The rookies had never been thrown into anything like this.
The arena? That had rules. Cameras. Referees to step in if you were one hit away from dying.
Here in the underground, with walls shaking and gunfire echoing through concrete, there were only two outcomes: get out, or get erased.
Win, and they walked free.
Lose, and the dream of the big stage died before it ever truly started.
The basement stank of gunpowder, dust, and panic. Smoke hung low, curling through shattered lights and broken pipes. The echoes of the first volley still rang in the halls.
Kaya had broken away the moment bullets started flying, sprinting down a side corridor while debris rained behind her. She ran until the world narrowed into a single long tunnel of brick and pipework.
She skidded to a stop.
Dead end. Rusted metal. No door, no stairs, no way out.
Her HUD flickered in the corner of her vision:
[HP: 85 / 120]
[Stamina: 60%]
Bootsteps sounded behind her—slow, heavy, measured.
The officer following her into the bottleneck was tall and built like someone who had never lost a bar fight in his life. He walked with the ease of a man trained for this, pistol raised in a steady grip. No wasted movement. No nerves.
The first shot cracked down the corridor. Instinct screamed.
[Skill Activated: Dash -10 EP]
Kaya moved without thinking. The world blurred sideways as her body flickered out of line. Chunks of brick exploded where she had been standing a second before.
She reappeared off to the side, close enough to taste the gun oil on his weapon. Her leg snapped up, heel slamming into his wrist. The pistol went spinning down the hall and landed somewhere in the dark with a clatter.
The officer didn't curse. He just rolled his shoulders once as if shrugging on a heavier coat.
"Fine," he said evenly. "Hands only."
Kaya's lips twisted into a grin, blood and adrenaline mixing on her tongue. "Now you are speaking my language."
They crashed together.
Fists pounded ribs and forearms. Boots scraped and slammed against concrete. Kaya blocked two quick jabs and came back with a hook that rang off his jaw. He barely rocked. His next shot slipped right through her guard and buried in her stomach.
Air flew from her lungs. The world wobbled at the edges. His follow-up caught her across the face, snapping her head sideways. She hit the wall hard enough to hear it crack.
Her HUD flared at the edge of her vision:
[HP: 42 / 120]
He closed in, arm cocked for what was clearly meant to be the finisher. His fist drove forward, smashing past her shoulder and into the wall. Concrete crumbled around his forearm. For half a second, he was lodged in the stone.
Kaya's eyes narrowed.
Her fists went to work.
She hammered his side, knuckles slamming into his kidney in a rapid burst—left, right, left, right. He grunted, tried to wrench his arm free, but the wall held just long enough.
She twisted her hips, planted her feet, and drove an uppercut into his chin with everything she had left.
His head snapped back. His eyes rolled. His body sagged and slid down the wall, landing in the rubble with a dull, final thud.
Kaya wiped blood from her nose with the back of her hand and spat onto the floor.
"I did not crawl this far," she muttered, breathing hard, "just to end up in a cell."
In the next sector over, the fight was quieter but no less lethal.
Sarah moved through drifting smoke like it was water. The federal officer hunting her was methodical, his pistol barking in tight, controlled bursts. Each shot cut clean lines in the fog.
Two found their mark.
One bullet ripped across her thigh, another tore clean through the meat of her shoulder.
[HP: 55 / 110]
Her HUD flashed warning yellow.
Sarah dove behind an overturned metal table, sliding on one knee, teeth clenched against the flare of pain. Warm blood soaked into her pants, sticky against her skin.
Above, boots scraped along broken tile. A faint hum ticked in the air—the sound of a thermal sensor sweeping the room.
He was not guessing. He was scanning.
Sarah's fingers tightened around the hilt of her dagger. She forced her breathing slow, dragged her focus away from the throbbing wound and onto the corner of her HUD.
She had one option that would cost her.
[Skill Activated: Healing Factor -25 EP]
Heat rushed through her veins, sinking into muscle and bone. The torn flesh of her leg and shoulder began to stitch itself back together, nerves knitting, skin sealing. The pain ebbed, replaced with a deep, aching warmth.
With it came something else.
Her vision blurred, colors washing out. Images flashed—herself as a child, laughing in a street. Faces she had not thought of in years, then fire, screaming, a house collapsing in a shower of sparks and embers.
The memory clenched around her heart like a fist.
When her sight cleared again, her wounds were gone. The ache was not. It had just moved deeper.
She stood. Calm now, in that cold way that came after too much had already been taken from you.
She stepped out from behind cover, venom dagger glinting faintly.
"I am right here," she called. "Come get me."
The officer spun, thermal visor locking onto her shape. He fired.
Sarah blurred forward—
[Skill Activated: Dash Lv.3]
—each shot slicing only empty air or graze-lines across her clothes as she closed the distance. She drove the dagger into his thigh, sliding in under his arm.
[Status: Venom Applied]
Poison hissed into his bloodstream. He cursed and fired wildly, but she was already rolling past him, ducking through the doorway and into the corridor beyond.
Behind her, his HUD would have been screaming in red. The venom worked cruelly fast.
He did not make it to the exit.
Sarah did not slow down to confirm it. Her boots pounded the floor as she ran deeper into the compound, breath steady, dagger still in hand.
In one of the broader chambers, Axel chose not to run at all.
His officer met him head-on, twin pistols barking in alternating bursts. Bullets streaked toward Axel in tight, controlled lines.
Axel's chain answered.
Flames raced along its links as he swung it in tight arcs, the metal blurring into a burning circle. Shots pinged off the spinning chain, sparks scattering with each impact.
"Not bad, kid," the fed shouted over the noise, ejecting magazines and slapping in fresh ones without missing a beat.
Axel's response was silent. He snapped his wrist and sent the chain snapping out. The flaming length lashed across the man's chest with a sound like a whip cracking.
The officer staggered back, armor smoking where the strike landed. His HUD flickered.
His expression changed. Less amused now.
He jerked a grenade from his belt, thumbed the pin out, and flung it. The tiny cylinder bounced once on the ground between them.
Axel's chain snapped out again. The hook of it caught the metal just as it rolled. He flicked his arm, sending the grenade arcing back the way it had come.
For a heartbeat the officer just stared, eyes widening.
Then the world blew sideways.
Heat and sound slammed into Axel, the shockwave pitching him back. Fire licked across the walls, smoke rolling over the ground in a dense wave.
He threw up an arm to shield his face. Ears ringing, lungs burning, he waited for the smoke to thin.
When it did, the only thing left of his opponent was shredded armor and scorch marks.
His HUD blinked in the aftermath:
[HP: 78 / 120]
[Stamina: 40%]
He let out a sharp breath. "Still standing," he muttered. "Good enough."
Jax had drawn the kind of opponent who preferred overwhelming firepower.
The federal officer's heavy rifle screamed with each burst, chewing the ground, walls, and anything else in his way. Concrete spat dust and debris wherever the barrel aimed.
Jax ducked behind a cracked support pillar. Chips of stone flew past his head. Staying there much longer meant getting buried.
He glanced at his HUD, then at his right arm.
"Alright," he said softly. "Let us see if this was worth the EP."
[Skill Activated: Trauma Arm -30 EP]
Nano-metal crawled across his skin in a rippling sheen, racing down from his shoulder to his knuckles, plating itself into solid armor. When the last piece locked into place, his whole limb felt heavier, full of stored tension.
He stepped out from cover and drove his fist into the floor.
The impact was a cannon shot.
The concrete buckled and cracked, a shockwave ripping outward in all directions. The whole underground structure seemed to shudder. Dust and grit poured from the ceiling.
The officer, standing closest to the epicenter, had no time to brace. The blast picked him up and slammed him into the wall like a ragdoll.
His HUD snapped from a healthy glow straight to flat red zero.
Jax straightened slowly, chest heaving, arm still humming with the aftershock of the skill.
His own HUD flickered.
[EP: 12 / 110]
[Stamina: 25%]
One more hit like that and he would be the one on the floor.
Fortunately, he would not need another. The fed's body slid to the ground and did not move again.
The compound crawled with smoke and echoes. Walls had holes where they were not supposed to. Floors held fresh craters. The air tasted of burned wiring and blood.
Kaya limped into what used to be a central hall and leaned against a cracked pillar, spitting red onto the dirt.
Sarah appeared from a side corridor moments later, dagger still in hand, eyes sharp and distant.
Axel came next, dragging his chain, its glow finally dimming.
Jax followed, Trauma Arm fading, metal retreating back into bare skin. His breaths were ragged but steady.
The four of them stood there for a moment, taking each other in. Their HUDs were in rough agreement—HP low, stamina bars chewed up, energy reserves barely hanging on.
But they were upright.
They had survived trained officers with live rounds and no safety nets.
A small, grim satisfaction settled over them.
It did not last long.
All of them knew this was only the first wave. Somewhere else in the compound, Kane and Yohan were facing enemies on a different level entirely. The kind who did not feel like mid-tier muscle, but bosses.