2026-06-25 23:05:32The giant bone monster did not wait. It raised its massive spike of a fist, ready to smash my chest into flat meat. I could not move. My crushed knees felt like they were full of broken glass and hot needles.
But the glowing text boxes stayed right in front of my eyes, floating in the dark cave.
[Class Selection Available: Underworld Sovereign]
[Do you accept the terms of the Dead?]
"Accept!" I choked out, coughing up thick fluid onto the stone floor. "I accept!"
The voice inside my skull laughed. It was a deep, sharp sound that made my teeth ache. [Smart choice, kid. Let us rewrite your bad luck.]
A sudden rush of freezing energy shot up from the stone floor. It entered my hands and flooded straight into my legs.
Snap. Pop.
My kneecaps moved on their own. The broken pieces of bone slid back into place under my skin. I did not feel pain anymore. I felt an icy numbness that made my skin crawl. I pushed myself off the floor and stood up. My legs were perfectly straight, but my old sneakers were still soaked in my own blood.
The bone monster roared, the sound shaking loose small rocks from the cave roof. It brought its spike fist down toward my head.
"Get back," I said.
My voice sounded different. It was deep, empty, and heavy.
A wave of black mist erupted from my boots. It flew forward like a wall of water, hitting the monster's chest. The three-story tall beast actually stumbled backward, its giant claws scraping against the gray rock.
[Passive Skill Activated: Sovereign Domain]
[The dead within this zone must obey your command.]
[Look down, Tobe,] the voice inside my head said. Its name was Grim. [The big guys left you some tools. Use them.]
I looked at the floor. A few feet away lay the dead bodies of the three B-Rank Hunters that the monster had smashed earlier. Their armor was broken, and their faces were covered in dust.
"Arise," I said, pointing my finger at the corpses.
The black mist on the floor crawled over the dead Hunters. Their eyes snapped open, but the white parts were completely gone, replaced by glowing gray flames. They stood up slowly, their movements stiff like wooden dolls.
[First Summon Successful: 3 Shadow Servants created.]
[Current Mana: 40/100]
"Kill it," I ordered, pointing at the bone monster.
The three dead Hunters did not hesitate. They leaped forward, their movements faster than when they were alive. One of them, a guy who used to carry a giant iron sword, slammed his weapon directly into the monster's knee. The bone cracked. The monster tilted sideways, roaring in anger. The other two shadow servants jumped onto its back, tearing at the glowing red core in its chest with their bare, dark hands.
I watched the fight happen, but I did not f*el afraid. The deep terror I had five minutes ago was completely gone. Chief Segun had broken my body, and Chiamaka had left me to die for a school f*e. They wanted me to be the garbage that got cleaned up.
Instead, I was controlling the trash.
The bone monster swung its arm, smashing one of my shadow servants into pieces of black smoke. But the remaining two servants successfully cracked the red core on its chest. The monster stiffened, its red light going dark, before it collapsed onto the stone floor with a heavy thud.
It was dead.
[Target Defeated: Asymmetric Bone Variant]
[Extracting Target Soul...]
[New Summon Obtained: Shadow Gorilla (Rank: Elite Guard)]
The giant corpse of the monster dissolved into a thick, black puddle on the floor. From that puddle, a smaller, darker version of the monster rose up. It had red burning eyes and bowed its head toward me, waiting for my command.
"This is real," I whispered, looking at my hands. They were pale, and my veins looked dark blue under my skin.
[Of course it is real, partner,] Grim said, his voice echoing in my left ear like a close friend. [But do not get too happy yet. The hospital machine for your sister turns off in less than twelve hours, remember? And your lovely fiancée is probably back on the Island right now, telling everyone how sad she is that you died.]
My stomach dropped. Amarachi.
I looked at the sealed iron doors of the dungeon. They were locked from the outside by the guild's security system. A normal person would need an electronic key card to open them.
"Can we break it?" I asked Grim.
[You have a giant shadow gorilla now, Tobe. Why are you asking me silly questions?] Grim laughed.
I turned to the giant shadow beast. "Break that door down."
The shadow gorilla moved forward, its heavy fists slamming against the thick iron doors.
BOOM!
The metal bent outward. Another strike, and the iron hinges tore completely out of the concrete wall. The door fell forward into the lagoon water outside, letting the bright morning sunlight rush into the dark cave.
I walked out of the portal zone, my two shadow hunters and the giant gorilla following silently behind me in the mist. I looked across the water toward the high-rise penthouses of Victoria Island.
Chief Segun and Chiamaka thought they left a corpse in the dark. They had no idea what was coming up from the Mainland.
My phone buzzed again in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was a live social media notification from the Vanguard Guild's official page.
The title read: [Tragedy in Lekki: Vanguard Guild Honors Fallen Mainland Cleaner in Successful S-Rank Raid.]
There was a picture of Chiamaka standing next to Chief Segun. She was holding a handkerchief to her eyes, pretending to cry for the cameras while Segun held a gold medal.
I closed the app, a cold feeling taking over my entire body.
"Let us go to the Island," I said to the shadows behind me.
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Out of the Smoke
The blue lightning blast did not just make a loud noise; it threw my body across the hard roof. I hit the side of the white Vanguard helicopter with a heavy thud, my lower back taking the whole force. For a few seconds, my ears did not work. There was only a loud ringing inside my head, and my eyes could not see clearly.I shook my head, coughing up thick gray dust from the broken concrete. The entire roof was covered in a heavy cloud of blue and black smoke that tasted like burnt plastic and old copper wires."Amara!" I called out. My voice sounded small and distant to my own ears. "Amara! Where are you?"I tried to stand up, but my knees gave out immediately. I looked at the corner of my vision to check the numbers.[Current Mana: 307/100][Health: 45/100][Status: Internal injuries. Movement speed reduced by thirty percent.]I did not care about the system warning. I crawled through the broken tiles, my hands scraping against sharp pieces of stone. The concrete pads where the ammun
The Mainland Barrier
Chief Segun stood by the melted doorway, his dragon-scale suit glowing dark red against the gray morning sky. The heavy blade in his right hand dropped fat sparks of black fire onto the concrete roof. Every time a spark hit the floor, the stone turned into black liquid."Chiamaka, get your brother," Chief Segun said. He did not look at her. His eyes remained locked entirely on Amarachi, who stood near the edge of the roof with the golden rifle.Chiamaka did not wait. She scrambled across the concrete on her hands and knees, her fancy dress completely torn and covered in soot. She reached the metal stairs of the radio tower and pulled Samuel into her arms. She checked his neck where Fanny’s knife had left a small red cut, sobbing heavily."Samuel, I am sorry," Chiamaka said, her voice cracking with pure grief. "I did it for your operation. They told me they would fix your eyes if I helped them secure the Lekki gate.""They lied to you, sister," Samuel said, his small hands holding her
Lies on the Radio
The heavy wind from the helicopter blades whipped against my face, carrying the strong smell of burning oil and hot metal. My shadow gorilla stood tall behind me, its red eyes glowing through the gray dust. With over five hundred mana points coursing through my body, I could have ordered the beast to crush the two guards by the cabin door in one single second.But Fanny held the small silver knife tightly against Samuel’s neck. The little boy did not move. His hands were shaking inside his oversized clothes, and the thick white bandages over his eyes were stained with gray dirt from the hospital rooms below."You think you are a big man now, Tobe?" Fanny called out, her voice loud enough to cut through the noise of the spinning rotors. Her red suit coat flapped wildly in the wind. "You got a fancy system. You got some dark ghosts. But you are still just a Mainland boy who cares too much about poor people. Drop the mana stones and step away from the girl."Beside me, Amarachi did not l
The Cost of a Favor
My palm slapped the broken concrete floor. The forty-seven points of mana inside my body rushed downward like a sudden leak in a bucket."Arise," I ordered.The black ink under my boots did not form the giant gorilla this time. I did not have enough power for that. Instead, the dark circle stretched across the floor, and the two dead Vanguard Hunters from the hotel docks shot upward. They did not have their iron swords anymore, but their grey-flamed eyes looked wide and angry. They threw their bodies directly in front of me, locking their arms together to make a wall of dead flesh.BOOM!Jude’s double-barreled shotgun fired. The blast was incredibly loud inside the narrow hallway. Hundreds of small lead pellets tore through the air, hitting my two shadow servants directly in their chests. The impact was massive. The dead hunters did not feel pain, but the force of the blast ripped away their dark smoke arms and pushed them back against my shoulders. We all hit the floor together in a
The Assets Value
The plastic radio dropped from my fingers and hit the wet concrete floor with a dull clack. Chiamaka’s voice stopped, cut off by another massive explosion that shook the entire third floor. The green walls groaned, and chunks of old white plaster rained down around us, covering Amarachi’s hospital bed in white dust."Tobe, my chest feels like it is on fire," Amarachi said. Her voice still had that double sound, a deep, heavy vibration layered right underneath her normal tone.The purple glow in her eyes grew wider, eating up her pupils until her gaze looked entirely alien. She gripped her own chest, her fingers tearing at her thin cotton hospital shirt. The oily fluid on the floor tiles was no longer just pooling around her boots; it was moving up her shins like black ink, sinking directly into her skin.I grabbed her under her arms, hauling her small body off the mattress. She felt much lighter than before, almost hollow, like a dry stick. "Hold onto my neck, Amara. We have to move n
Blood and Plywood
The three Vanguard guards did not lower their rifles. The blue barrels of their weapons glowed brightly, lighting up the tiny, dark hospital room. I stood right in front of Amarachi’s bed, hiding her body behind my back. The black fluid on the floor tiles was still spreading, rising up around the iron legs of her bed."I said, step away from the asset," the lead guard spoke again. His voice came through his heavy metal helmet, sounding flat and cold. "Chief Segun wants her alive. You, we can kill right here."My chest throbbed where the sand lizard had kicked me. My mana counter floated in the corner of my eyes: 12/100. It was not enough to call the shadow gorilla up from the yard.[Tobe,] Grim’s voice barked in my mind. [You do not need to call the big guy up the stairs. The ceiling in this hospital is cheap concrete. Tell him to jump.]I did not hesitate. I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second and sent a direct mental command down to the yard. Smash upward. Now."Three," the gu
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