The streets were quieter than they had any right to be.
Not silent—never that—but quieter. The four of them moved through the ruins like ghosts, the air thick with the smell of smoke and damp concrete. Each carried exhaustion like a weight. Somewhere behind the clouds, dawn was bleeding in, but the light never reached the ground.
The System's last broadcast still echoed in Ethan's skull:
> You have endured the first night.
Your resonance deepens.
Marcus swung his crowbar idly, as if itching for another fight. "Level four," he'd said an hour ago, grinning like it was a dare. "Feels like I could bend steel."
Kira had rolled her shoulder, the faint shimmer of her phase flickering around her. "Level three. I can actually hold it now."
Ravi, walking beside her, had muttered numbers like a man running math problems in his head. "Level three, too. Faster processing. Sharper edges. Little nosebleed, but worth it."
And Ethan—still feeling the phantom burn of the night before—had admitted, "Level three. Gene-Warden."
Ravi had given him a look, thoughtful. "The System must be counting what you do differently. Healing… saving. It's not just kills that matter."
The words lingered, heavy as truth.
Something, somewhere, was measuring them.
Now, as they turned a corner, light flickered down the street. Not fire. Candles.
Marcus raised a fist, slowing them. "Eyes up."
At the end of the block, an old library crouched behind barricaded doors. Through the cracks, soft orange light breathed like the glow of a hearth. Shadows moved behind the windows.
"People," Marcus whispered, and for the first time that day, there was hope in his voice.
They approached carefully. When Marcus tapped the door, a man's face appeared through a narrow gap—wary, hollow-cheeked, and rimmed with sleeplessness.
"You're alive," Marcus said simply.
The man blinked, studied their weapons, their glowing veins, then nodded. "Quick. Before they hear."
Inside, the library smelled of wax, sweat, and dust. Tables were shoved against the windows, chairs stacked like makeshift armor. Dozens of survivors filled the main hall, huddled together, clutching scavenged food and pipes or kitchen knives. The sight should have been comforting.
It wasn't.
The room was too quiet.
Too careful.
Then Ethan saw why.
In the far corner, half lost in shadow, sat a creature. Its spine arched wrong. One arm bent backward at the joint. The jaw hung loose, crooked like a broken hinge. Its eyes glowed faintly in the candlelight—wrong, watching.
A mutant.
Ethan froze. Marcus's hand went to his crowbar. Kira's knife flashed half out of its sheath. Ravi's eyes narrowed behind cracked glasses.
"Why isn't anyone killing it?" Marcus hissed.
The man who had opened the door followed his gaze and swallowed. "It doesn't attack. Not anymore. We tried to drive it out—it just came back. So we… we left it. Maybe it's part of the test."
Kira's expression hardened. "That's not a test. That's a time bomb."
"It hasn't hurt anyone," another voice argued from the floor. "Maybe it's harmless if we don't provoke it. Maybe killing it breaks the rules."
The room rippled with uneasy murmurs.
Fear disguised as logic.
Ethan barely heard them. His skin was alive with heat. The essence in his veins pulsed in answer to something near—something faint, flickering. He could feel it, like a heartbeat trapped under ice.
"It's not gone," he said quietly.
Marcus glanced over. "What?"
"The corruption's there, but… not complete." His voice trembled. "Something's still inside. Human."
Kira stared. "You can't know that."
"I can feel it," he said, and he could. The pull was unmistakable—like the night before when he'd closed Kira's wound, only deeper, more desperate. "Maybe… maybe I can pull it back."
Ravi's brow furrowed. "You think you can reverse it?"
"I don't know," Ethan admitted. "But if I don't try, it dies like the rest."
The silence stretched.
Then Marcus nodded once. "Do it, Greenlight."
Kira swore softly. "You're all insane."
Ethan stepped forward anyway.
The mutant's head snapped toward him, lips peeling back to show cracked teeth. Its growl rolled through the room, low and broken. Still, it didn't attack.
Ethan lifted his hand. The glow swelled in his veins, rising until it burned behind his eyes. He focused on the spark buried in that ruined body—the human spark—and reached.
Emerald fire erupted from his palms.
Gasps tore through the crowd as the light wrapped the creature, swallowing shadow. The mutant shrieked, its voice caught between animal and man. Bones cracked back into place. Flesh writhed, reshaping. Its twisted limbs straightened, jaw snapping shut in a clean line. For one blinding instant, it looked almost human again.
Ethan's essence poured out like a storm drain left open.
His vision went white at the edges. His forearm pulsed:
> 100 → 52 Essence.
(–48 EP | Warden's Pulse)
He held the light anyway.
The mutant screamed—and then it was over. The glow collapsed, leaving a man on the floor, trembling, gasping, naked and pale as new paper.
Above his head hovered a mark, gold and spinning slowly like a halo of dust.
A timer.
Shrinking.
The man's voice cracked. "What… what's happening?"
"Look up!" Marcus shouted. "Don't stop! You have to choose!"
The man blinked at him in confusion. "Choose what?"
"Your path!" Kira yelled. "Say it out loud—say anything!"
The mark shrank smaller, burning toward nothing.
"Focus," Ravi snapped. "It's your second chance. Speak or you'll lose it again!"
"I don't understand!" the man sobbed, backing away. "I don't—"
The timer thinned to a thread.
Ethan stumbled forward, voice raw. "Five paths! You'll see them—just pick one! Now!"
The man's eyes went wide. "Titan-Blood! I'll take Titan-Blood!"
The sigil froze.
Then burst in a flare of light.
Energy slammed through his body. He arched, cried out—and when the glow faded, he collapsed forward, shaking but alive. His breath came harsh and human.
Ethan nearly joined him on the floor. His legs buckled. Only Marcus's arm around his shoulders kept him upright.
The library erupted.
Some fell to their knees in tears. Others pressed against the walls, faces pale with fear.
Kira looked at Ethan as though seeing something alien. "That wasn't healing," she whispered. "That was rewriting."
Ravi's tone was hushed but sure. "Or maybe that's what healing really means to the System."
Marcus let out a breath that was half laugh, half disbelief. "Greenlight just dragged a corpse back into the queue. You're not a healer, you're a reset button."
Ethan didn't answer. His veins were dim now, light fading to ember. His pulse thundered unevenly. He could still feel the man's body under his hands—bones reshaping, breath restarting.
It hadn't felt like power.
It had felt like begging the universe for mercy and getting an answer.
A voice filled his skull. Smooth. Amused. Ancient.
> "Clever mortal. You reach where others cannot.
But know this—your fire is not endless.
Bright flames burn fast."
The words vanished like smoke, leaving only the thrum of his heart and the weight of a hundred stares.
Ethan straightened slowly, shaking, his vision spotted with light. Around him, the crowd whispered—fear, awe, worship, all tangled into one unbearable sound.
Kira's hand tightened on her knife. Ravi's expression was unreadable. Marcus looked both proud and uneasy, like a man who had just watched someone lift a mountain and wasn't sure it should've been possible.
Ethan's eyes found the man he'd saved. Alive. Breathing. Confused.
Human again.
He'd done it.
And lost nearly half his essence to make it happen.
It wasn't victory.
It was proof—and a promise he could never afford to break.