Chapter 1: First Blood
The monster was watching him.
Kael could feel it before it stepped out from behind the cracked concrete — a pressure in the air, heavy with static, the kind of charge that comes before lightning. His grip tightened around the crude weapon in his hand.
Eight feet tall, maybe more. Not quite a beast, not quite a man. Its matte-black skin was like stone, flexing unnaturally with each movement. Arms too long. Joints that bent the wrong way. No eyes — just a slit pulsing red across what might have once been a face.
It didn't speak.
> [TARGET IDENTIFIED: PLAYER — DRAVEN, KAEL]
Threat Level: 0 → Updating...
The system's voice chimed in his mind, too calm for what stood before him. Kael didn't flinch.
He crouched lower behind a rusted car, hand tightening on a jagged pipe — just scrap metal he'd filed down at one end. It wasn't much, but it had kept him breathing this far.
His cloak clung to his back, soaked in sweat and ash. The air stung his lungs. His HP hovered faintly in the corner of his vision: barely a sliver of red. One clean hit, and he'd be dead.
> "Great," he muttered. "Another monster. Just my luck."
The thing stepped forward, limbs moving like malfunctioning hydraulics. With each step, the pavement cracked. Its chest expanded, and a low clicking sound rattled from deep inside it. It wasn't breathing. It was locking on.
> "One hit and I'm gone," Kael whispered. "So don't get hit."
He didn't wait.
Kael sprinted from cover, catching the monster off-guard. His feet pounded over cracked stone, his pulse a war drum in his ears. The pipe came down with everything he had — aimed low, beneath the rib structure where some monsters had a vulnerable core.
Sparks.
The steel glanced off too shallow. Not deep enough.
The monster roared and twisted with terrifying speed. One wide backhand knocked Kael clear off his feet — into a broken vending machine. Glass shattered. Something cracked in his side.
Pain surged through his ribs like fire.
Then—
Nothing.
---
Kael woke to darkness. Cold stone beneath his palms. Wind hissing through the graveyard trees.
He wasn't dead. Not yet. But close.
His vision swam as he forced himself upright.
Sector 9 Memorial Graveyard.
Again.
Same checkpoint. Same cold. Same weight in his chest.
> "That's twenty," he coughed. "Twenty damn times."
His fingers fumbled for his pipe, still lying where he'd dropped it the last time. Bent. Chipped. But familiar.
The pain in his body wasn't real anymore — but his brain didn't know that. Phantom agony clung to every breath. His limbs shook with adrenaline.
> "You remember," Kael growled to himself. "So act like it."
---
He moved.
Back into the streets. Back through smoke and dust.
In the distance, the monster waited. Pacing. Tracking. Kael slipped between burned-out cars, over shattered asphalt, until he reached the edge of the plaza again.
This time, he didn't rush.
He crouched. Waited. Listened.
Click-click-click.
The sound was the same — the monster's hunting pattern. Same stride. Same breathless pace.
Kael sprinted into range — and ducked into the strike instead of away. The monster's claw swiped too wide.
He spun inside the arc, slammed the sharpened end of his pipe into the joint beneath its arm.
A sickening spray of black mist exploded from the wound.
The beast screeched — not a scream, but a fractured sound, like wires grinding through a corrupted speaker.
Kael didn't pause.
Strike. Turn. Another jab to its side. The pipe scraped over bone-like armor, but he moved fast enough to stay ahead of its counterattack.
The monster dropped to all six limbs, low and fast, like a beast ready to pounce. Then, its chest unfolded — revealing a glowing red node.
> [Weak Point Identified: Core Node]
Kael's eyes narrowed.
> "There you are."
He ran. Climbed over broken concrete. Launched himself off a crumbling stone slab.
Midair, he gripped the pipe like a stake — both hands clenched — and slammed it into the glowing core.
The metal bent. But it sank in deep.
The monster's whole frame convulsed.
Glitching. Jerking.
Then collapsed.
Its body disintegrated into glowing particles that floated upward, flickering against the night sky.
Kael hit the ground hard. Rolled onto his back. Chest heaving. Vision tunneling.
But he was alive.
> [ZONE CLEARED – MONSTER ELIMINATED]
EXP Gained: 230
Class Potential Increased: 13%
New Passive Skill: Reflex Trace (Lv. 1)
He didn't cheer. Didn't smile.
Just lay there, staring at the glowing fragments of the creature rising like embers from a dying fire.
> "It's dead…" he whispered. "I actually…"
Sirens echoed far off in the ruins. Not from machines. From something howling beyond the next sector.
Kael sat up slowly. Dropped the twisted pipe.
It clanged beside him — bent into a useless arc.
> "Guess it's time to find something better."
He opened the interface floating in the corner of his vision. A new tab flickered.
> [Skill Tree: Unlocked]
He didn't check it. Not yet. He already knew the truth.
This wasn't a win. It was just a delay.
A few more hours of breathing.
He stood. Looked toward the burning outline of Sector 10 on the horizon.
One weapon down. One monster dead.
A dozen more waiting.
Kael clenched his fists.
> "Someday," he said, "I'll get a real weapon. A proper one."
Not something scavenged. Something earned.
But until then… he was still here.
Still learning.
Still alive.