99% CASUALTY RATE: I GAMBLE MY LIFESPAN TO SURVIVE

The digital watch on Marcus Gray’s wrist read 3:00 AM.

It was the dead zone of the night shift. The twenty-story headquarters of Hillton Logistics was silent, except for the low hum of the air conditioning. Marcus took a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, his eyes scanning the security monitors in the basement control room.

Next to him, Luke Calder was fast asleep, a bag of chips resting on his chest. Luke was a twenty-something kid who spent more time looking at his phone than doing his job. Marcus, a veteran who preferred practical action over idle chatter, didn't bother waking him.

Then, the world broke.

A loud static noise erupted from the speakers. Every monitor went black. The ambient hum vanished, replaced by a suffocating silence. Total darkness swallowed the room.

"Marcus? Did the power fail?" Luke stirred, groaning as his chips spilled.

Marcus didn't answer. He clicked on his tactical flashlight, casting a sharp beam across the concrete room. "Get up, Luke."

"No signal?" Luke muttered, staring at his phone. "What blackout takes out cell towers?"

Marcus ignored him. The air had suddenly changed. It felt heavy, cold, and smelled sharply of damp earth. Pushing open the heavy steel door, Marcus stepped into the corridor and stopped.

The white drywall was gone. In its place were massive blocks of dark stone covered in glowing purple moss. The smooth floor had turned into ancient cobblestones. The exit stairs were gone, replaced by a dark labyrinth twisting into the distance.

"Where are we?" Luke gasped, face pale and shaking. "Are we trapped?"

"Shut up and breathe," Marcus cut him off. He didn't waste time questioning reality. He walked to the broken emergency box on the wall and pulled out a heavy steel fire axe.

Thud. Thud.

A heavy scraping sound echoed ahead. Fifty feet away, a creature stepped into the light. It was a wolf the size of a grizzly bear, its fur made of liquid shadow, with six glowing crimson eyes. It growled, locking its gaze on them.

Suddenly, a geometric screen of crimson light flashed before Marcus's eyes.

[CRISIS TRIGGERED: Void Hound Ambush]

[Time until Labyrinth Section Collapse: 04:59]

[Failure Condition: Death]

​"A countdown?" Marcus muttered, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened on the axe handle.

​"Marcus, it's looking at us! Run! We have to run back into the room and lock the door!" Luke shrieked. He backed away so fast that his heels caught on the uneven cobblestones. He fell hard backward, scrambling away like a crab.

​The Void Hound did not wait. It bared rows of razor-sharp, translucent teeth and lunged forward, covering twenty feet in a single, terrifying leap.

​Marcus did not run. Turning his back on a predator in an unfamiliar maze was a statistical death sentence. He planted his boots firmly on the stone floor, bringing the heavy fire axe back over his shoulder. But he was just an ordinary human. The beast's speed was a blur. He knew, with absolute certainty, that his human reflexes would not be fast enough to hit it before those jaws tore his throat out.

​Ping.

​A cold, mechanical voice echoed directly inside his skull, completely separate from his own thoughts.

​[Abnormal Event Detected. User 'Marcus Gray' has bypassed standard panic thresholds.]

[Awakening Exclusive Golden Finger: The Risk/Reward Market System.]

​[Emergency Transaction Available:]

​Offer: 1 Year of Remaining Lifespan.

​Reward: Active Skill: [Sure-Strike Sunder] (Guarantees the next physical attack bypasses 50% of the target's defense and hits with 3x velocity).

​Warning: Lifespan transactions are permanent and irreversible.

​Trade my life?

​The hound was mid-air, its front claws inches from his chest. Luke was screaming at the top of his lungs behind him. Marcus did not overthink it. He did not hesitate to weigh the pros and cons. If he died right here, his remaining years meant absolutely nothing. Fifty years of being dead was worse than losing one year to live.

​'Accept,' Marcus thought fiercely.

​A sudden, agonizing cold snap shot straight through Marcus’s chest. It felt as if a physical weight, a piece of his very soul, had been violently ripped out of his body. But in the next millisecond, a surge of violent, dark energy flooded his arms. The heavy steel fire axe suddenly felt as light as a feather, its blade coated in a crackling, black aura.

​Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

​Marcus stepped inside the beast's reach, shifting his weight with brutal, practiced efficiency. He swung the axe upward with everything he had.

​SPLIT.

​The system skill forced his muscles to move with superhuman speed. The black-tinted blade tore cleanly through the Void Hound’s skull, shearing through bone, muscle, and flesh like wet paper.

​The massive beast crashed into the stone floor, its dead momentum sliding its heavy body right past Marcus's boots. The moment it stopped moving, it dissolved into a puddle of black, smoking ash. It left behind nothing but a small, solid purple crystal that clinked loudly against the cobblestones.

​The crimson countdown timer vanished from his vision, replaced by a new, clean notification.

​[Crisis Resolved. Evaluation: Perfect Execution.]

[Reward: Void Core (Low-Grade) x1]

[Remaining Lifespan: 54 Years, 212 Days.]

​Marcus let out a slow, heavy breath. His muscles ached faintly, and a strange, deep fatigue settled into his bones, making him feel just a fraction older than he was a minute ago. He looked down at his hands, then at the glowing purple crystal on the floor.

​He had just traded a year of his life to survive a single encounter. And looking down the long, dark, twisting hallway of the labyrinth, Marcus knew this was only the beginning. He knelt, picked up the cold purple core, and turned his eyes toward the darkness.

​"Hey, Luke," Marcus said, his voice completely steady as he wiped a stray splash of ash from his cheek. "Get up. We have a lot of work to do."