The tunnel was breathing.
Every time the phosphorescent walls pulsed, a wet, squelching sound echoed through the darkness. Elias and Jacques moved in silence, their eyes darting between the black roots and the flickering system messages. The air was getting thinner, replaced by a metallic haze that tasted like old coins and ozone.
Suddenly, the pulsing stopped. The silence that followed was worse than the noise.
"Wait," Elias whispered, his hand tightening around the cold metal of the fire extinguisher.
A few meters ahead, a cluster of black veins began to boil. The concrete wall cracked open like a dry ribcage, and something pushed its way out. It wasn't born; it was manufactured.
The creature stood seven feet tall, its body a grotesque fusion of subway machinery and pale, translucent flesh. Its "skin" was stretched tight over a skeleton made of rusted rebar and copper wiring. Instead of a face, it had a single, rotating circular saw blade embedded in its skull, and its chest cavity was a glowing furnace of blue Essence.
[WARNING: GUARDIAN OF THE PERIPHERY DETECTED]
[TYPE: TUNNEL SCRAPER]
[LEVEL: 5]
[LOOT: REFINED ESSENCE CORE / TITANIUM BONE GRAFT]
"Level 5," Jacques spat, his pipe wrench trembling. "We're zeros, Elias. The System isn't testing us. It's cleaning us out."
The Scraper didn't roar. It made a sound like metal grinding against metal. The saw blade in its head began to spin, throwing sparks against the tunnel walls. It lunged, its movements jerky and robotic, yet terrifyingly fast.
"Split up!" Elias yelled, jumping to the left just as the blade carved a deep trench into the ground where he had been standing.
[LAW #2 REMINDER: COOPERATION DETECTED — HARVEST PENALTY ACTIVE]
Elias ignored the notification. If he died, a 100% bonus meant nothing.
Jacques swung his wrench, connecting with the creature's knee. There was a sound of shattering glass and snapping wires. The Scraper stumbled, but it didn't feel pain. It swung a long, hydraulic arm, backhanding Jacques into a concrete pillar. The old man fell, coughing up a mixture of blood and black bile.
"Jacques!"
Elias felt a surge of heat in his chest. The 0.001 Essence he had absorbed from the man in the train was screaming for more. It wanted him to feed.
He didn't think. He acted on pure, predatory instinct. He charged at the Scraper's back while it was focused on the downed old man. He leaped onto the creature's rusted spine, jamming the metal end of his fire extinguisher into the glowing furnace in its chest.
The Scraper bucked, its saw blade spinning wildly, inches from Elias's face. The heat was immense. Elias could smell his own hair singeing.
"Give me... your life!" Elias roared, twisting the extinguisher like a dagger.
[CRITICAL HIT DETECTED]
[EXTRACTING ESSENCE...]
The creature's blue glow flared, then turned a violent shade of red. It began to vibrate. Elias felt the Essence flowing through the extinguisher into his arms—not a trickle this time, but a flood of molten fire. It burned his nerves, melting his human weakness and replacing it with something cold and metallic.
With a final, desperate heave, Elias tore a glowing sphere out of the creature's chest.
The Scraper collapsed into a heap of scrap metal and rotting meat.
[SLAUGHTER CONFIRMED: TUNNEL SCRAPER DEFEATED]
[TOTAL ESSENCE HARVESTED: 5.000]
[LEVEL UP: 0 -> 2]
[PENALTY APPLIED: -2.500 ESSENCE (COOPERATION TAX)]
Elias stood over the remains, panting. He looked at his arms. They weren't just healed; the muscle fibers seemed denser, laced with faint, glowing blue lines. He felt powerful. He felt... wrong.
He looked at Jacques, who was struggling to get up. The old man looked at Elias with a mixture of gratitude and pure terror. He saw the change in the boy's eyes—the golden flicker of Odin's influence.
"You took it all," Jacques wheezed. "The System... it gave the kill to you."
Elias looked at the Essence sphere in his hand. It was beautiful. It was life. And the Law was clear: he had lost half of it because he wasn't alone.
[LAW #4: ASCENSION SHOP ACCESSIBLE]
[RECOMANDED PURCHASE: BONE REINFORCEMENT OR PREDATOR'S EYE]
Elias looked at the Shop, then at Jacques. The dark, desperate logic of the Hunt was starting to take root in his mind. If he wanted to survive the Purge in 45 minutes, he couldn't afford any more taxes.
"We have to move," Elias said, his voice deeper, devoid of its earlier tremor. "The surface is still three floors up. And the things up there... they'll be stronger than this scrap."
He didn't offer a hand to help Jacques up. He just started walking into the deeper dark, his eyes now reflecting the Sickly blue light of the tunnel.
The countdown didn't stop.
[TIME REMAINING: 13 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 12 MINUTES]