Dungeon Corpse Stacker: I Absorb Everything to Become Ominous Monarch
Chapter 2: The Taste of Steel

Chapter 2: Chapter 2: The Taste of Steel

The shadow behind Renan didn’t just loom—it suffocated the light.

It wasn’t a physical beast, but a dense, swirling cloud of dark violet mana, taking the vague shape of a horned, multiped horror. The sheer pressure radiated from Renan’s body, cracking the obsidian floor beneath his boots like spiderwebs.

Krrrr—

The Abyssal Arachnid shrieked, a high-pitched scraping noise of raw friction. Instincts honed over centuries as an S-Rank dungeon apex predator screamed at it to run. But its territorial pride overrode its survival reflex.

The spider lunged.

Eight hairy, armored legs moved in a blur. Its massive jaws snapped open, dripping green acid that dissolved the very air around them, lunging straight for Renan’s throat.

Renan didn’t dodge. He didn’t have to.

He planted his feet, feeling the newly forged density in his thigh muscles—the result of the Ironhide Crawler’s bone structure fused into his own.

BOOM!

The monster’s heavy head rammed into Renan like a runaway freight train. The impact sent a shockwave echoing through the cavern, shattering the remaining stalactites above. Dust and gravel rained down in sheets.

Renan stood his ground.

His boots skidded back three inches, carving deep grooves into the solid rock, but his spine remained unbroken. He held the monster’s massive mandibles apart with his bare hands, his fingers digging half an inch deep into its tough, chitinous shell. Black blood squeezed out from the punctures, hissing as it touched his skin.

[Skill Activated: Hardened Carapace (Rank-A)] [Corrosive damage reduced by 90%.]

"Is this all an S-Rank Boss has?" Renan laughed. The sound was guttural, raw, vibrating in his chest. "Leon’s party ran from this?"

The spider thrashing violently, whipping its long, barbed tail around. A sharp bone spike at the end of its tail whipped through the dark like a spear, aiming straight for Renan’s blinded side.

THWACK!

The spike slammed into Renan’s ribs.

Pain flared—hot and sharp—as two of his ribs cracked under the force of thirty tons of pressure. He spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the beast’s head.

"Soft," Renan growled, his eyes glowing with an unholy crimson light in the pitch black.

Instead of backing off, Renan tightened his grip on the mandibles and pulled.

CRACK-SPLICE!

With a brutal wrench of his shoulders, Renan ripped the monster’s left mandible clean off its face. Yellow fluid erupted like a geyser, showering his chest and face. The Arachnid screeched in agony, flailing wildly and throwing Renan backward into a pile of rubble.

Renan hit the stone wall hard, tumbling into the dark. He coughed up another stain of red, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

My stats aren’t high enough yet, Renan calculated coldly, his heart hammering against his cracked ribcage. The Ironhide Crawler gave me physical defense and raw brute force, but this thing’s speed and mass are still superior. If I fight it head-on with pure strength, I’ll bleed out before its health bar empties.

The Arachnid, half its face caved in and bleeding black bile, scrambled toward him in a frenzy of rage.

Renan’s eyes darted across the cavern floor.

Scattered around the perimeter were dozens of smaller carcasses—Spite Spinners and Corpse Weavers—the trash-tier mob monsters that Leon’s party had slaughtered on their way to the boss room. To Leon, they were useless flesh unworthy of harvesting.

To Renan, they were an endless buffet of raw power.

Renan pushed off the wall using [Agility +30], darting sideways just as the spider’s heavy body crushed the rock where he had been standing a split second prior.

He slid across the blood-slick stone, slamming his left palm onto the carcass of a Spite Spinner.

DING!

[Target: Spite Spinner (Tier-B) Corpse Detected.] [Initiating Absolute Extraction...]

The dead creature collapsed into a pile of gray dust in less than a second. A stream of emerald energy shot up Renan’s arm, pouring directly into his nervous system.

[Attributes Extracted!] [Agility +25] [Perception +15] [Skill Acquired: Active - Shadow Step (Rank-B)]

DING!

Without stopping, Renan tumbled forward, slapping his right hand onto another dead beast—a heavy-armored Grave Beetle.

[Target: Grave Beetle (Tier-A) Corpse Detected.] [Initiating Absolute Extraction...]

[Attributes Extracted!] [Strength +35] [Vitality +50] [Rib fractures fully healed!]

The pain in his chest vanished instantly. The cracked bones fused back together, stronger and denser than before.

The Arachnid turned, firing a massive wave of web strands designed to trap and paralyze its prey. The thick, sticky white ropes covered a ten-meter radius, sealing off the escape routes.

"Too slow," Renan muttered.

He activated his new skill.

[Shadow Step!]

Renan’s body melted into a streak of black smoke, passing through the air like a ghost. The web strands hit empty air, sticking harmlessly to the cavern wall.

A millisecond later, Renan materialized directly above the Abyssal Arachnid’s head, stepping out of the shadows with the ripped-off, two-meter-long mandible held like a giant spear in his hands.

"My turn," he said.

Renan drove the pointed end of the mandible downward with the combined weight of [Strength: 180].

THRUSSH!

The jagged bone spear plunged straight through the monster’s primary glowing compound eye, driving deep into its soft brain tissue. The Arachnid let out a final, shuddering death rattle. Its eight legs buckled, slamming flat against the floor as tons of muscle and armor went completely limp.

Renan dropped to the ground, landing lightly on his feet. He wiped the black gore from his forehead, breathing heavily as the massive cavern fell into a dead, terrifying silence.

DING! DING! DING!

A cascade of brilliant crimson notifications flooded his vision, illuminating the darkness.

[Target: Abyssal Arachnid (Tier-S Boss) Corpse Detected.] [High-Grade Extraction Available. Do you wish to absorb?]

Renan reached out his hand, touching the towering head of the dead boss. "Absorb everything."

[Absolute Extraction Initiated...]

A shockwave of dark purple lightning erupted from the boss’s massive body. The entire thirty-ton carcass began to disintegrate, breaking down into billions of glowing violet light particles that spiraled into Renan’s chest like a roaring vortex.

His skin burned. His bones clicked and expanded. The dark aura surrounding him thickened, turning into an oppressive, suffocating domain.

[Attributes Extracted!] [Strength +120] [Agility +90] [Vitality +110] [Mana +150] [Title Acquired: Ominous Trainee] [Skill Acquired: Active - Corrosive Aura (Rank-S)]

Renan raised his hand. A dark violet flame flickered over his fingers, melting the stone beneath his feet simply by existing. He felt the sheer, terrifying volume of power surging through his veins—he was no longer a human porter. He was a walking calamity.

TRRRRRR—

A sharp mechanical siren echoed from the ceiling of the cavern. Red warning lights, powered by dungeon mana, began to flash rapidly against the walls.

[Warning: Dungeon Boss Defeated.] [Abyssal Gate Collapse Sequence Initiated.] [Time Remaining until Gate Closure: 04:59.]

Renan turned his head toward the heavy iron portcullis at the far end of the cavern—the exit Leon had locked to seal his death.

He didn’t run. He opened his System minimap.

On the red holographic radar, four blue dots representing Leon’s party were slowly moving toward the outer extraction point near the surface, thinking they were completely safe.

"Four minutes," Renan whispered, his eyes narrowing into cold slits as he activated [Shadow Step]. "Plenty of time to collect the toll."

In the quiet corridor near the gate exit, Leon stopped in his tracks, his hair standing on end as the temperature in the tunnel dropped to absolute zero, accompanied by the faint sound of heavy, dragging footsteps behind him.