Dungeon Crawler Carl

Four thousand people. One alien game show. No way out but down.
When the Vex Syndicate sealed the Sovereign Rig inside an amber shell and broadcast the survival of its entire workforce across sixty-three galaxies, they built their dungeon around the wrong platform.
They just do not know it yet.
Carl Breaux is a deep-sea safety inspector with a dive knife, a dungeon class he did not choose, and Dredge — a six-foot bioluminescent deep-sea creature the game system bonded to him before he could object. The galactic audience loves Dredge. Nine hundred and twelve million registered supporters and counting. Carl has forty-one million. He is moving on.
Thirty-five floors of dungeon stand between the surface and whatever the Vex Syndicate built their entertainment franchise around without fully understanding. The creatures are real. The countdown is real. The corporate conspiracy buried in the platform's deepest bore shaft is real.
And the thing at the bottom has been waiting since before this ocean existed.
It is not waiting for the Vex Syndicate.
It is waiting for Carl.
The floor is sealed. The clock is running. The descent begins on page one and does not stop.