[THE NEXT DAY - 3:42 AM]
Alex hadn't slept.
How could he? Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the same images on loop: the scythe tearing through bodies, souls being ripped away like fruit from a tree, those empty eyes staring into eternal nothingness.
And the worst part—the part that kept him awake, staring at the cracked ceiling of his apartment—was that he didn't feel the horror he should feel.
He felt curiosity.
Grim had returned to his small form after the attack. The tiny skeleton now sat on the windowsill, motionless as always, his toy scythe propped against the wall. As if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't just become an eight-foot tower of primordial death.
Alex sat up on his mattress, activating his phone. The screen glowed in the darkness, showing 3:42 AM in bright digits.
"Okay," he murmured to himself. "I need to understand this. I need to know what I can do."
Grim turned his small skull toward him. The empty sockets watched, waiting. No red lights this time—just empty white bone.
Alex focused his mind on that new sense that had appeared after the system unlocked. It was like a muscle he'd never known he had, waiting to be flexed.
[PATH OF THE DEATH SOVEREIGN - System Active]
A translucent panel appeared in his vision, visible only to him:
[MASTER STATUS]
Name: Alex Carter
Level: 5
Class: Death Sovereign (Forbidden)
HP: 340/340
MP: 180/180
Strength: 12
Agility: 15
Intelligence: 28
Wisdom: 31
Charisma: 8
[BONDED COMPANION]
Name: Grim
Species: Reaper Fragment (1/7)
Current Form: Latent (Small)
Available Forms:
· Latent: Level 5, no combat, passive observation
· Intermediate: Level 20, moderate combat, limited communication
· Awakened: Level 35, full combat, all abilities
MP Cost for Transformation:
· Latent → Intermediate: 50 MP
· Intermediate → Awakened: 100 MP additional
[SOULS HARVESTED]
Progress: 3/1000
Soul Quality:
· Human (average level 15-25): 1 soul
· Dungeon beast (level 5-15): 0.1-0.3 souls
· Elite monster (level 25+): 2-5 souls
[ACTIVE SKILLS]
[Soul Harvest] - Cost: Passive
When Grim kills a creature, its soul is automatically harvested for evolution progress.
[Soul Sight] - Cost: 10 MP/minute
See the life force of living beings as colored auras. White=weak, Blue=average, Purple=strong, Gold=exceptional.
[Reanimate] - Cost: Variable
Raise corpses as undead servants. Duration and power depend on MP invested and corpse quality.
· Small creature (rat, cat): 5 MP, duration 1 hour
· Medium creature (dog, wolf): 20 MP, duration 30 minutes
· Large creature (human, bear): 50 MP, duration 15 minutes
[Death's Whisper] - Cost: 30 MP
Communicate with souls of the recently deceased (less than 24 hours). Limited to 5 minutes.
Alex read everything three times, his heart beating faster with each line.
This was real. Completely, undeniably real.
He had a system. Like the elite summoners he'd read about, the ones who appeared in the news doing impossible things. Except his was...
Forbidden.
The word appeared in blood red in every mention of the Path of the Death Sovereign. A constant warning that this—whatever it was—wasn't supposed to exist.
"Okay," he said aloud, needing to hear his own voice to anchor reality. "Let's start with the basics. Soul Sight."
He focused his will on the skill.
[Soul Sight - Activated]
[Cost: 10 MP/minute]
[MP remaining: 170/180]
The world changed.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Everything—absolutely everything—took on a faint glow. The walls of his apartment glowed with the weakest green, the color of things that had never been alive. His mattress had a tinge of sickly brown—organic material, but long dead.
And Grim...
Grim was black. Not absence of light, but active black, like a hole pulling light into itself. And deep within that void, a single point of crimson pulsed like a tiny heart.
"Interesting," Alex murmured.
He stood, walked to the window. Outside, even at 3 AM, Lowtown didn't sleep completely. He saw a stray cat prowling in the alley—its aura pale white, weak but persistent.
Beyond, in a nearby building, he saw the auras of sleeping people. White mostly, some pale blue. Ordinary people with ordinary lives.
He deactivated the skill before the MP drain became significant. The world returned to normal.
"Reanimate," he said quietly, looking at Grim. "That's the one I really want to try."
Grim tilted his skull. No words—the small form couldn't speak—but the gesture communicated curiosity.
Alex went down the stairs of his apartment building, Grim following with silent clicks. The back alley was exactly what you'd expect from Lowtown at 4 AM: dirty, dark, and full of trash.
And dead.
He found what he was looking for near a dumpster: a rat. Fresh—dead maybe an hour ago, judging by rigor mortis. Probably poison.
"Perfect." Alex crouched beside the corpse. "This is... it's okay, right? I mean, it's just a rat. It's already dead. I'm not killing anything."
Grim didn't respond, just watched with those empty sockets.
Alex extended his hand over the rat's corpse, focusing on the Reanimate skill. He could feel it, waiting to be used, like a switch in his mind.
He activated it.
[Reanimate - Activated]
[Target: Rat corpse (fresh)]
[Cost: 5 MP]
[MP remaining: 165/180]
[Duration: 1 hour]
Energy flowed out of him—a strange sensation, as if part of his body heat was being drained. The rat began to change.
The skin withered, disappearing into gray ash. Muscle dried, falling from bones. In five seconds, only a skeleton remained—small, fragile, but definitely moving.
The skeletal rat stood on its bony legs. Turned its tiny skull toward Alex.
And waited.
"Holy... it actually works." Alex laughed—a slightly hysterical sound. "I'm going crazy. I'm definitely going crazy. I'm talking to a skeletal rat I just raised from the dead."
The rat tilted its head. The gesture was eerily similar to how Grim tilted his.
"Okay, uh... walk in a circle."
The rat obeyed immediately, trotting in a perfect circle around his feet.
"Jump."
It jumped.
"Climb onto my shoulder."
It ran up his leg, his torso, settled on his shoulder with negligible weight.
Alex felt something bubbling in his chest. Not horror. Not fear.
Wonder.
His whole life he'd been powerless. No control. No power. But now he could create. He could give motion to what was dead, command what should be still.
It was terrifying.
It was intoxicating.
"This is just a rat," he said aloud, needing to anchor his thoughts. "Imagine what else I could—"
He stopped.
No. That path led to madness. To becoming exactly the kind of monster society feared.
"Small steps," he told himself. "Learn the system. Control the power. Don't let it control you."
The skeletal rat squeaked—a horrible, hollow sound, like air being forced through empty bones.
Alex spent the next hour experimenting. He discovered he could have multiple reanimations active—he found two more dead rats and raised them too, creating a small band of skeletal rodents.
He discovered he could vaguely feel what they felt. Not exact thoughts, but impulses. Hunger (though they couldn't eat), survival instinct (ironic), absolute loyalty toward him.
He discovered that when the one-hour timer expired, the first rat simply disintegrated into dust. No ceremony, no pain—just existence ending.
[Reanimation expired]
[1 undead servant remaining active]
By the time the sun began to tint the sky gray, Alex had completed dozens of small tests. He knew the limits of his basic skills. He knew how much MP he could safely use before feeling drained.
And he knew that three souls weren't enough.
Not even close.
---
[APARTMENT 4B - 7:23 AM]
Alex sat on his mattress, staring at the system panel with a grim expression.
[Evolution Progress: 3/1000]
Three out of a thousand. At this rate, it would take...
He did the mental math. If he only counted average dungeon beasts (0.2 souls each), he'd need to kill approximately five thousand creatures to reach the first evolution.
Five. Thousand.
"That's..." he started to say aloud, then stopped.
He killed three humans. Well, not exactly—Grim did it. But three human souls had been harvested. And that memory, that feeling of power flowing into him...
No.
Alex shook his head violently.
"We're not going down that path," he said firmly, though no one but Grim was there to hear. "Humans are... no. Even if they were scumbags, even if they attacked me, I'm not going to become a serial killer just to level up faster."
Grim tilted his skull. Agreement? Disappointment? Impossible to tell.
"Dungeons," Alex continued, reaching for his phone. "There are dungeons all over the city. Places where monsters naturally spawn. If I can find a low-level one, one that normally requires teams but that maybe I can handle alone..."
He searched: "E-rank dungeons Lowtown"
Results appeared instantly. Lowtown had three registered E-rank dungeons—the weakest ones, designed for novice summoners to practice.
Dungeon #1: East Sector Abandoned Sewers
Average monster level: 5-8
Common creatures: Giant rats, sewer slimes, minor goblins
Mortality rate: 2% (with appropriate equipment)
Status: Open to public, requires guild registration
Dungeon #2: North District Haunted Warehouse
Average monster level: 7-10
Common creatures: Minor specters, venomous spiders, weak zombies
Mortality rate: 5% (with appropriate equipment)
Status: Open to public, requires guild registration
Dungeon #3: South Edge Collapsed Mine
Average monster level: 8-12
Common creatures: Cave bats, rock golems, earth serpents
Mortality rate: 8% (with appropriate equipment)
Status: Semi-restricted, requires D-rank certification
Alex frowned. All required guild registration or certification. Which meant paperwork. Which meant people would know he was going in.
And if an "expelled F-rank summoner" suddenly started clearing dungeons alone...
Questions would come.
"I need an unofficial dungeon," he murmured, refining his search. "Something the city doesn't monitor."
Fifteen minutes of searching later, he found rumors on a dark summoner forum:
User: ShadowKnight99
"Hey guys, there's a new dungeon rift in Sector 7, near the old factory ruins. Not officially registered yet. Levels 3-7, mostly slimes and rats. Perfect for low-level farming if you don't want to pay guild fees."
User: BladeQueen
"Confirmed. Went in yesterday. Easy to clear with D-rank companion. No boss yet—probably just a minor rift that'll close in a few weeks."
User: NoobSlayer
"Anyone else think it's weird that unregistered rifts are popping up so close to residential areas? Isn't the city supposed to monitor this?"
User: ShadowKnight99
"It's Lowtown, bro. City doesn't care if we live or die. Just appreciate the free farming spot and shut up."
Alex memorized the location: Sector 7, old factory ruins, near the river.
He knew the area. Had passed through it on his way to work. An abandoned industrial site where no one went after dark.
Perfect.
He looked at Grim. "What do you think? Can we handle level 3-7 slimes?"
Grim, of course, didn't respond. Just watched him with those empty sockets.
"Alright." Alex stood, searching his closet. "I need to prepare. If I'm going to do this—if I'm really going to become some kind of... I don't know, dungeon exterminator?—I need to think strategically."
He made a mental list:
Problems:
1. No armor
2. No weapons (for him—Grim had the scythe)
3. No real combat experience
4. Limited MP for Grim's transformations
5. If anyone sees him using necromancy = serious trouble
Solutions:
1. Go at night when no one's around
2. Use Grim's Intermediate form—weaker than Awakened but enough for slimes
3. Stick to low dungeon levels, don't take risks
4. Practice, practice, practice
He spent the day preparing. Bought a cheap knife at a hardware store—not much, but something for self-defense. Found dark clothes at a thrift shop—nothing flashy, easy to move in.
Ate a proper meal for the first time in days—needed energy.
And waited for night to fall.
---
[SECTOR 7 - OLD FACTORY RUINS - 11:47 PM]
The factory had once been a textile processing plant, before a fire shut it down ten years ago. Now it was just a skeleton of concrete and rusted steel, broken windows like empty eyes, graffiti covering every surface.
And somewhere in its depths, a dungeon rift had opened.
Alex stood before the main entrance—a hole in a chain-link fence that dozens of people had clearly used before him. He could feel it, even from here: a strange pressure in the air, like being underwater but still able to breathe.
Dungeon energy.
"Okay," he whispered, looking at Grim. "Intermediate form. I need you to be able to talk and fight, but we don't want to drain all my MP at once."
He focused his will on the bond.
[Companion Transformation]
[Latent → Intermediate]
[Cost: 50 MP]
[MP remaining: 130/180]
Grim began to change.
Bones expanded—not as dramatically as the full transformation, but noticeably. From 80 centimeters to maybe a meter and a half. The toy scythe solidified into something intermediate—not the two-meter blade of absolute death, but no longer plastic. Real steel, the size of a short sword with a curved blade.
The tattered robe darkened, becoming something between rag and actual shadow.
And the eyes—those empty sockets—gained a touch of red light. Dim, like distant embers.
When Grim spoke, his voice wasn't the ancient resonance of full Awakening. It was younger. A teenager, maybe, with a touch of echo.
"Intermediate... stable, master. I can... fight. Talk. But not... full use of power."
The voice came in bursts, as if Grim was remembering how to function in this state.
"It's enough," Alex said. "We just need to clear slimes and rats. Nothing dramatic."
"Understood. I will... protect. Follow. Your command."
Together, they entered the ruins.
The factory was darker than Alex expected. His phone flashlight barely cut through the darkness, casting strange shadows across broken machinery and collapsed floors.
The dungeon pressure grew stronger as they walked deeper. Alex could feel it now—a sense of wrongness, as if space itself was slightly twisted.
And then he saw it.
The rift.
It was exactly as textbooks described: a tear in reality, floating half a meter off the ground. About the size of a door, with edges glowing sickly purple. Through it, Alex could see... somewhere else. A tunnel that definitely wasn't part of the factory.
Natural stone instead of concrete. Bioluminescent fungi growing on walls. Sounds of splashing, squeaking, movement.
[Dungeon detected: Minor Rift - Unnamed]
[Recommended level: 5-10]
[Recommended companion rank: D or higher]
[Warning: Entering alone is dangerous]
[Proceed?]
Alex looked at Grim. The skeleton looked back, red lights pulsing softly.
"Last chance to back out," Alex said.
"You... decide. I... follow."
"Alright. Stay close to me. If something goes wrong, if it looks like I'm going to die, full transformation. I don't care if we run out of MP—I'd rather be alive and exhausted than dead."
"Yes... master."
Alex took a deep breath.
And crossed the threshold.
---
