The world had been painted in shades of grey and despair. Now, it was a screaming symphony of sensation.
Fexl lay on the cold, wet concrete, his chest heaving not from pain, but from sheer sensory overload. He could smell the individual layers of grime on the alley walls—old grease, mildew, the faint, sweet rot of forgotten food. He could hear the drip-drip-drip of a leaking pipe two buildings over, the rhythm syncopated with the frantic heartbeat of a mouse hiding in a wall. The distant, ever-present hum of the city's energy grid was a roar in his ears.
And the light. The dim, sickly yellow glow of a single overhead security light was now a brilliant sun, illuminating every crack in the pavement, every stain of his own blood, every glint of moisture with painful clarity.
He pushed himself up, his movements unnervingly fluid. The weakness that had been his constant companion was gone. In its place was a coiled, restless energy. He felt like a spring compressed to its breaking point. His body was no longer the scrawny frame he'd known; his muscles were defined, tense, humming with a potential he didn't understand.
His eyes fell on the reflective surface of a broken window across the alley. He stumbled toward it, his new strength making his steps clumsy, like a fawn learning to walk.
The face that stared back was his, but it wasn't.
The scar was the most obvious change—a vicious, silvery line that carved through his skin, a permanent testament to the bite. But his eyes… his dull, mud-brown eyes were gone. Replaced by a luminous, piercing amber-gold. They glowed with an inner light, feral and intelligent. In the darkness of the alley, they were the eyes of a predator.
A low, involuntary sound rumbled in his chest. A growl.
He flinched back from the reflection, his heart hammering against his ribs. What am I?
As if in answer, the electric blue text flickered back into the center of his vision, calm and sterile amidst the chaos of his new senses.
[Status Check: Host Vitality Stable.] [Lycanthropic Integration: 5%. Omega Rank Sustained.] [System Tutorial: Initiate Y/N?]
Fexl stared, his breath catching in his throat. It was real. It wasn't a hallucination born from blood loss and a dying brain. This… this System was inside him.
"Y," he whispered, his voice a rough, unfamiliar croak.
The text shimmered and changed.
[Tutorial: Interface Navigation.] [Your System interface is projected directly into your neural cortex. It is visible only to you.] [Access your Status by focusing the command: 'Status'.]
Fexl hesitated, then focused his mind on the word. Status.
The blue text vanished, replaced by a new, more complex array of information.
NAME: Fexl Hoshkent RACE: Prime Werewolf (Omega) TITLE: Alpha of None
CORE ATTRIBUTES: Strength: 8 -> 12 Agility: 7 -> 15 Vitality: 5 -> 14 Intelligence: 10 Perception: 6 -> 18
ABILITIES: [Unarmed Combat: Novice Lv. 2] [Stealth: Novice Lv. 3] [Lycanthropy: Omega Lv. 1] \- Enhanced Senses \- Minor Regeneration \- Primal Fear (Passive)
SYSTEM FUNCTIONS: [Quest Board] [Inventory] [Evolution Tree] [Map]
Fexl's new, sharp mind absorbed the data. The numbers were a quantifiable measure of his change. He was stronger, faster, tougher. His perception had tripled. It was a fact. A cold, hard fact in a world that had suddenly become terrifyingly soft and loud.
A new prompt appeared.
[New Quest Received: Survival Instinct.] Objective: Return to your domicile. Reward: 50 XP, System Interface Familiarity.
A quest. Like in the cheap video games kids played in the arcades. But this was no game. The pain was still a fresh, raw memory. The coppery taste of his blood was still on his tongue.
A sudden noise shattered his concentration—a clang of metal and raucous laughter from the alley's entrance. His head snapped up, his body instantly tensing into a crouch. His new senses zeroed in on the threat.
Three figures. Not the synth-junkies from before. These were larger, better fed. Enforcers for a local gang, probably the Black Talons, based on the jagged tattoo visible on the lead thug's neck. They were kicking a discarded can, looking for trouble, or someone to rob.
"Hey! Look what we got here," one of them slurred, spotting Fexl. "A little rat, all alone."
The leader, a hulking brute with a broken nose, grinned. "Looks like he's had a rough night. Let's make it rougher. Empty your pockets, rat."
The old Fexl would have frozen. He would have complied, hoping the beating would be quick. The old Fexl was dead.
A new emotion surged through him, hot and bright and terrifying. It wasn't just anger. It was rage. A pure, primal fury at being challenged, at being preyed upon. The growl in his chest returned, louder this time, a deep vibration that felt natural.
The enforcer's grin faltered. "What was that? You got something to say?"
Fexl didn't speak. He just looked at them, his golden eyes glowing in the dim light.
The second thug took a step back, uneasy. "Boss… his eyes…"
[Ability: Primal Fear (Passive) - Active.] [Weaker-willed opponents may experience hesitation and dread.]
The leader shook off the feeling, puffing out his chest. "So he's a cheap serum-junky. So what? He's still just one guy."
He lunged, swinging a meaty fist aimed at Fexl's head.
Time seemed to slow. To Fexl's heightened perception, the move was telegraphed, clumsy, slow. His body moved without conscious thought. He didn't block. He flowed under the swing, the movement effortless. His own fist, propelled by his new Strength, shot upward and connected with the man's jaw.
The crack was sickeningly loud.
The enforcer's eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped to the ground like a sack of stones, unconscious.
Fexl stood over him, shocked by his own action, by the easy, brutal power he had just unleashed. He looked at his fist. It didn't even hurt.
The other two thugs stared, their bravado evaporating. The fear in their eyes was now palpable. It smelled sour, like curdled milk.
One of them fumbled for a shock-baton at his belt.
The System text flashed, urgent and red.
[Combat Engaged!] [Subdue Hostiles.]
The command cut through his shock. Subdue.
As the thug activated the crackling baton, Fexl moved. He was a blur of motion. He didn't know any fighting forms, but his new Agility guided him. He ducked the wild swing, grabbed the man's wrist, and squeezed. Bone creaked. The man screamed, dropping the baton. A sharp jab to his solar plexus silenced him, folding him in half.
The last thug was already running, his footsteps echoing his panic.
Fexl took a step to pursue, but stopped. The rage was receding, leaving a cold, clear-minded aftermath. Let him run. Let him tell the others about the boy with the golden eyes in the alley.
He looked down at the two unconscious men, then at his own hands. He had never won a fight in his life. He had never even thrown a punch that mattered.
He turned and walked away, leaving the alley behind. The System's quest marker glowed softly in his vision, pointing the way home.
But he knew, with a certainty that settled deep into his bones, that he was not returning as the same person. The weak delivery boy had been shed like a skin.
He was an Omega. The lowest rank.
But as he walked through the sleeping, hostile city, his golden eyes seeing every hidden threat, every shadowed danger, he knew one more thing.
He would never be at the bottom again.
The first howl was still trapped in his throat, but it was there. Waiting.