The first thing that hit their senses when their vision returned was the cold. Not the bracing frost of the snowy forest, but a grave-like, damp chill that bit to the bone, reeking of wet stone, rust, and stagnant, rotting mana. They stood in a circular stone chamber. The only source of light was the fading portal behind them. As soon as it collapsed, they were plunged into near-total darkness, broken only by a faint, sickly violet glow emanating from veins of strange moss on the walls.
"Nate? Rollo?" Lena instinctively called out, her voice amplified by her helmet’s speakers, sounding dull and flat in this stone vault.
Silence. Only the sound of dripping water somewhere in the distance. Drip. Drip. Drip.
"They aren’t here, Eli," Irina said softly.
The Priestess’s voice sounded different without the usual background noise of Nate’s chatter and the hedgehog’s commentary. It seemed clearer and, at the same time, more lonely. Irina stood leaning on her staff. The crystal at its tip began to glow, casting warm golden reflections onto the rough stonework.
"We’re on our own," she noted, looking around. Her heavy ceremonial vestments, which had looked so majestic in the Administrator’s office, seemed alien here—far too bright for this realm of shadows.
Lena removed her helmet. She needed to feel the air, to hear the slightest rustle. The air was heavy and stale. Breathing was difficult, as if oxygen were in short supply.
"‘Soul’s Dungeon’," Lena muttered, running an armoured glove along the wall. The stone was slimy. "Looks more like a sewer for unwanted files."
She checked in with her own body. The Administrator had said he’d removed the limiters on the symbiote. She could feel it. Previously, the symbiote had been a second skin, a tool, sometimes a temperamental pet. Now… now it was a beast that had been let off the lead, though still held by the collar. It wasn’t sleeping. It pulsed beneath her armour—hot, impatient, hungry. Its presence in her mind was louder. Not a whisper, but a constant low hum, demanding action, demanding flesh.
"How are you holding up?" Lena asked, turning to Irina. "Your magic?"
Irina raised her free hand. A sphere of golden flame flared in her palm—bright, pure, but with those thin black veins of the Abyss the Administrator had mentioned.
"It’s… overwhelming," Irina admitted, staring at the fire with a mix of awe and dread. "Before, I had to pull it from the System, drop by drop. Now it seethes inside me like a cauldron. I’m finding it hard to contain. I’m afraid… afraid I’ll accidentally burn the whole place down."
"Don’t be," Lena placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. "If we have to, we’ll burn it. This place doesn't look like it’s worth saving."
There was only one way out of the chamber: a narrow arched opening leading into the darkness of a corridor.
"Right then, Dragon," Lena slid her helmet back on, the visor clicking into place. "Let’s go find my ‘Titan’. Stay behind me. Light only when necessary. Let’s not draw attention before we have to."
They stepped into the corridor. It was a labyrinth. Endless tangles of narrow passages, spiral staircases leading down into even deeper darkness, and vast vaulted halls reminiscent of prison blocks. There were no cells in the traditional sense. Instead, there were niches in the walls—some sealed with rusted bars, others just gaping holes. Sounds drifted from these holes. Rustlings. Scrapes. A quiet, incoherent muttering, like a scratched record on a loop.
"...loading failed... kernel error... where is the light... cold... reboot me..."
They emerged into a long gallery. On one side was a wall of niches; on the other, a drop into a black void that reeked of damp and decay. From the nearest niche, a Body tumbled out. A creature vaguely resembling a human. Grey, parchment-like skin stretched over bone. Its eyes were vacant, milky orbs. It wore tatters that might once have been standard prison fatigues. It didn't stand. It crawled toward them, dragging its legs, leaving a slimy trail on the stones.
"...data corrupted... seeking host... give me the code..." it rasped through a toothless mouth.
[Enemy: Soulless Inmate (Lvl. 30)] [Type: Undead / Compilation Error] [Description: Discarded material. A creature devoid of the spark of life, driven only by residual search scripts.]
Behind it, others began to crawl out of the niches. Dozens of grey, broken figures. They weren't aggressive in the typical sense. They lacked a berserker’s rage or a goblin’s cunning. They held only a void, a desperate hunger to be filled. They reached out with bony hands toward the girls, like beggars asking for alms.
"Are they… are they trying to consume us?" Irina’s voice wavered.
"They want us to become like them," Lena replied hardily.
The symbiote roared in her head. It was revolted by this place, by these pathetic imitations of life. It demanded purgation.
"Don’t let them get close. Fire!"
Irina struck the ground with her staff. A wave of golden flame rolled across the gallery floor. The effect was unexpected. The inmates didn’t catch fire. The flame passed through them, and they… simply crumbled. They turned into grey ash that immediately settled on the floor.
"They’re too weak," Irina realised. "My magic doesn't burn them; it dissipates them. As if they never existed."
But there were many of them. Far too many. They swarmed from every crack, filling the corridor with a grey, moaning mass. Lena pushed forward. She didn’t need blades. She simply walked, and the symbiote did the work. Black tendrils erupted from her armour, lashing out, tearing the grey bodies to shreds. It wasn’t a battle; it was a cleanup operation. Dirty, monotonous work.
They fought through this stream of despair for nearly an hour.
"Eli, stop," Irina halted, breathing heavily. Not from physical exhaustion, but from the moral weight of it. "I can’t burn them anymore. They… they might have been people once. The Administrator tried to create them."
Lena stopped and removed her helmet, wiping away sweat.
"He tried. And he failed. These aren't people, Ira. They’re defects. Errors in the code that took shape. Pitying them is like pitying a virus in a computer."
"But they’re suffering."
"They can’t suffer. They have no souls. This is just an echo."
Lena looked into the empty sockets of the nearest crawling creature.
"The Administrator said this place was his failure. Now I see. He created a hell out of his own mistakes."
They found a relatively safe nook—a dead-end chamber with a heavy door that Lena blocked with a piece of stone. They needed a breather. Not so much physical as mental. The silence following the moans of the Soulless rang in their ears.
Irina sat on the stone floor, tucking the heavy train of her vestments beneath her. She looked spent. The golden light of her staff dimmed, illuminating only her face and a small circle around her. Lena remained standing by the entrance, listening to the corridor. The symbiote was displeased by the stop. It wanted to move, to kill, to grow. She had to strain to keep it in check.
"It’s quiet without them," Irina said suddenly, staring at the crystal’s flame.
"Without who?" Lena asked, absorbed in the mental struggle with her own "suit," which was becoming increasingly insistent.
"Without Nate. And Rollo," Irina shivered, pulling her shoulders in despite the warmth of her priestly vestments. "They’re noisy. Alive. It was… easier with them. Like being at a convention."
Lena hummed in agreement, leaning her back against the cold wall and pulling off her helmet. She needed to catch her breath.
"Conventions…" she murmured with a bitter smirk. "You know, I was just thinking. We’ve known each other for… what? Four years? Since that IgroMir where you were dressed as an elf archer and I was Commander Shepard."
Irina gave a weak smile at the memory, her fingers tracing the gold embroidery on her sleeve.
"Four years, yeah. I was only just starting then. I was fifteen, and I looked at your armour like it was a wonder of the world. It took me half an hour to work up the courage to come over and ask how you’d made the articulated joints on the knees."
"And I spent an hour and a half giving you a lecture on thermoplastics and hinges," Lena nodded. "Then we added each other and spent years messaging."
She turned her head to look at Irina. In the dim light of the crystal, the girl’s face looked incredibly young, almost childlike, despite the exhaustion and the majestic crown.
"Four years, Ira. Hundreds of messages. And what did we actually talk about?"
Irina lowered her eyes.
"Patterns. Where to find cheap wigs. Which glue holds EVA foam the best. Deadlines before a show."
"Exactly," Lena’s voice dropped, the hardness fading into deep regret. "We talked about masks. How to make them, how to wear them. But we never talked about who was underneath them."
Lena slid down the wall and sat on the cold floor opposite Irina, stretching out her heavy boots.
"It never even crossed my mind to ask what your life was like once you took the ears off and washed the make-up away. I knew 'Ryu_Cosplay', the talented crafter. I didn’t know Irina. You’re only nineteen, for god's sake. You’re just a kid."
Irina flared up. "I’m not a kid! I’m in my third year at uni…"
"You know what I mean," Lena interrupted gently. "I’m ten years older than you. I should have been the grown-up. Instead, I acted like… like some NPC merchant handing out crafting quests."
Irina stayed quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts.
"It’s my fault too," she said softly. "I was scared. You always seemed so… adult. So sure of yourself. 'Elena Nikolaevna, the serious professional.' I felt like if I started talking about my problems at uni, or my parents who think my hobby is nonsense, or how lonely I am in the real world… you’d just laugh. Or think I was small and stupid."
She gripped her staff so hard her knuckles turned white.
"Cosplay was my shield. At the cons, in those chats—I belonged. I was someone. But in reality… I’m just Ira, the girl who’s too scared to raise her hand in a seminar. I hid behind the characters so no one could see what a coward I actually am."
Lena listened, feeling a growing sense of shame. Shame for her blindness, for the professional cynicism she’d used to wall herself off from the world.
"We’re both as bad as each other," Lena leaned her head back against the stone. "You think I’m that confident? That’s armour too, Ira. Not made of plastic, but of sarcasm and a business-like tone. I hide behind my job, behind the numbers, behind the 'Iron Lady' persona, all so I don’t have to admit to myself that my life is an empty flat and a twenty-year mortgage. Cosplay was my only way to feel alive, strong… like someone who could save the galaxy, rather than just balance a quarterly return."
They looked at one another. For the first time in four years, they didn't see chat handles or costumed characters, but two real, tired, lonely women trapped in a digital hell.
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"We’re absolute muppets," Irina noted, her voice carrying an unexpectedly mature tone. "We could have been real friends all these years. Supporting each other with more than just 'likes' on costume photos. We had to get thrown into a mad Administrator’s prison just to have a human conversation."
"I regret it," Lena said sincerely. She reached out an armoured hand and covered Irina’s hand on the staff. "Honestly. I’d give a lot to go back and, instead of a lecture on glue, just ask you out for a coffee to chat about blokes or uni."
"It’s not too late," Irina looked up at her. The fear was gone, replaced by resolve. "We’re here. We’re alive. And we aren't hiding behind masks anymore. Even if we are wearing these ridiculous outfits."
"Right," Lena felt a surge of warmth that had nothing to do with the symbiote. "Elena and Irina. The accountant and the student. Let’s get out of here and go for that coffee. In the real world."
"I’ll hold you to that," Irina gave a faint smile. "But first, we need to kick the Dark Abbot’s arse."
"Oh, definitely. That’s a job I’ll take particular pleasure in."
Lena stood and donned her helmet. The visor clicked into place, but now, behind that featureless mask was a living person who knew exactly what she was fighting for.
"Let’s go, mate. The deeper we go, the darker it gets."
They stepped back into the corridor. But something had shifted. They were no longer just combat units; they were allies who knew each other's real names. And that knowledge, strangely enough, provided more strength than any System buff.
The labyrinth changed as they pressed deeper. Simple stone corridors gave way to something more industrial and far more macabre. The walls were lined with rusted metal sheeting. The ceilings vanished into darkness, from which hung chains with hooks and strange, cage-like structures. This was the Experiment Sector.
They passed gargantuan glass vats filled with a murky yellowish fluid. Inside floated… failures. Distorted bodies, mixtures of flesh and metal, creatures with multiple heads or extra limbs. They didn't move, but their open, dead eyes seemed to track the girls' progress.
"He was trying to create life," Irina whispered, staring in horror at a two-headed embryo in a jar. "But he only ever made monsters."
"Because he created without love," Lena replied. "He created out of despair. And despair only breeds ugliness."
The enemies changed here too. The Soulless Inmates vanished, replaced by Overseers. These weren't the Grey Golems from the Tower; they were more primitive, cruder. Massive seven-foot figures encased in rusted, riveted armour that had fused with their flesh. They had no faces—only enclosed helmets with narrow slits that leaked the same violet light as the moss. They were armed with instruments of subjugation: massive man-catchers, hooked chains, and heavy spiked clubs.
[Enemy: Soulless Overseer (Lvl. 35)] [Type: Construct / Guardian] [Feature: Does not feel pain. Obeys only the Abbot’s commands. Task: Containment and suppression.]
They didn't attack in a mindless swarm. They worked together like a machine. The first skirmish happened in a wide hall filled with empty operating tables. Three Overseers emerged from side passages, blocking the way.
"Perimeter breach," one of them ground out in a voice like crushing stones. "Subject requires isolation."
"Isolate this," Lena bolted forward.
The symbiote hungered for a worthy opponent. Lena transformed her hands into heavy hammers. WHAM! The first Overseer took the blow on its shield. An ear-splitting clang echoed. The construct was thrown back a few metres, but stayed on its feet. Its armour was thick. The second Overseer lashed out with a chain, the hook coiling around Lena’s leg. A sharp yank sent Lena to one knee, her armour scraping across the stone.
"Eli!" Irina joined the fray. "DRAGON FLAME!"
A jet of golden fire struck the Overseer with the chain. The armour began to glow white-hot. The construct didn't make a sound, but its movements slowed. The third Overseer, ignoring the fire, advanced on Irina, raising a massive club.
"Shield!" Irina struck her staff against the floor. A golden dome erupted around her, absorbing a blow that could have levelled a wall. The shield shuddered but held.
Lena, freeing herself from the chain (the symbiote simply bit through the links by growing blades on her leg), scrambled up.
"My turn!"
She didn't strike. She leaped onto the first Overseer’s back. The symbiote covering her body became fluid, flowing into the cracks of the enemy's rusted armour.
"System breach!" Lena growled.
The construct began to convulse. The black sludge forced its way inside, tearing connections, breaking primitive mechanisms, and replacing its 'nervous system.' A second later, the Overseer went still. Then, its helmet turned slowly toward its comrades. The violet light in the slits shifted to an aggressive red.
"Target updated," it gurgled, and brought its shield down on the second Overseer’s head.
"Blimey," Irina blinked in surprise while maintaining the shield. "Did you… reprogram it?"
"I ate it from the inside," Lena replied coldly, jumping off the golem she now controlled. "The symbiote is a fast learner."
With the help of "their" Overseer, they made short work of the rest. Lena felt a strange satisfaction. Not just from winning, but from the total control. it was frighteningly pleasant.
"Are you alright?" Irina asked as the last enemy collapsed into a heap of scrap metal.
"Yeah," Lena looked at her hands, which were dripping with black slime. "But he’s… he’s getting more demanding. He wants more enemies like that. He wants a challenge."
"We’ll find them soon," Irina said, pointing her staff forward.
The corridor ended in a set of gargantuan gates, ten metres high, forged from black iron and adorned with bas-reliefs of suffering faces. A chill of such profound despair radiated from the gates that even Irina’s dragon aura seemed to huddle closer to her. Behind these doors lay the Heart of the Dungeon—the place where the Administrator had conducted his most pivotal, most horrific experiments. And there, the Master of this place awaited them. The one the Administrator had left to watch over his graveyard. The Dark Abbot.
They approached the gates. Lena and Irina exchanged a look. There was no longer any appraisal of costumes or levels in that glance. There was only understanding: Elena and Irina would go in there together. And they would emerge either as a Titan and a Dragon, or not at all. Lena placed both of her hammer-hands against the gate leaves and began to push. With a long, soul-piercing groan, like the cry of a thousand captives, the gates began to swing open, releasing a darkness thicker than anything they had ever seen.
The massive black gates concealing the Heart of the Dungeon creaked open with an ear-splitting screech. Beyond them, there was no floor—only a narrow bridge slung across an abyss filled with swirling violet mist. And in the very centre of this void, on a floating platform, stood a throne. The throne was constructed of skulls and rusted chains. Seated upon it was the Master of this place. The Dark Abbot.
He looked nothing like a human. He was a gargantuan, hunched creature draped in tattered robes, beneath which one could glimpse a tangle of rotting flesh and rusted metal. In place of a face, there was only a hooded void, from which two burning violet eyes, full of ancient malice, stared out at them. In his clawed hands, he gripped a massive staff topped with a cage, within which thrashed a glob of agonizing energy—the soul of the Administrator’s very first and most failed experiment.
[LOCATION BOSS: Dark Abbot, Devourer of Failures (Lvl. 55)] > [Type: Undead / Construct / Psy-mage] > [Special Feature: Feeds on despair. Controls the Soulless. Invulnerable to ordinary attacks while the Soul Shield is active.]
A ring of ghostly, howling faces swirled around him—the souls he had consumed over the centuries of his existence. They formed an impenetrable barrier.
"You have come..." The voice had no source; it vibrated directly inside their heads, inducing nausea and a splitting headache. "New toys for my panopticon. Fresh flesh. Fresh despair."
"We aren't toys," Irina stepped forward, striking the stones of the bridge with her staff. Golden light dispelled the violet mist around them. "We’ve come to rid this place of your presence."
"Freedom?" The Abbot laughed, a sound like metal scraping across glass. "There is no freedom here. Only eternal service. You shall become part of my choir."
He raised his staff. The violet light within the cage flared.
"RISE, MY CHILDREN! WELCOME YOUR SISTERS!"
From the abyss below and the niches in the walls of the vast hall, the Soulless Overseers began to ascend. Hundreds of rusted golems, screeching as they climbed chains and leaped onto floating platforms, surrounding Lena and Irina.
"There’s too many of them!" Lena shouted, activating her symbiote-blades. "Ira, hold the centre! I’ll cover you! We need to break through to the Abbot!"
The battle commenced—a fight on a narrow bridge and swaying platforms suspended over nothingness. Lena was a whirlwind of death. Sensing a worthy threat, the symbiote worked at its absolute limit. Her blades hacked through the metal and flesh of the Overseers, casting them into the abyss. She leaped using her hooks, dodging swipes from man-catchers and chains. Irina was the heart of the defence. Golden flame incinerated any enemies that tried to draw too close. She conjured shields, parrying the Abbot’s magical attacks as he hurled bolts of dark energy at them.
"You are strong," the Abbot hissed, seeing his army thin out. "But your strength nourishes me. Your fear is my sustenance."
He began to grow. Consuming the soul energy from his shield, he increased in size. The throne beneath him crumbled to dust. He stood up, his head reaching the ceiling of the hall. He was now a giant the size of a ten-storey building, looming over them.
"DO YOU SEE NOW?" the voice became deafening. "YOU ARE NOTHING IN THE FACE OF ETERNITY!"
He swung his gargantuan cage-staff. The blow was aimed directly at the bridge where they stood.
"Scatter!" Lena commanded.
They leaped in opposite directions. The bridge shattered into fragments. Lena managed to latch a hook onto a passing platform and hung there, dangling over the abyss. Irina landed on another platform, but the Abbot had already spotted her.
"PRIESTESS. YOUR SOUL SHINES BRIGHTER THAN THE OTHERS. I WANT IT."
Dozens of rusted chains erupted from his robes. They were as fast as serpents. Irina tried to burn them away, but they were protected by dark magic. The chains coiled around her arms, legs, and waist.
"No!" she screamed, struggling to break free.
The chains jerked taut. They hoisted her into the air, stretching her out in a star shape between two columns. Her staff fell from her hands and plummeted into the void.
"IRA!" Lena, hanging from her platform, saw it all.
The Abbot leaned in toward his captive.
"NOW YOU ARE MINE. I SHALL DRINK YOUR LIGHT."
The violet glow of his eyes drew close to Irina’s face. She shrieked in agony—not physical, but spiritual. He began to drain the life from her. Her golden aura began to dim.
"NO!" Lena hauled herself onto the platform.
She watched as her friend—a person she had only just truly come to know—suffered. And she could do nothing. Her blades were useless against a giant protected by a soul shield. She was too small. Too weak.
"I won't allow it..." she whispered. "I won't lose you. Not here. Not like this."
The symbiote within her went still. It was listening. It felt her despair, her rage, her desperate need to protect.
‘Do you want power, Elena?’ a voice echoed in her head. Not the System’s voice, not the Administrator’s. It was the voice of the Symbiote. Deep, ancient, predatory.
‘Yes,’ she replied mentally.
‘Are you prepared to accept me fully? To become one? Not host and guest, but partners?’
‘Yes! Give me the power to save her! I’ll do anything!’
‘Then… let yourself go. And embrace the Abyss.’
Lena closed her eyes. She stopped fighting the symbiote, stopped holding it back. She opened her mind, her body. And the Abyss flooded into her. It was pain. A pain that tore through every cell, reconfiguring every bone. But it was also power. Her body began to change. Her Agent Vector armour split apart, unable to withstand the pressure.
"ELI!" Irina, drifting toward unconsciousness, saw it through a veil of pain.
Lena was growing. The symbiote absorbed the matter around it—stones, the metal of the platforms, the very air—and constructed a new body from it. Massive. Monstrous. She became a Titan. Twenty metres of pure, black, pulsing might. Her body was encased in armour of chitin and metal; gargantuan spikes grew from her back. Her arms transformed into massive hammer-claws. She had no face—only a smooth mask with a burning red visor. And yes, the System, true to its perverted algorithms, did not miss its chance. Even in Titan form, Lena remained female. Hypertrophied yet recognisable curves of hips and chest, encased in black bio-armour, made the image not only terrifying but strangely alluring, like a dark goddess statue brought to life.
[SYSTEM: CONGRATULATIONS! SUBCLASS UNLOCKED: TITAN SYMBIOTE!] > [Level Up! Current Level: 40!]
Titan Lena raised her head and looked at the Abbot, who was now her own height.
"LET HER GO, YOU MONSTER."
The voice was like the roar of a rockfall. The Abbot recoiled, releasing Irina. She hung limp in the chains, barely alive.
"WHAT ARE YOU?!" the Abbot roared. "THIS CANNOT BE! YOU ARE BREAKING THE RULES!"
"I AM THE RULE."
Lena took a step. The platform beneath her groaned and cracked. She swung. Her hammer-hand slammed into the Abbot’s Soul Shield.
KABOOM!
The impact was so immense that the entire underground complex shuddered. The Soul Shield, which had seemed impenetrable, shattered. The ghostly faces shrieked and were scattered to the winds.
"IMPOSSIBLE! MY DEFENCES!"
"YOUR DEFENCES ARE DUST."
Lena seized the Abbot by the throat (или whatever served as one) with her other claw-hand. Rusted metal and rotting flesh crunched beneath her grip. She hoisted him above her head like a doll.
"THIS IS FOR IRINA. AND FOR EVERYONE YOU TORTURED HERE."
With violent force, she hurled him downwards into the abyss. The Abbot plummeted through the mist and slammed into the floor of the hall, which was bristling with spikes. His body was torn asunder. The violet light in his eyes vanished.
[BOSS DEFEATED!]
The Soulless Overseers, deprived of their master, froze and crumbled into dust. Lena-Titan turned toward Irina. Delicately, using two fingers of her gargantuan claw, she snapped the chains holding her friend. Irina tumbled into her massive palm. She looked so small, so fragile against that black, looming power.
"Eli..." Irina whispered, opening her eyes. "You’re... you’re gargantuan. And... beautiful."
Lena gently lowered her onto the remaining platform.
"I’m a Titan, Ira. And I won't let anyone hurt you ever again."
She began to shrink. The symbiote retracted—reluctantly, yet obediently—restoring her human form. She was Lena once more, clad in her Agent Vector armour, though now the plating felt like a second skin and the symbiote within like a faithful hound, ready to tear anyone apart on her command.
"Let’s get out of here," Lena said, helping Irina to her feet. The priestess’s voice was faint, but a golden fire was kindling in her eyes once more.
Irina leaned on her friend’s arm, feeling not cold metal beneath her fingertips, but the pulsing warmth of a living force.
"You saved me," she said softly, still struggling to believe what she’d seen. "You’ve become... incredible."
"We saved each other, Ira. Just as we agreed."
In the centre of the shattered hall, where the Abbot’s throne of skulls had stood only moments before, a violet vortex now pulsed—the exit portal. It beckoned with the promise of a return to the Administrator’s office.
They approached the edge of the energy rift. The tomb-like chill of the Soul Dungeon still clawed at their shoulders, trying to hold them back, but a new fire now burned within them, capable of dispelling any darkness. In Lena, the heavy, black fire of the Titan; in Irina, the fierce, golden flame of the Dragon.
"I want to see the sky," Lena said, staring into the vortex. "And have that coffee we talked about. In the real world."
"We will," Irina replied, her grip on Lena’s hand tightening as her strength returned. "But first, we have to finish this game. Nate and Rollo are waiting. And so is the Final Boss."
"Yes. It’s time to end this."
They didn't look back at the ruins of the dungeon. There was nothing left for them there; they had taken the only things of value—their power and their friendship. They stepped into the violet flames of the portal together, shoulder to shoulder, leaving behind the dead world and their old fears, ready to face whatever awaited them on the other side.