2026-08-27 02:33:16The Lesser Offender didn’t give Kian a moment to breathe. The creature—because Kian couldn’t see him as a man anymore—lunged with a rasping, wet cough that sounded like dry leaves dragging over pavement.
"Wait! Wait, back off!" Kian scrambled backward, his bare heels catching on a crack in the sidewalk. "Are you even listening to me? I don't have anything you want!"
The man’s lips peeled back, revealing gums blackened by soot. "Hot... so hot inside. Need to let it out. Need to see it move."
Kian’s vision flickered. Small, glowing red outlines began to shimmer across his field of vision.
[COWARD’S INSIGHT: SCANNING...]
"Scanning? Scanning what?" Kian gasped, his chest tightening. "Come on, give me a weapon or something!"
[OBJECT IDENTIFIED: MODEL 44 PRESSURIZED HYDRANT]
[WEAKNESS: CORRODED SAFETY VALVE]
[RECOMMENDATION: RUN THERE, YOU IDIOT.]
"Hey! Did the system just call me an idiot?" Kian rolled to his feet, barely dodging a swipe of the man’s claws. "I’m working on it!"
The Lesser Offender roared, and this time, his hands didn't just move through the air; they left trails of orange sparks. He slammed a fist into the brick wall behind Kian, and the brick didn't just shatter—it scorched.
"Oh, great. He’s a literal human torch," Kian muttered, sprinting toward the hydrant highlighted in his UI. "Hey! Over here, sparky! Come and get it!"
A passing group of teenagers in matching blue combat jackets stopped briefly across the street.
"Is that a mob?" one girl asked, her voice high and bored.
"Nah, just a trash-tier arsonist," her friend replied, not even drawing his weapon. "Look at the filter. It says 'Common Infestation.' Leave it for the patrol guards. We’re late for the raid."
"But look at the guy in the hospital gown," the girl giggled. "Is that a new costume class? 'The Desperate Patient'?"
"Kian heard them and felt a surge of white-hot fury. "Hey! A little help would be nice! I’m literally about to get cooked!"
"Keep it down!" the boy yelled back. "You’re messing with our aggro radius! Go die somewhere quieter!"
Kian growled, turning his focus back to the glowing-eyed lunatic. "Unbelievable. Fine. Nobody helps. I get it."
The Lesser Offender was crouched low now, his entire body beginning to smoke. "Everything burns... the kids, the wood, the sky. Everything!"
"Yeah, not today," Kian whispered. He reached the fire hydrant. The UI was flashing a bright, neon arrow at a specific rusted bolt. "Okay, system. If this doesn't work, I'm haunting you first."
"Burn!" the arsonist screamed, launching himself forward like a coil.
"Wait for it... wait for it..." Kian braced his feet. "Now!"
As the creature flew through the air, his fingers glowing white-hot, Kian didn't run away. He dove behind the cast-iron hydrant and kicked the safety valve with every ounce of strength he had left.
Clang.
The corroded bolt snapped. The pressure inside the city’s mana-boosted water system was legendary. With a sound like a freight train, a column of freezing, high-velocity water erupted from the hydrant.
It hit the Lesser Offender mid-air.
"Gah! No! It’s cold! Make it stop!" the man screamed as the torrent slammed him into the brick wall across the narrow alley.
Kian, soaked to the bone and shivering, grabbed a nearby length of jagged structural pipe that had been leaning against a trash can. "How do you like the 'Desperate Patient' now, you freak?"
"Kill... will kill you..." The arsonist was pinned to the wall by the sheer force of the water, his fire extinguished, his body steam-shrouded and spasming.
[NOTIFICATION: TARGET WEAKENED]
[MISSION UPDATE: FINISH THE JOB]
[REWARD PENDING: 10 POINTS]
Kian walked forward, the pipe shaking in his hands. His heart felt like it was going to burst through his hospital gown. "I have to do it? He’s... he’s still a person, isn't he?"
[SYSTEM ALERT: IF TARGET RECOVERS MANA, SURVIVAL PROBABILITY DROP TO 2%.]
"I know, I know! Shut up!" Kian shouted at the screen.
He looked at the man. Up close, he could see the sores on the man’s face, the desperate, hollow look in his violet eyes. But then he saw the man’s fingers twitch. A tiny spark flickered at the tip of a blackened claw.
"Don't do it," Kian warned, his voice cracking. "Just... stay down."
"Burn... everything... MUST... BURN!" The arsonist gathered a ball of fire in his palm, the water around him beginning to boil away into thick, obscuring mist.
"I'm sorry," Kian whispered.
He didn't think. He lunged.
The jagged end of the iron pipe found its mark, sliding between the man's ribs. Kian felt the sickening resistance of flesh, the hot spray of blood against his knuckles, and then the sudden, terrifying lack of movement.
The Lesser Offender’s eyes widened. The violet glow dimmed, then flickered out entirely.
"Oh god," Kian gasped, stumbling back. "Oh god, I actually... I killed him."
He fell to his knees, his breath coming in ragged hitches. He stared at his red-stained hands, waiting for the sirens, the police, the guards—anything. But the pedestrians across the street just kept walking. The girl who had giggled was already a block away.
[MISSION COMPLETE]
[REWARD: 10 POINTS RECEIVED]
[FIRST KILL BONUS: 50 POINTS RECEIVED]
[LEVEL UP: 0 -> 1]
"I don't care about the points!" Kian screamed at the UI. "I just killed a guy! Somebody do something!"
Suddenly, the air in the alleyway began to ripple. Strands of dark, smoky energy began to rise from the corpse of the Lesser Offender. They swirled in the air like ink in water, before suddenly diving toward Kian’s chest.
"What is this? Get it off me! Get it off!"
[CLASS SKILL ACTIVATED: TRAUMA HARVEST]
[ERROR: CLASS UNASSIGNED. DEFAULTING TO 'SOUL ABSORPTION']
[SKILL STOLEN: EMBERS OF THE MADMAN]
Kian let out a strangled cry as the energy slammed into him. It didn't feel like power. It felt like needles being driven into his brain.
"Agh! Make it stop! My head!"
He collapsed against the wet pavement, the sound of the spraying hydrant still roaring in his ears. But then, the world around him disappeared.
He wasn't in the alley anymore.
He was six years old, hiding in a closet. He could smell woodsmoke. He could hear children screaming on the other side of the door. He held a box of matches in his hand, his thumb shaking as he struck the head. 'Look how pretty it is,' he whispered to the shadows. 'Look how it dances.'
"No..." Kian groaned, clutching his skull. "Get out of my head... that’s not mine! I didn't do that!"
The fire spread to the curtains. He watched through the slats of the closet door as the orphanage floor turned into a sea of orange. He felt a twisted, ecstatic joy. 'Burn it all down. Then they won't have to be lonely anymore.'
"Stop it!" Kian shrieked, slamming his fist onto the ground.
The vision shattered. He was back in the alley, his face pressed against the cold asphalt. His eyes were watering, and his chest felt like there was a live coal buried deep inside his lungs.
[SKILL INTEGRATION COMPLETE]
[EMBERS OF THE MADMAN: RANK F]
[DESCRIPTION: PRODUCE WEAK FLAMES FUELED BY THE USER'S OWN UNSTABLE EMOTIONS. CAUTION: MAY CAUSE AUDITORY HALLUCINATIONS OF THE PREVIOUS OWNER.]
Kian rolled onto his back, staring up at the neon-lit clouds. His hands were still covered in blood, but when he opened them, tiny sparks of orange light danced between his fingers.
"Is this what it's like?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "To be a hero? Or a villain?"
He looked over at the corpse of the man he’d just killed. The body was already beginning to dissolve into digitized particles, a cleanup protocol of the System.
"I have sixty points," Kian said to himself, a hollow laugh bubbling up in his throat. "I have sixty points and I feel like I've lost everything."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: NEW MISSION AVAILABLE]
[THE SMELL OF BLOOD HAS ATTRACTED NEARBY PREDATORS.]
[ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 30 SECONDS.]
[OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE OR BE CONSUMED.]
"You're kidding me," Kian grunted, forcing himself to stand. His hospital gown was torn, he was soaked to the skin, and his mind was full of someone else’s sins. "You’re really not going to let me rest for a second, are you?"
A low, mechanical growl echoed from the shadows further down the alley. Two pairs of glowing red eyes appeared near the trash heaps.
Kian gripped the bloody pipe again. "Fine. You want to see the madman's embers? Come and get them."
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Latest Chapter
Chapter 93
"Easy," Bao muttered, his old hands darting forward to catch Kian’s shoulder as the younger man tried to force himself upright and immediately pitched sideways like a drunkard. "Don't try to stand too fast. Your vestibular system isn't running on an automated stabilization script anymore."Kian’s elbow slammed hard against the damp concrete floor, sending a sharp, purely organic jolt of agony shooting straight up his forearm. He hissed through his teeth, clutching his elbow with his other hand while squeezing his eyes shut against a wave of genuine, unmitigated dizziness. "My head," he groaned, the words thick and clumsy on his tongue. "It feels... empty. Like there's a hollow space behind my eyes where something heavy used to be.""That's called silence," Mei Ling said, stepping away from the doorway now that the distant hum of corporate skiffs had finally faded into the steady roar of the rain. She holstered her sidearm with a sharp metallic click that echoed off the brine vats. "Yo
Chapter 92
"It means the internal timer has stopped," Bao snapped back, wiping a smear of dark, metallic grease from his forehead with the back of a trembling hand. "The node’s internal loop has completely collapsed. The feedback loop that was turning his veins into a live wire has burned out."Mei Ling lowered her pistol by an inch, her eyes narrowing as she watched Kian’s chest rise and fall in a steady, unassisted rhythm. "Burned out? You mean the system is gone?""Completely," Bao said, leaning back against a rusted salt vat with a heavy, rattling sigh that sounded like a collapsing lung. "No telemetry. No localized overlays. No data packets streaming into his optic nerve. The interface is dead."As if summoned by their words, Kian let out a low, ragged groan, his eyelids fluttering violently before parting. He didn't sit up with the unnatural, algorithmic precision he’d exhibited during the corporate raids, nor did he calculate his exit vectors with cold, machine-like speed. Instead, he fla
Chapter 91
The air inside the abandoned fish-packing plant tasted of old salt, rotting scales, and lingering dampness. It was heavy enough to stick to the back of the throat, but to Bao, who had spent the last hour monitoring Kian’s shallow, erratic breathing against the cold concrete floor, it was the sweetest smell in the world."His core temperature is stabilizing," Bao muttered, his knuckles gray as he pulled the manual diagnostic rig away from Kian’s wrist. "The erratic spiking has completely flatlined."Mei Ling didn't lower her weapon, keeping her back pressed against the salt-cracked brick wall beside the rusted metal doorway. She stared down at Kian’s face, watching the pale, slack expression of a man who looked like he had just walked back from the edge of an abyss. "Flatlined? Is that medical speak for he’s waking up, or medical speak for we need to start digging a shallow grave behind the brine vats?""It means the internal timer has stopped," Bao snapped back, wiping a smear of dark
Chapter 90
"Watch his head!" Bao warned, guiding Kian's shoulder past a jagged iron strut as they bundled his limp body down through the access hatch of the crane and into the blinding sheets of rain."Keep moving!" Mei Ling hissed, her boots slamming onto the concrete of the lower pier with bone-rattling force. "The corporate skiffs are clearing the third pylon. If they throw a thermal sweep across this dock, we're all ash."Bao strained under Kian's dead weight, his breath whistling raggedly through his teeth. "Where are we even dragging him? Every warehouse within two miles is wired into Vance’s secondary monitoring loop!""Not the fish-packing plant," Mei Ling said, already hauling Kian’s left arm over her shoulder to share the load. "The old salt-curing basement at the edge of the east pier. The thick brine tanks and heavy insulation layers play absolute hell with thermal imaging. Move!"They scrambled through the labyrinth of rusting shipping containers, the cold rain soaking through their
Chapter 89
"Get his legs!" Mei Ling ordered, dropping to her knees beside Kian and grabbing him under the shoulders. "The strike team’s skiffs just hit the lower pier. If we don't move right now, we’re going to be executed right here on this crane."Bao didn't hesitate, grabbing Kian’s boots as a deafening roar of jet engines vibrated through the steel girders below. "He's completely dead weight! The feedback fried whatever was keeping him upright!""He's not dead, just short-circuited," Mei Ling snapped, hauling Kian backward away from the open drop of the platform. "Help me drag him down the maintenance ladder before the automated searchlights sweep this high."The rain hammered the rusted metal walkway as they maneuvered Kian’s limp, unresponsive body toward the access hatch. Every second counted; the hum of corporate tactical skiffs grew louder, vibrating straight through the soles of their boots and into their teeth."Watch his head!" Bao warned, guiding Kian's shoulder past a jagged iron s
Chapter 88
The heavy rain lashed against the rusted girders of the cargo crane, turning the metal walkway into a slick, treacherous trap. Kian hung limply over the side of the winch housing, his body completely unresponsive as the feedback loop from the corporate network crash surged through his nervous system. The blue overlays that had mapped his reality for weeks flickered, fractured, and then vanished entirely, leaving behind a terrifying, absolute darkness behind his eyelids.Footsteps clanked rapidly up the maintenance ladder. Mei Ling broke over the edge of the platform first, her weapon raised, her eyes scanning the immediate perimeter before she locked onto Kian’s collapsed form. Bao was right behind her, his chest heaving, his face pale beneath the grime of the docks."Get his legs!" Mei Ling ordered, dropping to her knees beside Kian and grabbing him under the shoulders. "The strike team’s skiffs just hit the lower pier. If we don't move right now, we’re going to be executed right her
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