Moon kicked the heavy stairwell door open and stepped onto the fourth floor of the apartment complex.
He gripped his iron baton in his right hand. The acid-coated makeshift rebar spear rested easily in his left.
His 1.7 Agility made him feel incredibly light. It was as if the gravity of the Blighted Metropolis had simply decided to stop pulling on his bones so hard.
He moved down the hallway with silent steps. His sneakers made absolutely zero noise against the cracked linoleum.
"Nothing," Moon muttered to himself as he checked room after room.
The apartments were gutted. There were ruined furniture, shattered holovision sets, and decades of gray dust. No monsters. No loot. Just the depressing remnants of a dead civilization.
He reached the end of the hallway and found a massive hole blown out of the exterior wall. A collapsed metal skybridge connected this residential building to a brutalist corporate building across the alleyway.
"Let's change the scenery," Moon whispered.
He carefully navigated the twisted metal of the skybridge. The drop below was a jagged maw of rusted cars and concrete debris.
One slip meant broken legs, and out here, broken legs meant death. But with his enhanced balance, he crossed the gap as easily as walking down a sidewalk.
He slipped through a shattered window and dropped into the new building. It looked like an old municipal office.
Rotted cubicles formed a maze across the expansive floor. The emergency lighting flickered weakly.
THUD.
Moon froze.
THUD. CRUNCH.
Heavy footsteps were coming from the far side of the cubicle farm. It didn't sound like the erratic shuffling of the regular Blight-Fiends. This sounded disciplined and heavy.
Moon crouched low and used the waist-high cubicle walls as cover. He peeked around the corner of a water cooler and his breath hitched.
Lumbering down the central aisle was a massive Blight-Fiend. It was easily a head taller than the others. But what made Moon's grip tighten on his spear wasn't its size.
It was the rusted heavy-duty riot gear strapped to its corrupted body.
Thick ceramic-plated armor covered its chest and shoulders. A heavy tactical helmet obscured its head. In its right hand, it dragged a shattered electrified stun-baton that sparked weakly against the carpet.
"You've gotta be shitting me," Moon breathed. "A SWAT zombie?"
The creature stopped. Its head snapped toward Moon's location. Despite the darkened visor, Moon knew it had sensed him.
"GRRRRRAAH!"
The Riot-Fiend didn't shamble. It charged like a freight train, shoving cubicle desks aside with terrifying brute force.
Papers and shattered plastic rained into the air as the monster bulldozed a straight line directly toward Moon.
Moon didn't retreat. He vaulted over the desk and used his 1.7 Agility to launch himself forward.
He thrust his acid-coated rebar spear directly at the center of mass.
CLANG!
The impact jarred Moon's shoulder. The jagged rebar struck the thick ceramic chest plate and slid off harmlessly. It left only a shallow scratch where the Necrotic Bile tried to eat through the military-grade armor.
The armor was simply too thick for a quick melt.
Before Moon could pull back, the Riot-Fiend swung its massive arm in a brutal backhand.
"Shit!" Moon ducked under the heavy swing.
The monster recovered instantly and raised its heavy boot to stomp Moon's knee into powder.
Moon rolled backward. He completely relied on his enhanced nervous system to calculate the distance. The boot shattered the floor tiles where he had just been standing.
"Alright, tough guy," Moon grunted as he analyzed the armor. "No chest shots. Got it."
The Riot-Fiend swung the shattered stun-baton in a wide sweeping arc.
Moon stepped inside the guard and allowed the weapon to pass inches behind his back. With a burst of his 1.8 Strength, he swung his iron baton upward, aiming for the monster's exposed armpit.
CRACK!
The iron baton shattered the creature's collarbone beneath the armor pad.
The Riot-Fiend shrieked as its heavy arm dropped limply to its side.
But it wasn't dead. It lunged forward and snapped its jaws, trying to rip Moon's throat out with its teeth.
"Eat this!"
Moon dropped his iron baton, gripped the rebar spear with both hands, and drove it upward with everything he had.
He didn't aim for the chest. He aimed for the shattered cracked glass of the tactical helmet's visor.
SQUELCH!
The jagged tip of the rebar punched through the cracked visor. It tore through the creature's rotting eye and exited the back of its helmet in an explosion of black blood and gray brain matter.
The massive monster went completely rigid. Moon twisted the spear for good measure and then yanked it free.
The heavy corpse collapsed to the floor.
Moon stood over the body with his chest heaving, a wild grin spreading across his face.
"Checkmate, asshole."
He didn't waste a second. He dropped to one knee and slapped his bare hand onto the creature's exposed neck, waiting for the familiar rush.
[Ding!]
[Target Killed. Activation Requirement Met.]
[Limitless Plunder (Stage 1) Activated.]
[Plunder Successful!]
[Raw Mana +0.5 acquired.]
[F-Rank Passive Skill: Hardened Skin acquired.]
A cool current flooded his core. The influx of Mana sharpened his mind. But it was the second notification that made his eyes widen.
"Another skill? Hell yes."
But the system wasn't done. The blue interface flickered and shifted into a deep resplendent gold.
[Ding!]
[Host has acquired multiple compatible low-tier skills.]
[System sub-feature unlocked: The Synthesis Cauldron.]
[Opening User Interface...]
A massive three-dimensional holographic cauldron materialized in the center of Moon's vision. Two empty slots hovered above it alongside a counter displaying his 660 Origin Points.
[The Synthesis Cauldron allows the Host to fuse compatible skills, bloodlines, and traits to force an artificial evolution. Warning: Synthesis consumes Origin Points. The higher the rank, the higher the cost.]
Moon stared at the holographic cauldron. His heart hammered in his chest.
This was it. This was the true power of an SSS-Grade cheat. He didn't just steal skills, he could combine them to create entirely new overpowered abilities.
"Let's see what happens," Moon whispered.
Using his mind, he dragged his [Necrotic Bile (F-Rank)] and his newly acquired [Hardened Skin (F-Rank)] into the two floating slots.
[Ding!]
[Compatibility Detected: High.]
[Fusion Cost: 500 Origin Points (OP).]
[Proceed?]
"Five hundred? That's almost all of it," Moon muttered.
He looked at the 660 OP he had farmed from the trash mobs. It was a steep price but raw power was the only currency that actually mattered in the Convergence.
"Proceed."
[Origin Points Deducted. Commencing Synthesis.]
The two skill icons dropped into the holographic cauldron. The interface shook violently as lines of code cascaded down the screen and the skills broke down and merged.
[Synthesis Complete!]
[New Skill Acquired: Toxic Carapace (E-Rank)]
[Description: A mutated defensive layer. Grants the Host's skin the density of treated leather, passively reducing minor kinetic damage. Any entity that physically strikes the Host's bare skin will suffer immediate, mild acidic poisoning and tissue necrosis.]
Instantly, a wave of intense heat washed over Moon's entire body.
"ARGH!" Moon gritted his teeth and dropped to one knee as his flesh felt incredibly hot.
He watched in awe as his skin took on a faint dark green hue before fading back to a normal healthy tone.
He touched his own forearm. It felt smooth, but beneath the surface, it felt incredibly dense.
He picked up a jagged piece of glass from the shattered cubicle and pressed it against his palm. He squeezed hard.
The glass didn't pierce the skin. It didn't even leave a scratch.
Then, a faint hiss echoed in the quiet room. The edge of the glass where he was gripping it began to melt, dissolving into a bubbly puddle of nothingness under the passive defensive acid.
Moon let out a low dark laugh that echoed through the empty corporate office.
"Alright, Blighted Metropolis," Moon grinned as he picked up his iron baton. "Let's see what else you've got for me."