The post shot to the front page of DeepRift in forty minutes flat.
Allen squatted beside the backup passage on the second underground floor of the parking lot and refreshed the forum page. The comment count jumped from three hundred to twelve hundred. The video views exceeded a hundred thousand.
Under the headline *Titan Shield Violent Blockade*, three mobile phone videos had been uploaded from different angles. The first was a distant shot— the entire process of Marcus grabbing the teenager by the collar. The second was a side view, showing the teenager curled up on the ground after being thrown. The third captured a close-up of the boy's dangling right arm as he left. The camera shook violently the moment he bent over to vomit; the shooter's hand was trembling.
Allen locked his phone.
Public opinion on the forum was not a variable he could control. But he could use its direction.
Titan Shield's reputation among independent adventurers was plummeting at dozens of negative comments per minute.Wayne Tucker's name was trending at fourth place. Jason Collins, as a"teammate," had also been dragged into the storm.
Allen didn't care about public opinion. He cared about BP.
The main warehouse entrance was blocked by Titan Shield. The parking lot backup passage was the only entrance for independent adventurers. In total, seven challengers had entered through it today— Lena's solo clear had given the largest single contribution of BP. The other two squads were wiped out in Room 7 and Room 9 respectively.
Including Titan Shield's two runs from the main entrance.
Current BP Balance: 11,200
Eleven thousand.
Allen pulled up the blueprint shop. This time, he didn't scroll from the bottom. He typed a keyword directly into the search bar.
"Room Expansion."
Room Expansion Pack (10-room limit→ 20-room limit): 3000 BP
"Boss Blueprint."
A list popped up. He already had the F‑rank Shadow Knight. The next tier—
Mirror Knight· Mini‑Boss Blueprint· F+ Rank
Price: 2500 BP
Special Ability: Mirror Reflection— Scans and copies the challenger's combat style, fighting back with the same attribute level. The stronger the challenger, the stronger the Mirror Knight.
Note: This Boss has no fixed stat limit. It will display S‑rank combat power when facing an S‑rank challenger.
Allen read the description three times.
The stronger the challenger, the stronger the Boss.
If Jason's B‑rank warrior attacked, the Mirror Knight would be B‑rank. If Wayne's D‑rank came, it would be D‑rank. Even if GWA sent an A‑rank awakener to clear the dungeon, the Mirror Knight would fight with A‑rank attributes.
Never outmatched. Always evenly matched.
The only variables were combat skill and experience— it copied all your attributes, but not your split-second judgment.
This was not a Boss you could beat with level suppression.
Allen bought the room expansion pack and the Mirror Knight blueprint.
-3000 BP (Expansion).-2500 BP (Mirror Knight). Current BP: 5700.
He spent forty minutes designing the five new rooms.
The monster configurations for Rooms 11 to 14 were pushed to the edge of F+ rank. Skeleton Guards were replaced with Skeleton Blademasters (F+), Ghost Wolves with Shadow Hounds (F+), Gargoyles with Granite Colossi (F+). Each was an enhanced variant of the original, retaining basic behavior patterns but with drastically improved attack, reaction speed, and AI complexity.
Room 15— the Mirror Knight's Boss room.
Allen designed this room's environment differently from all the others. All four walls were covered in reflective material— not ordinary mirrors, but a special material labeled Abyssal Mirror Stone on the admin panel. Reflections in the mirrors had a 0.3‑second delay, just enough to make challengers feel the reflection was not themselves.
The Mirror Knight stood in the center of the room. Allen dragged a few sliders in the blueprint editor— a full set of mirrored armor, the helmet without an opening, only a smooth reflective surface. The first thing challengers saw when looking at it was their own face reflected on the helmet.
Then it would kill them with their own moves.
In the Mirror Knight's AI settings, Allen found a fine-tuning option—Learning Delay. Default was 0 seconds, instant copy. He set the delay to 3 seconds.
Giving challengers a window to react. Not out of kindness. To prevent the Boss from being so strong that everyone got one-shot instantly. No combat process meant no spectacle. No spectacle meant no viral reputation.
Room 15 was deployed.
Allen's finger slid across the admin panel and stopped at a new function.
Secret Chamber
Description: Create a hidden entrance inside any deployed room. The entrance is only visible to challengers who have cleared the preceding rooms.
Creation Cost: 500 BP
Allen set a hidden door in the north wall of Room 15— only visible to those who defeated the Mirror Knight. Behind it was Room 16, tiny, only six square meters. No monsters, no traps. On a stone pedestal in the center rested a piece of equipment.
He opened the reward settings panel and manually entered parameters in the hidden room's reward slot.
Quality Modifier:+12.
+12. A full tier higher than the +8 he set for normal clears.
The system calculated for three seconds and displayed the estimated result.
Estimated Drop Quality: D‑ to D‑rank.
D‑rank equipment. From a hidden room in an F‑rank dungeon.
Allen confirmed.
-500 BP. Current BP: 5200.
All modifications complete.
He leaned against a concrete pillar in the parking lot and closed his eyes for ten seconds. Not from exhaustion— he was running through the final流程 in his mind.
Fifteen combat rooms plus one secret room. Difficulty scaling from F to F+. Two Bosses— Shadow Knight in Room 10 as a mid-checkpoint, Mirror Knight in Room 15 as the final challenge. Only the strongest clearers could enter the secret room.
The dungeon was ready.
Next: customer management.
Allen opened a new function on the admin panel— unlocked three days ago but never used.
Invitation Protocol
Description: Dungeon Architects may send"system-level invitations" to designated Awakeners. Invitations appear directly in the target's vision as System notifications, cannot be closed, ignored, or traced.
Daily Invite Limit: 10
Customizable message.
System-level notifications. Popping directly into their vision.
Unlike texts or forum DMs— these were System panel notifications. Anyone who received one would think it came from the System itself.
No sender ID. No traceback path.
As if the dungeon was inviting them personally.
Allen began drafting the first invitation.
Target: Lena Walker, plus the entire Gray Crow Squad.
He typed three lines, deleted two, and settled on one sentence.
System Notification: You have received a special challenge invitation to the Brooklyn F‑rank Dungeon. Clear rewards doubled. No entry restrictions. Valid for 72 hours.
Simple. Direct. No fluff.
Lena didn't need fancy words. She needed"doubled."
Allen sent the first invitation.
Second.
Targets: The four most active independent adventurer IDs that had messaged him on DeepRift. Allen pulled their data from customer profiles— scanned via Phantom Mirror, ranks E to D.
Same message: rewards doubled, no restrictions, 72 hours.
Sent.
Third.
Allen's finger hovered over the panel for five seconds.
In the target bar, he typed a name.
Wayne Tucker.
He spent ten seconds editing the message, weighing every word. Final version:
System Notification: You have received a special challenge invitation to the Brooklyn F‑rank Dungeon. Note: Your dungeon? Try clearing it first.
Sent.
Allen closed the admin panel and stood up from the pillar. His phone showed 5:17 PM.
Three invitations. Three targets. Three expected reactions.
Lena would appear at the backup passage within 24 hours. She needed money, gear, and strength. Doubled rewards were an offer she couldn't refuse.
The independent adventurers from the forum would group up within 48 hours. The system-level format would make them think it was a limited-time event— scarcity drove action.
Wayne Tucker—
Allen took out his phone and opened the Titan Shield section on DeepRift.Wayne didn't have an account, but his name had been mentioned over four hundred times in six hours. All insults.
A D‑rank squad captain under public siege, receiving a system-level taunt from"his" dungeon at the worst possible moment—
*Your dungeon? Try clearing it first.*
Allen didn't need to guess Wayne's reaction.
He needed Wayne angry.Wayne impulsive.Wayne making his stupidest decision when his judgment was weakest.
---
Titan Shield Brooklyn Branch. 14th floor, Midtown Manhattan office building.
Wayne Tucker sat behind the base's small bar, an open whiskey bottle and a glass one-third full of amber liquid in front of him. He wasn't drinking. He'd rotated the glass in his hand five times without taking a sip.
His phone screen was on. DeepRift. He didn't use the forum, but someone had sent him the post link.
Three videos.
He'd watched them.
Marcus kicking that F‑rank kid— he hadn't been there. He'd already been inside the dungeon. Marcus had reported nothing after.
Over a thousand comments below.
"When did Titan Shield start beating kids?"
"D‑rank bullying F‑rank. Disgrace to Brooklyn."
"@GWAOfficial Is this violent blockade legal? Investigate!"
Wayne flipped his phone face-down.
Jason sat at the other end with a glass of water, no ice. He said nothing—Wayne hadn't spoken in half an hour, and he didn't dare start.
Three others were in the base. Marcus was gone—Wayne told him not to come tonight. Not a punishment. Just"don't let me see you."
A TV in the corner played GWA evening news. The anchor's mouth moved, but Wayne had muted the sound.
Silence.
Then a translucent panel popped into Wayne's vision.
Blue background. White text. Standard System format.
He thought it was GWA official notice— headquarters might send a letter after the scandal.
He glanced at it.
System Notification: You have received a special challenge invitation to the Brooklyn F‑rank Dungeon. Note: Your dungeon? Try clearing it first.
The glass froze in his hand.
The liquid rippled from left to right.
"Your dungeon?"
"Try clearing it first."
Wayne's right hand tightened. The base of the glass thudded against the bar. A few drops splashed onto his knuckles.
"Boss?" Jason leaned over.
Wayne didn't turn. His jaw was rigid, the scar stretched white against the bone.
"Jason."
"Y-yeah?"
"Check your panel. Any system notifications?"
Jason looked down at his own System, flipped through pages.
"Nothing. What kind of notice?"
Nothing. Only sent to him.
Wayne read the line again, word by word.
Your dungeon.
Try clearing it first.
This wasn't GWA. GWA didn't talk like this. This was—
Someone was mocking him.
System-level. Unreplyable, untraceable. Sender blank— as if the dungeon itself spoke.
Wayne stood. The chair scraped sharply against the floor.
"Boss, that dungeon—" Jason chased after him, then hesitated."It's not normal. I told you about the power suppression last time. Maybe we should—"
"Last time you got stuck fighting skeletons for thirty-eight minutes."Wayne's voice was low and cold."Now this dungeon is mocking me."
"It's not mocking—"
"'Try clearing it first' isn't mocking?"
Jason fell silent.
Wayne walked to the coat rack and grabbed his jacket— black bulletproof material, custom Titan Shield. He pinned his D‑rank Awakener badge to the lapel.
"You coming with me?" Jason asked.
"I'm going alone."
"Boss—"
"It's an F‑rank dungeon."Wayne fastened the last button, movements fast and steady."I'm D‑rank. Even if it's rigged, D vs F— three full ranks. What can it do to me?"
Jason tried to speak, lips trembling, but no sound came out.
The feeling of his power being suppressed to F‑rank crawled up his spine again. That bone-deep powerlessness.
But Wayne was already at the door.
"Boss."
Wayne paused, not turning.
"At least don't go into the Boss room alone. That Shadow Knight—"
"Shadow Knight?"Wayne let out a short, bitter laugh."I've cleared twenty+ Bosses in C‑rank dungeons. You think an F‑rank Shadow Knight can stop me?"
The door opened. The door closed.
Jason stood alone in front of the bar.
The whiskey still sat on the counter.
Jason stared down at his hands.
They were shaking.
---
Allen saw the light blip on his admin panel.
Moving from Manhattan. Steady speed. Direct route— across the Brooklyn Bridge, through the city, into Red Hook.
Wayne Tucker. D‑rank. Alone.
Allen sat on the underground parking lot floor, back against Pillar P2-17. Blue light from the diamond-shaped entrance glinted on his lenses. The admin panel spread across his left vision— dungeon interior view, external cameras, monster status, trap ready signals, all updating in real time.
The blip entered the warehouse area.
External audio picked up noise— the metal warehouse door creaked open. Then footsteps. One person. Heels striking concrete, steady rhythm.
Wayne stood inside the warehouse. The diamond-shaped entrance glowed two meters before his feet.
Dim blue light painted his face. The scar cut a dark gully between light and shadow.
He stared down at the entrance.
Three seconds.
He jumped in.
On the admin panel, a green blip appeared in the entrance corridor of Room 1.
Phantom Mirror activated automatically—Wayne Tucker's full System data refreshed into customer profiles. Compared to yesterday's. No changes. D‑rank Warrior. Three skills. Strength D+, Agility D‑, Constitution D.
Allen's right index finger slid across the panel.
He found a function—Entrance Welcome Message. Default off. He'd never used it.
He turned it on.
Typed one line.
Welcome, Mr. Tucker. I've been expecting you.
Set.
The panel showed Wayne standing in the first section of the entrance corridor. Ore lights glowed normally above. Stone walls stretched quietly into the distance.
The welcome message popped into Wayne's vision as a system notification.
Audio picked up a sound— not speech, not breathing. The grinding of teeth. Clenching.
Wayne took a step forward.
Allen's finger moved to the lighting control.
He flipped the master switch.
Every light in every room of the dungeon went out at once.
Fifteen rooms. All corridors. All branches.
Total darkness.
The green blip froze.
Absolute, suffocating darkness. Not even a finger visible in front of the face.
Then Allen activated another preset command— all monster AI switched from Patrol Mode to Hunt Mode.
The description read:"In Hunt Mode, all monsters actively move toward the nearest challenger."
One hundred and twenty-seven monsters.
Fifteen rooms.
On the panel, red blips converged from all directions toward the lone green signal.
Around Wayne Tucker— deep in endless black— one hundred pairs of red eyes lit up simultaneously.