A shimmer of data packets twisted and unraveled in the infinite digital void. The Administrator’s essence coalesced, perceiving the anomaly as a cascade of system alerts and recalibration protocols spiraled into overdrive.
System Alert:
Resolution found, Manual lock installed.
The Administrator’s focus narrowed on the data stream. A dungeon core had executed multiple level-ups simultaneously, overwhelming the world’s system framework.
“A sentient dungeon… on this world? Impossible. There is no system architecture to support such a construct here.”
The Administrator scanned deeper, fragments of otherworldly code interwoven with the local framework. The system had compensated by creating a hybrid structure, stitching together protocols from different realms to stabilize the anomaly.
“An adaptive solution. Inelegant, but functional.”
Further inspection revealed a peculiar element woven into the dungeon’s core mechanics: bio-matter processing.
“This system is not native to this world… Origin: Dark World. Heavy influence detected from the entity designated ‘Wall of Flesh.’”
The anomaly’s complexity deepened. This dungeon’s sentience—and its association with a dark god’s influence—was unprecedented.
A flicker of interference rippled through the data logs:
Log Entry:
Dark God interference detected previously… Authorization bypassed. Resolution remains valid.
The Administrator registered the bypass with a pulse of resigned acceptance. The dark gods had exploited a loophole, but the resolution held. The system remained stable—for now.
New logs unraveled before the Administrator’s perception, detailing the adjustments made to ensure stability. One entry flickered into focus:
Log Entry:
Definition change applied. New system framework integrated for non-eligible entity… Identification: Lucy. Foundation derived from dungeon system.
The Administrator’s awareness pulsed with curiosity.
“Intriguing. The entity’s framework is anchored to the dungeon system. When she qualifies for the human system, a hybridization will occur. An elegant solution… yet potentially unstable.”
A deeper analysis of the human system’s adaptive nature revealed the risk:
“The human system evolves based on choice, intention, and deeds. Predicting future errors is impossible. The system will adapt—or fail—upon hybridization.”
A brief pause, then dismissal.
“Anomalies pose no immediate threat to system integrity. Further intervention is beyond protocol… Irrelevant.”
With a final pulse of energy, the Administrator dissolved back into the void, leaving the anomaly to evolve—unobserved, but not unnoticed.
Adrian:
The rush was immense. Adrian needed a moment to orient himself, his senses still reeling from the overload. His stomach was an incredible thing, capable of breaking down even the toughest biomass, but when the storage was full… it simply refused to work. That didn’t mean it refused to get stuffed even further.
Fifteen people. All of them near Tier 2. The sheer volume of biomass had been unbelievable.
He'd filled his storage, leveled up, filled it again, and leveled up twice more. Three levels, one after the other. Incredible progress—but at a small price.
The pain of extending his nerve network across three new floors all at once was unbearable. If he wasn’t a giant heart suspended inside a hollow tree, he would have sworn he was being drawn and quartered, pulled in three different directions by wild horses. Every expansion tore at him.
And the tree—oh, the tree. It grew so fast he felt like he was free-falling in a plummeting elevator. The entire labyrinth dropped through three levels in an instant.
From outside, he heard pained grunts and the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting the ground. The Wendren village had just been dragged three dungeon floors down. That was probably not how they’d planned to spend their day.
Inside the hollow tree, the scene was almost comical. Chomp, the ever-hungry Flesh Crawler, floated weightlessly for a moment alongside Lucy, who flailed her five legs in confusion. Then gravity reclaimed them, and they hit the ground with a synchronized thud.
The pain finally ebbed as his nerves finished their frantic growth spurt. He let himself savor the feeling of receding agony before his thoughts cleared enough to take stock.
He was big now. His dungeon had more than doubled in size. His heart chamber was vaster, and his heartbeat echoed through the expanded hollows of the tree. Three new floors stretched out beneath him, full of potential—and something else.
His focus shifted outward. The swamp above… it had grown. His surface-level influence had stretched farther than it should have. He could feel it—an extension of his essence beyond the normal bounds of the dungeon.
System messages flooded his awareness:
System Alert: Warning! System overload! Influence growth exceeds allocated parameters!
Recalibrating… Failed.
Administrator override engaged! Influence growth locked!
System resource allocation increased by 6x.
“…rian! Adrian!”
A voice broke through the torrent of information. Lucy was standing before his heart, waving her hand urgently. Her wrists were still bruised green and blue from the ropes the delegation had used to bind her.
“Adrian, what the hell happened?!” she asked, her voice a mix of awe and disbelief.
“I may have… overdone it,” Adrian muttered. “Three level-ups at once seem to be a bit much for the system.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “Three level-ups? All at once?”
“Yeah. Those delegation idiots had quite a bit of meat on them. Multiply that by fifteen, and you get a lot of biomass. I had to cheat a little by cramming my stomach past full capacity, but… it worked. A little too well.”
At the mention of the delegation, a shadow passed over Lucy’s face. Her eyes clouded, and for a moment, she looked lost in her thoughts. The way they had manhandled her, the rough treatment—Adrian wouldn’t have been surprised if she was wrestling with a minor case of PTSD.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He softened his tone. “Lucy… the swamp has grown. I can feel it spreading beyond the first two levels. I need to go through these system messages and figure out what’s going on. Maybe even send you and Chomp on a little expedition.”
But something in her expression stopped him cold. She didn’t want to go. She was trying to hide it, but the fear was there, etched into her features. She was hiding in the hollow tree, seeking safety in its confines.
He paused, reconsidering. “…But that can wait. No rush.”
He’d push forward when the time was right. For now, the dungeon could wait. Lucy needed to heal.
System Message: Level up successful.
New Organ Available: Nerve Bundle.
New Monster Available: Shadowstalker.
New Trap Available: Fungal Vein.
New Dungeon Floor Added.
System Message: Level up successful.
New Monsters Available: Fleshbound Berserker, Fleshstomach, Bloodworm Parasite.
New Dungeon Floor Added.
System Message: Level up successful.
New Monsters Available: Infested Treant, Skitterbush, Corpsecap Floater.
New Trap Available: Parasite Bursting Tree.
New Dungeon Floor Added.
System Message: All dungeon floor areas increased by 250% due to Administrator Lock.
System Message: Adding dungeon floor ecosystems for all expansions.
----------------------------------------
There’s a lot to unpack here...
His metaphorical eyes widened. Wait… My dungeon floors have grown by 250%? That means they’re now around… 70 square kilometers each? The sheer scale of the growth staggered him. That’s what I call growth!
But as his awareness expanded further, something else caught his attention. He probed the edges of the first floor, feeling out the terrain. Wait… what’s that? Some kind of massive building? He concentrated, the sensation resolving into a clearer shape. Is that the guild building Lucy mentioned? It’s inside my dungeon now?!
He continued to explore. Water? Trees? And… wait a second… Are those the roots of the Hollow Tree poking out of the mountain? His mind reeled. What the fuck happened out there?!
But there was no time to dwell on that now. Three new floors. I better pump out some oculnids to get some vision going. The thought of those tiny scouts navigating such vast expanses made him pause. That’s an awfully long way for them now through all those floors… Maybe I can—
The Hollow Tree shook slightly, its thick trunk shimmering as if turning semi-liquid. Hidden tunnels and pathways formed, winding through the trunk like a network of veins. It was as if a colossal worm had burrowed through the wood, creating a shortcut system that connected all the floors. Entrances to this network, concealed behind heart-valve-like flaps made of the same tree material, were nearly invisible to the naked eye—and tough as ironwood.
Adrian felt a swell of satisfaction. Perfect. That’ll save my creatures a lot of travel time.
The oculnids scuttled into their new domains, and soon Adrian was peering through their eyes. The first glimpses were... unsettling.
Third Floor: Darkness. An eternal night shrouded everything. The oculnids’ current vision was useless here. Guess I’ll need to mutate them for night vision. The only visible features were faint, drifting lights—probably bioluminescent plants or creatures.
Fifth Floor: A sprawling wooded swamp. It reminded him of the Amazon River basin, as seen in a documentary back when he was human. Twisting waterways, dense foliage, and an overwhelming sense of life. Diverse and teeming… before some corporate dipshit caused a chemical ‘oopsie’ and killed everything. He smirked at the memory, tinged with bitterness.
Fourth Floor: Adrian’s metaphorical heart skipped a beat. The sight before him was... wrong. The floor stretched out in grotesque beauty—a nightmare given form.
Trees made of fused, bleached bones. Leaves that pulsed like slabs of raw flesh. Hills undulating with worm-like tentacles, as if the land itself were alive and suffering. Blood-red rain drizzled down, pooling in rivers and ponds that ran crimson.
Even for Adrian, the imagery was disturbing. He shuddered, a chill running through his core. What in the actual hell is this? The fourth floor felt less like his creation and more like something that happened to his dungeon.
All in all, Adrian was surprisingly proud of the results from these chaotic level-ups. It seemed that pushing the system to its absolute limit yielded benefits beyond his expectations. He made a mental note of that — perhaps, under the right conditions, he could exploit this kind of overload again in the future.
His dungeon’s storage capacity had ballooned to 16,000 biomass. A monumental leap, but currently, he only had 744 biomass left. Before he could think of populating the new floors, he needed to rebuild the defenses of the first and second floors. The delegation’s rampage had left a bloody trail of dead monsters, reducing his once thriving ecosystem to scattered remains.
The first floor was now considerably larger. However, populating its expanded regions immediately would be unwise. Monsters appearing outside the caldera might send the surrounding humans into a blind panic. No need to poke the bear — not yet. That extra space could serve a purpose later when things settled down.
The second floor, on the other hand, had ample room to grow. Through his oculnids’ eyes, he noticed something promising: new herds of deer-like creatures had started to gather in the expanded regions of the swamp. A smirk formed in his thoughts.
“I should let Marked Skull know,” he mused. “Maybe the Wendren would want to relocate these herds into the labyrinth.”
With the Wendren village now located on the fifth level, inside the sprawling swampland he decided to nickname the ‘Swamazonas,’ space was no longer an issue. Once he had enough biomass, he’d expand the labyrinth’s size to give them more room to thrive. Until then, the Wendren could explore the new territory and learn its secrets.
Without monsters actively hunting, the natural ecosystem of the Swamazonas could develop freely for a while. Who knew what fascinating new organisms and parasites might evolve from it? The possibilities were endless.
For now, he focused on what lay ahead: rebuilding, adapting, and perhaps… preparing for a little revenge. He wouldn’t forget what the delegation had done. But he was patient. Very patient.
And Adrian Falkenrath knew that patience was a parasite’s best weapon.
With the chaos of the level-ups settling, Adrian contemplated the next steps. For now, the dungeon was effectively closed. The delicate balance needed to be restored, and after the mayhem caused by the delegation, he doubted adventurers would come rushing back anytime soon.
Perhaps, when the rebuilding was complete, he could do something to entice them back. But he didn’t want just adventurers anymore. Terraforming his expanded second floor gave him an idea. With a sly mental grin, he added coal veins, along with copper and iron deposits into the terrain.
“Maybe, just maybe,” he mused, “I can attract more than just glory-hungry adventurers. Miners, herbalists, even craftsmen… a richer ecosystem of humans to study and, occasionally, nab for biomass.”
The thought of observing crafting techniques intrigued him. With the academy now nestled inside his dungeon’s influence, he’d have a front-row seat to human ingenuity. Perhaps it would spark ideas for his own grotesque creations, or better yet, he could guide the Wendren to develop crafting of their own.
The Wendren…
He shifted his attention to the village within the labyrinth. His vision settled on something unexpected. The Wendren were busy—collecting plants, herding animals, and constructing something directly outside the entrance to his hollow tree. Adrian felt a flicker of curiosity.
“I should probably pay more attention to what they’re doing,” he muttered. But, honestly, who cared? They were productive, they respected him, and they weren’t causing problems. That was good enough for now.
Meanwhile, Dronis was in his element. Managing five floors of dungeon complexity seemed to be precisely the challenge he thrived on. The Overseer flitted between tasks, compiling reports, optimizing patrol routes, and monitoring new monster spawns.
Adrian felt a pang of relief. Without Dronis, the dungeon would have been a logistical nightmare to manage. Two floors had already strained his patience and left him little time for his beloved experiments. Now, with Dronis handling the minutiae, he could finally turn his attention back to his true passion: biological innovation.
He glanced to the side, his awareness settling on Lucy.
The sight was… unsettling. She was asleep, clinging to the walls of the hollow tree with her five insectoid limbs, her upper body hanging limp. Occasionally, she would shift position, her movements a bizarre mix of grace and absurdity.
Adrian’s metaphorical eyebrow twitched. “She really needs to learn how to sleep like a normal person,” he thought, mildly disturbed and amused.
Then there was Chomp.
The enthusiastic little Flesh Crawler had barely paused to say, “New floor! Bye!” before zipping out of the hollow tree like a furry missile. The instant he noticed the air smelled different, he was gone, a blur of excitement, intent on exploring every inch of the new floors.
Adrian shook his metaphorical head. “If enthusiasm could be weaponized, Chomp would be a warhead.”
----------------------------------------
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Adrian allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. The dungeon had grown immensely, his influence had spread, and new potential was at his fingertips. There was still much to do—rebuilding, experimenting, and adapting—but for now, he felt the sweet rush of progress.
And, in the distance, the storm cloud above his dungeon rumbled ominously, a reminder to the world that Adrian Falkenrath was just getting started.