Chapter 5
Five members. Four trusted each other. One was the outsider.
They thought he was here for loot.Raven was here to take the dungeon.
Briggs, the tank, barely spared Raven a glance. He had that cocky, raid-leader attitude—the kind who didn't care who filled the last slot as long as they weren't dead weight.
Layla, the fire mage, side-eyed him with open suspicion. "You better not leech XP," she muttered. "If you die early, I'm not wasting a revive."
Kain, the rogue, barely spoke. His gaze lingered on Raven a second too long, then he disappeared into the shadows. Watching. Calculating.
Only Arven, the healer, seemed friendly. "Don't mind them," he said with an easy grin. "We've just had bad runs with randoms before."
Layla scoffed, tossing a firebolt at a nearby goblin. "We'd have fewer bad runs if people stopped bringing dead weight."
Raven didn't respond.
Kain, silent as ever, materialized beside a goblin corpse, wiping his blade clean. He gave Raven a long look—too long. Then he vanished into the shadows again.
Arven chuckled awkwardly."Don't mind Kain either. He trusts no one, not even me."
Raven gave a small nod, staying near the back. He summoned his shadow beast without a word.
The dungeon entrance loomed ahead.
They thought he was just another low-level summoner, here for a safe party run.
He'd said little, summoned a basic shadow beast, and stayed quiet in the back.
He didn't need to talk.
He just needed to wait.
Goblin Nest was one of the game's lowest-tier dungeons—meant to ease new players into the system. No backstory. No advanced mechanics. Just kill, loot, repeat.
Briggs held the line, Layla burned everything in sight, and Kain moved with precise lethality. Arven barely had to heal with how smooth things were going.
Raven played his role well, using his basic summon to assist just enough to blend in.
But Raven wasn't watching the fight. He was watching the dungeon.
The spawn timers. The way goblins moved and reacted to attacks. Most importantly, he observed the Goblin King.
The Goblin King loomed at the chamber's far end—cleaver rusted, eyes blank, waiting. Its beady red eyes stared ahead blankly, waiting for the first aggressive action from a player.
A typical AI pattern.
It would not move until provoked. Standard MMORPG design.
Raven would change that.
Briggs let out a war cry and charged forward, slamming his shield into the Goblin King. The dungeon boss roared in response, its AI finally triggered.
Layla followed up with fire spells, scorching the boss's armor. Kain weaved through attacks, slicing tendons, while Arven kept everyone's HP stable.
Raven?
He positioned his summon carefully, forming a triangle with the rest of the team and the Goblin King. It hovered right, jittery and slow—just enough to look like it lagged behind.
Nothing suspicious.
He didn't need to act—not yet.
The party worked hard, wearing the boss down little by little. The Goblin King swung its cleaver wildly, knocking Briggs back, but the knight absorbed the hit with his heavy armor.
65% HP… 50%… 30%…
The Goblin King staggered, struggling to hold itself together.
And that was when Raven made his move.
While the others focused on the battle, Raven commanded his shadow beast forward—but instead of assisting in damage, it moved directly toward the Goblin King's weak spot.
With surgical precision, the summon struck—triggering the final kill condition.
[Goblin King Defeated!]
The system credited the entire party for the victory, but Raven was the one who dealt the final blow.
Briggs let out a triumphant cheer, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Nice work, everyone! Let's collect loot and head back."
Layla grumbled, "Took longer than I expected, but whatever. Good run."
One by one, the team claimed their rewards and left the boss room.
MMORPG mechanics dictated that once players left the boss instance, they could not return unless they restarted the dungeon from the front gate.
Which meant Raven was now alone.
Instead of exiting the dungeon like his party members, Raven pretended to look around, as if searching for extra loot.
When the last player disbanded from the party and teleported out, Raven sat down and waited.
He already knew what was coming.
Dungeon bosses always respawned after a set timer.
And sure enough—the Goblin King began to reform.
A mist-like energy swirled in the air as the dungeon system reconstructed the boss, resetting it to full health.
The moment the process completed, Raven acted.
[Dominion Chain Activated.]
The Goblin King let out a startled growl, its AI recognizing it had been attacked immediately upon respawn.
[Abyssal Pact Attempting Subjugation…]
The Goblin King thrashed wildly, instincts overriding its AI-bound logic. But this wasn't resistance. It was panic—a primal scramble against something it couldn't comprehend.
Raven sighed, raising a hand to maintain the chain."Pointless," he muttered. "Bone Tyrant—come."
A low rumble echoed through the cavern. The ground split apart as Bone Tyrant rose from the mist—towering, unshaken, merciless.
The Goblin King's screech cracked—not a battle cry, but a warning that came too late.
Bone Tyrant moved first.
A single colossal hand closed around the Goblin King's entire head. Slam.
The ground cracked. The Goblin King's HP bar dropped to red instantly.
Three seconds. That's all it took.
The Goblin King twitched, too broken to stand. No fight left.
Its HP flickered at 3%. The cleaver in its hands shook. The AI still recognized its objective—fight, survive. But even it knew.
There was no surviving this.
Raven closed his fingers.
[Dominion Chain Activated.]
The cursed links tightened. The Goblin King let out a final, shuddering screech—not one of defiance, but of surrender.
[Subjugation Successful.]
Raven exhaled. "Too easy."
He rolled his shoulders, barely feeling the usual MP drain. Bone Tyrant was a challenge. This? Not worth remembering.
His gaze drifted to the Goblin King, still kneeling. Still trembling.
A king in name only.
Pitiful.
The dungeon shuddered. Walls rippled—acknowledging a new master.
[Hidden System Alert: Goblin Nest has been claimed.]
[Dungeon Sovereign Detected: Adjusting Spawn Patterns.]
Raven's lips curled as the torches burned brighter, their flames tinged with eerie blue. Every goblin in the nest stopped moving—then, as one, turned toward him.
Their eyes, once mindless, now recognized their King.
Another dungeon down.The world would follow.