest corner of the café sat a lone figure, motionless except for the twitching of his fingers. His name was Marcellus Argent. A white hoodie draped loosely over his frame, sleeves slightly creased from hours of unmoving arms. His black jogging pants and sneakers were scuffed, but he didn't seem to care. The soft neon light painted his messy black hair with streaks of electric blue, and his dark eyes, bloodshot and dry, gleamed with something between exhaustion and exhilaration.
A faint grin curved his lips. It wasn't the smile of joy, but of hunger.
He had been here since morning, glued to the same screen for nearly sixteen hours straight. The café workers whispered about him between breaks, wondering what kind of person could sit that long, staring into a glowing void.
Marcellus didn't hear them. Didn't even notice. For him, the real world had already dulled into static.
On the screen before him was Ad Infinitum Ad Libitum, an idle game unlike any other. A dungeon-lord simulator, but one so intricate it felt alive. You didn't just watch numbers climb; you built empires, crushed kingdoms, and annihilated heroes who dared challenge your rule. Every decision, every click, expanded your dominion.
It wasn't just a game about progress. It was a game about power—the kind that consumed everything else.
Thousands of side quests, hundreds of random events, cutscenes with branching dialogue that changed based on how cruel or merciful you were—it all combined into a world that felt real enough to drown in. And Marcellus had drowned long ago.
What truly hooked him wasn't the gameplay itself, but the freedom of being evil without consequence. In this world, he wasn't an average man behind a screen. He was Lord Argentis Malakai Tenebris, ruler of the Abyssal Dungeon, scourge of the light. He commanded armies of monsters, laid waste to continents, and shattered heroes who dared believe in hope.
He had spent years building his empire, and the game rewarded obsession. Every hour of grinding, every click, every cent poured in brought new layers of power.
Customizable dungeons that stretched for miles. Floors designed like gothic cathedrals or mechanical labyrinths. Underlings that could converse through dialogue trees of his own creation. Evolution paths for his avatar that bordered on divine monstrosity.
His main character now stood at its final evolutionary form—Dragon Singuinity—a half-blooded Sun Dragon fused with the vampiric essence of the Moon and the ancient genes of a Life Elf. A creature that defied nature itself.
Reaching that level hadn't been easy. Marcellus had spent more money than he wanted to admit. Nearly a thousand Dtch credits, roughly two thousand dollars in real currency, burned over months of microtransactions.
But the rewards were unmatched.
Thousands of loyal cultists and summoned beasts served him. Each floor of his dungeon teemed with horrors of his own design—creatures born from breeding pits and dark rituals, each programmed to slaughter anything that entered. The higher floors brimmed with evolving monsters that adapted after every defeat. His twenty generals, each unlocked through painstaking gacha rolls, stood as demigods of war, capable of erasing armies alone.
Every system fed another. Birth chambers produced new monsters faster with rare crafting materials. Blood Stones merges generals, awakening evolutionary traits that transformed them into new beings entirely.
And all of it… all of it pulsed at his command.
Marcellus leaned closer to the screen, the reflection of his crimson eyes dancing with the swirling magic of his digital empire. He clicked. Again. Again. The rhythmic sound of the mouse was almost hypnotic.
The world outside no longer existed—only Ad Infinitum Ad Libitum did.
In that world, he was not a man wasting away in a glowing room. He was a god, sculpting damnation.
And tonight, after years of obsession, his empire will be finally completed.
__________________________
"Finally."
The word escaped Marcellus in a low, tired whisper that somehow carried through the quiet café. The sudden sound startled a few of the late-shift workers, who turned toward him from behind their counters.
He didn't notice.
Marcellus's eyes stayed locked on the glowing tower displayed on his screen—a colossal structure of fifty dungeon floors, each one painstakingly expanded and perfected over months of endless grinding. It had taken weeks of questing, micromanaging underlings, and watching timers tick down, all for this moment.
At last, every floor shimmered with the golden emblem of completion. The Abyssal Dungeon, his creation, his empire, was whole.
Marcellus leaned back, letting out a shaky laugh. "Two years… two damn years, and thousands of dollars later. Worth it. Totally worth it."
He scrolled through his dungeon overview with the wheel of his mouse. Rows upon rows of data flashed by: the population of cultists, resource income, monster birthing rates. Every floor teemed with activity.
Tiny chibi-style cultists scurried across the gothic corridors, performing their endless, programmed chores. Some carried food to birthing pits, others shoveled glowing dust into forges, and a few exchanged snippets of random dialogue that popped up in tiny text boxes.
'If I fart, will the Lord smell it?'
'Maybe if I steal a coin, no one will notice… right?'
'Oh merciful Lord, please don't step on me again!'
Marcellus chuckled. "Still the same stupid lines. Cute, though."
He zoomed out, watching the animated horde bustling beneath the crystalline ceilings of the dungeon. The twenty generals he had painstakingly rolled for stood tall across their assigned floors—glorious, monstrous beings of every kind. A dragon knight clad in molten scales, a pale banshee queen floating over her ghostly choir, an armored lich commanding skeletal miners in silence. Each one was perfect.
It was all perfect.
Marcellus sat there, smiling faintly, but there was a dullness behind his eyes. "Guess this is it, huh? Nothing left to unlock."
He stretched in his chair. His spine cracked, followed by a low groan that slipped out before he could stop it. His body ached, his head throbbed, and the empty cans of energy drinks scattered around him were a battlefield of their own.
"I really need to go home before I die from caffeine," he muttered.
He rubbed his face, exhaled deeply, and reached for the power button—then froze.
A notification appeared in the center of his monitor.
It wasn't the usual raid alert. No hero siege, no event pop-up. Just a glowing black window with golden text pulsing like a heartbeat.
[Congratulations, Lord Argentis Malakai Tenebris.
You have achieved Absolute Completion.
A new hidden chapter has been unlocked.
Would you like to begin?]
[Yes] / [No]
Marcellus blinked at the screen. "What the hell…?"
He leaned closer, eyes narrowing. This wasn't part of the usual post-completion cutscene. He'd read every forum, every patch note, every hidden update the developers had ever teased. Nothing like this existed.
"There's no way this is real," he muttered, resting his chin on one hand. "No dev logs, no leaks, no Easter eggs. What is this?"
His mind began racing. Maybe it was a secret event that only triggered after hitting every achievement. Maybe it was an expansion teaser. Maybe, just maybe, there was even more content.
The corners of his lips curved upward. "You've got to be kidding me… after all this time?"
His fatigue melted into excitement. He straightened his posture, eyes shining with renewed energy. "This is what I paid for. This is what a thousand bucks gets you."
With a small, eager laugh, he guided his cursor toward the Yes button.
"Let's see what you've got for me."
He clicked.
The screen went black.
Marcellus frowned and tapped the mouse. Nothing. He hit a few keys. Still nothing. The monitor remained dark, humming softly.
"What? Did it crash now?"
He sighed and was about to call one of the attendants over when he realized the café had gone silent. Completely silent.
He turned his head.
The other monitors were off. The staff—gone. No voices, no sound of sweeping, no idle music from the speakers. The only thing that still glowed was the neon light from the sign outside, bathing the room in a haunting blue.
"Hey… guys?" Marcellus called out.
No answer.
Then, the lights flickered. The ground trembled. Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered.
"What the—?"
Before he could move, the ceiling cracked apart. The sound was deafening, like thunder erupting inside the room. Desks and computers lifted into the air as if gravity had forgotten its job. The world around him began to twist and unravel, peeling apart like wet paper.
The city beyond the café's windows melted into a blinding white void, stretching endlessly in every direction.
Marcellus clutched the side of a table as wind roared past him, dragging everything upward. "What the fuck is happening?!"
He tried to run toward the restroom, but the floor splintered beneath his feet. The pull intensified, a vortex swallowing everything—the walls, the signs, the neon lights.
His grip slipped. The metal pole he clung to bent, groaned, and tore free from the collapsing wall.
"Not now! Come on, not now!" he shouted, voice cracking as his body lifted off the ground.
For a fleeting second, he thought this was it—the caffeine, the sleepless nights, the exhaustion catching up to him. Maybe this was a hallucination. Maybe his brain had finally snapped.
The last thing he saw was a sphere of light forming at the café's center. It pulsed once. Twice. Then it swallowed him whole.
His voice vanished into the roar.
And the world went silent.