The sun never rose in Sector 7; instead, the bruised sky merely shifted from a deep violet to a sickly, charcoal grey.
The initial wave of Goblins had been a slaughter. Of the fifty students from Saint Jude's who had stood in the Great Hall only hours ago, twelve were already gone—their bodies dragged into the obsidian undergrowth or left as cooling heaps of meat in the mulch.
Zeke sat perched on a thick, bioluminescent root, thirty feet above the forest floor. He was breathing rhythmically, his eyes closed. Every time he focused, he could feel his Mana Heart thrumming in his chest like a low-frequency motor. It wasn't just a physical organ anymore; it was a refinery, processing the thin, ambient mana of the forest into a cold current that circulated through his limbs.
{PROGRESS: 40 / 100 XP (TO RANK E-1)}
He had killed three more scouts since the first encounter. Each kill had become easier as his body acclimated to its 19 Agility. He didn't feel the "rush" yet—just a cold, analytical precision.
"Zeke! Please, come down!"
Below him, the remnants of the class were huddled in a hollowed-out tree trunk. Marcus was sitting by the entrance, his E-Rank Warhammer trembling in his grip. His expensive blazer was torn, and a deep scratch ran down his cheek.
"We need to move together," Marcus called out, his voice cracking with desperation. "The System said we have to survive 72 hours. We can't do it if you're up there playing Batman."
Zeke opened one eye, looking down at the group. They were a liability. They were loud, they were slow, and they were clutching their 24-hour food rations like holy relics.
"The noise you're making is a dinner bell," Zeke said, his voice carrying clearly through the humid air. "There's a pack of something larger than Goblins circling this clearing. They've been trailing us since the twilight shift."
"Don't listen to him," a girl named Sarah hissed, hugging her knees. "He's always been a freak. He's just trying to scare us so he can take our food."
Zeke didn't bother responding. His Intelligence stat (22) allowed him to process the sensory data the others ignored: the way the insects had gone silent, the specific pattern of snapping twigs, and the scent of wet fur and sulfur.
Suddenly, the shadows at the edge of the clearing elongated.
A creature the size of a grizzly bear, but with the lean, muscular build of a wolf, stepped into the faint glow of the bioluminescent moss. Its skin was hairless and translucent, revealing pulsating black veins. It had six eyes—three on each side of its elongated snout—and rows of serrated teeth that glowed with a faint, acidic green light.
{ENEMY DETECTED: SHADOW STALKER (RANK E-5)}
"E-5?" Marcus choked out, staring up at the beast. "We're E-0! That's... that's five tiers higher!"
The Shadow Stalker didn't roar. It moved with a silent, terrifying grace, covering the distance to the tree trunk in three massive bounds. Marcus swung his hammer, a desperate, clumsy arc. The beast caught the iron head in its jaws and snapped it like a biscuit.
Panic turned into a symphony of screams.
Zeke felt it then. The familiar, hollow boredom in his chest began to crack. His heart rate spiked, hitting 140, then 160. The world around him didn't just slow down; it began to sharpen into high-definition.
{UNIQUE TRAIT TRIGGERED: PSYCHO RUSH}
{EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSION ACTIVE.}
{ALL STATS INCREASED BY 50% FOR THE DURATION OF COMBAT.}
[Current Combat Stats:]
Strength: 27
Agility: 28.5
Intelligence: 33
Constitution: 27
The fear vanished. The empathy for his classmates vanished. Zeke became a machine of pure calculation.
He dropped from the root.
To the students below, Zeke was a blur of black leather and silver steel. He landed on the Shadow Stalker's back just as it was about to tear into Marcus's shoulder.
With 28.5 Agility, Zeke's movements were no longer human. He drove his right dagger into one of the beast's eyes, twisting the blade to shred the optic nerve. As the creature reared back, howling in pain, Zeke used the momentum to launch himself into the air, spinning and driving his second dagger into the soft junction where the skull met the spine.
The Stalker thrashed, its massive claws furrowing the earth. Zeke stayed clamped to its back, his hands steady, his face an expressionless mask of stone. He stabbed again. And again. Each strike was aimed at a vital meridian, a technique he had mastered in fencing but was now executing with supernatural power.
The beast collapsed, its six eyes dimming.
{YOU HAVE SLAIN A SHADOW STALKER (RANK E-5).}
{LEVEL DIFFERENCE BONUS APPLIED.}
{EXPERIENCE GAINED: +120 XP}
{CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE SURPASSED THE XP LIMIT.}{RANK UP: RANK E - TIER 0 -> RANK E - TIER 1}
{ALL-ROUNDER TRAIT APPLIED: +1 TO ALL STATS.}
Zeke stood over the carcass, his chest heaving slightly. The grey smoke of the Psycho Rush began to recede from his vision, leaving behind the cold reality of the forest. He looked at his hands—covered in the acidic green blood of the beast—and then at the horrified faces of his classmates.
They weren't looking at him like a savior. They were looking at him like he was a monster far worse than the one he had just killed.
Zeke ignored them. He looked at his status screen.
{Status Window}
Rank: Rank E - Tier 1
Experience: 60 / 150 (To E-2)
Strength: 19
Agility: 20
Intelligence: 23
Constitution: 19
Charisma: 16
"Sixty XP into the next tier already," Zeke whispered, a genuine, dark smile finally touching his lips. "At this rate, three days won't be nearly enough."
He turned away from the group and began to skin the Shadow Stalker. If he was going to survive the next 60 hours, he needed more than nutrient bars. He needed to eat the monsters.