The city burned slowly.
Black smoke drifted between skyscraper skeletons. Sirens had long gone silent. What was left of New Chicago was a graveyard of glass, rusted steel, and blood.
James moved like a phantom through it all.
No more groups. No more trust.
Alina's betrayal had closed a door inside him—slammed it shut, welded it. There was only one path forward now: level up. Get stronger. Survive.
He'd seen the others—Class users scrambling to form militias, scavengers looking for protection, the government still pretending to be in control. But James didn't need their politics or their plans. He needed power.
And power, in this new world, came from one source: killing monsters.
His Class Interface pulsed softly in the corner of his vision.
CLASS: CYBORG (Legendary) RANK: S LEVEL: 4 XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 370 / 1000 EVOLUTION PATH: Available – Not Activated
He hadn't chosen an evolution yet. It didn't matter.
Not until he was strong enough to evolve on his own terms.
A shriek tore through the air ahead.
James dropped into a crouch, letting the shadows swallow him. His cybernetic eye flicked on, scanning the ruined block.
Four heat signatures moved at a staggered pace through an abandoned plaza.
Rippers.
Lean, canine-like creatures with exposed muscle, serrated claws, and twitching spines that pulsed with acidic heat. Rank C monsters, but fast, vicious in packs.
Perfect.
He didn't hesitate.
His mechanical hand transformed, fingers folding into his wrist with a series of rapid clicks. A humming barrel slid into place.
Gun-form engaged.
He raised the arm, took aim, and fired.
The first blast caught a Ripper mid-step, sending it skidding across cracked pavement in a burst of searing plasma.
The other three shrieked and scattered—two charged, claws flashing in the dark.
James sprinted forward, arm shifting again—the gun retracting, blade sliding into place like an unfolding guillotine.
He slashed upward, catching the first Ripper along the jaw, splitting its head in two.
Blood sprayed. A hot hiss burned through his jacket as acidic fluid splashed.
The second lunged.
James dropped low and rolled beneath it, transforming mid-movement. The blade folded into his wrist, the hand snapping out just in time to grip the beast by the throat.
He crushed it in one motion.
[MONSTERS KILLED: 3] [XP GAINED: 180] [LEVEL PROGRESS: 550 / 1000]
The last Ripper tried to flee, but James's gun-form snapped out. One shot—clean, precise—pierced its hind leg. It crashed to the ground, squealing.
James approached calmly, no hesitation, and finished it with a single blast.
The silence returned.
Just the wind. Just the smoke.
He sat on a pile of rubble and opened his interface again.
LEVEL: 4 → 5 NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: [Overdrive Burst] – Temporarily doubles speed and reaction time (Cooldown: 5 minutes)
Useful.
James flexed his mechanical arm, feeling the microhydraulics tense beneath the skin.
He didn't smile. But satisfaction stirred deep in his chest.
He hunted through the night.
He moved from ruin to ruin, tracking heat signatures, listening for shrieks, breathing with the rhythm of a killer.
A pair of Shredders appeared at dawn—Rank B monstrosities with overlapping plates of armored bone and jaws that snapped through rebar.
James used everything.
Overdrive Burst kicked in. His cybernetic systems surged with raw energy.
The world slowed.
He moved like lightning, blade-form slicing between plates, dodging claws by milliseconds, his arm shifting from blade to gun to hand as the situation demanded.
One Shredder roared. James emptied three charged shots into its open maw, blowing it apart from the inside.
The second managed to tear into his side, his jacket and subdermal plating sizzling with acidic blood—but James didn't stop. He jammed the blade through its eye and dragged it down.
He breathed hard, alone in the ruin, surrounded by twitching carcasses.
[MONSTERS KILLED: 2] [XP GAINED: 320] [LEVEL PROGRESS: 870 / 1000]
Almost there.
He limped to a shadowed corner, patched up what he could with scavenged cloth and a discarded first-aid kit. The pain was real. Human. It reminded him of who he still was beneath the steel.
By midday, he reached the outskirts of a collapsed district.
His eye caught something new.
A Wraith.
Rank A. Stealth predator. Invisible to unaided vision, moved through walls, known to dismember targets in seconds.
James crouched low.
This was the final push.
He set a trap. Broken glass. Pressure plates rigged with tripwire. Old car alarms jerry-rigged to bait.
He waited.
The glass shifted.
A shadow blurred across his HUD.
He activated Overdrive Burst and spun, catching the Wraith mid-materialization.
Blade-form extended.
He sliced across its chest, dodged a retaliatory claw, and fired a blast into its leg.
The Wraith howled.
They fought in the dark, the alley their arena. Sparks and blood and screams.
When it ended, James stood over the corpse, panting.
[MONSTER KILLED: 1] [XP GAINED: 150] [LEVEL UP: 5 → 6] [EVOLUTION NODE: READY]
James collapsed to his knees.
The interface flickered.
[EVOLUTION NODE UNLOCKED: CYBER-REAPER PATH - Accept?]
He stared at it.
Then, slowly, he tapped Decline.
Not yet.
Not until he was untouchable.
Not until no one could betray him again.
He stood, bloodied, bruised, exhausted.
But stronger.
And still alive.
For now.