OP Absorption
Chapter 64: The New Boss

Chapter 64: The New Boss

Arachne watched it happen.

Her mind shattered. Her Queen. Her goddess. The absolute power she had served, feared, worshipped her entire existence... erased. With a snap. Like snuffing out a candle.

A strangled sound tore from her throat, a mixture of a scream and a sob. Primal grief and rage surged through her, an instinctive urge to lash out, to avenge, to do something.

She started to push herself forward, claws scraping against the stone, murder burning in her six eyes—

But instinct screamed louder.

Every fiber of her altered being shrieked DANGER DEATH STOP. The presence of the Admin wasn’t just powerful; it felt fundamentally wrong, like staring into an abyss that stared back with cold indifference. To move against him wasn’t just suicide; it felt like inviting utter annihilation, erasure from existence itself.

She froze again, trembling violently, tears streaming down her face, trapped between impossible grief and paralyzing, existential terror.

The admin hadn’t even looked at her.

He smoothed his suit jacket, completely ignoring the spot where the Queen of Spiders had ceased to exist moments before. His cold, flat eyes turned back to Fin.

"You’re welcome, by the way," he said, his voice suddenly shifting, losing its robotic edge, becoming almost... casual. Conversational. "If you’d actually fought her properly, she would have killed you."

Fin tilted his head, "Huh? What are you talking about? We were equal."

The Admin actually chuckled. A dry, humorless sound, but undeniably a chuckle. "Riiiight." He rolled his eyes, a disturbingly human gesture. "But you see, she was just toying with you. That little bone stick? She could have ended you five different ways before you blinked if she truly wanted to cut loose."

He clapped his hands together once, a sharp sound in the silence. "Anyways! Fun as this is, I’m heading back. Lots of paperwork after an unscheduled termination like that, you know?"

He started to fade, reality shimmering around him like heat haze. "Oh! And for interrupting your fight and, you know, the whole ’existential dread’ info dump? Consider this a gift."

And he vanished. Gone.

Fin stood alone in the vast, silent throne room, the echoes of impossible power fading.

’What the hell?’

The thought echoed in the cold clarity of his mind. ’Was that even the same Admin from moments ago? Why did his whole vibe, his way of talking, suddenly just... change?’

He looked down at his right hand. The humming blade flickered once, then dissolved into nothing, the light retreating back into the intricate symbol etched onto his skin.

"So she was still stronger, huh..." he murmured, the monotone flat. He glanced down at the inert bone scythe lying discarded on the floor. Maybe the Admin was right. It felt wrong to admit, but the power behind Requiem had been terrifying.

’I guess the Admin couldn’t sense ’that’, then?’ He thought, a flicker of something other than cold logic passing through him. Deep within his chest, nestled beside the integrated Mana Cell and the original Silver Core, something else pulsed faintly. A new core he had instinctively formed during the revival, forged from the sheer overload of energies, something entirely different. He hadn’t activated it. Hadn’t even known how.

It remained hidden. Unseen by the Queen. Unseen, apparently, by the Admin.

His gaze shifted across the hall to the only other living being. Arachne. She stared back, huddled against the wall, trembling, her multiple eyes wide with terror and confusion. He felt the faint, persistent connection between them, unbroken.

"Oh," he said, the word flat, empty. "You’re still alive, huh."

Before he could decide what, if anything, to do about her, a searing heat bloomed in the center of his chest.

"Ugh! What the hell?"

He gasped, clutching at his tunic. The pain wasn’t debilitating, more like being branded with white-hot iron. It faded as quickly as it came, leaving a tingling warmth behind.

He pulled down the collar of his tunic, looking at his chest.

Where the Hana’s fatal wound had been, a new mark now resided. It wasn’t the glowing green circuitry. This was different. A deep crimson, almost black symbol burned into his skin. A complex spiral, interwoven with shapes that looked disturbingly like sharpened spikes... or maybe fangs.

"What the hell is this?" he muttered, tracing the intricate design.

Arachne pushed herself away from the wall, stumbling forward a few steps before her legs gave out. She collapsed onto the floor, weak and drained, but her eyes were fixed on the mark on his chest.

"That’s..." she choked out, her voice rough with tears and exhaustion. "That’s the Mark... of Dominance."

"The what now?" He looked from the mark back to her, confusion warring with the Mana Cell’s cold processing.

"It means..." She swallowed hard, pushing herself up slightly on trembling arms. "It means this dungeon... this domain... it belongs to you now." She gestured weakly around the empty throne room. "Probably... probably a gift from that Admin."

He stared at her, then at the mark, then around the silent, empty hall filled with the ghosts of slain spiders and a murdered Queen.

"What the hell...?" he breathed, the sheer absurdity finally cracking through his enhanced composure.

Arachne slumped back down, letting out a shaky, hysterical giggle that bordered on a sob. "I know, right? A human... ruling a dungeon." Her voice was filled with utter disbelief. "Makes no sense."

The silence settled, broken only by Arachne’s ragged breathing. Fin stared at the Mark of Dominance burned onto his chest, then back at the spider-girl collapsed on the floor.

"Okay," he said, his voice flat, the Mana Cell processing the absurdity. "Explain. Dungeon boss? Mark of Dominance?"

She pushed herself up again, leaning weakly against the smooth stone. The immediate terror had subsided slightly, replaced by a deep weariness and the strange calm the connection to he provided.

"Dungeon Lords, Bosses... whatever term you humans use," she began, her voice raspy. "They are granted authority over a designated domain by the Administrators."

"They maintain the dungeon’s structure, command the lesser inhabitants, act as the final challenge." She gestured vaguely. "They can shape the landscape, create structures, manage the flow of mana... to a degree. Within the limits set by the Admins."

Limits. Always limits.

"So," he asked, the logical conclusion forming in his mind. "Am I one of them now? Is my job to sit here and wait for Hunters to kill?" The thought felt... empty. Pointless.

Arachne frowned, her multiple eyes focusing intently on the spiral mark on his chest again. She tilted her head, studying its complex, fang-like edges.

"It’s... different," she murmured. "The Queen’s mark was simpler. More... imposed. This one feels..." She struggled for the word. "Integrated."

She looked up, meeting his blank gaze. "Do you feel it? An urge? A compulsion to kill intruders? Specifically humans?"

He processed the question. He searched within himself, past the cold logic, past the hum of power.

"The fuck? No." The answer was immediate, absolute. He felt nothing like that. Just emptiness, power, and a confusing tangle of shattered worldviews.

She nodded slowly, seeming to confirm something for herself. "Then no. You’re not a Boss."

She slumped back slightly, relief mixing with her confusion. "It seems... you just received your own personal pocket world. A private domain. That Admin’s ’gift’. A space only you can control, maybe only you can enter."

"And that mark is just what it sounds like. Dominance. Ownership. Nothing inherently to do with being a ’boss monster’."

He stared at her. Pocket world? Personal domain? It was another layer of impossible complexity. He watched Arachne, really watched her. The way she spoke, the knowledge she possessed...

"How do you know so much about this stuff?" he asked, the question cutting through his processing. "Admins, bosses, marks..."

She blinked, looking slightly surprised by the question. A faint flush touched her pale cheeks.

"I... I read," she admitted quietly. "For thousands of years. The Queen had... extensive libraries. Archives gathered from countless failed incursions, fragments of knowledge left behind." She shrugged weakly. "There wasn’t much else to do between cycles. So... yeah."

He processed this new data point. Millennia. Reading. Libraries.

"...Uhuh," he said aloud, his expression unchanging.

’So,’ the thought formed with cold clarity in his mind, ’a nerd.’