As an officially licensed B-Rank Hunter, Jera now had access to the Hunter Bureau's private contract board. This was the real marketplace of power, where Guilds and corporations posted high-stakes, high-reward missions.
His presence at the board was, as always, an event. Other Hunters—career men and women who had bled for their rank—kept their distance, watching him with a mix of awe, jealousy, and fear. They saw the man who had humbled Captain Kane and one-shot a C-Rank beast.
Jera ignored them all. He was scanning the list, looking for a specific type of contract. He didn't want a "high-profile" mission. He didn't want to guard a VIP or join a high-payout Guild raid. He wanted something quiet. Something remote. Something investigative.
He found it.
Contract #B-447: SURVEY & CLEAR
Location: Dungeon #29, "The Blood Furnace" (B-Rank)
Objective: Investigate minor energy fluctuations reported in the lower levels. Clear any remnant monster nests.
Status: Stable, Low-Risk.
Payout: 1,200,000 Credits.
It was perfect. "The Blood Furnace" was an old dungeon, considered "tamed" and mostly forgotten. It was the last place anyone would look for him.
He tapped his new B-Rank license against the sensor. The contract lit up: [ACCEPTED: HUNTER C. WALKER].
The whispers in the room instantly grew louder.
"...The Blood Furnace? Why? That dungeon is a dried-up husk."
"...That's a cleanup mission. A rookie job. Why is he taking it?"
Jera turned and walked out of the Bureau, leaving their questions to hang in the air.
Behind him, in her office, Elara Kane watched his icon move on her city-wide map. "The Blood Furnace," she mused. "Why is he going to a dead-end dungeon? Keep the surveillance drone on him. I want to know what he's really hunting."
The Blood Furnace was located deep in the industrial sector of the city. The entrance was not a glowing rift, but a massive, rusted iron hatch set into the concrete floor of a derelict factory.
Jera entered, and the world changed.
This was not a cave of crystals or a ruin of stone. It was a dungeon that mirrored its industrial entrance. He was in a vast, sprawling cavern of black iron. Massive, non-functional gears, each the size of a house, were embedded in the walls. Rivers of a thick, red-orange, molten sludge—too thick for lava—flowed in deep channels, casting a dim, hellish light. The air smelled of sulfur, ozone, and hot, coppery blood.
He was alone. The dungeon was silent, save for the slow glug-glug of the molten rivers.
His [Aetheric Shield] was active, an invisible skin protecting him from the toxic air. He began his descent, his mining rig's boots making hollow clangs on the iron floor.
His mission was to "clear remnant monster nests." He found one quickly. A pack of "Furnace Imps," small, fast D-Rank creatures made of superheated scrap metal.
They charged him, their claws glowing red-hot.
Jera didn't even use a multiplier. He moved with the casual, controlled speed of his new base stats.
Punch. Punch. Punch.
He was a ghost among them. Each of his punches, backed by his compressed Core, hit with the force of a wrecking ball. The Imps were reduced to piles of shattered, cooling metal.
[Monster Kill: Furnace Imp. Experience Multiplier Roll: $\times 18$.]
[Loot Roll: $\times 34$.]
The XP and loot were trivial, but he was just getting started. He continued deeper, into the B-Rank zones.
He found the first B-Rank monster an hour later. It was a "Furnace Golem," a ten-foot-tall brute of iron and slag, powered by a core of the molten sludge.
But something was wrong.
The Golem was standing in a corner, facing the wall. It was twitching. Its movements were jerky, unnatural. As Jera approached, he saw why.
Black, oily, tar-like tendrils were growing from the gaps in its iron-plate armor. They oozed a substance that sizzled on the floor. The Golem's glowing red eyes were flickering, not with rage, but with what looked like... agony.
When it finally sensed Jera, it turned. It didn't roar. It let out a high-pitched shriek of pained, desperate frenzy. It charged, not with a plan, but with a suicidal, rabid need to destroy.
Jera's eyes went cold behind his helmet. This was new. This was the "energy fluctuation" from the contract.
He met the Golem's charge. He didn't bother holding back his base strength. He punched it directly in its core.
The Golem exploded in a shower of molten slag and black, oily liquid.
Jera's [Aetheric Shield] protected him from the blast, but a few drops of the black, oily substance spattered onto his invisible barrier.
A sound he had never heard before hissed in his ears: Tsssss...
The black oil was sizzling against his S-Rank, L512, multiplied shield. It was trying to corrode it.
Then, his System flashed a new, urgent warning.
[Monster Kill: Furnace Golem (CORRUPTED).]
[...Scanning foreign energy signature... ERROR.]
[This energy is not of this dimension. Classification: UNKNOWN.]
[SYSTEM WARNING: Hostile energy signature detected. This substance is ANTAGONISTIC to the Multiplier System. Proceed with extreme caution.]
Jera's mission had just changed. This "corruption" was the first thing in the world that his System had identified as a direct threat.
He ignored the rest of his contract. He followed his System's internal compass, which was now pulsing with a "hostile" warning. It led him off the main dungeon path, toward a solid iron wall.
"This is it," Jera murmured. The wall was pulsing with a faint, dark light.
This was a hidden area. A secret part of the dungeon.
He pulled back his fist. He used his new, perfect control. He punched the wall with just enough force.
CLANG.
A clean, man-sized hole appeared in the two-foot-thick iron.
He stepped through.
The air on the other side was thick and black. The corruption was everywhere. The oily, black substance coated the walls, the floor, the ceiling. It was pulsing with a slow, sick heartbeat.
In the center of the room, three more Furnace Golems were kneeling. They were covered in the black tendrils, which had completely overtaken their bodies. They were puppets, their heads lolling as the tendrils pulsed.
When they sensed Jera, all three stood up in perfect, unnatural unison. Their movements were synchronized. They were no longer monsters. They were soldiers.
They attacked.
Jera fought. But this time, it was different.
He punched the first one. [Strength Multiplier Roll: $\times 8$.]
The Golem was destroyed. But the black tendrils lashed out from its corpse, trying to wrap around Jera's arm.
His shield sizzled, burning them away.
The other two attacked, spitting the black, corrosive oil.
Jera moved. He was too fast for them, a blur of black armor. He dismantled them piece by piece, his fists breaking them down.
But he was deeply, profoundly unsettled. This corruption was fast, strong, and it fought with a hive-mind intelligence. And it could hurt his shield.
He cleared the room. He walked to the center, where the three Golems had been kneeling.
The source of the corruption was there.
It was not a monster. It was not an artifact.
It was a crack.
A small, jagged, black tear in the air. It was a wound in the fabric of the dungeon itself. From it, the black, oily, anti-system energy was leaking, slow and steady, like poison from a wound.
Jera stared at it. This was the true "Blood Dungeon." This was the source of the fluctuations.
He raised his hand. His first instinct was to use his ultimate weapon.
Store.
He tried to force the black energy, the crack itself, into his Unlimited Inventory.
The System screamed in his mind.
[SYSTEM ERROR! CRITICAL FAILURE!]
[CANNOT STORE. TARGET IS ANTI-SYSTEMIC.]
[INVENTORY IS REPELLING CORRUPTED MATTER. DO NOT ATTEMPT AGAIN.]
Jera recoiled, pulling his hand back as if he'd been burned.
His ultimate defense. His perfect, absolute power. His Inventory, which could store a mountain or a bullet.
It had failed.
This corruption was the one thing in the universe that his power could not touch, could not store, could not delete.
He looked at the small, insignificant crack. He now understood. This was the first real threat he had ever faced. This was a power that operated on a different set of rules.
He couldn't store it. He couldn't absorb it.
So he would bury it.
He looked at the iron walls of the secret chamber. He raised his fist.
[Action: Structural Demolition. Strength Multiplier Roll: $\times 500$.]
He didn't just punch the wall. He struck the ceiling.
With a sound like a dying mountain, the entire secret chamber collapsed. Millions of tons of corrupted iron folded in on itself, burying the black, oozing crack under a new mountain of rubble.
Jera sealed the hole he had made, his [Aetheric Shield] flaring to weld the metal shut.
He turned and walked away, his face a cold, calculating mask.
He had completed his "cleanup" mission. But he had found a new, terrible secret. The dungeons were not just filled with monsters. They were infected. And the infection was something his System, his god, could not cure. He was on his own.