Knowledge was a weapon—but also a burden.
From the rooftop, Artur could see the web.
And the spider.
He was tracking the movement of a scout, now drifting dangerously close to the base of his building, when he felt it.
Not a sound.
A shift in air pressure.
A low-frequency vibration traveling through concrete, climbing up through bone. It was the same hum he felt constantly—the resonance of the cage—but amplified a hundredfold.
The air grew heavy. Dense.
The creatures at street level felt it too.
Patrols halted mid-step.
The sentinel at the intersection lifted its head.
The scout following his trail froze—then, in a movement that stunned Artur, turned and fled, vanishing into shadow.
Something was coming.
Something even the other monsters feared.
Artur crawled to the northern edge of the roof and stared at the unstable distortion he had marked earlier.
The ripple had intensified.
The air wasn't just shimmering now.
It was folding.
A building's facade appeared to soften, melt, flow like wax—then solidify again.
And from that diseased slurry of reality—
they emerged.
Three of them.
The creatures he had labeled "bestial" were kittens by comparison.
These were giants.
Each the size of a garbage truck. Masses of coiled muscle wrapped in thick, black carapace that seemed to swallow light. They moved on four legs as thick as tree trunks, each step making the asphalt tremble.
Their heads resembled infernal boars—tusks as long as Artur's arms curving from jaws capable of crushing steel.
Their eyes were not red pinpricks.
They were slits of molten orange.
Ancient.
Cold.
They did not fan out.
They did not begin to hunt at random.
They paused.
Massive heads rising, as if tasting the air.
Then, in perfect unison—
they turned.
And began to move.
Directly toward him.
A chill unlike anything he had known traced his spine.
There was no searching.
No tracking.
No uncertainty.
Just trajectory.
Point A to Point B.
They were Point A.
He was Point B.
This was different.
The hounds were patrol.
The scouts were trackers.
These things—
this was the immune response.
The extermination unit.
The system was no longer observing. No longer containing.
It had classified the infection as critical.
And deployed its macrophages.
Elite killer cells.
Single directive: locate the anomaly.
Erase it.
Panic surged—white and searing—threatening to drown him. His mind screamed at him to run. Hide. Find a hole and bury himself inside it.
But where?
They already knew.
Running was pointless.
He glanced at the axe beside him.
The tool that had been his one advantage.
Against those mountains of armored flesh—
it looked like a toothpick.
The giants advanced, their footsteps a slow, inevitable thunder. The lesser monsters still lingering on the street scattered from their path, retreating into alleys and shadows.
Clearing the way.
The street became a corridor.
And Artur, perched on the rooftop, was the prize at its end.
Panic cooled into fury.
A cold, defiant rage.
If the system wanted war—
it would have it.
He would not die hiding on a roof.
He stood, leg screaming in protest.
He didn't take the fire escape.
Too slow.
He moved to the edge facing the alley below, glanced down, spotted a dumpster piled high with trash bags—
and jumped.
The three-story fall was violent.
He crashed into the soft mound of garbage, the impact sending shockwaves through his ribs and torn leg.
But he was on the ground.
On the battlefield.
He limped out of the alley, metal pipe in one hand, axe in the other.
And stepped into the middle of the street.
Waiting.
The first giant rounded the corner.
It stopped when it saw him.
Its massive head tilted slightly.
Molten eyes locked onto him.
There was no haste.
No fury.
Only the certainty of an ending.
Artur raised the axe.
The fight for survival was over.
The war against the system itself—
was about to begin.