He pushed experimentally at the stone around him.
Not physically — it was more like trying to wiggle a phantom limb.
The cavern wall trembled faintly.
Stone dust drifted.
A pebble rolled across the ground.
Okay… so I can move the dungeon body. A little.
He focused harder.
The floor bulged slightly.
A crack formed.
A thin spike of stone jutted up, brittle and malformed — but it existed.
He felt a tiny spark of thrill.
I did that. I actually did that.
Something warmed inside him — pride, a sense of victory.
Then another feeling slithered beneath it.
A colder one.
More.
You can do more.
You must.
He shook it off — or tried to.
"Later," he muttered instinctively.
It came out as a vibration through the cavern.
He didn't want to lose control to instincts he didn't understand.
Not yet.
First, he wanted to know where he was… what type of world this was.
He stretched his awareness outward, further than before.
This time the cavern revealed itself fully:
Rough stone.
A narrow tunnel leading deeper underground.
A faint trickle of water somewhere in the dark.
And… life.
Something moved in the tunnel.
A rhythmic scraping.
Slow.
Dragging.
Wet breaths echoing.
His awareness sharpened the way a cat's might when it hears the first whisper of prey.
Something's coming.
He braced himself — though he didn't know how much good bracing would do when he was literally a rock stuck in a wall.
The creature entered the cavern.
The First Visitor
It was humanoid.
Barely.
A misshapen figure, hunched, with pale clammy skin stretched over thin bone.
Eyes milky and blind.
Teeth sharp and crooked.
Fingers too long.
A creature born to crawl in darkness.
A cave ghoul.
It sniffed the air with snorting, wet breaths.
Then its head turned toward him — toward the core.
Not visually.
But instinctively.
Dungeon cores attracted mana-gorged creatures.
Predators.
Parasitic things that fed on dormant dungeons.
The ghoul approached on all fours, drool trailing from its mouth.
Shit. It's hungry. It wants to eat me?
The instincts inside him stirred.
This time stronger.
Kill.
Consume.
Grow.
He hesitated.
This thing was alive.
Breathing.
A creature of flesh.
And he… wasn't.
His human mind recoiled slightly.
Do I really have to kill it? Already?
Then he remembered:
This creature wanted to devour him.
He was helpless.
He had no arms.
No legs.
No weapons.
Only stone.
And if he died here?
No second chances.
No do-overs.
Just oblivion.
His hesitation evaporated.
Fine. If it's life or mine… it chooses wrong.
The ghoul screeched and lunged for the core.
He acted instinctively.
The cavern floor buckled.
A spike of jagged stone erupted upward.
Straight through the ghoul's jaw.
Piercing skull.
Shattering bone.
The creature convulsed violently.
Its blood flowed down the stone spike, steaming faintly as it seeped into the ground.
He felt it.
Not taste — but intake.
The dungeon drank the blood.
The life force.
The lingering mana.
Warmth spread through his core.
A tingling.
A glow.
Pleasure, he realized with a jolt.
Foreign, shivering pleasure from absorbing life.
Oh. Oh that's—
He caught himself.
That's dangerous.
His human side recoiled in discomfort.
But another part of him whispered with hungry delight.
More.
Take more.
Grow stronger.
He swallowed the voice down, but it didn't go away.
It curled inside him like a sleeping animal.
One that wouldn't stay asleep for long.