Ezra woke to the sound of coughing.
The girl from the night before—curled in a threadbare blanket she must've dragged in from outside—was hacking up blood into her sleeve. Her eyes fluttered open, and she recoiled slightly when she noticed him watching.
"You're still here," she said, voice dry as sandpaper.
"You're still alive," Ezra replied.
The Bone Rat peeked out from a nearby dryer, sniffed the air, then scurried across the floor to sit beside Ezra's boot. The girl stiffened.
"Wh-what is that?"
"My familiar," Ezra said, offering no more.
She eyed it cautiously. "It's… dead."
"Technically, yes."
She paused, then pushed herself into a seated position with effort. "So you're a Necro."
He said nothing.
"Didn't think any were still alive down here. Most of the Black Classes get hunted fast. Especially hybrids."
Ezra narrowed his gaze. "You know a lot for someone who's 'nothing.'"
She looked down. "I used to run with a minor scouting guild. They left me behind when I got sick."
Ezra stared at her. "Name?"
She hesitated. Then: "Rei."
He didn't ask for more.
Instead, he turned back to the small fire he'd made from scrapwood in a rusted washer drum. The flickering light cast twisted shadows across the walls. The Bone Rat hopped closer, soaking in the warmth like it could remember being alive.
Rei moved next to it, inch by inch.
She glanced at him again. "So what's your deal?"
Ezra didn't answer immediately. Then he pulled something from his belt pouch — the Crimson Pike Guild chip.
He tossed it into her lap.
"Know how to hack these?"
She blinked, surprised. "Maybe. Why?"
"Because I need to know which Gates they marked before I killed them."
Rei didn't even flinch at the word killed. She turned the chip over in her palm and examined the microcircuit at its core.
"You'll need power and a link-point. I know where we can find both. But it's in gangland."
Ezra frowned. "Which one?"
"Black Maw territory."
Ezra muttered a curse. "Of course it is."
Rei smirked for the first time. "Welcome to the Sectors, Necro. You don't climb without getting your hands dirty."
Ezra looked at her closely. She was smart. Sick, yes, but quick-witted. Either she'd be an asset… or a threat.
He stood. "We go at dusk."
Later That Evening – Sector 9's Dead Zone
Black Maw territory used to be a strip mall.
Now it was a fortress — boarded windows, barbed fences, drones made from reprogrammed delivery bots hovering above. Gang tags covered every wall, and undead warning signs had been smeared in neon red.
Ezra moved through shadows with Rei behind him, face masked by a stolen hood.
They passed rusted vending machines, crushed Gate remnants, and a shattered statue of someone who once mattered.
"This is it," Rei whispered, pointing at a squat building covered in black tape. "Old access node. They use it to process bounty chips. If we're quiet, we can slip in the back."
Ezra nodded. His hand twitched — not out of fear, but out of instinct. He could feel something wrong in the air.
His undead sense twitched like a wire under tension.
[Passive Alert: Ambient Death Detected – Recent Kill, Uncleaned]
They ducked through a rusted back door, slipping inside.
The interior reeked of blood and stale mana. Desks overturned. A cracked screen buzzed on the far wall, displaying a frozen message:
"SCAN ERROR – FILE MISMATCH"
Rei moved to a console. "Keep watch. I'll pull the memory and map the chip logs."
Ezra nodded and stepped into the next room—
—and froze.
Bodies. At least five. Guilders, by the look of them. Their throats had been ripped out, not cut. Deep claw marks scored the walls. One man's lower jaw was completely missing.
Ezra crouched and touched the nearest corpse.
Cold. Recent. No magic sigil burns — this wasn't system-registered death.
It was something… else.
A low growl echoed from the far side of the building.
Ezra stood slowly, drawing the iron dagger.
Rei's voice rang out from the back. "Got it! There's a Gate marked just outside the old Queensline Tracks. Active, unregistered, untagged. It's off-grid—"
Her words were cut off by a scream.
Ezra sprinted back.
A beast stood in the center of the room.
Not a monster. Not exactly.
It was humanoid — thin, twisted, its skin pale and stretched like paper over bone. Its eyes were glassy and white. Mana pulsed visibly through its veins in veins of blue light.
It didn't snarl. It whistled.
Rei was frozen in place. Blood dripped from a shallow gash across her ribs. Not fatal — yet.
Ezra didn't hesitate.
[Skill Activated: Strength Surge (Lv. 1)]
[Skill Activated: Bone Armament]
His arm cracked as bone slid over it like armor. His dagger extended into a jagged blade fused with his forearm — crude, but sharp.
The creature turned, hissing.
Ezra charged.
The first strike landed — a diagonal slash across the creature's torso. But it didn't bleed. It just stared, head twitching like a glitching hologram.
Then it lunged.
Ezra barely dodged.
[Health -27]
Claws grazed his shoulder. Pain flared white-hot.
He grunted, rolled, and shoved Rei behind a table.
"Get down!"
The Bone Rat hissed and flung itself at the creature's face, biting down with impossible strength. The creature shrieked — not in pain, but like it was surprised.
Ezra used the opening.
[Command: Raise Lesser Dead – Corpse Guard (F-Rank)]
One of the fallen gang members twitched. Then another.
Two skeletons rose, armed with scraps of pipe and rebar.
Ezra pointed at the creature. "Take it down!"
They surged forward.
The fight was brutal. One skeleton was torn apart in seconds, but the other landed a crushing blow to the beast's spine.
Ezra finished it with a lunge and a bone-forged blade to the heart.
The creature collapsed.
[EXP Gained: 112]
[Rare Kill Bonus: +14]
[You have leveled up! Lv. 4 → 6]
He panted, drenched in sweat.
Rei was pale but breathing. He helped her up.
"What… the hell… was that?" she gasped.
Ezra shook his head. "Not registered. No System ID. Either a failed Awakened or…"
"Or a Voidborn."
Ezra stiffened.
"Voidborns are myths," he said.
Rei looked at the twitching corpse. "Then you killed a myth."
Ezra turned to the map on the console.
The Queensline Gate pulsed red.
"Time to go myth-hunting."