The rubble shifted again, faster this time. My ribs screamed as I scrambled backward, dislodging a cascade of gravel that buried my feet. The crack in the ceiling widened, letting in a sickly green light that made the dust look like radioactive fallout. Something was clawing through.

  Not the same creature. This one moved wrong, too many joints, too much hunger in the way the shadows bent around it. My fingers tightened around my pendant. My body felt like it had been run through a meat grinder, but my mind raced faster than the pain. Always faster.

  "Come on, Dere," I muttered, spitting blood onto the rubble. "You crawled out of Mom's corpse pit with worse."

  The ceiling gave way.

  A spider the size of a truck crashed through, its carapace shimmering with the same corrupted light as the dead core. Eight eyes, each one a different color. Mandibles like serrated knives. It landed in a crouch that sent shockwaves through the rubble, and the stench of rot hit me like a fist. This wasn't a dungeon boss. This was what happened when the dungeon ate a boss.

  [SYSTEM]

  Card Activated: VOID SLICE (Beyond Tier 0)

  Physical Strain: Internal Hemorrhaging (Severity: Moderate)

  Note: Skill cannot be used again for 5 minutes

  My hand slashed through the air before the notification finished fading. The void blade tore a gash in reality, slicing across the spider's front legs. Black ichor sprayed, smoking where it hit my face. The creature shrieked, a sound like metal tearing, and lashed out with a forelimb.

  I rolled, but my ankle twisted in the rubble. The spider's claw raked my side, and I felt ribs crack like dry twigs. No numbers. Just the wet crunch of cartilage and the sudden, terrifying sensation of my left lung collapsing.

  "F-fuck..."

  The spider lunged again. My hand went to my pendant. Shadow Step flared to life in my mind, the damaged card I'd grabbed off a dead player near the dungeon entrance before the core exploded. Didn't think I'd need it this fast. I'd get one jump. Maybe two if I got lucky.

  LUK: 10

  The spider's mandibles snapped inches from my face. I vanished into the shadows.

  I reappeared ten feet back, vomiting blood onto the dungeon floor. The spider screeched, tearing at the stone where I'd been. My vision blurred at the edges. Internal bleeding. Broken ribs. Concussion? Maybe. Dungeon collapses didn't usually come with medical reports.

  The rubble above shifted again. Voices. The other players were getting closer. I could already imagine the headlines: Classless Brat Dies in Cave-In. Scarred Man's Revenge! Or worse.Iron Wolves Claim Spoils.

  The spider charged.

  My hand went to my pendant. The [RECALL ALL] card pulsed against my fingertips. Learning it would lock all my class slots for three turns. Three turns while this thing turned me into paste.

  "Better than dying, you idiot."

  I slammed the card into my mind.

  [SYSTEM]

  Card Learned: RECALL ALL (Tier 1 - Rare)

  Class Slots Locked: 3 Turns Remaining

  Note: Multiskill will remain active

  The spider's mandible tore into my shoulder as the notification faded. I screamed, but my hand moved on instinct. Shadow Step. Void Slice. Both cards flared in my vision, ready for one desperate, stupid combo.

  "Let's dance, bug-eyed."

  I teleported behind the creature, void blade slashing through its thorax. The spider thrashed, but I was already moving. Shadow Step again. Void Slice again. The card strained against my mind, warning me it would go on cooldown soon.

  Third strike. The spider collapsed, twitching. I stumbled back, coughing black ichor onto my shirt. My body felt like it was coming apart at the seams, but my mind, my mind was sharp. Always sharp.

  The rubble above shifted. Voices louder now. I hid the [RECALL ALL] card in my pendant's storage space, next to the silver one I'd never used. And the letter. Mom's letter. I'd deal with that later.

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  A crack of light appeared. Not from the spider's corpse. From the ceiling above. Fresh air, carrying the scent of wet earth and freedom.

  But something else came with it. My ears caught the low rumble of voices, the scrape of boots on stone. The other players. They were digging straight toward me.

  I glanced at the spider's corpse. Already dissolving. The dungeon was reclaiming its own, black ichor seeping into the cracks between stones like water running downhill. In thirty seconds, there'd be nothing left to prove what had happened here.

  Good. The less people knew about my new skills, the longer I'd stay alive.

  I dragged myself toward the fissure in the ceiling, my broken ribs grinding with every movement. The pain was enormous, white-hot, blinding, but I'd felt worse. Or maybe I hadn't, and my brain was just lying to me to keep me moving. Either way, I climbed.

  My fingers found the lip of the crack. Fresh air rushed over my face. I pulled myself up, arm over arm, feeling my shoulder wound reopen. Blood soaked my shirt. The world tilted sideways.

  "Almost," I whispered. "Almost."

  My hand found grass. Real, honest-to-god grass. Not dungeon stone. Not rubble. Just dirt and green and the fading light of a dying sunset.

  "Time to go."

  The dungeon exit was a graveyard of broken bodies and shattered gear. I limped past the corpses, ignoring the sting of my cracked ribs. The other players had scattered, either hiding or dead. Good.

  I reached the surface just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Grimvale's sky turned the color of congealed blood. I collapsed onto the grass, laughing until I coughed up more blood.

  Alive. Again.

  A shadow fell over me. My hand went to my pendant, but the figure spoke first.

  "That was stupid."

  I looked up. A woman in leather armor, her face hidden under a hood. Not Iron Wolves, too scrawny. Too quiet. She crouched beside me, tossing a potion onto my chest.

  "Drink. You look like hell."

  "Aren't you going to ask about the Classless card?"

  "Already know. Your name's spreading fast, Dere Rene. Classless. Skilled Level 2. Stats that shouldn't work. Cards that shouldn't exist."

  I froze. "Who are you?"

  The woman pulled back her hood. Red hair. A scar across her cheek. Familiar eyes.

  "Your mother was my mentor. Before she died."

  My hand tightened around the pendant. "Liar."

  "She left something for you. In the pendant. You just haven't found it yet."

  The pendant pulsed against my skin. Like it knew.

  We walked back toward Grimvale in silence. My body ached, but the potion helped. The woman, Lena, she'd said, kept glancing at me like I was a bomb about to explode.

  "Why help me?"

  "Because your mother was right. The system's broken. And you're the wrench in the gears."

  "Dramatic."

  "True."

  We reached the road just as the moon rose. I saw the figures before Lena did, six men in Iron Wolves armor, blocking the path. Their leader stepped forward, grinning like a shark.

  "Hand over the Classless card, brat. We'll make it quick."

  I sighed. "You people have no imagination."

  "What?"

  "I said," My hand flashed to my pendant. "Let's play."

  Shadow Step. I vanished into the darkness, reappearing behind the group. Void Slice carved through their formation, but I didn't stop. Just kept moving, taunting them deeper into the woods.

  "Catch me if you can!"

  I collapsed under a tree, panting. My body felt like it was held together by sheer spite and whatever was left of the healing potion Lena had thrown at me.

  The silence was almost worse than the fighting. In the silence, I could feel everything, the broken ribs shifting with each breath, the torn muscle in my shoulder, the deep bruise across my back where the spider had caught me. My stats said I was stronger than any Noob had a right to be, but stats didn't stop pain. Stats didn't knit bones back together.

  I thought about the scarred man. Was he dead? Buried under the dungeon collapse? I wanted to believe it, but Professional-tier players didn't die easy. They were cockroaches in human skin, step on one, and it just got angrier.

  Three generations of hunting for the Classless card. That kind of obsession didn't end with a cave-in.

  [SYSTEM]

  Status Update:

  STR: 23 | AGI: 23 | VIT: 17 | LUK: 10

  Active Cards: Void Slice (Beyond Tier 0), Shadow Step (T1 Common, Damaged), Recall All (T1 Rare)

  Skill Slots: 2/4 (Class Slots Locked: 2 Turns Remaining)

  Physical Condition: Multiple fractures, internal contusions, moderate blood loss

  I read the notification twice. "Physical Condition" was a nice way of saying "you're falling apart, idiot." But the numbers didn't lie. Twenty-three STR. Twenty-three AGI. For a Skilled Lv.2, those numbers were absurd. For a former Noob who'd been classified as "cannon fodder" three hours ago, they were impossible.

  The impossible part was probably going to get me killed faster than the possible part had.

  The pendant pulsed against my chest. I closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion wash over me. Just for a moment. Just long enough to.

  The pendant pulsed again. A new notification?

  No. Not a notification.

  A voice.

  "Dere..."

  I froze. The voice was soft, familiar. Mom's voice.

  "It's time you knew the truth."

  The pendant glowed brighter. My hand trembled as I opened the storage space. The letter was there. Waiting.

  I reached for it.

  A horn sounded in the distance.

  I turned. A rider approached, galloping across the field. Cloaked in black. Face hidden.

  But I recognized the pendant hanging from the rider's neck.

  It was the same symbol as my own.

  The scarred man's symbol.

  "Well, shit."

  The rider stopped ten feet away. Dismounted. Walked toward me with steady, deliberate steps.

  My hand went to my pendant. Void Slice. Shadow Step. Both cards flared in my vision.

  The rider spoke.

  "I'm not here to fight."

  I laughed. "Yeah. That's what they all say."

  The rider pulled back their hood. A woman. Young. Familiar eyes.

  "I'm your sister, Dere. And we need to talk."