Ethan Rylan’s life had a permanent, suffocating stench.It was ammonia. It was stale industrial carpet cleaner.It was week-old coffee.The smell clung to his worn-out uniform. It was etched deep into the creases under his fingernails.He pressed the vibrating handle of the industrial scrubber down hard. It scraped deep into the polished granite lobby floor.His shoulders screamed in protest with every slow, grinding pass.The time was 2:17 AM. This was his third shift of the day.It was his night shift.Innovate Global Tech—that shimmering monolith of glass, steel, and ambition—was his territory. He was the king of its grime.For the last six hours, he'd been scraping away the invisible evidence of success.He cleaned the spilled latte drops left by venture capitalists. He cleaned the dried sweat of frantic coders.Worst of all, he cleaned the microscopic, tacky chewing gum fused into the expensive stone.Seventeen-hundred and thirty-five days.That number was a parasite, a thought t

The heavy iron door slammed shut with a metallic bang that echoed like a gunshot.The sound instantly severed the world of the elites—the cheering, the golden light, and Marcus Thorne’s smug face—from the reality Ethan now occupied. On this side of the door, there were no heroes.There was only the smell of damp stone, unwashed bodies, and the sharp, chemical burn of industrial solvents."Keep moving, trash. I don't have all day to watch you mourn your lost potential."The voice belonged to Commander Kaelen. He didn't look like a legendary warrior; he looked like a man who had survived a meat grinder and come out the other side with a grudge.He was a mountain of scarred muscle, his skin the color of old parchment. One side of his face was a map of puckered scar tissue, and his eyes held the kind of deep-seated cynicism that only comes from burying a lot of people.He didn't wear shining silver. He wore heavy, scuffed leather that had been stained dark by years of blood and sewer muck

The air in the Cleanup Corps staging area didn't just smell like rot anymore; it snapped with the kind of static tension that precedes a lightning strike.Usually, this room was a graveyard for ambition, filled with the low-grade despair of E-Ranks who had realized they were the background characters in someone else’s epic.But when Ethan Rylan stepped through the door, the atmosphere shifted. He looked like he’d crawled out of a mass grave—covered head-to-toe in the dark, putrid sludge of the Sewer’s Labyrinth—but his eyes held a terrifying, cold clarity.Commander Kaelen was waiting. He stood like a monolith of scarred granite, arms crossed over a chest that looked like it could stop a ballista bolt.Two burly guards flanked him, their hands resting on the pommels of their sidearms.A small circle of other Delvers stood in the shadows. They were the "lifers"—men who had survived months of cleaning up hero-messes.They watched Ethan with grim, hollow expressions. They knew what happe

Ethan stared at the massive, half-collapsed pillar section. It was a jagged tooth of reinforced granite, easily weighing a thousand pounds.Even for a B-Rank Strength specialist, this would be a challenge. For an exhausted E-minus who had spent the last hour sweeping dust, it was a death sentence for the joints.But Marcus Thorne wasn’t asking for a clean workspace; he was asking for a public confession of worthlessness. He wanted Ethan to strain until he snapped, providing a mid-morning comedy routine for the elites.Ethan’s mind went cold and analytical.Failure condition: Inability to execute a physical task under extreme social pressure.Goal: Maximum humiliation. Maximum strain. Maximum payout."I... I can try," Ethan said, forcing his voice to crack. He let his shoulders slump, playing the part of the broken dog perfectly.Marcus and his squad erupted. "Hear that? He’s going to 'try'! " Marcus shouted to a passing group of A-Rank mages."The Debt-Boy thinks he can move the mount

Ethan dragged his boots across the threshold of the communal barracks, feeling the weight of the day like a physical shroud. The adrenaline from the plaza had finally started to dip, leaving behind a hollow, vibrating exhaustion that made his teeth ache. He didn't head for his cot like the other scavengers who were already snoring or nursing their own bruises in the dim light. Instead, he made a beeline for the washroom, his fingers gripped tight around the splintered handle of that rusted iron shovel. The bathroom was a masterpiece of neglect, smelling of mildew, harsh lye, and the collective misery of a hundred men. Water dripped from a rusted pipe in a steady, maddening rhythm that echoed off the cracked tiles. He found a corner away from the leaking sinks and slumped down onto the floor, pulling a flat, smooth river stone from his pocket. It was a useless thing, rounded by centuries of water and completely incapable of sharpening metal. Ethan looked at the shovel's blade, w