Kevin stood in the dark, candle-lit church. His arms were shaking. His broken shoulder burned with terrible, hot pain. But he did not lower the heavy shotgun. He aimed the metal barrel directly at the tall man in the pure white coat."Stay away from my father," Kevin repeated. His voice was loud, but it was cracking.General Silas smiled. The silver metal mask covering half of his face caught the flickering yellow light of the candles. His one pale blue eye stared at Kevin. Silas did not look afraid of the gun. He looked bored."You are a brave boy," Silas said smoothly. His voice was like a soft, sweet song. "But bravery cannot heal a ruptured liver. Bravery cannot stop internal bleeding. Look at him, Kevin. Look at your father."Kevin quickly glanced down.Jonah was lying flat on the cold stone floor. He was a giant, but right now, he looked incredibly small. His face was completely gray. Dark, thick blood leaked from his mouth and nose, pooling on the floor. His massive chest bare

"You cannot go back," Silas said from the shadows. The silver-masked General stepped forward. "You are surrounded by fifty guns and my best monsters. You will die before you reach the church doors."Jonah closed his eyes. The situation was impossible. It was an absolute, terrifying nightmare.Deep inside his mind, the System flickered again. It was running on its last, dying spark of battery power. It tried to help him one last time. It tried to give him the math.A bright blue screen appeared over Jonah’s dark vision. The words flashed quickly.[ANALYZING TACTICAL SITUATION...][THREAT LEVEL: APOCALYPTIC.]Jonah watched the numbers scroll. He needed to know the truth.[DISTANCE TO SANCTUARY: 2 MILES.][ESTIMATED TRAVEL TIME: 12 MINUTES.][ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL SANCTUARY BREACH IS FATAL: 4 MINUTES.]The math was terrible. Even if Jonah could teleport, he would barely make it in time. But he could not teleport. He was trapped.[ENEMIES IN CURRENT LOCATION: 52 ARMED HOSTILES. 14 MUTATED

Cain let go of the thick iron chains. "Tear him to pieces," Cain commanded the two massive Elite Zombies. "Eat his heart."The two giant monsters roared. RRRRUUUUMMMBLE!They charged down the center aisle of the church. They were incredibly fast. Their heavy iron plates clanked together loudly. They raised their long, jagged bone swords. Black slime dripped from the sharp edges.Jonah did not have a weapon. He did not step back. He looked deep inside his mind.The magical System was dark. He had turned off the Adaptive Reward Conversion. He did not want to feel the fake, glowing power.But there were two small bars left in the corner of his vision. They were the basic human metrics the System recorded.[STAMINA: 40%][MANA: 15%]He was incredibly tired. His body was bleeding. But he did not need the System to tell him that. He could feel it.“Twelve minutes,” Jonah thought to himself. “It takes twelve minutes to run two miles up the mountain. I have to fight for twelve minutes.”The f

Jonah woke up in the dark.For a long time, he did not know where he was. He could not see anything. He could only feel. And what he felt was absolute, terrible pain.His body bounced up and down. Rumble. Rumble. Bump. He was lying on a hard metal floor. The floor was moving. He realized he was in the back of a large, heavy truck.Jonah tried to move his arms. He could not. Thick, heavy iron chains wrapped tightly around his massive chest. The chains squeezed his broken ribs. His wrists and ankles were locked in cold steel cuffs. The metal dug deep into his skin, rubbing against the thick iron scars on his arms.He took a slow, shallow breath. The air smelled like gasoline, dirty exhaust smoke, and raw meat.The magical System inside his head was completely silent. There were no bright blue letters. There was no health bar. There was no Adaptive Reward Conversion to turn his terrible pain into glowing power. He had turned the machine off to save his soul. Now, he was just a man. A v

BANG! The spike went deeper, locking Jonah’s left hand permanently to the metal cross.The man walked around to the right side. He placed another thick iron spike over Jonah’s right hand.BANG! The spike tore through his right palm. Blood sprayed onto the rusted steel.Jonah’s entire body shook with the terrible shock. His breath came in fast, sharp gasps through his nose. His vision went completely black for a second. The pain was an ocean, and he was drowning in it.Without the magical System, there was no auto-healing. There were no pain blockers. He was feeling every single terrible sensation a human body could feel.BANG! The second spike was hammered deep into the steel.Finally, the man knelt down at Jonah’s feet. He took one last, massive iron spike. He drove it directly through the tops of Jonah’s heavy boots, pinning his feet to the bottom of the steel pole.BANG! BANG! It was done. Jonah was crucified.He hung there in the cold wind, bleeding, broken, and helpless. The pain