The city was dying, and Leon Vale was the only one who seemed to notice.From his cracked workshop window, he watched smoke curl above the skyline like dying veins in the sky. The rain had turned black again, falling in thick, greasy drops that hissed and sizzled whenever they touched metal. The world smelled like rust, ozone, and failure.He wiped the grease from his hands with a rag that was more oil than fabric and leaned back against the half-dead engine on his worktable. The sign outside the garage flickered weakly—VALE MECHANICS—letters buzzing like dying flies.“Still alive,” Leon muttered, flicking a wrench between his fingers. “That’s more than I can say for the rest of this dump.”In the slums of District Twelve, power was a luxury. Food, a miracle. People like him—mechanics, scavengers, the ones who fixed the scraps of a broken world—were ghosts. The highborns lived above the smog, in clean towers that reached the clouds. Down here, even breathing hurt.The old radio on the

The storm didn’t stop.It raged through the night like the sky itself was bleeding, hurling acid rain and thunder over the ruins of the old city. Lightning danced across the horizon, revealing a world made of rust and silence.Leon Vale walked through the destruction, his clothes torn, his hands still faintly glowing with residual energy. The Magnetic Pulse ability he’d stolen pulsed like a second heartbeat inside him—raw, volatile, and new.He flexed his fingers, watching pebbles lift from the ground and hover briefly before dropping again. “Still getting used to this,” he muttered.The System shimmered before him.[USER: LEON VALE][LEVEL: 2][ABILITIES:]• Predator Protocol (Unique)• Rapid Regeneration• Thermal Rounds• Magnetic Pulse (Minor)Four abilities. Two battles. And a hunger growing deeper each time.He wasn’t sure if the System was rewriting his DNA or just feeding something that had always been there. Either way, it made him dangerous.And he liked that.He reached the

The storm hadn’t stopped.Rain fell in hard sheets, drenching the broken skyline. Neon lights flickered in the distance — hollow reminders of the world that used to be.Leon walked through the ruins with his shotgun slung across his back, each step echoing faintly through the hollow streets. His body still ached from the fight with the Titan. Regeneration helped, but exhaustion settled deep in his bones.[Health: 92%. Energy: 47%. Regeneration Rate: Slowing.]He ignored the numbers. He’d learned that focusing on stats didn’t matter when you could barely stand. What mattered was instinct — and the faint trail he was following.Nova.She had disappeared after the battle, but Leon knew she wanted him to find her. She’d left faint markers — a trail of magnetic pulses barely detectable unless you were tuned into the System’s frequencies.“Smart girl,” he muttered. “Let’s see where you’re hiding.”He followed the trail for nearly an hour before he found it — an underground bunker hidden ben

The pulse tore through the sky like a scream.Every building shook. Every streetlight flickered out. The city — already a graveyard — went silent.Leon and Nova stood in the rain as the red beam from Kade’s corpse burned through the clouds. Then the light twisted, folding inward, forming a rip in the sky itself.[System Alert: Dimensional Rift Detected.][Designation: Sovereign-Class Entity Incoming.]Nova swore softly. “He actually did it.”Leon’s voice was low, steady. “You’ve seen this before?”“Once,” she said. “Back when I was still with the Syndicate. It took three units of S-rank Candidates to bring down a Sovereign Host. We still lost half of them.”“Good odds,” Leon muttered, loading a new shell into his shotgun.Nova looked at him sharply. “This isn’t a fight you can win.”Leon didn’t look away from the sky. “Then it’s one I can’t afford to lose.”The air changed — the rain stopped falling. It just… froze midair, droplets suspended like diamonds. The pressure crushed down on

The night was too still.Even the wind held its breath as Leon and Nova approached the spire. It rose from the ruins like a black fang, crowned in red light. The tallest building left in the city — once a corporate tower, now the seat of something far worse.[Mission Objective: Investigate the Source of Transmission.][Threat Level: Unknown.]Nova adjusted her scope, scanning the skyline. “Signal’s coming from the top floor. You sure about this?”Leon checked his weapon, chambering a round. “The message said the Apex is his. If that’s true, I need to know why.”“Or he’s baiting you.”Leon smirked. “Then I’ll bite.”They moved through the dead streets in silence. The tower loomed larger with every step — its surface rippled faintly with crimson code, a living structure breathing System energy.When they reached the base, Leon ran his hand along the metal doors. The moment he touched them, the System flared.[Access Granted. Welcome, Apex Candidate.]Nova raised a brow. “That’s not cree