2025-09-15 06:07:14Johnny shot upright, eyes wide. His mind was still stuck on the million dollars.
“Vixen! This… this is real?!”
[As real as the sun. And this is only the beginning, if you choose to accept me fully.]
A laugh burst out of him, half disbelief, half excitement.
“Accept you? Hell yeah. You bet your sweet ass I’m in!”
[Good.] Vixen’s voice sounded pleased.
[You now have three hours to complete your combat training workout. Preparation is the first step toward becoming a harem lord.]
Johnny froze. “…Say what now?”
The blue screen appeared in front of him, filling his vision with absurd letters and numbers.
---
[COMBAT WORKOUT QUEST ASSIGNED]
Run 100 kilometers – (Incomplete)
Do 100 push-ups – (Incomplete) (0/100)
Do 100 sit-ups – (Incomplete) (0/100)
Do 100 squats – (Incomplete) (0/100)
Warning: Failure to complete the daily workout will result in a penalty quest
---
Johnny stared at it, his mouth hanging open. “What the hell is this?”
[This is your required combat quest.]
“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” Johnny groaned, rubbing his forehead.
“But there’s no way in hell I’m doing all that, right? This is a joke. It has to be.”
V.I.X.E.N. didn’t reply.
The silence felt worse than her sarcasm. Johnny shook his head and forced a laugh.
“Great. I’m talking to myself now. Guess I hit my head during the crash harder than I thought.”
He dropped back onto the stiff hospital bed and stared at the ceiling.
Minutes passed. The room stayed quiet. His fingers tapped against his leg.
Then he sat up.
“Okay… maybe I’ll test it. Just a little.” He slid off the bed and stretched lazily.
Instead of getting on the floor, he leaned against the mattress and started half-heartedly pushing off it.
“…One. Two. Three…” The numbers climbed suspiciously fast. “…Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!”
“Easy.” He clapped his hands with a proud grin.
The system screen didn’t change. Not even a blink.
[Do 100 push-ups – (Incomplete) (0/100)]
Johnny shrugged. “Yeah fuck it. At least, I tried.”
He yawned, already thinking about his million dollars. A penthouse, maybe. Or—
Sleep pulled him under, before he could complete his thought.
Tick… tick… tick…
Tick… tick… tick…
The clock on the wall crawled toward midnight.
11:59:58
11:59:59
00:00:00
A deafening RING shattered the silence.
Johnny’s eyes snapped open. The sound didn’t come from the clock. It came from the system.
---
[You have failed to complete the Combat Workout Quest.]
[PENALTY QUEST ACTIVATED.]
---
Suddenly, a massive shadow fell over his bed. Johnny felt cold before he even looked. When he did—
“Holy Fuck!!!”
As a kid, Johnny had nightmares about a three-headed dog dragging him into the dark. Now, standing above him and filling the room, was the monster from those stories.
Cerberus, the three-headed dog of the underworld.
The middle head lowered first. Its eyes glowed gold. Its lips pulled back, showing fangs longer than Johnny’s arm.
The other two heads snapped and growled. Drool hissed when it hit the floor.
Johnny’s legs moved before his brain did. He jumped out of bed without thinking.
“This isn’t real! This isn’t real!” His hospital gown flapped open in the panic, but he didn't care.
[Correction: This is very real.] Vixen said calmly, her voice steady amid the chaos.
“VIXEN!! What the hell is happening?!”
[Mandatory punishment. Fail your workout… and you are walk out of existence]
“What the hell does a giant three-headed dog have to do with push-ups?!!” Johnny screamed.
The monster lunged. Its black fur stood stiff like sharp blades, and each paw looked big enough to crush him.
Johnny ran. He sprinted down the hallway barefoot, his hospital gown flapping behind him like a cape.
Cerberus burst through the wall like paper, its steps shaking the ground. Its heads snapped at him, teeth slamming shut just behind his back.
Johnny dashed past nurse stations, a glimpse of movement caught his eye—the hot nurse from earlier, bending over to pick up a dropped chart, when her skirt flipped up from the sudden gust of his run.
She gasped, cheeks flaming red, tugging it down as she straightened, but Johnny was already gone, heart racing from more than fear.
Then Johnny noticed something.
The nurses. The patients. The doctors. None of them screamed. None of them even looked.
They all walked calmly like nothing was there.
Johnny stopped and spun around, heart pounding. “Wait… am I the only one seeing this?”
Johnny clenched his fists and stood his ground.
NO MORE RUNNING
Cerberus leapt. All three heads came down at once on him.
“AHHHHHHHH!!!”
Johnny screamed as its fangs tore into his arm and shoulder.
Hot pain exploded through him. Blood splashed across the clean white floor.
“Fuck!! This… this isn’t just in my head.”
Previous Chapter
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Chapter 233: The Beast Awakens
The first guard lunged forward and Johnny met him with an elbow to the jaw that put the man straight to sleep. The second came from behind — Johnny caught his wrist, turned, and threw him into a third.Bodies crashed into shipping containers. The alarm kept screaming its red heartbeat over everything.But there were forty of them.Even with his combat skills cranked to the ceiling, even with the Combat Lens painting every movement before it happened, physics didn't negotiate. Knuckles found his ribs. A baton cracked across his back.He grunted, spun, and drove his fist into someone's throat, but the hit he took doing it cost him.Johnny wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and took in the battlefield around him. The situation was bad. Not impossible, but bad.A fist came toward his face. He moved just in time, the punch missing by centimeters, but before he could counter, another man appeared from the side. He blocked the strike with his forearm, twisted the man's wrist, and drove
Chapter 232: Mia -- The Price of Wanting Him
What did I just do?The question echoed in her head as she moved through the red-lit halls. She could still feel it — the ghost of his lips on hers, the warmth of him for those two, three seconds before he'd pulled away.Mia did not know when it happened. That was the part that bothered her most. She hadn't planned that kiss, not really. She had planned words, excuses, ways to make Johnny look at her again.But that had been real. And that was the problem, because real feelings were dangerous. Mia hated losing control.She had spent so long believing everything could be managed if she was smart enough, careful enough, ruthless enough.But Johnny had always been different — he ruined every calculation she made.One moment she had been executing her plan to slip back into his life, make him need her again, then take control like she always did. Control was her language. Her weapon. Her comfort.But somewhere between the confession and the kiss, that control had started to slip through h
Chapter 231: Surrounded
The blue screen expanded fully, hovering right in his line of sight like it owned the moment.For a few seconds he simply stared, his brain refusing to process the words — not because he didn't understand them, but because he understood them too well.[STAGE 2 COMPLETED: MARKED]Requirement met: Genuine affection/love for you.[REWARD: $100,000,000,000 || Mercedes-Maybach S 580 4MATIC]A hundred billion dollars. Another absurd reward, another impossible gift from the system.Normally that number alone would have stopped him cold. But right now he couldn't focus on the money, because the system had just confirmed something else. Mia. Her feelings — the thing he had been questioning since the moment she walked back into his life, the thing he wasn't sure he could ever believe again.The system had judged it as real. Genuine affection. Love.So she wasn't lying? The question came naturally. Then immediately another followed. Does that mean I can trust her?Before he could find an answer
Chapter 230: The Second Link
The bullet hit him before he even heard the shot. Pain exploded through his shoulder — hot and sharp — forcing his body to stumble backward.For a second his mind went blank, not because of the pain but because Hawkeye had done the impossible yet again.He had seen them."Fuck." Johnny grabbed his shoulder, feeling blood running between his fingers.The stealth ability had been perfect, the system hiding their presence completely. Nobody should have been able to find them.Nobody except him.…[INSTANT HEALTH RESTORATION ACTIVATED]…A second shot cracked through the air before Johnny could even breathe. His body moved on its own. Not thought — instinct.The part of him that had survived a hundred fights took over, grabbed Mia by the arm, and dragged her across the concrete toward the cover of a nearby container stack, as three more shots followed in quick succession, the bullets tearing through the spaces his head had occupied a moment earlier. His wounded shoulder screamed. His le
Chapter 229: The Girl Who Would Not Stay Behind
Johnny turned and started walking toward the port. His footsteps were steady. He knew he'd made the right call.Bringing her along would have been reckless — she'd slow him down, and more than that, she was an unpredictable variable. A wild card. And in a place like this, wild cards got people killed.Mia would only create more variables. She was unpredictable, emotional, and after everything she'd already done tonight, the last thing he needed was another person to protect. One mission. Save Margaret. Nothing else.Behind him, the car door opened."Johnny!!"He turned around, and his jaw nearly dropped.Mia was running toward him. Free.Without Darren. Without the handcuffs."How the hell did you pick that lock?!"She stopped in front of him, breathing hard — chest rising and falling fast beneath her shirt — and gave him a smile that was equal parts pride and mischief."It's one of the many ways I can be useful to you."Johnny closed his eyes. Of course she could pick locks. He opene
Chapter 228: Why did you lie
Johnny's hand slowly tightened into a fist, as he just stood there, because somewhere deep inside he had already suspected it. He had wanted to believe her. That was the part that annoyed him most."Why did you lie?" Mia's hands dropped from the wheel. She looked down at them for a second, like she was gathering pieces of herself."Because I wanted to be in your life," she said quietly. "No matter what.”For a moment he didn't say anything. The words were simple — I'm not actually pregnant — and a few minutes ago they would have destroyed him“I know what I did was horrible. I know what I took from you. I know I don't deserve to just walk back in and pretend nothing happened. But I didn't know any other way." She continued stepping closer."The pregnancy was the only thing I thought would make you listen. The only thing that would stop you from shutting me out completely.""That's the same reason I did what I did in the red room."Johnny's eyes narrowed slightly. "Speaking o
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