Trial One— MawStriker
The smell of polished metal and newly unwrapped material filled Zane's nose. Jolting awake with a gasp, chest heaving and skin soaked in sweat, his eyes darted open.
But this wasn't the train.
This wasn't the city.
He was flat on his back, staring up at a crimson sky veined with electric-blue clouds. The air buzzed with static. Tall, twisted trees loomed overhead, roots half-metal, half-bark, pulsing with slow neon light. A fog rolled low across the mossy floor—thick, warm, and choking.
His hand gripped dirt.
Except it wasn't dirt.It felt like a synthetic sponge layered with wire.
"What… the hell?"
A sharp beep cut through his panic.
[CORE: Welcome, Player 0001.]
[Ascension Protocol Trial One: Begin.]
'Trial? I was just on the train a few seconds ago' He thought.
He sat up fast, too fast. A spike of pain cracked through his spine. His muscles screamed in protest. He looked down. He was wearing a tight gray suit that seemed clean, seamless, lined with glowing blue seams that pulsed faintly with his heartbeat.
He stood, swaying. His HUD flickered back online, glitchy but active.
No train. No stranger. No NexaTech agents in white coats.
Just… this place. This simulation. This jungle.
Krrrrrrr….. something moved.
He spun, moving closer to the low struggling sound.
From the fog, he saw it—first the glint of moving metal, then the slow, crawling bulk of something inhuman.
A grotesque fusion of beast and machine.
It was gnawing on a prey with full focus on six razor limbs, its face split down the middle by rotating mandibles. Cybernetic implants hummed across its back, and its tail ended in a plasma-charged blade, sparking against the damp terrain.
Zane's breath caught.
"What the hell is that? I haven't seen anything like that since before I could walk."
His HUD sprang to life, a notification popping up.
(NOTIFICATION: You're in contact with The MawStriker.)
[CORE:
Threat Level – High. No weapons detected. Use the environment. Survive or kill to ascend.]
"Are you serious?"
Zane stared at his HUD in disbelief, how do they want him to defeat an hungry looking wolf with mechanical enhanced implants without any support?
Still in his chain of thoughts, the MawStriker suddenly stopped feasting and raised its head, ears stood upright until it came face to face with Zane himself. His figure posing as an unmistakable living meal standing right in front of it.
They both watched each other for a while until the wind suddenly whooshed the fog surrounding their environment off.
With a low mechanical growl, Mawstriker slowly lifted its legs off the disfigured prey, disinterested. Its attention, fully focused on Zane now.
Zane didn't blink… or maybe he couldn't. From fear. One far stronger than that of EXT-0879 at the city.
The MawStriker stepped forward, its limbs making that sharp click-clack sound, like bone on glass. Its mandibles rotated once, metal grinding against metal shedding the last bits of meat from its previous kill. The low growl it let out wasn't sound alone; it vibrated, like it was crawling straight into his bones.
[CORE: Engage survival mode. Your vitals are getting more unstable.]
Zane didn't answer. His feet were already backing up slowly, crunching the false moss beneath him. One slip and that thing would pounce mercilessly on him.
A soft whrrr hissed from its chest. Tubes adjusted pressure. The MawStriker's tail lifted, crackling with unstable plasma that arced off the blade like lightning searching for a home.
Its hind legs moved easily one after another, slow but calculated. It's glowing blue eyes locked onto Zane, tail wagging around like a coiled serpent, waiting to strike.
His back hit something. It was cold and wide, and felt like steel too. He turned. A rusted satellite dish laid buried in vines and dirt, half broken, half forgotten.
A sharp roar escaped afterwards that's when it lunged with blinding speed, leaving its unfinished prey for another to finish off.
Zane ducked against the incoming flash.
A burst of air slammed past him as the MawStriker landed exactly where he'd stood. Its claws sliced the metal behind him clean, sparks flying as the dish screamed under the pressure. Zane rolled to the left, scrambled to his feet, breathing fast.
His eyes scanned around. Trees. Scattered stones. 'Is there just nothing of defence in this bizzare place?' He thought, mind unstable in confusion.
Until he spotted it—
A fallen pillar nearby, half covered in vines. Close to it was a cluster of shattered drones in the grass. One had an exposed core. A heat battery. Useless as-is but… just maybe?
[CORE: Adrenaline boost detected. Reflex speed increased by 3.1%.]
"Good for me," he muttered, eyes locked on the drone.
The MawStriker came again, tail slicing sideways like a whip. Zane dropped low but too slow. The edge caught his shoulder.
A sharp gaze defined his face.
He hit the ground hard. The suit sparked where the blade kissed it. Smoke curled from the fabric.
'Shit! That was close.'
[CORE: You have been bruised, Player 00001.]
"Not helping here, CORE. I am not bleeding yet." Zane hissed, rolling toward the drones. He didn't know what he was looking for. Anything. Any piece he could turn into a trap or weapon.
The beast circled him now. No rush. Predators don't fear their struggling preys.
He tore the heat core loose from the drone and threw it at Maw striker, hands burning from the exposed metal. It did little or nothing in even distracting it.
Then it clicked—literally.
A broken shock dart, the kind meant for crowd control, blinked under one of the broken toys.
He grabbed it. Taped to a dead drone's chest. Still humming.
[CORE: Shock Module detected. Conductive energy level: 4%. Lethaity is currently low.]
"Good enough."
He bolted behind the broken pillar and jammed the heat core into the base, then set the dart beside it.
He had no trigger. Just wires and belief.
"Come on, you bastard. Chase me."
He yelled out loud hands waving to further annoy the calculating-focused beast.
The MawStriker didn't hesitate.
It rushed him again, tail first. Zane ducked behind the pillar at the last second.
The tail smashed through it.Direct contact it was.
The makeshift charge whirred in energy then exploded in sparks and fire, throwing both Zane and the beast backward. Metal screamed. The MawStriker roared—its cybernetic eye cracked, one leg sparking, damaged.
Zane rolled off a distance, coughing.
'Is it in pain?' he thought, face blackened by the explosion's impact.
Yet he didn't stop. He grabbed a rusted pipe from the floor and lunged without a second thought.
Slamming the pipe straight into the eye as the thing shrieked. He grabbed one of its torn out wire as the beast wobbled around in loss.
Its tail shot blindly, smashing the ground to Zane's left. He dove on its back, his eyes spotted the beast's exposed core implants.
'That's got to be it' Zane thought, still holding on for dear life. He tackled it under its chin, both hands wrapped around one of the implants still sparking from the blast.
[CORE: Surge detected. Assimilating tech signature…]
The beast suddenly heads for a tree up front.
"Die already, you mechanical shit!"
With an inhumane enhanced drag, Zane pulled the implants with all his strength. The implant tore free, soaked in black fluid and sparks.
The MawStriker twitched, knocking Zane off balance, his hands bathed in flowing fluids as he hit the ground on his butt.
Then everywhere went still and silent again like at first. The beast's last dying growl fading out into static.
Zane collapsed beside it, breath heaving and chest pounding.
His HUD displayed:
(NOTIFICATION: The MawStriker has been Defeated. Congratulations, Player.)
[CORE: Victory confirmed. Artifact Fragment Received: Tech Core Spine
Added to INVENTORY]
A small floating cube shimmered out of the beast's corpse and hovered toward him.
"Am I supposed to grab it or what?"
It passed through his chest like vapor, synchronizing into his system.
Zane's body tensed, then relaxed.
[CORE: New crafting node unlocked in INVENTORY – Approach town to craft artifacts collected into useful tech.]
(NOTIFICATION: Trial One has successfully been passed. Would you like to proceed to the next trial?)
"Wait! Wait! Give me some breathing space, dammit." Zane panicked then turned to himself.
"Come to think of it…" his eyes darted to the corner of his HUD. "….the (Find Dr Charles) objective still lingers there."
He rose but his muscles screamed. Every limb pulsed with residual adrenaline and exhaustion. He looked down at the now-still corpse of the MawStriker.
"Survive or kill to ascend… right?" He exhaled sharply. "Then what the hell comes next?"
Before he could think, his HUD flickered. The environment shimmered slightly. Trees buzzed with glitch-static. The crimson sky above cracked briefly like a broken screen.
[CORE: Unstable system detected. Simulation breach in progress.]
Zane's eyes narrowed. "What breach?"
[WARNING: External override detected.]
Suddenly, the wind in the jungle froze. Fog locked in place like paused footage. The twisted forest became eerily quiet.
Then everything around him shattered. Like glass.
The simulation world cracked in chunks, fractals splintering in midair, falling away like shards into a void. One moment he stood in a digitized jungle… the next—
Zane was suspended midair, surrounded by darkness and code. A huge NexaTech insignia blinked into focus in the sky above him.
[CORE: Simulation forcibly terminated.]
His breath caught.
"What is this? Am I going back to reality?"
A voice echoed around him, he didn't see them but he could hear.
"Let's see what kind of weapon our little mistake can further become."
Dr. Ray's voice echoed, then Charles:
"Initialize Phase Two. No restraints."