Noah read it twice.
Then he read it a third time because the third time was when the full weight of it landed properly.
[NEW QUEST RECEIVED]
[Hierarchy exists for a reason.]
[When faced with a natural superior, prove your existence.]
[Defeat the enemy in front of you.]
[Reward: Biological Integration — Stage 2 Unlocked]
[Failure: Integration stalls. Permanently.]
'Natural superior,' he thought.
He sat with those two words for a long moment.
The system had never been generous with its language. It didn't dress things up or soften edges or choose words for comfort. When it said something it meant exactly that thing and nothing adjacent to it. So natural superior wasn't a motivational phrase. It wasn't the system telling him he could do it if he believed hard enough. It was a classification. A ranking. Something above him in whatever hierarchy the system used to measure these things.
And the enemy in front of him was Kruel.
'So even now,' he thought. 'Even after all of it.'
