The city of Ironhold—no, the city of New York—was screaming.
Sebastian moved across the skyline. A shadow silhouetted against the bleeding crimson moon. His chest heaved. His lungs burning with the unfamiliar exertion of a physical body that was only 3.0% synchronized with his game avatar. He wasn't flying. He didn't have the mana to sustain [Sky Walk] in reality yet. He was jumping.
With an Agility stat of 9—nearly double that of an Olympic athlete—he cleared the gaps between tenements with terrifying ease. He landed on a fire escape. The rusted metal groaning under the impact. Immediately launched himself toward the next roof.
Below him, the streets were a gridlock of carnage. Cars were burning. The infected—those poor souls whose spirits had shattered under the weight of the mana influx—were tearing through traffic like rabid animals. He saw a man dragged through a shattered windshield by his own seatbelt. His screams cut short by the wet crunch of teeth on windpipe.
Sebastian didn't look down. He looked North.
The Sterling Tower rose like a needle of glass and steel above the chaos. One of the tallest residential buildings in the city. A fortress for the ultra-rich. Right now though, smoke was pouring from its lower levels.
"If she dies, I lose the gold," Sebastian muttered. His voice raspy. "If I lose the gold, I lose the Sanctuary."
He picked up the pace. He ignored the fatigue toxins building up in his muscles. Ignored the throbbing headache caused by mana deficiency.
He reached the base of the tower ten minutes later. The lobby was a slaughterhouse. The glass revolving doors were smashed. Inside, the expensive marble floor was slick with a mixture of red human blood and the black, tar-like ichor of the Infected. Several bodies lay twisted in unnatural angles. Their limbs snapped like dry twigs.
Sebastian didn't take the elevator. The power grid was flickering. Being trapped in a metal box during a mana surge was suicide. He took the stairs.
Forty floors.
He ran up the stairwell. His heavy iron crowbar held loosely in his right hand. He encountered resistance on the 10th floor—a group of three Infected neighbors huddled over a corpse. They turned. Hissing. Their jaws unhinged.
Sebastian didn't slow down. Didn't use a skill. He simply swung the crowbar with precise, brutal economy.
CRACK. CRACK. THUD.
Three skulls caved in. He stepped over the twitching bodies without breaking stride.
By the time he reached the 40th floor, his shirt was soaked in sweat. Speckled with black gore. His breath came in ragged gasps. The synchronization rate was climbing slowly. Fueled by the violence. His physical stamina was hitting a wall though.
BOOM.
A heavy impact shook the floorboards. It came from the Penthouse suite.
Sebastian kicked the stairwell door open. The hallway leading to Valerie's apartment was destroyed. The drywall was shredded. Revealing the steel beams beneath. At the end of the hall, the double mahogany doors of the Penthouse were splintered inward.
He walked in.
The living room, a space worth millions of credits, was a wreck. Expensive art lay shredded on the floor. Furniture was smashed into kindling.
Standing before the reinforced steel door of the panic room was a monster.
It used to be a man—likely a head of security. Now it was a [Flesh Hulk]. It stood eight feet tall. Its suit tattered. Embedded into its expanding muscle mass. Its skin had turned a bruised purple. Tearing in places to reveal raw, red meat that pulsed with mana veins. One of its arms had mutated into a massive, osseous club of bone and gristle.
[Monster: Flesh Hulk (Tier 1)]
[Level: 10]
[Status: Enraged]
"Open... the... door..." the creature gurgled. Its voice a wet, distorted rasp. It slammed its bone-club arm against the safe room door.
CLANG.
The steel dented. The door frame buckled. One more hit, it would tear the door off its hinges.
"Hey," Sebastian said.
The Flesh Hulk stopped. It turned slowly. Its small, white eyes searching the room until they landed on the small figure standing amidst the wreckage.
"Meat," the Hulk groaned.
It charged. The floor shook with every step. It was a freight train of meat and violence. Closing the distance in seconds.
Sebastian stood his ground. He gripped the crowbar. He knew it was useless though. Against a Tier 1 monster with reinforced muscle density, the iron bar would bend before it broke the skin. He needed magic. He didn't have the mana for [Solar Flare]. Didn't even have the mana for a [Fireball].
He had 150 Mana points regenerated. Just enough for a Tier 0 cantrip.
"Physical immunity is high," Sebastian analyzed. His eyes tracking the Hulk's massive fist as it raised for a smash. "Biological resistance is zero though."
He didn't dodge away. He stepped in.
As the bone-club smashed down, cracking the marble floor where he'd stood a millisecond before, Sebastian slid under the creature's guard. He pressed his open palm against the Hulk's exposed, tearing quadricep muscle.
He accessed his skill tree. In the game, he'd unlocked every tree. He found the [Necromancy] tab.
"Skill: Touch of Decay."
He dumped his remaining mana into the spell.
A sickly, grey light flared from his palm. Not flashy. Silent. Terrifying.
The effect was instantaneous. The necrosis didn't spread slowly. It flashed through the Hulk's leg like a fast-forwarded video of decomposition. The massive, hydraulic muscles turned grey. Then black. Then liquefied. The tension holding the meat to the bone vanished.
SQUELCH.
The Hulk's leg simply disintegrated. The muscle fibers turned into a foul-smelling sludge that sloughed off the bone. Leaving the femur exposed. Unsupported.
"GRAAA—"
The roar was cut short as the Hulk's massive weight caused the skeletal leg to snap.
SNAP.
The monster collapsed. Toppling sideways like a felled tree. It crashed into a glass coffee table. Shattering it. It tried to push itself up with its arms. The necrotic rot was spreading though. Eating its way up into the hip and lower abdomen.
It thrashed. Howling in confusion and pain as its own body failed it.
Sebastian stepped back to avoid the spray of liquefied flesh. The smell was horrific—worse than a sewer. The scent of rapid biological failure.
He walked over to the thrashing head. He raised the crowbar.
"Rest," he said.
He drove the pointed end of the crowbar into the Hulk's eye socket. He twisted. The thrashing stopped.
[Ding! Real World Kill Confirmed.]
[Target: Flesh Hulk (Tier 1) Eliminated.]
[Synchronization Rate Increased: 2.8% -> 3.1%]
Sebastian leaned against the wall. Sliding down to a sitting position. His vision swam. Using offensive magic in reality drained calories instantly. He felt like he hadn't eaten in a week.
The safe room door clicked. The dented steel groaned as it was pushed open.
Valerie stepped out. She was wearing silk pajamas. Clutching a heavy gold candlestick as a weapon. Her face was pale. Her silver hair messy. She looked at the rotting pile of sludge that used to be her bodyguard. Then she looked at Sebastian. Who was wiping black ichor off his crowbar with a throw pillow.
She lowered the candlestick. Her hands were shaking.
"You..." she whispered. "You melted him."
"Rot," Sebastian corrected. His voice dry. "Accelerated necrosis. It's cleaner than fire. Usually."
He stood up. Using the wall for support. "Do you have the items?"
Valerie looked at him. In the game, he was a mysterious, overpowered Drifter. Here, under the flickering emergency lights, covered in grime and blood, he looked like something that had crawled out of the abyss to hunt the monsters. He looked terrifying.
He was alive though. The Hulk was dead.
She nodded. Snapping into her role as the heiress of the Sterling Corporation. She hurried back into the safe room. Returned with a heavy, black tactical briefcase.
"Gold bullion," she said. Placing it on a surviving table. "Fifty bars. Standard weight. And two military-grade satellite phones. Encrypted."
Sebastian opened the case. The gold glimmered dully. He didn't care about the wealth. He cared about the resource. Gold was the catalyst for the [Sanctuary] ritual.
He closed the case.
"Good," he said. "Get dressed. Something durable. We're leaving."
"Leaving?" Valerie blinked. "The chopper is coming..."
"The chopper will be eaten by Wyverns before it passes the 30th floor," Sebastian said. Walking toward the kitchen to raid her pantry for protein bars. "We take the car."
"The streets are a warzone!"
Sebastian tore open a package of beef jerky with his teeth. He looked at her with eyes that held the cold, hard weight of a future she couldn't imagine.
"The streets are the tutorial, Valerie. The war hasn't even started yet."