Within a small, cramped room, containing a small bunk bed, a kitchen at the side, and a complete gaming TV set filling up the only remaining living space. To Abel, this was a barely affordable living space that should not be called a home.

But to a landlord, this was the house with the highest profit margin.

So, in order to keep up with paying his bills apart from his full-time job, Abel took a side gig to become a streamer. He sat on his gaming chair, 18 hours a day, two or three times a week, playing games, recording his daily life and making it interesting to gain donations.

He hoped that he could make it big someday. He has only managed to gain 300 Rubies in the past four months since he started his streaming.

"Okay, guys, the stream is about to start," Abel said, adjusting his headset and mic. He arranged the camera to show his poor living space.

He sighed tiredly at his viewers’ count, seeing as they were only 13 people watching.

Abel turned on the countdown as the game, ’Guns of War’, turned on.

3...2...1....

BOOMM!!

Suddenly, his room shook, almost knocking him out of his chair, but he held tightly onto his chair arms, steadying himself.

"An earthquake!"

Abel gasped in shock.

The fan ripped out from the ceiling due to the rippling aftershock and fell down right close to the table, along with a hanging wire, charged with electrical energy. It collided with the spinning fan.

CRACKLEE!! CRACKLEE!!

Abel scurried under the table, pulling his feet to avoid getting caught in the electric current.

Unfortunately, the moment the wire struck the spinning fan once more, it unexpectedly curved under the table and hit Abel’s leg.

"AARRRGHHH!!!"

A painful scream tore from Abel’s lips as electric current shot through his nerves and spread across his body. He collapsed to the ground, his body spasming in pain.

Just as Abel lamented that if this was how he was going to die, a blue holographic screen appeared.

[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]

[Host Identified]

[Final Boss Persona System Installed.]

"A system.." Abel was unable to complete his words before he went unconscious.

---

Abel awoke to the sound of beeping and the thick smell of medicine.

"Where am I?" he asked drowsily.

"He’s awake," a feminine voice resonated in Abel’s ears.

He turned in the direction of the voice.

It was a woman dressed in a white scrub dress. Standing beside her was a man wearing a white coat.

Abel swiftly realised that he was in a hospital.

"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked.

"Not good. I can’t feel my legs," Abel shook his head.

"You don’t need to worry. Your legs are still intact. The shock had left you temporarily unable to feel your legs. You’ll regain the feeling within a few days and will be able to walk properly within a few weeks," the doctor responded.

He gestured at the nurse to check his readings as he continued speaking. "Honestly, it’s a miracle that you’re still alive. They weren’t able to find a live pulse on you when you were found. It was only a few minutes after you were brought to the hospital. You’re a lucky man."

The nurse nodded at the doctor with a sigh of relief.

"The nurse will ask you a few questions. Please answer them truthfully," the doctor replied.

Abel nodded, understanding that they simply wanted to confirm his identity and check his current condition.

After receiving Abel’s agreement, the doctor sighed in relief. "I’ll be taking my leave then," he said. He nodded at the nurse before turning around and exiting the room.

"First of all, let’s start by taking an in-depth look at your current condition," the nurse said, taking a cardboard clipboard with pages and a pen attached to it from under the tray beside her as she drew a stool closer to the table and sat down.

Abel truthfully answered all her questions.

It took fifteen minutes before the questioning was over.

"I’ll be handing this over to the authorities, and they will come over here sometime later to confirm your identity. You should take your time and recover, Mr Abel. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to press this bell beside your bed. I’ll be taking my leave," the nurse said.

She placed the notebook underneath the moving tray with the other equipment placed on top, then turned around and exited the room.

Hearing the sound of the door shut, Abel sighed in relief.

After a brief hesitation, he muttered, "System."

Instantly, a holographic blue screen appeared before him.

[Congratulations, you’ve awakened the Final Boss Persona System.]

Abel pinched his wrist tightly. "OUCH!" he gasped in pain.

However, the blue holographic screen was still present.

"It’s real," Abel exclaimed before he closed his mouth shut with his hands. Realising that he was the only one in the room, he sighed in relief.

It would have been problematic if someone had uncovered his newfound secret.

Abel was a transmigrator. He had transmigrated into this world after being hit by a speeding truck on his way home.

This world was unlike his previous world. Fifty years ago, the apocalypse descended upon the world. The rules of reality were overturned, and humanity entered a new age of universal magical awakening.

The monsters known to only exist within imagination emerged in real life, and inter-dimensional portals leading to horrific lands known as dungeons ran rampant.

Cosmic entities descended to play their games as Patrons. Horrors and treasures coexisted. Danger and opportunity walked hand in hand. They were countless. A vast portion of the Earth had become uninhabitable. The only places humanity could live were interconnected safe zones known as Cities.

Only by undergoing an awakening and becoming a Hunter could one become capable of defeating monsters and conquering dungeons, and make a difference in the world.

These awakeners were also known as the ’Golden Age Streamers.’

They livestream dungeon raids for fame, money, and power. Danger has become a life and death battle mixed with entertainment, turning every dungeon run just another show.

As long as an awakener was able to garner the attention of the public or divine beings, they received coins as donations from viewers. Hunters used the coins to increase their strength, transforming into powerful awakeners.

And below that ladder, there were the unawakened. And Abel was one of them.

He couldn’t awaken his supernatural abilities, so he couldn’t become a Golden Age Streamer. He could only stream on his gaming PC, utilising the supernatural abilities of non-living entities within the four corners of a screen.

It was pathetic!

Abel guessed that his viewers were also unawakeners who didn’t possess the qualifications to participate in the Golden Age Streams and couldn’t bear to be confronted with their own disappointed lives. So they turned to his, which was much worse.

[Would you like to activate the Final Boss Persona System? Yes/No]

Without thinking or waiting for a moment, Abel said, "Yes."

"Arrghh!" Suddenly, Abel felt a headache.

A series of commands and information about how to utilise the system flowed into his mind.

[Final Boss Persona will be assigned in ten seconds... 10... 9... 8... 0]

Abel’s vision immediately went black. He slumped on his bed.

**

[Final Boss Persona Assigned.]

[Final Boss Identity: Warden of Burial Mine]

[Level One Dungeon: Blacklung Burial Mine]

"Arghh! " Abel grabbed his head. He looked at the holographic status screen before his eyes.

"Where am I?"

Suddenly, he froze, realising that something was wrong. He looked at his hand.

It was covered in worn and dirty bandages.

This wasn’t his hand. And the attire he was currently wearing wasn’t his either.

The voice he had spoken with wasn’t his, either!

He surveyed his current environment. He was currently seated in a small office on a chair, with a table before him. There were piles of mining equipment and buckets stacked together on either side of the wall beside him. However, they were all covered in dust and spider webs.

Even the four corners of the office walls looked like a cavern; alongside the shelves, pictures, and other decorations, were covered in dust and spiderwebs. There was only one flickering candle burning on the table, casting a dim light down on the room.

Was this truly a dungeon?

Was he truly its final boss?

It was as though he were a mummy in an underground shelter.

"Status," Abel said.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ Name: Abel Gregory]

[ Race: Human ]

[ Age: 20 ]

[Talent: Final Boss Persona [???] ]

[Level: 0]

[Strength: F ]

[Mana: F ]

[Agility: F ]

[Physique: F ]

[Dexterity: C+]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Attribute: None ]

[Skills: None]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

This was his status sheet. An interface which only Hunters could possess, but thanks to the Final Boss Persona System, he could now access it, obtaining the opportunity to become a Hunter.

Among Hunters, those who possessed unique talents were treated differently because they were unique and rare. Any of them was bound to become a high-ranking and powerful Hunter depending on the type of Unique Talent they awakened.

Seeing the unique talent that he had awakened, Abel wasn’t surprised by the question marks, which, according to his gaming knowledge, were another word for ’cannot be comprehended’, or in simpler terms, ’overpowered’.

He also wasn’t surprised by his status. He was a normal human being who spent his life in the rat race mixed with superhuman opponents. Only his dexterity seemed abnormally high. As a gaming professional, Abel understood the reason.

"Final Boss Status," he said.

Instantly, the holographic status screen vanished, and a new one appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Final Boss Persona: Warden of Burial Mine]

Dungeon Level: 1

Boss Level: 1 (Role-Bound)

[Strength: D+]

[Mana: D]

[Agility: C-]

[Physique: D+]

[Dexterity: C]

[Attribute: Earth/Decay]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Skills:

Chain Throw:(D+): You can throw a weapon tethered by a chain to strike a target at range.

Rupture Decay[D+]: Each strike causes increased bleeding and decay on wounds.

Heart of the Mine (SS): The boss’s heart is hidden deep within the cavern. The body is only a vessel. You live as long as the heart isn’t destroyed.

Survivor (??): One survivor will always make it out of the dungeon alive to spread your legend.

[Passive Final Boss skills: Oppressive Aura (D+): Causes Hunter to feel increasing fatigue and dread when close to the final boss. It accumulates over time.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Abel looked at his stat screen in surprise. He had grown from a Level 0 to a Level 1 in an instant. Sure, even if it wasn’t exactly his body, for now, it was his to control as desired.

He didn’t bother to think about where the system had emerged from either. If he knew, what could he do?

It wasn’t as though he would stop himself from utilising it. It was either this or going back to worrying about putting a roof over his head and fleeing from city to city until the next dungeon break.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

If he became a Hunter, even if he was just as level 1, he would never have to clock in and slave away like a workhorse again.

Abel was content with what he had received. He put away the silly thought from his mind and looked at the other status screen beside the Final Boss Persona status screen.

He didn’t know how the Survivor skill worked, but he sensed that he would find out either way.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Emotion Points: 0] 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

[Emotion Points are harvested from Hunters: Anger, Joy, Fear, and Sorrow, and can be used to enhance stats and skills. Unlocks at 50 Emotion Points. Can also be used to extract rewards: Boss’s stats, attributes, or skills.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The status screen itself was self-explanatory.

The only thing Abel looked forward to was the Reward Extraction upon completing the dungeon. It was related to how many Emotion Points he could gather. The higher the Emotion Points, the higher the reward he would receive.

[Dungeon will open in ten minutes. Take your position, Final Boss – [Warden Of Burial Mine]]

Suddenly, another status screen opened before him.

[10:00]

A timer appeared beside it.

"Time to head to my position," Abel said, his voice raspy and sounding like a groan, making it difficult to decipher what he was saying.

It was nothing like that of a human. He affirmed that he was a monster.