Kaizer ran until his lungs burned. Behind him, the clearing dissolved into chaos. Screams rose through the trees, shouts, pleading, the sound of something heavy striking flesh.

  A woman’s voice cried out for her children, then cut off abruptly. Kaizer slowed only long enough to glance over his shoulder. The forest canopy hid everything, but the noise carried far. He wanted to turn back, to help, but the truth was simple and cruel: he wasn’t a soldier or a hero. Kaizer was an overweight tech worker in a nightmare he didn’t understand. Survival meant moving forward. Guilt could wait for later, if there was a later.

  The bushland swallowed the sounds of death behind him. The smell of eucalyptus filled the air, sharp and wet after recent rain.

  Everything looked familiar, yet somehow wrong. The trees were taller, their bark darker, and the shadows under the canopy seemed to breathe.

  Insects buzzed with a faint metallic hum that made Kaizer’s teeth itch. Even the light filtering through the branches had a strange tint to it, as though the world had been stretched over something else, something vast.

  Kaizer forced himself deeper into the forest, pushing through tall weeds and tangled roots. His shoes sank into damp soil with every step. Spider webs clung to his arms and face; the bush here was too wild, too thick to move through easily. Each time a branch snapped underfoot, he froze, half expecting something to lunge at him.

  The timer, the white void, the voice in his head, all of it might have been an elaborate hallucination, but the cuts on his hands and the sweat running into his eyes felt very real.

  He kept moving forward, onwards until he could no longer hear the screams behind him. The only sound left was the rustling of leaves and his ragged breathing. For a moment, Kaizer allowed himself to stop and lean against a tree. His arms trembled. The world was silent in that way that only comes before something bad happened.

  That was when he saw the wolf.

  It stood on a small rise, half hidden behind a curtain of ferns. Its fur was a dark grey, streaked with silver light that seemed to ripple under its skin. Its eyes glowed amber in the gloom, fixed on him with the calm patience of a predator that had already chosen its meal. The wolf didn’t snarl or crouch to pounce. It simply watched, head tilted slightly to one side, as if assessing him.

  Kaizer’s heart pounded. Wolves didn’t exist in Australia. Maybe a dingo, but nothing that looked like this. The animal’s shape was too perfect, its stillness too deliberate.

  He took a step back. “Easy, boy, I’m not looking for trouble.”

  The wolf blinked once.

  Somewhere deep in his mind, a flicker of light appeared, text faint and transparent.

  Detected Entity: Lesser Wolf Familiar.

  Kaizer stared at the words until they faded. “That’s great. Fantastic.”

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  He forced himself to move again, keeping his eyes on the animal. To his surprise, it made no move to follow.

  As he passed, he could have sworn he heard a low sound, something between a growl and a laugh, but when he turned, the hill was empty.

  Kaizer pressed on, but the ground grew steeper. The forest floor slanted downward, and soon he was sliding more than walking. Roots snagged his shoes, and every branch he grabbed tore away in his hands.

  The soil gave way beneath his weight. Kaizer fell hard, tumbling through the undergrowth, smashing against rocks and stumps. The world became a blur of green and brown and pain.

  “Fuuuck!” he shouted as he tumbled faster.

  Each impact tore the breath from his lungs. He tried to dig his heels in, but the slope only grew steeper.

  A drop appeared ahead, a cliff edge hidden by mist. Panic clawed up his throat. He Kaizer grabbed at a tree root, missed, and twisted sideways. His vision blurred. The last thing he saw before going over was a shimmer of black hanging in the air below him, like a hole torn through reality.

  Kaizer didn’t hit the ground. The moment he passed through the darkness, all motion stopped. He was standing, somehow, on his feet in a cold stone chamber. His arms were covered in scratches, his knees bleeding, but otherwise, he was unharmed.

  The air smelled of dust and old metal. The walls were built from enormous slabs of grey rock, each one etched with faint symbols that glowed blue in the dim light. Kaizer’s breath echoed in the silence, and his heart refused to slow.

  “What the hell… where am I?”

  Once again, letters appeared before his eyes, crisp and mechanical.

  You have entered the Dungeon of the Wolf God.

  Conditions: Single Entrant. Exit locked until completion or death.

  Prepare yourself.

  Kaizer stared at the words, too stunned to speak. This was a dungeon, like in many of the games he played.

  “Right. Because that makes sense,” he muttered.

  He looked around. The chamber was square, maybe twenty meters across, with a single stone bench along one wall. Above it, the carvings deepened into shapes, wolves leaping through spirals of stars, jaws open, eyes carved from reflective black crystal. The light pulsed from the carvings in slow, rhythmic waves, like breathing.

  Kaizer approached the bench. On it sat a small glass sphere no larger than a marble. It emitted a faint silvery glow. When he reached toward it, another message appeared.

  Trial Initiated. Core Synchronisation Available.

  Kaizer hesitated. The last time he ignored a system prompt, it dropped him into a survival nightmare. The one before that had nearly melted his brain, but nothing seemed worse.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “Synchronise.”

  The instant his fingers touched the sphere, heat shot through his arm. His vision flared white, then red, then black. Memories, sensations, and something else, animal, ancient, and primal pushed against his thoughts.

  A low growl vibrated in his chest that wasn’t entirely his own. When the sensation faded, he was on his knees, gasping. Another message appeared, floating inches from his face.

  Core Growth Initiated.

  Path Unavailable. Transferred to Physical Attributes.

  Warning: Hostility increase detected.

  “Hostility, what now?” Kaizer forced himself upright.

  The blue light from the walls flickered. From the far end of the chamber, a sound echoed, claws scraping stone.

  His pulse spiked. “Not good.”

  Kaizer took a few shaky steps back toward the centre of the room. The temperature dropped sharply, mist pooled near the floor, the walls trembled, and a deep, resonant growl filled the space.

  He couldn’t see what was coming, but he could feel it, something large moving through the dark corridor ahead, slow and deliberate.

  The glow from the runes grew brighter, pulsing in time with the heavy footfalls that shook the floor.

  Kaizer’s breath came fast. He had nothing. No weapon, no armour, no plan. His mind raced through every game he had ever played, searching for a tutorial hint or starting item. Nothing came. All he had was fear, adrenaline, and a vague sense that running wasn’t an option.

  The shadow emerged at the edge of the light. Two golden eyes flared open, much larger than the wolf he had seen in the forest.

  The creature stepped forward, its fur shifting between shadow and silver flame. The voice that came from it was not a growl but something deeper, resonating in his mind rather than his ears.

  Prove yourself.

  Kaizer stumbled back, heart pounding. “Prove myself? To who?”

  The wolf’s gaze burned through him.

  To me.

  The chamber doors slammed shut behind him with a sound like thunder. Kaizer clenched his fists, every instinct screaming at him to run, but there was nowhere to go.

  “Alright,” he whispered. “Let’s do this.”