It was 9:58 PM.
The West Industrial Park was a desolate, dead part of the city, a graveyard of forgotten factories and rusting metal. The air was cold, humid, and thick with the smell of rust, old oil, and the nearby polluted river.
Dev walked through the darkness, his new 6-foot frame a moving shadow. He wasn't just "walking"; he was scanning.
His (SPI: 39) [Spatial Awareness], even at its nerfed 10% real-world capacity, was a high-fidelity radar. He could feel the cold, hard steel of the corrugated buildings. He could feel the skittering of rats in the gutters. And he could feel the presence of at least a dozen "Level 0" threats, their hearts beating, their bodies tense, hidden in the shadows.
He was walking into a trap. And he knew it.
He found the warehouse. It was a vast, dark cathedral of decaying industry. The massive, sliding steel door was open just a crack. He didn't hesitate, slipping inside the dark, cavernous space.
It smelled of dust, mold, and old machinery. A single, buzzing, orange-yellow sodium lamp hung from the 50-foot ceiling, illuminating a single, clear circle in the center of the vast concrete floor.
Dev walked into the light.
In the center, sitting at a heavy, scarred metal desk, was "Kilo." He wasn't a thug. He was a businessman, in his 40s, wearing a simple, clean, white kurta. He was calmly, methodically, counting thick stacks of cash, stacking them in a metal briefcase.
Leaning against his black motorcycle, his arms crossed, was "Vector." He saw Dev and a slow, arrogant, cruel grin spread across his face.
On wooden crates, like vassals waiting for their king, sat the other two Gang leaders. One was a tough-looking woman with a shaved head and a mean scar on her lip, "Anya." The other was an older, scarred brawler with a cauliflower ear, "Ghor." They were all here to deliver their weekly "tax" to Kilo, the (Level 3) "Badmosh" of the entire district.
The moment Dev stepped fully into the light, his [Spatial Awareness] flared.
Clang. Thud. Scrape.
From behind towering stacks of rusted shipping containers, from the dark corners, from the high steel rafters, men stepped out.
At least fifteen of them. They were all "Level 0" goons, armed with steel pipes, bats, and long knives. In the high rafters, two more men clicked on heavy-duty flashlights, pinning Dev in a blinding, overlapping cross-beam of light.
It was 18-vs-1.
Kilo didn't look up from his money. His fingers continued their rhythmic thwap-thwap-thwap as he counted the notes.
"You're the one," he said, his voice calm, bored, echoing in the vast, silent warehouse. "The 6-foot ghost. You made a mess today."
Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.
He finished counting a stack, wrapped a rubber band around it, and placed it neatly in the briefcase. Only then did he look up.
His eyes were cold, dead, and utterly devoid of emotion.
"Rhys was a fool. An idiot bachha. I tolerated him because he was loud and he brought in money. But," Kilo said, leaning forward, "he was also the nephew of the 'East-Side' boss. A boss I happen to be in business with."
He steepled his fingers. "You didn't just break a hand, 'ghost'. You spat in the face of my entire organization. You made me look weak. You disrupted my business. And for that... there is a price."
This wasn't a job offer. It was a sentence.
Kilo nodded, his expression one of pure boredom, as if he were ordering a coffee. "Vector. He's yours. He cost you your money. Make it hurt. Be... cruel."
Vector's grin became a shark-like snarl. He'd been waiting for this. Anya and Ghor stepped back, their own faces lit with sadistic smiles, ready to watch the show.
Vector didn't pull a knife. He reached to a sheath on the side of his bike and pulled out a machete—a 2-foot-long, heavy, sharpened blade that gleamed in the orange lamplight.
"I'm going to take your arms off, you freak," he hissed.
Vector charged.
He crossed the 20-foot gap in a second, his (Level 0) speed pushed to its human limit. He swung the heavy machete in a whistling, horizontal arc, aimed directly at Dev's neck. A killing blow.
To Dev's Nexus-honed (AGI: 11) and (SPI: 39) senses, Vector was moving in syrup.
The attack was laughably slow.
Dev didn't dodge. He didn't block.
He caught Vector's wrist. Mid-swing.
Dead silence.
The machete blade stopped, quivering, two inches from Dev's neck.
Vector's grin was frozen on his face, his eyes wide with impossible, uncomprehending shock.
Kilo stopped counting. His hands, holding a stack of cash, were frozen in mid-air.
Dev, his (STR: 11) grip like a steel vise, squeezed.
A sickening sound, a wet CRACK of shattering, splintering bone, echoed through the warehouse.
Vector screamed, his mouth a wide "O" of pure agony. He dropped the machete, which clanged uselessly to the concrete floor.
Dev didn't let go. He pulled Vector off-balance, into him... and kicked him.
A single, (STR: 11) push kick to the chest.
It wasn't a kick. It was an execution.
The CRUNCH of Vector's entire ribcage caving in was so loud it was like a car crash.
Vector was launched off his feet, a ragdoll. He flew backward, smashing into Kilo's heavy metal desk, sending stacks of cash, a calculator, and an ashtray flying into the air. He hit the desk, which buckled under the impact, and then crumpled to the floor, dead.
It took one second. The Gang boss was dead.
Anya and Ghor were pale, their jaws open, their hands frozen, their cruel smiles gone. The 15+ goons were paralyzed.
Kilo's face, a mask of calm business, turned white with a mixture of shock and pure, undiluted rage.
He kicked Vector's broken body off his desk and stood up, yanking open a heavy desk drawer.
He pulled out a heavy, black revolver.
"You... You!" Kilo roared, his "businessman" mask gone, revealing the real animal beneath. "KILL HIM! KILL HIM NOW!"
That was the moment. The 15+ goons, and the two other Gang leaders, all snapped out of their shock. This was "kill or be killed."
Anya and Ghor pulled their own pistols. From the shadows, at least three of the goons raised their own cheap handguns. The others, screaming, gripped their bats and knives and charged.
This was the real trap.
Dev was "Level 1" in this world. He was fast. He was strong. But he could not dodge five bullets and ten knives at the same time. He was not that fast. He was not bulletproof. He would die if he fought them "fair."
But he wasn't here to fight fair.
As the goons charged and the guns were aimed, Dev just smirked.
"You wanted a fight?" he said, his voice cold and clear, easily cutting through the noise. "You brought the 'Chaff'. So did I."
He raised his hand.
He activated [Eternal Bond].
It was not the 12-foot, raging inferno of the Lava Hulk. That was too much power for his 10% Synced body to manifest here.
This was... different.
A black-and-gold portal, five feet wide, tore open in the middle of the warehouse floor. It wasn't an inferno. It was a smoking, dark hole in the air, a tear in reality that seemed to suck the light out of the room.
Kilo froze, his gun aimed. "What... what the hell...?"
And then, the swarm came.
Dozens of things crawled out.
Level 0 "Ash Ghouls"—emaciated, smoking, humanoid figures with glowing red eyes and long, sharp claws, moving with a jerky, unnatural speed.
Level 0 "Magma Skitterers"—bugs the size of dinner plates, made of cooling, glowing lava, which hissed as they moved, their many legs clicking on the concrete.
It wasn't one big monster. It was 32 small, fast, terrifying ones.
The goons screamed.
This wasn't a fight; this was hell. Their minds broke. The men charging with bats skidded to a halt, trying to run as the Skitterers swarmed their legs, their hissing signaling burning pain. The men with guns stopped aiming at Dev and started panicking, firing wildly at the Ghouls that were leaping at their faces.
The warehouse exploded into a madhouse of screams, gunfire, and unholy, chittering hisses.
Dev gave a single, cold, mental command to his new "Slaves":
[KEEP THEM BUSY.]
The "Chaff" was just a distraction.
His (SPI 39) mind knew who the real threats were. He ignored the screaming goons.
He activated his (AGI 11).
He was a blur.
Target 1: Ghor. The scarred brawler was trying to aim his pistol at an Ash Ghoul that was tearing one of his men apart. Before he could even register Dev's movement, Dev was on him. He didn't punch. He used a knife-hand chop (STR 11) to Ghor's throat.
CRACK.
The sound of his larynx shattering was lost in the chaos. Ghor just dropped, his eyes wide, his gun firing uselessly into the ceiling as he collapsed, dead.
Target 2: Anya. She was smart. She was ignoring the monsters, her pistol aimed at Dev.
Too slow.
Dev grabbed her gun-hand. She fired, the bullet zipping harmlessly past his ear. He shattered her wrist with a (STR 11) twist, forcing her to drop the gun. Before she could even scream, he headbutted her (CON 10). The smack of his super-dense skull against her forehead was sickening. She was out cold, collapsing to the floor.
It took three seconds.
The warehouse was a slaughterhouse. His demon-swarm was feasting on the panicking goons. His two main rivals (Ghor, Anya) were down.
Only one person was left.
Kilo.
Kilo was standing by his desk, his revolver shaking in his hand. He wasn't looking at Dev. He was staring, wide-eyed, his mind broken, at an Ash Ghoul eating one of his men, its red eyes glowing in the dark.
"What... what are you...?" Kilo whispered, his voice trembling, finally raising the gun, his shaking hands trying to aim at Dev.
Dev just stood in the middle of the chaos, his monsters screeching, his (STR 11) body unharmed. He was surrounded by the wreckage of Kilo's entire organization.
He looked at Kilo. He cocked his head, his (SPI 39) eyes cold, analytical, and completely devoid of pity.
"A new 'Badmosh'," Dev said.
BANG.