The air on the surface didn't just smell like rot; it tasted like static.Kael crouched behind the rusted skeleton of a transit bus, his fingers digging into the cracked asphalt. Even without a system to tell him his stats, he could feel the Prauna circulating in his marrow. It was heavy, dull, and metallic—the hallmark of the Copper Realm. At the High-level, his muscles were dense enough to stop a low-caliber bullet, and his raw strength was exactly five times that of the men who had lived before the Collapse.
But in the Dead Zone, five times human strength was barely enough to stay alive.
Thirty yards away, a cluster of a dozen zombies—Hollows—shuffled through the ruins of a department store. They were gaunt, their skin the color of wet ash. One of them stepped on a piece of jagged glass, the shard burying itself deep in its foot. The creature didn't flinch. It had no Prauna, no soul, and therefore, no value.Suddenly, a shadow stretched over the street, blocking out the sickly grey sun.Kael froze.
He didn't just stop moving; he suppressed his heartbeat, forcing his Prauna to go still.From the roof of a nearby pharmacy, a Level 2 Elite Hunter—a Stitch-Wolf—leaped down. It was a nightmare of fused bone and necrotic muscle, the size of a grizzly bear. Its landing cracked the concrete, but it didn't even look at the zombies standing three feet away. It shoved a Hollow aside with such force the zombie's spine snapped like a dry twig.The wolf didn't eat it. It didn't even sniff it.
The Rule, Kael thought, his pulse thrumming against his copper-tough ribs. Monsters don't eat the dead. They only want the living.The Stitch-Wolf began to sniff the air, its nostrils flared for the "sweet" scent of active Prauna. To the wolf, Kael's High-Copper energy was like a dim candle in a dark room—faint, but tempting.Kael looked at his objective: a medical crate pinned under a fallen steel girder inside the pharmacy. If he didn't bring back antibiotics, the Underground City council would cut his rations for a month.
He moved.He didn't run; he flowed. Every muscle in his legs acted like a pressurized piston. With a single, silent leap, he cleared the gap into the pharmacy's shattered side entrance.He reached the steel girder. To a normal man, this beam weighed half a ton—unmovable. Kael gripped the cold metal, his face flushing a deep bronze as he channeled his Prauna.Hnngh!With a muffled groan, he heaved. The 5x strength of the Copper Realm flared. The beam screeched against the floor, lifting just enough for him to kick the medical crate free.SNAP.A dry wooden floorboard gave way under the pressure. The sound was like a gunshot in the silent store.Outside, the Stitch-Wolf froze. It turned its head, its eyes glowing with a predatory yellow light.
It had found the "candle."Kael didn't wait. He snatched the crate and sprinted toward the back exit. He didn't need to be quiet anymore; he needed to be fast. His boots shattered the floor tiles with every stride.He burst through the back door just as the wolf tore through the front of the pharmacy like it was made of paper. Kael dived into a narrow alleyway—a "Dead Zone" too small for the monster's massive frame."Come on," Kael hissed, his eyes scanning the rubble.He needed a distraction. He saw a group of twenty zombies blocked by a collapsed fence. With a surge of strength, he kicked a dumpster, sending the massive metal bin hurtling toward the fence.CRASH!The fence collapsed.
The zombies, startled by the noise, began to pour into the street, creating a wall of grey, unfeeling flesh between Kael and the wolf.The Stitch-Wolf skidded to a halt, snarling. It could easily tear through the zombies, but it hated the touch of the "Hollow" flesh. It paused, hesitated for a split second—and that was all Kael needed.He disappeared into the darkness of a maintenance hatch, sliding down the ladder into the humid, safe tunnels of the Underground City.As he hit the floor, his Prauna finally settled. He looked at his hands, which were shaking slightly. He was a High-Copper, a pinnacle of physical toughness, yet he had just run from a Level 2 beast."I need to break through," Kael whispered to the empty tunnel. "If I don't reach the Bronze Realm soon... I'm just a stronger piece of meat."He began the long walk toward the Inner Gates, unaware that in his frantic escape, he had stepped on something buried in the muck—a jagged, obsidian shard that was now humming against the sole of his boot.