The third-floor hallway had become a purgatory of strobe lights. The red emergency lights flickered with an irregular rhythm, casting shadows that seemed to stretch and contract with a life of their own, playing tricks on Kael's already frayed mind.
The air was thick, almost chewable. It smelled of someone's burnt dinner mixed with that metallic, electrical stench that Kael now associated with death and change. The silence of the building wasn't an absence of sound, but an expectant pause, broken only by the occasional dripping of unknown fluids and low, wet groans resonating through the drywall.
Kael moved forward. Every step was calculated. His new sneakers squeaked slightly on the linoleum floor, a sound that seemed like a thunderclap in the oppressive stillness.
He felt the change in his body with every movement. The [Reinforce Muscle Tissue] upgrade hadn't turned him into an instant bodybuilder, but the difference in functionality was palpable. The claw hammer in his left hand, which had a noticeable heft before, now felt like a natural extension of his arm, light and lethal. His legs responded with elastic tension, ready to propel him forward or backward in a fraction of a second.
He reached the corner of the hallway facing the elevators. The metal doors were dented outward, as if something incredibly strong had tried to force its way out from inside the shaft. A black viscous liquid seeped through the bottom crack.
"Stairs," Kael muttered to himself, confirming his plan. Elevators were metal coffins.
The access door to the fire escape was ajar. On the other side, darkness was almost total, broken only by the faint red light filtering from the hallway.
Kael took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the stale air. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but the adrenaline and the strange security his first mutation gave him kept it at bay. He pushed the door with his shoulder, keeping the knife led and hammer raised.
The stairwell was acoustic chaos. The sounds of the building amplified here, bouncing off the bare concrete walls. He could hear shuffling feet several floors up, and something much worse below.
A frantic chewing sound, wet gurgles, and the snap of breaking bones came from the landing between the second and first floors.
Kael started to descend. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the gloom.
On the second-floor landing, he met the first real test of his new existence.
There were two of them. A young couple Kael had seen occasionally in the lobby, always laughing, always holding hands. Now, they were hunched over the mangled corpse of what looked like a food delivery driver.
The man, wearing a rock band t-shirt now torn by the expansion of his torso, raised his head upon hearing Kael's footsteps. His violet eyes shone in the darkness like those of a predatory cat. His jaw was unhinged, and a piece of unrecognizable flesh hung from his elongated teeth.
The woman was in worse shape. Her transformation had been asymmetrical. Her left arm was normal, but her right had swollen to twice its size, the skin splitting to reveal greyish, fibrous musculature, and the fingers had fused into a sort of blunt, bony claw.
"Shit," Kael whispered. The rapid evolution theory was being confirmed right before his eyes. They hadn't been like this for an hour, and they already showed dimorphism.
The male Vector let out a guttural roar that vibrated in Kael's chest and lunged up the stairs, leaping steps two at a time with surprising agility.
Time seemed to slow down. Kael didn't think; his body reacted, driven by instinct and the raw power of his muscle fibers.
Instead of retreating, Kael took a step forward, using the height of the stairs to his advantage. When the creature was about to reach him, Kael launched a front kick, putting all his new 5-biomass strength into the blow.
His sneaker impacted squarely on the Vector's sternum. There was an audible CRACK, dry and satisfying, as the creature's hardened ribs gave way. The monster was flung backward, tumbling violently down the concrete steps until it smashed against the wall of the lower landing.
Kael didn't stop to celebrate. He knew that wouldn't kill it.
The female Vector, slower due to the disproportionate weight of her mutated arm, was now halfway up the stairs, dragging her bone claw against the wall, drawing sparks and cement dust.
Kael jumped the last three steps, landing heavily in front of her. Before the creature could lift its deformed arm to attack, Kael brought down the claw hammer in a brutal downward arc.
The claw side of the hammer sank into the woman's skull, right above her left eye socket. The violet light in her eyes flickered violently. She shrieked, a sharp, tearing sound, and flailed her mutated arm blindly.
The bony claw struck Kael's side. The taped magazines on his left forearm cushioned the initial impact, but the force of the blow threw him against the metal railing, knocking the air from his lungs. Pain exploded in his ribs.
"Dammit!"
Ignoring the pain, Kael scrambled back up. The woman was stunned, trying to pull the embedded hammer from her head. Kael saw his chance. He let go of the hammer handle, sidestepped to avoid another blind swing, and drove the chef's knife deep into the creature's neck, seeking the spine as he had done with Mrs. Petrova.
Twist the blade. Sever the connection.
The woman's body had one final spasm and collapsed, sliding the hammer out of her skull as she fell.
Below, the male Vector was getting up, his chest unnaturally sunken but showing no signs of pain. He was preparing to charge again.
Kael gave him no time. He retrieved his hammer from the floor, now covered in black ichor, and launched himself from the upper landing. He landed on the creature before it could fully stand, using gravity to empower the strike.
The hammer descended once, twice, three times on the man's head, until the skull stopped looking like a skull.
Silence returned to the stairwell, broken only by Kael's ragged, wheezing breathing. His side throbbed painfully where the claw had hit him. Probably a cracked rib, he thought, analyzing the pain with a coldness that surprised him.
System windows appeared in his vision, overlaying the carnage.
[You have eliminated a Level 0 Vector (Male).]
[You have eliminated a Level 0 Vector (Mutated Female - Stage 1).]
[Biomass Harvest activated...]
The black blood of the two corpses and the half-eaten delivery driver began to bubble simultaneously. Kael felt a magnetic pull at his feet.
[Warning: Multiple absorption detected. Prepare for influx.]
This time it wasn't just heat. It was like being injected with liquid caffeine and fire straight into his heart. Kael gasped, leaning against the cold wall as black tendrils raced up his legs, penetrating his jeans and fusing with his skin. His vision clouded with violet static for a second. The sensation of power was intoxicating, almost addictive, but accompanied by sudden nausea.
When his vision cleared, final notifications floated before him.
[Biomass acquired: 5 (Male)]
[Biomass acquired: 8 (Mutated Female - Early mutation bonus)]
[Residual Biomass acquired from third corpse: 2]
[Total Available Biomass: 15]
Fifteen points. Triple what he had gotten from the old lady.
Kael looked at his side. An ugly, extensive bruise was forming under his torn t-shirt, right below the magazine "armor." If that claw had hit flesh directly, it would have ripped his stomach open.
His enhanced muscle strength had allowed him to win the fight, but his durability was still pathetically human. He almost died from a single lucky hit by a low-level monster.
"I can't just be a glass cannon," he muttered, wiping cold sweat and blood from his forehead with the back of his hand. "I need to take hits. And I need to see them coming faster."
He sat on one of the blood-stained steps, ignoring the stench, and opened the System menu with a thought. The options unfolded, more extensive now that he had more biological currency to spend.
[AVAILABLE EVOLUTION OPTIONS (Biomass: 15)]
--- Physical Category ---
> Reinforce Muscle Tissue II (Cost: 10): Significantly increases muscle fiber density and power.
> Reinforced Bone Density I (Cost: 8): Hardens the skeleton, increasing resistance to fractures and blunt trauma.
> Harden Epidermis I (Cost: 5): Skin becomes more resistant to minor cuts and abrasions.
--- Sensory/Neural Category ---
> Neural Synapse Enhancement I (Cost: 7): Accelerates brain information processing. Improves reaction time and coordination.
> Basic Night Vision (Cost: 5): Adapts ocular rods to see in low light conditions (Monochromatic).
Kael analyzed the options like a chess player. He could spend it all on being incredibly strong (Muscle II), but a single well-placed bite could still kill him. Tough skin sounded good, but the hit he just took was blunt trauma; skin wouldn't have helped much against breaking ribs.
He needed bones that wouldn't snap on first impact, and he needed to be able to react before fast creatures reached him.
"System. Assign 8 points to [Reinforced Bone Density I]. And 7 points to [Neural Synapse Enhancement I]."
Spending every last point was risky, but keeping biomass in the bank wouldn't save his life right now.
[Processing double mutation. Warning: Pain levels will be significant.]
Kael clenched his teeth and bit down on the roll of duct tape to keep from screaming.
If the first time felt like hot needles, this was like being hit by a truck and then electrocuted. He felt his entire skeleton vibrating, a dull, deep ache in the marrow as his bones absorbed minerals at an impossible speed, becoming heavier, more compact.
Simultaneously, his brain felt an electric jolt. It was as if someone had wiped a dirty window in his mind. The colors in the gloom of the stairwell became slightly sharper. He could hear individual sounds of the building with greater clarity, distinguishing between dripping water and shuffling feet two floors down.
When the pain subsided, Kael stood up. He felt heavier, more solid on the earth. He touched his injured rib. The pain was still there, sharp, but he felt the ribcage beneath the skin strangely robust, as if he were wearing an internal ceramic vest.
He tossed the knife into the air and caught it by the handle without thinking. The movement was fluid, instinctive, much faster than he had ever been capable of. His brain processed the object's trajectory with astonishing ease.
[Remaining Biomass: 0]
"Good," Kael said. His voice sounded different to his own ears, calmer, more analytical. Fear was turning into data to process.
He looked down the final flight of stairs leading to the ground floor and the main lobby. The real challenge was there. The exit.
He adjusted the grip on his weapons, feeling the new solidity of his own bones beneath his skin. He was no longer just a scared student with a knife.
He was a prototype in development. And he needed more fuel.