How to Get Girls, Get Rich, and Rule the World (Even If You're Ugly)

I ran.

Not out of strategy. Not out of courage.I ran because my body already knew that staying meant getting torn apart.

The sounds behind me weren't footsteps — they were claws scraping stone, bones grinding against each other. A chorus of creaks, thuds, and dry snaps closing in with steady rhythm.

I turned left, lungs on fire. The tunnel narrowed, the ceiling dropped in carved stone arches. The floor was made of slick plates, full of dry moss and faded inscriptions that felt like they were watching me as I passed. The walls... they trembled. Just enough to make you question if your heart skipped or if the cave did.

There was energy in the air. Not magic. Something older. Something alive.

The fungus light began to fade as I descended — and yes, I was descending. The corridor sloped downward in a spiral so subtle it was almost cruel. Pulling me deeper, below where anything should live.

Short breaths. Tensed arms. A brain doing its best to stay sane.

A crack in the right wall revealed an ancient window, no glass, open to a collapsed chamber — inside, small stone statuettes faced the wall, like they were being punished. Or like they had seen something they shouldn't have.

I didn't stop. Didn't ask questions.

I crossed a narrow stone bridge over a silent abyss. No wind. No echo. Just darkness. Pure, endless, hungry dark. Behind me, footsteps echoed in chaotic rhythms — wet, panting breaths — if that thing was alive, it shouldn't be.

That's when the system chimed in: