The silence following the van's frantic departure is heavier than thunder. Han-Jun stands alone in the middle of the devastated avenue, a frail and livid silhouette against the intensifying chaos. Before him, the Iron Executor finishes pulling itself from the rubble of an office building whose facade just collapsed in a crash of glass and concrete.
The monster is an insult to nature. It stands over four feet tall, a mass of grey, dead flesh covered in a chaotic assembly of manhole covers, car doors, and metal beams welded directly into its atrophied muscles. It drags a massive axe—a tank blade mounted on a telegraph pole blackened by fires.
BOUM !
Every step the giant takes vibrates through the asphalt, straight into Han-Jun's empty ribcage. The tremor surges through his legs, awakening the dull ache of his own recent death. The smell of rain mixes with rust and putrefied flesh.
[ ALERT: RANK B ENTITY DETECTED ]
[ ANALYZING WEAK POINTS... FAILED ]
[ HOST LEVEL TOO LOW: LEVEL 2 ]
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.02% ]
Han-Jun tightens his grip on his twisted iron bar, the one he scavenged after his awakening. His skeletal fingers turn white. He feels the Abyss energy pulsing in his arms, an intense, almost unbearable cold seeking an exit to explode. It is no longer fear; it is a biological necessity for destruction.
GHRRRRRRRR !
The Executor raises its axe. The whistle of the weapon slicing through the moisture-saturated air is terrifying. The monster isn't looking to fight; it is looking to erase whatever stands in its way.
VLAN !
Han-Jun dives to the side, rolling through shattered glass and black mud. The ground where he stood a second ago literally explodes under the impact of the axe. Concrete fragments the size of a fist fly like shrapnel, hissing past his ears. The shockwave hurls him violently against a fire hydrant that gives way in a crash of metal, releasing a geyser of icy water that floods the avenue.
[ COLLATERAL DAMAGE: -10 HP ]
[ HOST STABILITY: 85% ]
He pulls himself up painfully, ears ringing and vision blurred. His iron bar is now bent at a right angle, utterly useless against such a mountain of steel. His Gaze of the Abyss activates violently, making his temples throb with a force that makes him nauseous. The contours of the world become blurry, tinted in crimson.
Suddenly, through the rusted metal plates protecting the monster's chest, he finally sees it: a dark, irregular glow, pulsing with a sickly rhythm. The Core. It is the junction point of all this scrap metal, the engine of this abomination.
— "There... right there," he breathes, his throat dry as parchment.
The Executor pivots with a heavy slowness, its axe plowing through the tar behind it in a piercing screech that tears sparks from the night. Every movement of the giant seems to crush the surrounding air.
SCRITCH !
Han-Jun does not flee toward the main avenues. He knows he is too slow to outrun this metal predator. He lunges toward a sporting goods store whose window shattered under the blast of the first explosions. He slides over glass debris, dashes through the rack of torn clothes, and bolts toward the back, where the cast-iron dumbbells and pull-up bars are stored.
He seizes an intact weightlifting bar—a two-meter rod of pure steel, heavy and perfectly balanced. It is his only hope of piercing that armor. He doesn't have time to attach the weight discs. He uses his own dark energy to imbue the cold metal.
[ BING ! ]
[ USING ENERGY FOR TEMPORARY REINFORCEMENT ]
[ CONSUMPTION: 5 ENERGY POINTS / SECOND ]
Black, viscous veins crawl across the steel, which begins to glow with a dark and unstable aura. The bar seems to lengthen, thinning into a spear of jet. Han-Jun bursts out of the store, smashing through the remains of the door just as the Executor's massive arm crashes through the building's roof in a flurry of broken beams.
FRACAS !
Han-Jun leaps onto the hood of an overturned car, then uses the momentum to propel himself toward the giant's torso. Time seems to slow down. He sees every rusted rivet on the enemy's armor. He raises his improvised spear above his head, the muscles in his arms strained to the breaking point, his cry of rage drowned out by the thrumming of the rift above the city.
SHLACK !
He strikes with all his might against the main chest plate. The shock is so brutal that his own bones crack under the pressure of the kickback. The spear penetrates a few centimeters, opening a breach in the sheet metal.
KLANG !
The metallic sound, pure and deafening, echoes throughout Shinjuku, drowning out even the howls of the Crawlers in the distance. The plate buckles under the impact, revealing the raw purple Core, but the Executor is immune to pain.
With a massive backhand, the monster sweeps Han-Jun away like a nuisance insect. The student flies across the entire width of the street, smashing through a metal bus shelter before slamming violently against a brick wall that cracks under the impact.
[ CRITICAL STATE: 40% HP ]
[ SYSTEM: DO YOU WANT TO UNLOCK THE SKILL 'SHADOW SKIN'? ]
[ COST: ALL ACCUMULATED XP POINTS ]
Han-Jun spits out a blackish liquid, a mixture of corrupted blood and energy residue. He can no longer move his left arm. He looks up, gasping for breath, his lungs burning despite the lack of a heartbeat. The Executor is already upon him, its axe raised toward the purple sky, ready for the finishing blow that will erase his existence a second time.
The rain continues to fall, freezing. There will be no third chance in this alley.
— "Do it," he commands, his eyes fixed on the descending blade.
To be continued.