The man with the earring lunges. No speech. No hesitation.
He moves with a speed that defies Earth's physics. In a normal world, he would be a blur. To a civilian, I'd be dead before I saw the knife.
Rank A, my mind registers instantly. Muscle density of a heavy lifter, agility of a viper. High-tier mercenaries.
But they make one mistake. They attack me like I'm an 18-year-old boy. They attack the body they see, not the mind inside it.
Big mistake.
I don't have the strength to block a direct hit. If that knife touches me, it's over. I need the edge. I need the Flow.
[Skill Activation: Flow Cartographer]
[Warning: Atmospheric Sync Critical. Draining Time.]
The world shifts. The colors desaturate into high-contrast monochrome. The apartment becomes a grid of vectors and mathematical probabilities.
I see the earring-man's center of gravity shift forward three milliseconds before his shoulder moves.
I see the air pressure compress around his right hand, telegraphing the thrust.
I see the blue line of his attack trajectory painting the air.
Too wide. You're overconfident.
My HUD starts to hemorrhage time. The numbers spin down like a slot machine.
03:50:00... 03:20:00...
I don't dodge away. I step into his guard.
I twist my torso just enough that the obsidian blade slices the air next to my ribs, cutting only the fabric of my shirt.
The man's eyes widen. He didn't expect me to close the distance.
I use his own momentum. I hook my leg behind his ankle—the pivot point highlighted in gold by my vision—and slam my palm into his diaphragm.
It's not a strong punch. It doesn't need to be. I hit the exact pressure point where his breath is anchored.
Collapse.
He gags, his balance crumbling. I grab his wrist, using the leverage to spin him around, putting his body between me and the second attacker.
Crunch.
The second man, a brute with a shaved head, had already committed to a heavy kick meant for my spine. Instead, his boot slams into his partner's chest. Ribs crack like dry twigs.
"Friendly fire," I rasp, my voice cold.
The earring-man drops, wheezing, incapacitated.
The brute roars, enraged. The air around his fists shimmers with heat.
Active Skill. Fire imbue.
My clock screams.
02:15:00... 01:40:00...
He throws a punch that could punch through a tank. The heat wave singes my eyebrows.
But Flow Cartographer shows me the turbulence in the air before the fire even forms.
You telegraph too much. You're used to fighting monsters that just stand there and take it.
I duck under the haymaker, feeling the heat sear the top of my head. I'm now inside his guard.
I don't have a weapon. So I use gravity.
I drive my elbow into his solar plexus while simultaneously stomping on his instep. The pain signals overload his nervous system for a fraction of a second.
He freezes.
That's all I need.
I grab his own tactical belt, spin on my heel, and execute a judo throw amplified by ten years of surviving the Trench.
He flips over my shoulder.
I don't let him land softly. I drive his head down onto the corner of the heavy oak coffee table.
Crack.
The sound of his neck snapping is wet and final. The brute goes limp, the fire around his fists sputtering out.
I stand over them, panting. My lungs feel like they are filled with broken glass. My vision blurs as I deactivate the skill.
The monochrome grid fades, returning the world to its grim, bloody colors.
I check the HUD. My heart sinks.
[Time Remaining: 00:45:00]
I spent nearly three hours of my life in ten seconds of combat.
"Amateurs," I whisper, wiping a line of blood from my cheek. "You have the stats. But you never learned to dance."
I step over the groaning man with the earring. I need answers. I need to know who sent them before my clock runs out.
I reach down to grab his collar, but a sound stops me.
From the dark corner of the hallway, near the kitchen entrance.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Slow. Mocking.
I freeze. My Flow Cartographer didn't pick up a third person. That's impossible. Unless...
Unless they are masking their presence with a Rank S concealment.
"Impressive," a voice says. "Rough around the edges, but the technique... that was pure art, Dry."
Something in my stomach drops. Not a metaphor. I physically feel my gut lurch, like missing a step on a staircase. I know that voice before my brain catches up to confirm it. My body recognized him first.
I turn around slowly, my trembling hands balling into fists.
Stepping out of the shadows, wearing a pristine suit that looks entirely out of place in this slaughterhouse, is him. The dim light catches on his thin-rimmed glasses—that accessory that always gave him a harmless, studious look. His brown hair is parted to the side, perfectly aligned, without a single strand out of place. He looks like he's heading to a board meeting, not a battlefield.
His smile is the same one that greeted me for six years. The same smile that I trusted with my life.
"Rae?" I choke out, confusion warring with instinct. "You... you came to help?"
Rae stops a few feet away. He looks at the bodies on the floor, then at the mark on the wall, and finally at me. His eyes don't hold warmth. They hold a terrifying, calculated pity.
"Help?" Rae chuckles, a dry sound. "I told you not to bring that book home, Dryden. I told you it was too heavy for you."
He raises his hand. Blue spirit flame, denser and hotter than anything the brute used, ignites at his fingertips.
"I didn't come to help," he says softly. "I came to clean up."
The betrayal hits harder than any punch. My knees shake—not from the draining clock, but from the invisible knife twisting in my back.
It was him.
It was him all along.