The red text burned into Kai's retinas, hovering in the air like a fresh wound.
[ HOST FOUND: RANK ZERO ]
It wasn't just a visual hallucination. It came with a sensation—a cold, invasive shiver that started at the base of his skull and slithered down his spine, settling deep in his marrow. It felt like swallowing ice.
Kai blinked, rubbing his eyes violently with the palms of his hands. "Go away," he hissed through gritted teeth. "Not now. Not today."
He thought it was a stress response. A psychotic break induced by years of being treated like furniture. He lowered his hands, expecting the hallway to be normal again.
It wasn't.
The students around him were still oblivious. Brice was still laughing, leaning casually against a locker, twirling a small flame between his fingers to impress the healer girl. The Tank Class jocks were still tossing their boulder. But above them, the "invisible" purple cracks that only Kai could see were widening.
Crack.
A sound like snapping bone echoed through the atrium.
The laughter stopped instantly. The hallway went dead silent. Fifty pairs of eyes looked up.
"What was that?" someone whispered.
Kai took a step back. His instinct, honed by years of living in the slums where silence usually meant a gang raid, screamed at him: Run.
Above them, the holographic sky of the Academy's protection dome flickered. For a second, the beautiful blue projection failed, revealing the ugly, scarred reality of the atmosphere behind it. And then, gravity seemed to invert.
BOOM.
The explosion didn't come from a bomb. It came from the sky falling.
A massive section of the glass atrium—shards the size of guillotine blades—rained down. The impact shook the floor so hard that Kai was thrown off his feet again. Dust and pulverized marble billowed out instantly, choking the air.
Screams erupted. They were high-pitched, confused, terrified screams. These were students who had grown up watching heroes on TV, students who treated combat like a sport. They had never seen real war.
"My leg! I can't feel my leg!"
"Status! Shield up! Someone put a shield up!"
Kai coughed, waving his hand through the white dust. He scrambled backward, his back hitting a cold wall. His ears were ringing, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the shouting.
The System, he thought, panic rising in his chest. The warning. It was real.
He looked up through the hole in the ceiling. The purple sparks were gone. Now, there was just a gaping, jagged tear in reality, swirling with absolute darkness. It looked like an eye pupil dilating.
And then, something dripped out of it.
It fell silently, landing in the center of the crushed hallway with a heavy, wet thud.
It wasn't a person. It was a mass of obsidian carapace and twitching muscle, standing eight feet tall on four insectoid legs. It had no face, just a smooth, black surface where a head should be, and two long, scythe-like appendages that dripped a sizzling purple liquid.
A Void Beast. Class C... maybe B?
Kai stopped breathing. He had seen these things in textbooks. Void Stalkers. Fast. Lethal. Ambush predators.
"Is... is that a prop?" a first-year student asked, his voice trembling. He was standing just ten feet away from the creature, holding a wooden practice sword. "Is this a drill?"
The beast twitching. Its faceless head snapped toward the boy.
"Run!" Kai screamed, his voice raw.
It was too late.
The beast moved faster than the eye could track. There was a blur of black motion, a wet tearing sound, and the student was gone. Thrown across the room like a ragdoll, hitting the lockers with a sickening crunch.
Chaos. Absolute, primal chaos exploded in the hallway.
Students scrambled over each other, abandoning their dignity and their training. Magic flared wildly—bolts of panic-fired lightning, gusts of wind that did nothing but stir up the dust, weak forcefields that shattered instantly.
"Out of my way!" Brice shoved a crying girl aside, his hands wreathed in fire. "I'll handle this! I'm a Rank D!"
Kai watched from the shadows, paralyzed. You idiot, he thought. That's a Stalker. Fire doesn't work unless it's hot enough to melt steel.
Brice roared, throwing a fireball the size of a basketball at the beast. It struck the creature's carapace and exploded in a flash of orange.
The smoke cleared. The beast was unscratched. It didn't even flinch. It slowly turned its faceless head toward Brice. It let out a sound—a low, chittering rattle that sounded like dry leaves scraping on concrete.
Brice's face went pale. The arrogance, the sneer, the confidence—it all evaporated, replaced by the terrified face of a teenage boy who realized he was about to die.
"No..." Brice whimpered, stumbling back. "My dad... my dad is a Platinum Sponsor..."
The beast lunged.
Brice screamed, throwing his arms up.
Kai didn't watch. He scrambled to his feet and ran. He wasn't a hero. He had zero Strength. Zero Agility. If he tried to help, he would just be another stain on the floor.
He ducked into a side classroom, slamming the heavy door shut and locking it. He backed away, sliding down the wall until he hit the floor, chest heaving.
Hyperventilation, his mind analyzed coldly. Heart rate 160. Adrenaline dumping.
Outside, the screams continued. The tearing of metal. The smell of burning flesh seeping under the door.
"This can't be happening," Kai whispered, pulling his knees to his chest. "The Academy is safe. The dome is impenetrable."
[ ERROR. ]
The red text appeared again, floating in the darkness of the classroom. It was brighter this time, illuminating the dust motes in the air.
[ THE DOME IS COMPROMISED. ] [ INVASION PROGRESS: 1% ] [ HOST VITALITY: CRITICAL RISK ]
Kai stared at the words. "What are you?" he demanded, his voice shaking. "Why can I see you? Why me?"
The text shifted, the letters rearranging themselves.
[ ANSWER: YOU ARE THE VARIABLE. ] [ SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE. ] [ GENERATING FIRST QUEST... ]
"I don't want a quest!" Kai snapped, tears of frustration pricking his eyes. "I want to not die!"
[ QUEST RECEIVED: SURVIVE ] [ DIFFICULTY: EXTREME ] [ OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE THE LOGISTICS BUILDING. ] [ TIME LIMIT: 10 MINUTES ] [ REWARD: SYSTEM UNLOCK (LEVEL 1) ] [ FAILURE PENALTY: DEATH ]
Kai let out a hysterical, choked laugh. "Death. Right. Thanks for the clarification."
BAM!
Something slammed against the classroom door. The heavy steel buckled inward. The lock groaned.
Kai stopped laughing. He scrambled to his feet, backing away toward the window. But the window looked out onto the courtyard, which was three stories down. Jumping would break his legs. Staying meant getting eaten.
BAM!
A claw—black and dripping with violet ichor—punched through the metal door like it was wet paper. It began to peel the steel back, creating an opening.
Kai looked around the room frantically. Desks. Chairs. A holographic projector. Nothing that could stop a monster.
His eyes darted back to the floating red screen.
[ TIME REMAINING: 09:45 ]
"Think, Kai. Think!" he yelled at himself, slapping his own face. "You're a Logistics student. You analyze. You find the path."
He looked at the claw ripping through the door. It was a Void Stalker. What did he know about them? Textbook page 342. Void Stalkers hunt by sound and vibration. Their vision is poor. They are covered in chitin armor, impenetrable to small arms fire.
Weakness... weakness...
"The joints," Kai whispered. "And sensory overload."
The door gave way with a screech of tearing metal. The Stalker squeezed into the room, its multiple legs clicking on the tile floor. It knocked over a desk, sending it crashing against the wall.
Kai froze. He held his breath, standing perfectly still near the back of the room.
The beast chittered, its head swaying back and forth. It didn't see him yet. It was listening.
Kai's eyes fell on the fire alarm panel on the wall, about five feet to his right.
If he moved, it would hear him. If he stayed, it would smell him eventually.
[ HINT: THE SYSTEM CAN ASSIST. ]
The text popped up right next to the beast's head.
[ WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACTIVATE 'EMERGENCY OVERCLOCK'? ] [ WARNING: THIS WILL CONSUME YOUR LIFE FORCE. ]
"What?" Kai mouthed.
[ Y / N ]
The beast took a step forward. It hissed, tasting the air. It turned directly toward Kai.
Kai didn't hesitate. He mentally smashed the [ Y ].
[ ACTIVATING... ]
Pain.
It felt like someone had poured liquid nitrogen into his veins. His vision went white, then sharpened into terrifying clarity. Suddenly, the world slowed down. He could see the dust motes floating in the air, suspended in time. He could see the individual muscles twitching under the beast's armor. He could hear the creature's heartbeat—a slow, rhythmic thump-thump of black blood.
[ TEMPORARY AGILITY BOOST: +10 ] [ DURATION: 10 SECONDS ]
Ten seconds.
Kai moved.
He didn't run away. He ran at the wall.
To his own shock, his body obeyed instantly. He pushed off the ground with force he didn't know he had, vaulting over a row of desks. The beast lunged, its scythe claw slicing the air where Kai's head had been a millisecond ago.
Kai hit the wall, smashed his fist into the red "FIRE ALARM" box, and shattered the glass.
REEEEEE-REEEEEE-REEEEEE!
The alarm blared—a sonic assault designed to wake the dead.
The Void Stalker shrieked, recoiling violently. It thrashed, its sensitive hearing overwhelmed, clawing at its own head.
Kai didn't stop to watch. He used the remaining 5 seconds of his boost. He grabbed a heavy metal chair and hurled it through the window.
Crash.
Glass shattered outward.
Kai leaped.
As he fell three stories toward the bushes below, the red text floated beside him, calm amidst the chaos.
[ CRITICAL DECISION MADE. ] [ INTELLIGENCE STAT DETECTED. ] [ YOU ARE INTERESTING, HOST. ]
The ground rushed up to meet him.