Bow to My Power: The Rise of the Dungeon King

Chapter two: The Dead don’t Bleed

Silence.

Not the kind that fills empty rooms, but the kind that hums — like the breath before thunder.

Drip. Drip.

Rheon Vael opened his eyes to darkness.

The air was thick, metallic. His lungs burned as he dragged in a breath that shouldn’t have existed.

When he exhaled, it came out as mist. Cold, heavy mist.

Something warm pressed against his back — soft and uneven. He shifted. His fingers sank into flesh.

Bodies.

All around him, stacked like broken mannequins. Armor cracked. Skin gray. Eyes glassy and staring.

A corpse pit.

His corpse pit.

The memory came rushing back — the betrayal, the blade, the laughter. Leon’s calm voice saying, “You understand, right? Six shares are too many.”

Rheon sat up with a sharp gasp. Pain split his chest. For a moment, the world flickered white.

Cracks ran down his arms — faint glowing lines, pulsing with light beneath the skin like veins of blue fire.

“What—what’s happening to me?”

The darkness trembled in answer.

A sound like static bled into his skull, sharp and alien, cutting through his thoughts.

[SYSTEM: Reconstruction in progress… 2%]

[Warning: Unknown host type detected.]

Rheon froze. The voice was neither human nor divine — it sounded mechanical, distorted, like a dying machine clinging to life.

He looked around the pit again. Dozens of adventurers lay scattered — some he recognized.

Darius, face-down, armor melted into his back. Kira, eyes wide, half her torso missing.

He should’ve felt pity. He didn’t.

“Alive…?” He pressed a trembling hand against his chest. “No. I—I died. I know I died.”

[System verification complete.]

[Subject status: ALIVE.]

A hysterical laugh slipped past his lips. “Right. Of course. I’m alive. In a hole full of corpses. Makes perfect sense.”

He tried to stand. His limbs felt foreign, weightless yet heavy, like someone had rebuilt him from fractured glass. Every motion caused the cracks across his body to flare with light.

The blue glow painted the pit around him — a ghastly illumination that revealed the true scope of his surroundings.

He wasn’t alone.

Not truly.

The walls moved.

Or rather — something inside them did. Flesh merged with stone, eyes glinting within the cracks. The dungeon breathed. The Rift itself was alive.

Rheon stumbled back, chest heaving.

“Where… am I?”

[Location: Rift Ruins – Subterranean Chamber 9 (Restricted Zone)]

[System integrity: 24%. Functionality severely limited.]

[Notice: Resurrection Protocol – Unauthorized Activation.]

“Unauthorized?” Rheon’s voice trembled. “Then who—who brought me back?”

Silence.

The system didn’t answer. Instead, the light inside his veins pulsed in sync with the faint rumble above. He could feel the dungeon’s mana responding — threads of raw power shifting toward him.

The sensation was intoxicating and terrifying all at once. His chest burned. Beneath his ribs, something throbbed — rhythmic, unnatural.

He looked down.

A glow emanated from his sternum. Lines of light converged there, forming a circle that pulsed like a heartbeat. The symbol resembled the relic core they’d come to steal.

“No…” he whispered. “You didn’t…”

[Notice: Relic Core detected within host body.]

[Sync Rate: 8%. Stabilization required.]

He stumbled, pressing his back against the stone wall. The pulse beneath his skin grew louder — thump, thump, thump — until it merged with the whispers in his skull.

—Rheon Vael…

—You shouldn’t be here…

—The dead don’t bleed…

He pressed his palms against his temples, gritting his teeth. “Shut up… shut up!”

But the whispers grew louder, merging with the system’s flickering tone.

[Error: Cognitive interference detected.]

[Initializing neural isolation.]

A surge of cold energy shot through his spine. His body jerked violently, limbs twitching. The whispers cut off, leaving only the sound of his ragged breathing.

The world around him blurred. For a heartbeat, everything looked wrong. The dungeon’s walls were gone — replaced by endless data streams, glowing script written in a language older than time.

He saw fragments of… something.

A temple. A storm. A figure kneeling before a core of light.

Then — darkness again.

Rheon coughed, spitting blood that shimmered faintly blue. It evaporated before hitting the floor.

“What the hell am I?” he whispered.

[Host classification: Undefined Entity.]

[Temporary Designation: RECONSTRUCTED.]

Reconstructed. The word lingered like an accusation.

He turned his head upward. Far above, a faint beam of light filtered through a hole in the ceiling — the world he’d once belonged to.

He tried to climb toward it. His hands slipped on the stone. The corpses shifted beneath him, dragging him down again.

Every time he moved, the glow under his skin flared — feeding the dungeon’s veins around him.

[Energy feedback detected.]

[Dungeon reaction: Unstable.]

The air vibrated. Cracks spidered along the wall as faint whispers rose from the corpses — hollow, fragmented echoes of voices he once knew.

“You were always too weak…”

“Should’ve stayed home, Rheon…”

“You’re nothing without us…”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Stop.”

The dungeon obeyed.

The whispers cut off instantly, like a throat being closed. The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

Rheon opened his eyes slowly, disbelief washing over him. The runes along the walls had dimmed.

“Did… did I do that?”

[Observation: Host command recognized by dungeon network.]

[Conclusion: Host connected to relic core root system.]

[Synchronization: 11%.]

He staggered backward, pressing a hand to his chest. “You mean… I’m linked to the dungeon itself?”

[Affirmative.]

[Warning: Host-dungeon synchronization may lead to cognitive erosion.]

Cognitive erosion. His mind melting into the dungeon.

He swallowed hard. “So either I die again, or I become the dungeon.”

No answer.

Only that faint heartbeat — the pulse of the relic in his chest, echoing like war drums under his ribs.

He looked at his hands. The cracks had stopped spreading, but the light inside them burned steady, alive.

Rheon clenched his fist.

“I won’t die here again.”

The corpses shifted in the darkness — drawn toward him, eyes faintly glowing with the same blue hue as his veins. The dungeon seemed to respond to his will now, rippling like water disturbed by breath.

A faint hum filled the chamber.

[Reconstruction: 4%.]

[Core stability: 13%.]

[Warning: Entity movement detected – Approach vector: South Corridor.]

Rheon tensed, head snapping toward the tunnel mouth. He could hear it now — dragging footsteps, claws scraping the floor, breath like steam.

His eyes narrowed. “Whatever you are…”

He reached for a rusted blade buried in the nearest corpse. The metal was cracked, its edge dull, but his grip tightened anyway.

“…You’ll regret waking me.”

As the darkness at the tunnel’s mouth shifted, a guttural roar tore through the silence — a sound that made the corpses shiver.

The relic in his chest pulsed once, bright enough to light the entire pit.

[SYSTEM ALERT: Host engagement imminent.]

[Directive: SURVIVE.]

Rheon’s shadow stretched long across the wall, merging with the blue light as he raised his blade.

Somewhere deep within the Rift, something laughed — soft and ancient.