The desert was quiet again. Too quiet.
Asher crouched low behind a jagged ridge of stone, his rifle clutched tight in his hands. The barrel still smelled faintly of burned powder from the last fight. He slid a fresh magazine into place, the metal click echoing in his helmet.
"Last thing I need is to hear that damn click when they're chewing my face off," he muttered.
The HUD blinked faintly in the corner of his visor.
---
Asher Veylan
KC (Kill Credits): 8
Strength: 1× Peak Human (Cost: 50)
Agility: 2× Peak Human (Cost: 100)
Endurance: 1× Peak Human (Cost: 50)
Body Modifications: —
Bind Subject: —
---
Eight. Barely enough to scrape together pocket change in the system. He cursed under his breath.
"Need more kills. Lots more."
He pressed his back against the ridge, breathing slow, forcing himself to scan. The desert stretched in waves of ochre sand and pale stone ridges, broken occasionally by blackened craters where bombardments had landed. The purple haze in the sky never lifted, making everything feel like some endless twilight.
Then he saw them.
At first, just a ripple of movement along a sandstone outcrop. Then the chittering reached his ears through the suit's amplifiers.
Twenty. Maybe more.
Gnashlings, clustered together, their bodies twitching and clattering against the rock as they picked apart something long-dead. Their jaws worked in sync, breaking bone, grinding meat, stripping every last shred of biomass.
Asher's lips pressed into a thin line.
"Ammo or blade…?" He whispered the thought, rolling it on his tongue. "I need the kills, but if I burn through half my mags now, I'll be screwed when something bigger shows up."
His gaze flicked to his sword, still streaked with ichor from the earlier slaughter.
"…alright. Sword it is."
He slid the rifle across his back and drew the mono-blade. It hummed faintly, vibrations whispering against the air. The sound alone gave him a kind of grim courage.
Crouching, Asher crept down the ridge. Each step was deliberate, careful, his body moving smoother now than before. His 2× agility made him feel sharper, like his body obeyed faster than his thoughts. A half-step became a blur. A stumble corrected before he noticed it.
He muttered softly as he closed the distance.
"Two times faster than I should be. That means two times harder to kill me. Right? Right. Don't screw this up, Veylan."
He reached the base of the rock. The Gnashlings hadn't noticed yet. He exhaled once, slow and steady.
Then he moved.
With a roar that tore at his throat, Asher surged forward, sword cleaving the first Gnashling in half before it could even turn. Black ichor sprayed hot across his visor.
The swarm shrieked. Heads whipped toward him, jaws clattering like chainsaws.
"COME ON!" Asher bellowed, swinging in a brutal arc that split a second from skull to abdomen. "LET'S GO!"
They came at him in a tide of legs and teeth. His blade flashed, quicker now, almost too fast for his eyes. He slashed left, severing two legs, spun, and rammed the blade through another's thorax. The thing screeched and flailed before he ripped it free.
A Gnashling leapt at his face. Reflex kicked in, his hand shot up, faster than thought, snatching it mid-air. With a grunt, he slammed the creature down onto a nearby boulder. Its body crunched wetly, ichor exploding like rotten fruit.
Another lunged for his leg, jaws snapping. Asher lifted his knee high and stomped down with all his weight. The skull burst under his boot, spraying fragments across the sand.
His laughter was ragged, almost hysterical.
But there were so many. They swarmed, clinging to his arms, legs, back. Claws raked across his armor, scraping sparks. He snarled and spun, bashing one into the rock face hard enough that its body split apart. Another clamped onto his wrist — he tore it free with his bare hand and crushed it against the ridge until it stopped twitching.
Blood. Screams. The smell of acid and rot.
And Asher, in the center of it, drenched in black ichor, moving faster, cutting sharper, his voice raw from shouting.
One tried to scuttle up his back. He dropped his sword for half a second, reached over his shoulder, grabbed it by the legs, and hurled it like a sack of meat into the stone wall. It splattered.
He reclaimed the blade just as another lunged. His swing cut clean through its head. The two halves slid apart, steaming.
Ten down. Eleven. Twelve.
The sand turned dark beneath him.
By the time the last Gnashling twitched at his feet, the desert was a charnel pit of broken shells and spilled ichor.
Asher stood in the middle, panting, body trembling from exertion. His armor was gouged and dripping, his visor smeared black.
He leaned against the ridge, sword tip dragging in the sand.
"…fuck… me…" He spat, the laugh that followed almost a sob. "That's… twenty... six."
The HUD flickered.
---
KC: 34
---
He grinned, teeth bared.
"Now we're talking."
But he didn't linger. The noise would carry. He knew it. The last thing he wanted was to draw something nastier while he was still catching his breath.
He wiped the blade clean on a corpse and kept moving, low and quiet, sticking to rocks and shadows.
For an hour, he walked. Sometimes crouched. Sometimes crawled. Always scanning, always wary. The heat pressed on him, sweat soaking his undersuit, but he kept going. His eyes were sharper now, his movements quieter.
Then he froze.
Ahead, along the curve of a dune, another swarm.
Bigger.
His gut twisted. There had to be fifty, maybe sixty Gnashlings, crawling over the sand in a writhing cluster. Their bodies gleamed wet in the false twilight, their jaws clattering in an endless chorus.
He whispered to himself.
"Fifty. That's… that's too many." His fingers twitched on the hilt of his sword. "But that's fifty Kill Credits. Fifty. That's agility three… maybe endurance two. Shit…"
He chewed his lip. He could back off. Find another smaller group. But his chest tightened at the thought. The system had lit a fire in him, and the idea of all those Credits walking away made his hands shake.
"I need it," he muttered. "I need it. Faster, stronger, better... or I die."
Decision made.
He gripped the sword and stepped from cover.
The swarm turned as one. Their shrieks filled the desert air.
"Come get me, you bastards," Asher growled.
They surged forward, a living tide.
Asher didn't charge blindly this time. He moved backwards, step by step, slashing anything that got close. His blade flicked out in brutal arcs, cutting legs, splitting heads, tearing bodies apart.
A Gnashling lunged. He caught it mid-air, spun, and smashed it into a rock. Bones and shell shattered. He used its corpse like a shield, blocking the next lunge before tossing it aside and skewering another.
Two came at his legs. He leapt back, faster than he ever could have before the upgrade, blade carving through both in a blur.
Black ichor sprayed across his visor. He didn't even blink.
"DIE!" He roared, slamming his boot down on a half-crushed one. Its body exploded beneath him.
But they were endless. They clawed at him from all sides. He backed toward another ridge, keeping his footing, using the stone as cover. His sword arm was a blur, faster than he could think, muscle memory guiding each savage cut.
The fight became a rhythm. Slash. Kick. Stomp. Grab. Slam. Over and over, brutal, primal.
One leapt for his throat. He ducked, shoved his hand into its maw, and ripped its jaw apart with a snarl. He threw the twitching body aside, chest heaving.
Still they came.
His visor was slick with ichor, vision half-blind, but his movements didn't slow. His upgraded body carried him, kept him alive, even as exhaustion clawed at the edges of his mind.
And slowly, steadily, the numbers thinned.
Thirty left. Twenty-five. Twenty.
He howled, cutting through them like a madman, every swing leaving another corpse in the sand.
By the time the last Gnashling fell, its body crushed between his hands and slammed into the ridge until it was nothing but pulp, Asher was drenched, shaking, but alive.
Around him lay a field of corpses. Around fifty dead, maybe more. The sand was black, the air thick with the stench of ichor and acid.
Asher fell to his knees, sword dropping beside him. He laughed, ragged and wild, staring at the HUD as it flickered.
---
KC: 87
---
He pressed his forehead to the visor, whispering.
"Eighty seven… oh god… maybe... I can actually do this…"
His body trembled, half from exhaustion, half from the rush.
"I can… survive."
He clenched his fists, staring north.
The nest awaited.
And he would carve his way there.