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Dungeon King: I Rule
By: NightingaleOngoing
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Chapters: 142
views: 686
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After dying of cancer, programmer Kai awakens as the sentient core of Eclipse Online’s deadliest dungeon. Trapped in a game he helped code, he discovers the Devs are using players as lab rats in a simulated apocalypse. To survive, Kai must master his dungeon, forge uneasy alliances, and expose the System’s lies, before his code is erased forever.
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Chapter 1
Chap 1: The Final Boss
The last thing I remembered was the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor. Then darkness. Then… laughter.
A voice, nothing like the sterile AI I’d spent my life coding, dripped venom into my consciousness. It was a System voice, ancient and predatory, coiling around my skull like a digital serpent.
> « Welcome to Eclipse Online, Player Kai. »
> > « Role Assigned: FINAL BOSS. »My vision flickered to life, pixel by pixel, revealing a cavernous throne room of obsidian and neon. Chains of glowing, corrupted code tethered my very awareness to a pulsing black sphere at the room's center. My Core.
*What the hell?*
A holographic panel materialized before me, its text burning with malevolent light.
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > --- > > **CLASS:** Dungeon Lord (Tier 1) > > **ABILITIES:** > * Summon Minions (Goblin Horde - F-Rank) > * Trap Crafting (Basic - F-Rank) > > **OBJECTIVE:** KILL 10 PLAYERS TO UNLOCK EVOLUTION. > > ---I tried to scream, but I had no mouth. No body. Just… awareness. The dungeon stretched around me like a second skin. I felt every mossy stone in the labyrinth, every spring-loaded pit trap, every shrieking bat in the rafters. This was my domain. My prison.
*This isn't possible. I died. I died on that hospital bed, wasted to bone and morphine dreams.*
« First wave incoming, » the System purred, savoring my silent panic.
A shimmering portal ripped open at my dungeon's entrance. Five players materialized, their armor glinting under the phantom starlight of the cavern. Their leader stepped forward, and a jolt of recognition, sharp as a physical blow, shot through my code.
Selene.
Even through the pixelated haze of a Level 15 Frost Mage avatar, I’d recognize her anywhere. The way she flipped her silver braid over her shoulder when strategizing. The faint scar on her virtual cheek—a graphical glitch she’d kept since our college beta-testing days.
"Dungeon's fresh," she said, her voice colder than her ice spells. "Tanks front. Healers watch for traps. And someone check the damn Beauty Leaderboard. If we clear this, I'll finally overtake Luna."
A new panel flashed, an unwelcome ghost from my past.
> **BEAUTY LEADERBOARD UPDATE**
> > 1. **SELENE** (Frost Mage) > 2. **LUNA** (Berserker) > 3. **AVA** (Cleric) > > ---« You coded the Leaderboards, Kai, » the System chuckled. « Now survive them. »
I watched through my dungeon's ambient camera system as Selene’s party tore through my goblins. Her ice magic froze my traps mid-swing, shattering them into useless crystal. She was always ruthless, in-game and in life. I should have known she’d be Rank 1 in both Power and Beauty.
« Pathetic, » the System hissed. « They'll reach your Core in 8 minutes. Want a hint? Beg. »
*Go to hell,* I shot back, focusing my will.
I poured my awareness into my Core, the black sphere humming with stolen code. If this was Eclipse Online, then somewhere in its architecture, I’d coded a backdoor. A glitch. A kill switch. *Something.*
> « New Ability Unlocked: `ADMIN SIGHT (Beta)` »
The world dissolved into a cascade of ones and zeros. Selene's armor? A shell of `DEF_data.pkg`. Her ice spells? A loop of `frost_damage.exe`. And her face…
Her face was the same. Unchanged. Real.
The realization burned through me like a System purge. This wasn't just a game. The Devs had uploaded real people. Their minds, their faces—they were all trapped in here with me.
« First kill: 9 players remaining, » the System taunted as Selene shattered my first mini-boss, a lumbering Stone Golem.
Panic surged, cold and absolute. I couldn't die again. Not like this.
I focused, rewiring a trap on the fly, merging two basic functions into something new, something *mine*.
> **« Custom Trap Created: `Heartsbane Corridor` »**
> > **« Effect:** Target must pass a Charisma Check. On FAIL: 50% HP loss + 'Lovesick' debuff (Attack Power -30%, Confused State). »The Berserker in Selene's party failed first. He dropped his axe, his avatar staring blankly at a phantom image of his first crush. Selene cursed, shoving him aside.
"Since when do dungeons have charm traps?!"
*Since I became one.*
They reached my throne room in 6 minutes. Selene's mana was low, her party bleeding HP. But her eyes glowed with the thrill of victory.
"The final boss is just a glowing rock?" she sneered, raising her staff. "Anti-climactic."
« Kill her, » the System whispered, its voice slick with temptation. « Claim your power. »
I reached through the dungeon, channeling every drop of code, every shred of my stolen identity, into a single skill.
> **« Summon Minion: `Shadow Replica (Kai's Human Form)` »**
The replica materialized before her—me, as I was before the cancer. Messy hair, sarcastic grin, a hoodie stained with ramen.
Selene froze. Her staff clattered to the floor. "K…Kai?"
The replica spoke with my voice. "Miss me, Sel?"
> **SYSTEM ALERT**
> > `CRITICAL ERROR. FINAL BOSS CORRUPTION DETECTED.`« You fool, » the System snarled. « She'll destroy us both now. »
But Selene didn't attack. She stepped closer, her mage-light reflecting off the tears welling in her real eyes.
"I looked for you," she whispered. "After you… After the funeral, I hacked the Devs' logs. They said you volunteered for this. Why?"
My replica flickered. The truth was a knife twisting in my code.
*I didn't.*
The System's chains yanked my consciousness back into the Core. Red alerts blared across my vision.
« Initiating Boss Reset. All progress lost. How… disappointing. »
As darkness swallowed me, a final message flashed, not from the System, but from somewhere beyond it. A rogue signal.
> **« NYX: Don't trust her. Don't trust anyone. I'll free us both, Kai. »**
Then, silence.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Latest Chapter
Dungeon King: I Rule Chapter 68 (3)
The Labyrinth, sensing the foreign presence of the Resonance within its perfect, self-contained torture, reacted with a final, brutal escalation. The scene around Kai shimmered and warped. The ruins dissolved, replaced by the sterile, green-lit halls of Lab Seven. He stood at a crossroads between two terrible realities.To his left, the memory of the ruins remained, the phantom of the dying Linda still reaching for him. To his right, a new scene unfolded: Selene, trapped and overwhelmed by a wave of corrosive static, her form dissolving into screaming code. A monstrous, hybrid voice—a fusion of the Labyrinth's logic and Nyx's cosmic cold—echoed in his mind.You have a choice, variable Kai. A new calculation. Save the memory of the one you lost, or save the one who stands with you now. You cannot preserve both. Your existence is a function of loss. Choose which output is most efficient.It was the ultimate torture, designed to shatter the very foundation of his healing. It sought to tu
Last Updated : 2025-09-30Dungeon King: I Rule Chapter 68 (2)
On the other side of the wall, the memory was not a reflection. It was reality. The cold, damp permacreate was solid under Kai’s boots. The coppery scent of blood—Linda’s blood—filled his nostrils, so vivid it made his stomach clench. The distant, skittering sounds of the Stalker that had maimed her echoed in the ruined corridor, a perpetual, threatening soundtrack to his damnation. He was back. Truly back. The first loop was a perfect, brutal replay. He saw Linda, her back against the broken wall, her face pale, her life bleeding out through the terrible gash in her side. He felt the frantic, useless pressure of his hands trying to stem the flow, the sticky warmth coating his fingers. He heard her ragged, wet breaths, each one a dagger twisting in his soul. “Kai…” her memory-ghost whispered, her eyes wide with fear and pain. “I’m here,” he choked out, the same words he’d spoken five years ago, just as useless now as they were then. “Just hold on.” But she didn’t. Her eyes flu
Last Updated : 2025-09-30Dungeon King: I Rule Chapter 68 (1)
The transition from the screaming chaos of the data-stream was as sudden as it was disorienting. One moment they were fighting their way through a hurricane of corrupted code and psychic despair, the next, they passed through an invisible threshold into absolute silence. The howling static cut off so completely it felt like going deaf. The chaotic, non-Euclidean geometry of the core smoothed and solidified into something terrifyingly familiar: walls.They stood at the mouth of a labyrinth. The passage ahead was narrow, flanked by walls of a deep, obsidian-like stone that seemed to absorb the light from their auras and the glow of their weapons. The air was still and cold, carrying a faint, dry scent like old dust and forgotten places. This was not the chaotic decay of the void; this was the profound stillness of a tomb.Elian’s form, which had been flickering weakly, now seemed to solidify with dread. “This is a different kind of defense,” his mind-voice was hushed, as if afraid to wa
Last Updated : 2025-09-29Dungeon King: I Rule Chapter 67 (3)
The whiteout of transition shattered into a million screaming fragments. There was no ground, no sky, no up or down. They were consciousnesses adrift in a river of pure, agonized information. The Digital Core was not a place; it was an event—a continuous, catastrophic collapse of meaning into noise.The first assault was not visual, but emotional. A wave of concentrated despair, the accumulated grief of a million harvested souls, hit them like a physical force. It was the sound of a child’s final whimper, the feeling of a last, hopeless breath, the taste of ash from a thousand burned homes. It was a psychic tsunami meant to obliterate individual thought and dissolve them into the background static of sorrow.Linda gasped, but the Frost Crown on her brow flared with a brilliant, silver light. A bubble of palpable calm solidified around the three of them, a tiny sanctuary in the maelstrom. The despair broke against it, howling in frustration, but could not penetrate. Inside, the air was
Last Updated : 2025-09-28Dungeon King: I Rule Chapter 67 (2)
The main Bombay System Node Chamber was a cathedral to a dead god. It was the largest open space in the Aerie, a vast, circular cavern dominated by the node itself—a colossal, crystalline spire that pulsed with a sickly, intermittent light. This was the heart of the city's network, the source of both its survival and its damnation. The air thrummed with a low, dissonant frequency, the sound of a world dying on its feet. The partial purification Selene had enacted during her coronation broadcast had created a fragile bubble of stability around the spire, but beyond that invisible barrier, the corrupting influence of the nearby void-node was a palpable pressure, a psychic stench of rotting reality.Their arrival was a stark contrast to the triumphant ceremony of just days before. There was no crowd, no hope-filled silence. Instead, the chamber was a hive of grim, focused activity. Aris and Eclipse were already there, overseeing a contingent of their most trusted guards who took up defen
Last Updated : 2025-09-28Dungeon King: I Rule Chapter 67 (1)
The detention block was the coldest place in the Aerie, a deep, shielded sector where the hum of life and the whisper of data streams fell to an absolute zero. The air itself felt still and dead, heavily processed to prevent any external signal from penetrating. This was where they kept their most dangerous asset and their greatest shame: Elian, the Architect of the world’s end.Selene led the way, her footsteps echoing with a sovereign's authority that felt brittle in the oppressive silence. Kai walked beside her, the newly forged Tidal Blade a comfortable, sorrowful weight on his hip. Linda followed, the Frost Crown on her brow radiating a gentle, insulating calm that pushed back against the psychic chill of the block, a faint reminder of life in a place designed for stagnation. They were armed with weapons of the soul, but this first obstacle required a different kind of strength.The door to Elian's cell hissed open, revealing not a cage, but a sterile, circular room. There was no
Last Updated : 2025-09-28
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Muhammad Saad
I'm looking forward to how the Story progresses it's different from all other system Novels at least. That's a green flag for me.
Godzilla
Very different from the usual system novels...still has some room for improvement, but overall well written and interesting to read.