2025-12-12 05:34:53A deep, gut-punch explosion rumbled through the wall. The ceiling lights flickered like dying fireflies. Warning alarms started screaming overhead not the usual alarm, but a sharp, frantic one.
The air turned red as emergency lights snapped on. The steady hum of the building’s systems stuttered… then died completely. The backup generators squealed as they tried to kick in. [Containment Protocol Activated. Primary surveillance grid: OFFLINE. Internal security fields: POWERING DOWN. Estimated window: 4 minutes, 30 seconds.] Leo didn’t waste a second. He sprinted. “HEY—STOP!” one of the guards yelled behind him, still disoriented. But Leo was already at the shattered panel, wrenching it open with both hands. His escape window had begun. “NOW!” Leo shouted to himself but his voice vanished under the chaos of alarms and crackling lights. The two guards were still stumbling, half-blind from the sonic blast and the sudden blackout. Leo didn’t try to fight them. He ran. He bolted past the smoking access panel, deeper into the sub-basement. Sparks fell behind him like angry fireflies. The System flashed a map across his vision. [Route Calculated. Secondary maintenance shaft → old sewer line → East River access.] Perfect. He reached the shaft a wide, black hole in the floor with a metal ladder disappearing into darkness. no hesitation. He swung his leg over and climbed down. Alarms blared above him, then grew quiet as he descended deeper underground. He jumped the last few feet and landed in ankle-deep, filthy water. The stink hit him instantly mold, rot, chemicals but his Zephyr Lungs filtered it before it reached his brain. He scanned the tunnel. Old pre-Revival sewer pipes. Cracked. Abandoned. Perfect for disappearing. Leo started running, water splashing around his feet. Bioluminescent fungus dotted the walls, glowing like faint green stars guiding his way. He whispered to himself, “Come on… come on…” Minutes passed. Maybe an hour. It felt like forever. Then he saw it a pale circle of daylight ahead. A grate. Freedom. He rushed to it, pushed nothing. He pushed harder. The rusted lock groaned… then snapped. Leo squeezed through the opening and tumbled out into a narrow alley filled with trash bags and old crates. The damp wind of the outer city hit his face. Real air. Dirty, polluted, unfiltered but free. He made it. He leaned against a wet brick wall, breathing hard, letting his body finally slow down. “I did it,” he whispered. “I’m out. I’m actually—” Clap. Clap. Clap. Someone was clapping. Slow. Polite. Mocking. Leo stiffened. His heart stopped. A shape moved at the end of the alley. Someone stepped out of the shadows and into the weak morning light. Cora. But not the Cora from the labs clean hair, white coat, calm expression. This Cora wore dark combat gear. Her boots were silent. Her eyes were colder. Harder. Like a hunter who had already chosen her prey. And she was alone. “Well done, Leo,” she said, slow and sharp, her voice cutting through the distant sirens. “Really. That crystal trick? Very clever. Crude… but clever. I didn’t think you had that kind of move in you.” Leo pushed himself off the wall, muscles tense. He couldn’t beat her. He knew that. But he also wasn’t going to just stand there. She lifted her wrist and tapped a small device. “You’re wondering how I found you.” He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Cora continued anyway. “Your escape wasn’t a surprise. We predicted it with an eighty-seven percent probability.” She tilted her head slightly. “You’ve been giving off a strange little energy pulse ever since your first refinement. Weak, but unique. Our scanners don’t understand it… but they can mark it.” She gave him a thin smile. “Basically, Leo… we painted a bullseye on you.” A chill swept down his spine. She stepped closer, boots splashing in the alley puddles. “The tower-wide chaos you triggered? Perfect cover for me. No supervisors. No reporting. No paperwork asking why I’m collecting you personally.” Her smile sharpened. “You made a mistake tonight. You showed us you’re not just some odd test case. You’re smart. You adapt fast. You fight back.” She shrugged. “That makes you dangerous. And valuable. Too valuable to lose. Far too dangerous to let wander around free.” She raised both hands. Qi gathered around her fingers like swirling ribbons of light controlled, precise, deadly. The air thickened as pressure built around her. Her voice dropped, soft but razor-sharp. “So here’s your choice, Leo. You come with me quietly…” She paused, letting the energy reach its peak. “Or I break you right here, in this trash pile of an alley, and drag whatever’s left of you back for study.” There it was. No choice at all. But for the first time… Cora was alone . Leo stared back at her, his breath slow, his Qi waking up inside him. It wasn’t fancy or controlled like hers. It was rough, heavy, and tightly packed in his chest and bones like a storm waiting to burst. “I’m done with your offers,” Leo said quietly. The System snapped to life: [Extreme Threat Detected: Aetherius Analyst — Qi Refining Level 11.] [Engagement is NOT survivable.] [New Directive: SURVIVE by any means.] [Recalculating…] It wasn’t advice. It was a verdict. He couldn’t win. Cora’s smile grew sharper. “Good. I wanted to see the real you.” And then she moved. One moment she was ten steps away. The next minute she was right in front of him. No wind. No warning. Just a sudden presence and a hand glowing with cold, sharp light. Her fingers formed a spear of geometric Qi, aimed straight at his heart. A killing strike designed to end the fight instantly. Leo made the only choice he had left. He didn’t block. He didn’t jump back. He didn’t try any desperate trick. He stepped into the attack and he let her stab him.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Door in The Dark
The hum of the chaotic lake was a physical force, vibrating in Leo’s teeth and bones. The energy he’d swallowed the Chaotic Core thrummed in response, a hungry prisoner rattling its cage.The black temple in the center of the madness was the only still point. It didn't glow. It was a hole in the world, a silence at the heart of the scream.It is the source, the System had said. And the energy inside him was a piece of it.He had to reach it. It was the only possible answer. A place that absorbed chaos might be able to contain the bomb in his chest. Or, it might be the catalyst that set it off.There was no path down the sheer cliff face. Only the swirling, bubbling lake of liquid madness below.He looked at his hands. The silvery-purple scars from the stag’s corruption were now dark, throbbing lines. He felt the chaotic energy inside him, pressing against the walls of his marrow. He had an idea. A terrible, stupid idea.He focused on the energy in his bones. He didn't try to control i
The Devouring
Leo’s lungs, the Zephyr Lungs refined to a mythical 13th level, did not breathe air. They screamed. It was a silent, internal shriek of protest as the System seized control and forced them to do the impossible.He didn't pull in a trickle of the Wisp's energy. He opened the floodgates.The Chaos Wisp's tendril, meant to siphon his life, became a highway for a catastrophic reversal. The dark, crackling energy of the Wisp a condensed storm of madness and raw, unrefined power surged into Leo.It was not like the stag’s corruption. That was poison. This was an avalanche.It felt like his bones were being replaced with live wires, his blood turning to molten lead. His vision whited out. The pain was so total, so absolute, it stopped being pain and became the only reality. He could feel the System working frantically, a tiny, brilliant logic engine at the core of the storm, trying to channel the impossible flood.[FULL ASSIMILATION INITIATED.][ENERGY OVERLOAD: CRITICAL.][RE-ROUTING TO RE
Between Stone and Beast
The crystalline chiming grew louder, shaking droplets from the ceiling into the dark pool. Elias shifted his grip on the spear, his knuckles white. He didn't look back at Leo."Stay in the water," the old man growled. "The Heart-Stone is your only chance. If you get out now, the corruption will rush back in, worse than before. And you'll be too weak to fight."[Corruption Extraction: 41%. Pure Energy Drain: 5.8%. Vital signs stabilizing.][Host is combat ineffective. Estimated recovery time: 9 minutes.]Nine minutes. An eternity.The beast emerged from the tunnel. It was transformed. The broken crystal antlers had regrown, but now they were smaller, darker, and sharper, like obsidian daggers. Its six legs ended in points that scratched deep grooves in the stone floor. Its eyes, once swirling purple, now burned with a focused, hateful crimson light. It had evolved. It had consumed the chasm's energy to heal, and it had come for the thing that had hurt it.It saw Leo in the pool and le
The Hermit of the Chasm
The old man's spear point didn't waver. His eyes, clear and sharp as broken glass, scanned Leo from head to toe. He saw the silvery lightning-scars on Leo's hands, the faint, unhealthy purple tinge under his otherwise perfect skin. He smelled the conflict on him the clean, sharp scent of high-level refinement clashing with the sour ozone of the chasm's corruption."You are poisoned, boy," the old man stated, his voice like gravel. "And you are hunted. The Aetherius grey doesn't hide well, even when it's torn.""I'm not with them," Leo said quickly, holding up his empty hands. He was exhausted. His body felt like a battleground between purity and poison. This cave, this pocket of normal air, felt like heaven. He couldn't afford to be turned away. "I escaped them. They chased me here.""Fool's choice," the hermit grunted. "Better the cage than the crawler's belly. Or the slow madness." He tilted his head. "But you're not mad. Not yet. And you're standing. That's... unusual.""My name
Devour or be Devoured
He had escaped the hunter. But he had jumped into the mouth of a different beast. The perfect energy of his 13th Level foundations was now a poison in this place, a shining beacon that the chaos wanted to extinguish.He was alone, in hell, and his own body was beginning to turn against him.In the swirling purple mist ahead, something huge and multi-limbed shifted, drawn by the scent of his pure, struggling energy. A low, gurgling growl echoed through the warped trees.The fight was over. The survival had just begun. And he had nothing left to fight with but the System, and a body that was becoming his enemy.Leo's heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. The whispers weren't just in his head now they were in the air, slithering through the glowing leaves, echoing from the pulsating ground. The multi-limbed shadow in the mist took a heavy step forward. He saw a flash of chitinous plates, too many joints, and eyes that shone with a hungry, insane light.He couldn't fight. His Qi was
The Painted Ghost
Cora’s hand, wrapped in sharp, geometric light, punched into Leo’s chest.The impact was a thunderclap in the small alley. But the sound wasn't of tearing flesh. It was a deep, resonant CLANG, like a hammer hitting the world's strongest bell.Cora’s confident smirk vanished, replaced by shock. Her fingers hadn't pierced skin. They had hit something impossibly hard, and the recoil shot pain up her own arm.Leo grunted, the force driving him back a step, but he didn't fall. He looked down. Where her strike had landed, his grey Aetherius shirt was torn, revealing the skin beneath. It wasn't cut. It wasn't even bruised. A faint, diamond-like shimmer faded from the spot.His Level 13 Diamond Hide had held.Cora stared, her stormy eyes wide. "Impossible... That was a Piercing Star technique. It cuts through reinforced steel!"[Critical Impact Sustained. Diamond Hide Integrity: 94%.][Warning: Cannot withstand a second direct strike of that magnitude.]"You talk too much," Leo growled, and h
You may also like
The martial Lord
Supreme king92.6K viewsThe Trillionaire System
Tyqun Nla42.5K viewsThe Super Doctor Calvin Hudson
Cindy Chen28.1K viewsUnparalleled Demon System: Tales of the Lost Demon
Dark Crafter21.0K viewsI Became A Vampire Demon
Zenick41.2K viewsChosen By The System To Play God
Menz Raider10.5K viewsHost And The Soul System
Andila4.3K viewsRise To Ascension: The Poor Zillionaire
Alynn L Writes 207 views