Players began flooding into the area, visibly battered from the grueling boss fight on the previous floor. Their parties were tight-knit, with healers still casting residual spells and tanks adjusting their gear, their virtual sweat almost palpable. I couldn't help but notice the stark contrast—where their camaraderie thrived, I stood alone.

A group of players, noticeably lower in level, caught sight of me. The leader, a Knight-Holy Champion hybrid with gleaming armor that looked fresh out of a cash shop, approached with a skeptical look.

"Hey, you lose your group or something?" he asked, his tone more curiosity than concern.

I didn’t even blink. "No. I'm a solo player," I replied flatly.

The group exchanged incredulous glances, then broke into laughter. "You're running this dungeon solo? Are you crazy?" one of them asked, though their tone shifted when they noticed my lack of a party tag but a guild emblem that spoke volumes. They quickly checked my level, their grins faltering.

"Bad vibes," someone muttered as they stepped back, deciding to leave me alone. Typical. Solo players always made groups uneasy—too unpredictable, too outside the norm. I shoved the thought aside and continued.

The exit to Floor 11 loomed ahead. Floor 12 promised juicier content, or so I hoped. Expectations rarely matched reality, though. As I progressed, monsters backed off at the sight of me, their AI recognizing I was far too over-leveled for the area. Annoying. By the time I reached Floor 15, I was itching for something worth my time.

Instead, I found death.

The cavernous floor was littered with player corpses—dozens of them sprawled across the ground. Strange. Normally, dead players respawned at the nearest safe zone or starting point, their bodies vanishing in seconds. Yet here they lay, as if frozen mid-defeat.

Curious, I crouched over one of the bodies, a mage named "Hiru." Scanning the avatar, a status window popped up: "Deceased." My brow furrowed. Deceased? That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Before I could piece it together, a shadow descended from above, landing with an ominous thud that echoed through the dungeon.

"Well, well," came a mocking voice, laced with menace. "Someone’s feeling brave, wandering here all alone. Not very smart, are you?"

The speaker was clad in armor that practically oozed malevolence, its jagged edges glowing faintly with corrupted energy. I scanned him instinctively, but his name field was glitched—replaced by a string of wingdings and symbols.

"Oh? And you are?" I asked, my voice even, masking my growing suspicion.

The figure bowed theatrically. "I am one of the Ascended," he said, his tone smug.

Ah, so this was one of them—someone who had taken the deal. Pathetic.

"So, power through backdoor hacks and deals with specters instead of earning it yourself?" I shook my head, disgusted. "How pathetic. Really."

His grin widened unnaturally. "So he offered you power too, and you rejected it? Foolish. Look around you." He gestured to the corpses. "A level 25 taking out level 50s without breaking a sweat!"

I crossed my arms. "Cute. But I didn’t need shortcuts to take down level 60s at 25. That’s called skill. You should try it sometime. How many of you Ascended morons are there anyway?"

His grin faltered for a second before morphing into a sneer. "We number Legion," he declared grandly.

I snorted. "So, what? Ten? Twenty dumbasses running around thinking they’re gods?" My mocking tone hit its mark; his smug demeanor cracked, anger flaring in his eyes.

"You insolent fool!" he spat, his voice rising to a childlike tantrum. "I am Ascended, and you will BOW BEFORE ME!"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, that’s gonna be a hard no. Especially not to some second-rate PK trash. And I don’t even know what you’ve done to these avatars." I gestured to the corpses.

That set him off. He laughed—a chilling, hollow sound that echoed through the cavern. "These avatars? Oh, they’re more than just avatars now." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "The price of power is competition. These players... they’re still in their VR rigs. Frozen in time. Trapped. Their minds, their lives... mine to control."

My stomach churned, but I didn’t let it show. So this was it—the embedded code I’d been warned about. The one that turned a game into a death sentence.

"You mean to tell me you killed them here and in the real world?" I asked, my voice cold.

His laughter returned, more unhinged this time. "The Ascended must cleanse this game of its filth! Only through their suffering can we create a world worthy of our power!"

Delusional. Just another wannabe god in a game where power was meaningless without effort. I shook my head.

"Let me get this straight," I said, slowly unslinging my weapon. "You took a shortcut, sold your soul to some glitchy specter, and now you’re running around murdering players in and out of the game to ‘cleanse’ it? That’s rich. You’re not a god. You’re just a bug waiting to be squashed."

He snarled, his corrupted armor flaring with energy. "Mock me all you want, fool. I will end you here and now!"

I cracked my neck, leveling my weapon at him. Running wasn’t an option—not for me. This Ascended clown was going down.

"Bring it," I said, a dangerous grin spreading across my face. "Let’s see what your stolen power’s really worth." His face darkened, shadows crawling across his corrupted armor as he hurled a bolt of crackling black lightning at me. The air sizzled with malevolence as it shot forward. I activated Light Step, vanishing from its path in a blink. The bolt struck the ground, sending chunks of stone scattering in every direction.

"That all?" I taunted, reappearing behind him. "Is that how you ambushed these players? Throwing magic around like confetti? Come on, man. A god should have real smite vibes."

His rage was palpable, twisting the game’s code around him like a vortex. His movements became erratic, almost unnatural, as if he were bypassing the system's constraints. The dungeon walls shimmered and glitched around us. Yet when he lunged with his corrupted blade, I was ready.

Our weapons collided, sparks erupting in a dazzling shower as steel met whatever unholy alloy his sword was made of. He pressed forward, his strength enhanced by the specter’s deal, but I countered with a quick parry and used the momentum to force him back.

"How’d you dodge that!?" he bellowed, frustration mounting in his voice.

I laughed, a sharp, mocking sound that echoed in the glitching chamber. "What are you, twelve? It’s called skill, you neophyte." With a quick step forward, I executed a precise backslash, the edge of my blade grazing him. The bleed debuff symbol appeared above his head, faint but unmistakable.

His smug grin returned, even as the damage ticked. "Still can’t kill me," he said, sneering. Then his confidence wavered as his HP bar dropped again. "What?!"

He hesitated—a fatal mistake. Activating Light Step again, I closed the gap instantly, appearing at his side. My blade bit into him a second time, and the bleed effect not only reset but stacked. His HP chunked dramatically.

"Pay attention," I said with a smirk, "or you might actually die."

Snarling, he stepped back and chanted a Heal spell. Golden light enveloped him, and his HP bar began to creep upward—but the bleed debuff remained, steadily chipping away at his progress.

"Heal doesn’t cure debuffs, genius," I said, shaking my head. "You’d know that if you weren’t such an idiot. Pro tip: try Cure or Protection next time."

His health plummeted again, the stacked bleed ticking faster than his healing could keep up. Panic set in.

"STOP!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "If an Ascended is PK’d, we die too! The same happens to us in the real world!" His voice was desperate now, his earlier bravado completely gone. "You don’t understand—you’ll kill me for real!"

I paused for half a second, just long enough to see the raw fear in his eyes. Then I shrugged. "Killing one piece of trash to save these hapless players..." I tilted my head mockingly. "I wonder what my personal code of ethics says about that."

He raised his weapon again, trembling, trying to prepare for my next attack. But it was already over. I leveled my hand at him, my fingers glowing with a growing, swirling energy.

"Arcanic Blast."

The spell hit him like a freight train, amplified to 110% damage. His avatar exploded into a shower of corrupted pixels, his screams abruptly silenced. For a moment, the dungeon was eerily quiet, save for the faint hum of the dungeon's ambient sound effects. Then, just as suddenly, the bodies of the fallen players began to shimmer. One by one, they vanished, their avatars dissipating into faint motes of light.

I watched silently, my grip tightening on my sword. Did they respawn at the safe zone? Or was it something worse?

The Ascended’s respawn location was unknown to me, but one thing was clear: he wouldn’t be coming back here anytime soon. I turned, my focus shifting to the next challenge ahead. This wasn’t just a game anymore—it was a battleground for survival. And if the Ascended thought they could rule it, they had another thing coming.