Gothic Alley breathed differently at night.
The air was heavier, thick with old magic and newer ambition. Shutters were being measured, wards tested, leases signed in quiet corners. By tomorrow, the alley would no longer be contested ground—it would belong to Harry's people.
Which was exactly why he was here now.
Harry stood alone at the far end of the alley, tucked between two half-renovated buildings, hidden behind a warped wooden facade and old spell-scorched bricks, there was a door no one seemed to notice. No signage. No purchase seal. No wards of ownership.
To him, it pulsed.
A low, almost imperceptible hum crawled beneath his skin, resonating with his magic, tugging at something deeper than instinct.
Harry adjusted the hood of his cloak and glanced back once.
No Serpent Court.
That was deliberate.
By dawn, Gothic Alley would be crawling with his people—shopkeepers, guards, brokers, ward-smiths. If anyone saw Lord Blackfyre vanish into an unknown door beneath the alley on its very first night of consolidation, rumors would explode before sunrise.
So he had come quietly.
A few lingering alleyfolk watched him with poorly hidden curiosity—a shop owner pretending to lock his door, a pair of laborers pausing mid-conversation, a witch leaning out of a window too long.
Harry ignored them.
He placed his hand on the door.
The world clicked.
[Dungeon Detected]
Location: Gothic Alley
Dungeon Type: Unknown / Ancient
Recommended Level: 20
Player Level: 23
Do you wish to enter?
YES/NO
Harry's breath caught.
Even now… even after everything he'd faced—Hartland Harbour, Arcanus' Colosseum, and the countless dungeons—his stomach twisted.
He knew how dungeons worked.
The number printed on the entrance meant nothing when it came to bosses.
He had learned that the hard way.
A Level 10 dungeon could hide a Level 25 monstrosity if the creator was cruel enough.
And this one?
This dungeon is level 20. Buried. Forgotten. Hidden in the heart of an alley that had once been ruled by dark blood and darker bargains.
Whatever waited inside wasn't meant to be fought by a child.
Harry swallowed and opened his status window.
[Status Window]
[Name: Harry James Potter]
[Level: 23]
[EXP: 0 / 2300]
[Class: Shapeshifter]
[Title: Lord Blackfyre]
[HP: 820 / 820]
[MP: 1580 / 1580]
[Stamina: 660 / 660]
[Strength: 52]
[Dexterity: 47]
[Intelligence: 70]
[Wisdom: 57]
[Endurance: 55]
[Luck: 38]
[Charisma: 42]
[Skill List]
[Lunar Bond] – Lv. 5
[Moonlit Aura] – Lv. 5
[Advance Warding Style] – Lv. 13
[Parseltongue] – Lv. Max
[Soul Read] – Lv. 7
[Skin Changer] – Lv. 3 (Wolf, Eagle, Snake)
[Shadow Veil] – Lv. 12
[Death Ward] – Lv. 13
[Soul Drain] – Lv. 13
[Bone Spear] – Lv. 10
[Wraith Flight] – Lv. 15
[Wind Step] – Lv. 16
[Poison Mist] – Lv. 14
[Fireball] – Lv. 14
[Water Shield] – Lv. 10
[Observe] – Lv. 11
[ID Create] – Lv. 5
[ID Escape] – Lv. 5
[Astral Gate] – Lv. 5
[Lightning Wave] – Lv. 6
[Stat Points to Distribute: 0]
His stats were improved greatly.
Months of relentless training, combat, and near-death experiences had carved strength into him whether he wanted it or not. His mana pool was deeper. His control sharper. His instincts faster.
But fear didn't vanish just because numbers went up.
Harry clenched his fist.
"Level twenty dungeon," he muttered. "Hidden boss. Unknown mechanics."
A terrible idea.
Which, unfortunately, meant it was exactly the kind of thing that mattered.
Because if Gothic Alley truly was going to become what he envisioned—a place where grey magic lived openly, where monsters and outcasts could exist without chains—then whatever lurked beneath it would eventually wake up.
Better it woke up to him.
Harry exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
No time to waste.
He tapped YES.
The door dissolved into shadow.
Cold air rushed out, smelling of damp stone, iron, and something old enough to remember blood.
Behind him, Gothic Alley continued as if nothing had happened.
In front of him, stone steps descended into darkness.
Harry stepped forward.
The dungeon swallowed him whole.
Harry stopped just a few steps inside and immediately felt it.
This place was wrong.
It didn't just carry the familiar weight of a dungeon—the subtle pull, the predatory awareness, the feeling of a system-created trial waiting to be cleared but also something different. Every dungeon Harry had entered before had a strange order to it. Corridors made sense. Rooms followed logic. Even death traps felt… structured, as if someone—or something—had designed them to be conquered.
This place is not designed like that.
The walls were uneven stone reinforced with crude metal braces. Rust stained the floor. Scratches—deep, clawed gouges—ran along the lower walls, some old, some disturbingly fresh. The air smelled of blood, rot, and something chemical, like burned potions and alchemical waste.
Harry's instincts screamed at him.
Slowly, carefully, he activated [Observe], letting his senses sink into the space around him.
And the system responded—not with a dungeon interface, but with something far worse.
This was not just any dungeon.
Information flooded his mind in fragments, impressions layered over one another like ghosts clinging to the stone.
Vincent McNair.
A name soaked in cruelty.
This place had once been his laboratory—a hidden vault carved beneath Gothic Alley long before it was sealed away. Here, McNair had conducted experiments that even dark wizards whispered about in fear. Magical creatures weren't merely bought and sold here.
They were bred.
Spliced together.
Forced into violent unions of incompatible species. Bloodlines shattered and reforged through alchemy, ritual magic, and raw brutality. Creatures were starved, tortured, and reshaped into things that should never have existed.
One day, the experiments broke free.
The creatures McNair had created turned on their maker. Vincent McNair didn't die cleanly. Neither did his assistants. Their deaths were slow, savage, and absolute.
And then the monsters escaped upward.
Into Gothic Alley.
That was the truth no one spoke of.
Gothic Alley hadn't been abandoned because of economics or politics. It had died in blood. Shops torn apart. Families slaughtered. Wizards ripped to pieces before the authority even realized what was happening.
The Council of Wizards responded with force—kill squads, fire, cursed barriers—but it wasn't enough. The creatures were too dangerous, too unpredictable. Those that ventured out were hunted down, but many retreated back into the vault, deeper into the breeding grounds where they were born.
And no one followed them.
Because they were afraid.
So the Council sealed the place instead. Layer upon layer of containment wards. Suppression fields. Anti-escape enchantments designed to imprison forever.
They buried the problem.
Harry clenched his fists.
This wasn't a challenge crafted for adventurers.
This was a mass grave that still breathed.
As Harry pushed deeper into the narrow corridor, a slow, unsettling realization crept over him.
The system had claimed this place.
What had once been a laboratory—stone rooms, iron cages, ritual circles—had been absorbed, reshaped, and repurposed. The dungeon magic hadn't erased Vincent McNair's work; it had digested it. Every wall, every floor tile, every rusted shackle now pulsed faintly with the same oppressive presence Harry had come to recognize in true dungeons.
This vault was no longer just a forgotten crime scene.
It became a dungeon.
With each step forward, ancient torches ignited on their own, orange flames flickering to life along the walls. Their light revealed streaks of dried blood smeared across the stone—some thin and splattered, others thick and dragged, as if bodies had been hauled screaming into the dark. The stains overlapped in layers, old and newer ones indistinguishable, proof that violence here hadn't ended with McNair's death.
Harry's jaw tightened.
They survived, he realized grimly.
By breeding… and by eating each other.
In a sealed dungeon like this, evolution didn't slow—it accelerated. Only the strongest lived. Only the most adaptable reproduced. Hunger, fear, and dungeon magic had forged the survivors into something far worse than their original forms.
Harry slowed his breathing, hand tightening around his wand while his senses stretched outward.
Then—
Click.
Click-click.
The sound echoed softly through the corridor.
Not footsteps.
Legs.
Too many of them.
The torchlight ahead flickered, and something massive shifted in the darkness.
It stepped forward.
Harry felt his stomach drop.
The creature was unmistakably Acromantula—but twisted beyond anything he'd ever read about. Its body was massive, bloated with layered chitin as black as pitch, absorbing the light rather than reflecting it. From its abdomen rose a scorpion-like tail, thick and armored, ending in a curved stinger that glistened with venom.
Its face was the worst part.
Its many eyes glowed a deep, predatory red, tracking Harry with frightening intelligence. Along its sides, half-formed leathery wing plates twitched uselessly—mutations that had never fully stabilized but hinted at what future generations might become.
Each of its legs clicked against the stone like knives tapping together.
Harry reacted instantly.
A Fireball formed in his palm and launched forward, exploding in the narrow corridor with a roar. The sudden blaze lit everything in brutal clarity—stone walls, claw marks, and—
Harry's breath caught.
It wasn't alone.
The firelight revealed dozens of shapes clinging to the walls and ceiling, their red eyes igniting one by one in the darkness. More Acromantula-Manticore hybrids. Some smaller, some nearly as large as the first. All of them watching.
Waiting.
The dungeon hummed softly, almost approvingly.
Harry felt the pressure settle onto his shoulders—the unmistakable signal that combat had begun.
Hungry.
And evolved through generations of slaughter.
Harry looked at all the hybrids, fire reflecting in his emerald eyes, and whispered to himself, voice steady despite the fear clawing at his chest.
"…If I am dying here, I am taking all of you with me."
And then the corridor erupted into motion.
The first Acromantula–Manticore lunged from the darkness without warning.
Harry reacted on instinct.
He slammed his palm against the stone floor and cast DeathWard.
A wave of cold, black magic surged outward, sealing the narrow corridor in a translucent barrier of death-aspected energy. The ward locked into place from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, cutting the tunnel cleanly in two.
The impact was immediate.
Scorpion stingers slammed into the barrier. Chitinous limbs scraped against it. Poison dripped and hissed as it struck the ward's surface, unable to pass through.
[Death Ward – Active]
Integrity: 100% → 82%
The Acromantulas screeched in fury, red eyes glowing in the darkness as they battered the shield again and again. The corridor shook with the sound of claws and tails striking magical resistance.
Harry knew the truth instantly.
This ward would not last.
But he didn't need it to.
He only needed time.
He opened his inventory.
The world dimmed as translucent panels unfolded before him, hovering in the air like ghostly glass.
[Inventory]
His fingers moved with practiced speed.
[Mithril Combat Armor]
Equip?
Yes.
Silver light wrapped around his body. Plates locked into place with satisfying clicks—breastplate, greaves, vambraces, gauntlets. The weight settled perfectly, distributing itself like a second skin.
Next—
[Mithril Sword – Balanced | Enchanted Edge]
The weapon appeared in his hand, the blade humming faintly as if eager for blood.
The ward groaned.
[DeathWard Integrity: 82% → 47%]
Harry's eyes flicked once more to the inventory.
He selected the potion without hesitation.
[Draught of Rage]
Effect:Massive STR & END Boost
Penalty: INT & WIS Reduction
State: Berserk
He uncorked it and drank.
The potion burned like liquid fire.
His heartbeat thundered. Muscles tightened and swelled. The world narrowed, colors sharpening into targets and threats.
The DeathWard shattered.
Black shards of magic burst outward as the barrier collapsed, and the Acromantulas surged forward in a writhing mass of claws, fangs, and stingers.
Harry didn't retreat.
He charged.
The first hybrid lunged—
Harry met it head-on.
His Mithril sword cleaved through a foreleg, momentum carrying the strike straight into its thorax. Chitin split apart under brute force, black ichor splattering the stone walls as the creature collapsed.
[Enemy Slain]
Another dropped from the ceiling.
Harry ducked beneath snapping mandibles, spun, and drove his blade upward into the creature's skull. The sword punched through enchanted bone, pinning it to the wall before he ripped it free.
Two more attacked together.
A stinger struck his shoulder, scraping sparks off Mithril instead of flesh.
Harry grabbed the tail mid-swing.
With a roar, he swung the creature bodily into its packmate. Both smashed against the corridor wall, chitin cracking under the impact.
He finished them without mercy.
Steel rose and fell. Bodies hit the floor.
The corridor became a slaughterhouse.
Warnings flashed at the edge of his vision, but Rage drowned them out.
[HP: 820 → 780 → 720]
Status: Poison Applied | Bleeding
Pain existed.
It simply didn't matter.
The last Acromantula leapt—
Harry stepped forward and beheaded it mid-air, the blade passing through neck and stinger in one brutal arc.
Silence fell.
[Combat Encounter Complete]
Enemies Defeated: Acromantula–Manticore Hybrids x12
HP: 650 / 820
MP: 2000 / 2300
Stamina: 210 / 660
Active Effects: Rage (Remaining) | Poison | Bleeding
Harry stood amid broken bodies and black blood, chest heaving, sword dripping ichor onto cracked stone.
The torches flickered.
Deeper within the Breeding Vault, more magical creatures stirred by the smell of blood.
Harry tightened his grip on the Mithril blade and stepped forward.
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