The silence after the tutorial was worse than the screams during it.
Kael stepped into Sector 11 alone. His cloak caught the wind like a warning flag. The city beyond was a sunken maze of skeletal towers and broken asphalt. It felt wider than before. Emptier.
> [Zone: Sector 11]
Threat Level: Moderate
Objective: Reach Sector 15 Safehouse
Survival Rate: 12%
"Still better odds than yesterday," he muttered, but his voice felt hollow.
His grip tightened on the Cleaver Saber. The Ronin class hadn't granted him any bonuses. No shield. No armor. No healing. Just a blade technique he barely understood and a stat called Mental Clarity that dropped every time he panicked.
He moved cautiously across an overpass and scanned the ruined street below.
Something shifted in the rubble. He leapt back—
Too late.
A Stalker Hound burst forward — long-limbed and eyeless, its claws slicing through air with unnatural speed. Kael raised his weapon on instinct, but it was already on him.
> [HP: 0/170]
[You Died]
[Respawning…]
---
He choked back to life under the checkpoint flame.
The ground was cold. The blade was still in his hand. His body was whole, but the pain hadn't vanished. Not entirely.
He exhaled sharply, stood up, and spat blood that wasn't really there.
"Fine. One mistake."
He went again.
---
This time, Kael sidestepped the beast's initial charge. He rolled, pivoted, caught its flank with a shallow slash — but two more leapt from the rubble.
He panicked. Swung wildly.
One clawed into his ribs. The other knocked him back with a pounce.
He gasped, wheezed, stabbed blindly—
Then everything went dark again.
> [HP: 0/170]
[You Died]
[Respawning…]
---
He awoke with a ragged gasp, kneeling beneath blue flame.
"No—no, no, no," he growled, slamming a fist into the dirt. "I blocked that. I should've blocked that."
He opened the status screen in frustration.
> Class: Ronin
Trait: Unbound
Skill: Draw Cut — precision-based counterattack
Passive Buffs: None
Active Buffs: None
Escape Skill: None
Tip: Survive longer.
He stared.
"Are you kidding me?" Kael snapped. "No defense. No healing. No guides. Just one flashy move I can't land unless the planets align?"
He kicked a loose rock. It skittered off the subway wall with a clang.
"Fighter would've tanked that hit. Scout would've outrun it. Even a Scavenger could've set a damn trap. And me?"
He looked at the saber in his hand.
"Just a blade and good luck."
Kael stormed out of the checkpoint zone, fury smoldering behind his eyes. That fury carried him past broken storefronts, charred signage, and the bodies of monsters that hadn't faded yet.
---
On a ridge, he paused.
Far off across the ruins, a faint shimmer of blue light flared — then burst.
A distant battle.
He watched through cracked glass as a group of three survivors tore through a group of goblins. One wielded a warhammer twice his size and shrugged off blows. The other moved in bursts of blur — a Scout. The third cast glowing pulses from her staff and healed them mid-combat.
They made it look easy.
Kael turned away.
"Of course they do."
---
That night, he found shelter beneath the slumped remains of a stone archway — a collapsed metro tunnel entrance. The checkpoint flame pulsed behind him.
He dropped his pack, knelt, and placed the saber beside him. Then he just… stared at it.
"This class is gonna get me killed," he whispered. "Again and again."
But something deep in his chest — stubborn, quiet — didn't want to quit.
So he stood.
And trained.
---
The silence of the tunnel was his audience. Broken tiles. Dust. The faint drip of water echoing from somewhere unseen.
Kael bent his knees. Practiced unsheathing from under his cloak. Raised the saber. Drew it. Too slow.
> [Draw Cut Failed]
Again.
> [Draw Cut Failed]
The angle was wrong. His center off-balance.
> [Draw Cut – 4% Sync]
He adjusted his stance. Breathed in. Visualized the hound's lunge.
Slashed again.
> [Draw Cut – 6% Sync]
[Mental Clarity +1]
The wind shifted.
The next swing sang through the air like it remembered something.
> [Draw Cut – Success]
[Critical Window Primed – 2s]
Kael froze, chest rising and falling.
He grinned for the first time that day.
---
The system chimed unexpectedly.
> [Blade Memory Threshold: 7% Reached]
Memory Fragment Detected: Echo 1 – "The One Who Walked"
Would you like to view?
He hesitated — then accepted.
---
The vision came in smoke.
A warrior walked through an ashstorm, alone. Tattered cloak trailing behind him. He bled from the mouth but never stopped moving. The sword in his hand was cracked, yet still drawn.
> "A Ronin does not win. A Ronin endures."
---
Kael returned to reality, breath shallow.
His blade glowed faintly, warm in his palm.
> [New Skill Gained: Iaido Step – Lv. 1]
Grants a burst of speed after successful Draw Cut
[Ash Memory: 7%]
[Mental Clarity +2]
[Ronin Proficiency: E-]
He sheathed the saber with slow, steady hands.
For the first time, it didn't feel like just a weapon.
It felt like a path.
Rough. Unforgiving. But his.
---
📊 Kael Draven — Status (End of Chapter 6)
> Level: 6
Class: Ronin (Unique)
Deaths This Chapter: 2
HP: 170 / 170
Ash Memory: 7%
Mental Clarity: 6
Skills:
Draw Cut Lv. 1
Iaido Step Lv. 1
Reflex Trace Lv. 1
Status: Exhausted, Focused
Checkpoint: Sector 10 Beacon