The air on the street didn't just smell of smoke; it had a physical, gritty, toxic texture that clung to the roof of the mouth. It was the taste of civilization collapsing in real-time.
Kael stepped out of his building's entrance, stepping on shattered glass that crunched beneath his cheap sneakers. His makeshift magazine "armor" was in tatters, hanging from his forearms like dead skin, and his clothes were so soaked in dried blood that they had become stiff, like macabre cardboard. Yet, beneath that layer of filth, Kael felt vibrant. Electric.
His bones, reinforced with the mineral density extracted from the stairwell slaughter, supported his weight with a newfound firmness. His senses, amplified by the [Neural Synapse Enhancement I], bombarded his brain with constant information: the groan of a car chassis crashing three blocks away, the smell of ozone that preceded the appearance of a monster, the rhythmic thrum of his own heart—slow and powerful.
He looked both ways down the main avenue. The chaos was absolute and beautiful in its brutality. Overturned cars burned, casting long, dancing shadows against the building facades. Human corpses and Vector carcasses lay entwined in deadly embraces on the asphalt.
Suddenly, the sky flickered.
It wasn't lightning. It was as if reality itself had a technical glitch. A series of gigantic letters, written in golden fire, materialized in the celestial vault, visible from any point in the city. They were different from the blue windows of his personal system; these emanated a divine and terrifying authority.
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The First Wave has concluded.]
[Remaining Human Population: 45%.]
[The "Ascension Protocol" has been successfully installed in all survivors.]
[Killing grants Essence. Essence grants Power. The world is now an open server.]
Kael felt a chill in his stomach that had nothing to do with the temperature.
"Everyone...?" he whispered, his voice lost in the ash-laden wind.
The implication was devastating. Until that moment, Kael had operated under the assumption that he was an anomaly, a "protagonist" in a horror story. His advantage lay in his ability to grow while everyone else merely tried not to die. But if everyone had a System... his competitive edge evaporated. He was no longer special. He was just another participant in an arms race with seven billion contestants (or whatever was left of them).
A sharp battle cry interrupted his spiral of thoughts.
It came from a narrow alley about fifty meters to his left, wedged between a looted convenience store and a laundromat. It wasn't a scream of panic, but of effort—a martial kiai.
Kael pressed himself against the brick wall, triggering his predator instincts. Thanks to his accelerated mental processing, he moved soundlessly, controlling his breathing until it was imperceptible. He peeked carefully around the corner.
In the alley, the scene was a tableau of kinetic violence.
A group of three Vectors—basic zombies, but fast and hungry—had cornered a solitary figure against a dumpster.
It was a girl. She looked about his age, maybe twenty. She wore a tight black leather jacket, tactical cargo pants, and heavy combat boots. Her hair, an unusual silver color (dye or a Mana effect?), was tied in a high ponytail that swung with her movements.
But what made Kael hold his breath wasn't her appearance, but what she was holding.
It wasn't a makeshift weapon like his hammer or kitchen knife. It was a long, straight sword, made of a metal that didn't look like terrestrial steel. The blade emitted a pale blue glow, pulsing with rhythmic energy. A System Weapon.
One of the Vectors, a former office worker with a hanging jaw, lunged at her with an inhuman leap.
The girl didn't back down. She didn't tremble. Her blue eyes narrowed with icy concentration.
"[Wind Slash]," she pronounced. Her voice was clear, like a bell in the middle of hell.
She made a horizontal sweeping motion with the sword. To normal eyes, it would have been just a slash at the air. But to Kael's enhanced eyes, it was magic.
A translucent distortion, a blade of high-pressure compressed air, shot from the sword's edge. The "magic" extended the attack's range a meter beyond the steel.
The Vector's head flew off cleanly before its claws could even graze the girl's jacket. The cut was so precise that the blood took a second to realize it should flow.
Kael's eyes widened, analyzing what he had just seen. Active skills? Ranged attacks? Mana?
His own system was purely biological: eat, assimilate, mutate, grow. It was visceral and physical. But hers... hers looked like it was ripped straight from a classic RPG. Classes, mana bars, skills with fancy names.
The other two Vectors, driven by the basic hive mind, attacked simultaneously from opposite flanks.
The girl spun on her heel, a pirouette worthy of a lethal dancer.
"[Flash Step]."
Her body blurred. She left a residual image, a visual echo in the spot where she had been. She appeared instantly behind the monsters, her sword already finishing the arc of the movement.
Two more heads rolled across the dirty alley floor.
The fight ended in five seconds. Brutal efficiency.
The girl shook the sword with a sharp flick of her wrist to clean it of black blood—which dissolved into blue light pixels, not physical stains—and then extended her left hand toward the corpses.
Kael watched, fascinated and horrified. Small orbs of white light emerged from the chests of the dead Vectors and floated toward her, absorbing into her skin.
"Essence," Kael muttered to himself. "She collects abstract experience or Mana. I collect physical matter. We are fundamentally different."
The girl, Elena, stood still for a moment, her eyes unfocused, likely assigning stat points in an interface only she could see. Then, with a suddenness that betrayed high sensory attributes, she snapped her head toward the corner where Kael was hiding.
Her eyes were ice blue, piercing. There was no fear in them, only a tactical threat assessment.
"Come out," she ordered. Her right hand rested relaxed but ready on the hilt of her sword.
Kael cursed internally. His stealth wasn't a System skill, just human caution, and she clearly had Perception stats far superior to the average.
He stepped out slowly, showing empty hands at shoulder height, though he ensured his hammer on his belt and the knife in his boot were accessible in less than a second.
"Easy," Kael said, keeping a safety distance of ten meters. He knew that with her [Flash Step], she could close that gap in a blink, but the distance gave him a fraction of a second to react. "I'm human. Not infected. My eyes aren't glowing... yet."
Elena scanned him up and down. Her gaze paused on the dried multi-colored blood covering his clothes, on the shredded magazines on his arms, and finally, on the strange, unnatural density of his muscles beneath his torn t-shirt.
"You killed something big to be that dirty," she said, narrowing her eyes. Her voice was suspicious, taut. "And you don't smell like fear. That's rare. Most people are crying or hiding under their beds right now."
"You have a magic sword and throw cutting wind," Kael countered calmly. "That's rarer than a little blood."
There was a tense silence in the alley. The wind moved a bloody newspaper between them. In a normal romance novel, this would be the "meet-cute" moment. Here, they were two alpha predators sizing up each other's throats. Kael calculated if his reinforced bones could withstand a cut from that sword; Elena calculated if she could decapitate him before he used that evident brute strength.
Elena let out a short, dry, humorless laugh.
"You have guts. Or you're stupid. The global announcement just went out five minutes ago. People are going to start killing each other for resources and 'Essence' any moment now. Seeing another armed human isn't a relief anymore; it's a risk."
"I know," Kael said. "That's why I didn't attack you from behind while you were looting those zombies."
Elena arched an eyebrow, surprised by the brutal honesty and the use of gamer terminology ("looting"). She lowered the sword tip slightly, a sign of minimal truce.
"My name is Elena. Level 3. Class: Gale Swordswoman."
Kael hesitated. Information was power. Should he reveal his cards? He decided to give a half-truth, a lie by omission.
"Kael. Level... irrelevant. Class... Brawler."
He wasn't going to tell her he had no numerical levels, no classes, and that technically, he was a monster evolving in a human skin suit.
"Fine, 'Brawler' Kael," Elena took a step back, moving toward the opposite exit of the alley, never turning her back on him. "Free advice, for not trying to kill me: there's a group of survivors in the 'Central Plaza' mall two blocks from here. They've proclaimed themselves 'The Kings.' They're charging taxes on those who enter. If you value your life, avoid them."
"Thanks for the tip," Kael nodded, memorizing the location.
"Don't get confused. I'm not helping you out of kindness," Elena said, pausing at the alley's mouth. "I just don't want to waste my sword's edge and my mana on a rookie on day one. If we meet again and you're a threat, I will cut you down."
"Same here," Kael replied, his voice low and gravelly.
Elena vanished around the corner, moving with that supernatural speed that left a blurry trail.
Kael released the air he had been holding in his reinforced lungs.
His heart beat fast, not from fear, but from a dark, primal excitement. That girl was strong. Lethal. And beautiful in a dangerous way, like a saber-toothed tiger.
But the most important thing Kael learned in that encounter wasn't her name. It was the fundamental difference between them.
She needed weapons dropped by the system, mana potions, and skills with cooldown timers to be strong.
He only needed his own body and hunger.
Kael looked toward the direction of the mall Elena had mentioned. "The Kings," huh? An organized group meant many prey gathered together. And where there were people, there was noise. And where there was noise, strong Vectors were attracted by the sound. And where there were tyrants... there was a lot of accumulated experience waiting to be harvested.
"System," Kael said, with a smile that showed too many teeth. "Let's go to the mall. I'm hungry.