The morning after the siege was eerily calm. Kairo stood before the splintered, makeshift barricade, his expression unreadable as he analyzed the breach. The black dust of dozens of slain imps was already being scattered by the wind blowing through the broken window. Behind him, Martha was sweeping up shattered glass, her movements jerky but determined. The fear was still etched on her face, but it was now overlaid with a grim sense of purpose. Their sanctuary had been tested, and it had held.
"They will be back," Kairo said, his voice cutting through the silence. "Last night was just a probe. The System is designed to punish stagnation. It applies pressure to static points of order."
Martha paused, leaning on her broom. "Then what do we do? We can't possibly withstand another attack like that, let alone a stronger one."
"We are not going to do anything," Kairo corrected her, turning to face her. His golden eyes were intense, pinning her in place. "You are going to reinforce this breach. I've left designs for a better barricade, using principles of leverage to create a stronger brace. You will continue your work cataloguing the texts I need. This library remains our fortress."
A new, more potent fear crept into Martha's eyes. "And you? What are you going to do?"
"I'm leaving," he stated simply. "The attack proved that hiding is a slow death. I need to grow stronger, faster than the System expects. I need to hunt."
"Leave?" The word came out as a panicked squeak. "You can't! You're the only reason this place is still standing. Outside… it's a warzone."
"Which is why I must go out into it," Kairo reasoned, his logic as cold and unassailable as a mathematical proof. "Power isn't found in a fortress; it's seized on the battlefield. I have a destination in mind, a place where I can accelerate my growth significantly."
He walked over to a fire hose cabinet on the wall and removed the heavy, red fire axe. He offered it to her, handle first. She looked at it as if it were a venomous snake.
"Take it," he commanded. "You are not a warrior, but you are not helpless. Your intellect is your primary weapon, but you need a last resort."
Hesitantly, she took the axe. It was heavy and awkward in her hands.
"Don't swing it," Kairo instructed, his voice taking on the tone of a ruthless teacher. "It's too slow. Use it to thrust. Aim for the eyes, the throat, the joints. Don't hesitate. Hesitation is an invitation to death. Do you understand?"
Martha stared at the axe, then back at his unyielding face. She nodded, her knuckles white as she gripped the handle. "I understand."
"Good," Kairo said. He shouldered his pack, which was now lighter, containing only the essentials. "Barricade the breach, continue the work, and do not open the doors for anyone. I will return." With that, he turned and walked toward a service exit in the basement, leaving Martha alone in the vast, silent library, the unlikely queen of a fortress of knowledge, a fire axe her only scepter.
The city had decayed even in the short time Kairo had been inside. The initial chaos had subsided into a tense, predatory quiet. He moved through the urban jungle with a purpose, sticking to the shadows, his senses on high alert. The Aether Imps were mostly gone, replaced by new, more specialized predators.
He had his first encounter in a ruined city park. A pack of five creatures, lean and canine-like with mangy, patchy fur and glowing red eyes, were tearing at a corpse. [Scan] identified them: [Ruin Hounds], Level 4. Pack hunters with superior speed and a vicious bite.
Kairo didn't avoid them. He drew his Runic Blade and engaged. The hounds were faster than the imps, their movements coordinated. They tried to flank him, a classic pack tactic. But Kairo's [Aether Step] made a mockery of their strategy. He blinked from one spot to another, his blade a flash of blue light, dispatching each hound with a single, precise strike to the neck or head. The fight was over in less than thirty seconds. He was not just surviving; he was efficiently culling the new ecosystem's inhabitants.
He continued on, taking to the rooftops to get a better vantage point. From the edge of a five-story office building, he looked down upon a scene that perfectly encapsulated the state of the new world. A small group of three other Players was cornered in an alley, fighting desperately against a similar pack of five Ruin Hounds.
Kairo activated [Scan]. He saw a brawny man with a shield and a short sword, identified as a Level 2 [Warrior]. A nimble-looking woman with two daggers, a Level 2 [Rogue]. And a terrified young man at the back, hurling small, weak firebolts, a Level 2 [Mage]. Their teamwork was sloppy, born of desperation rather than practice. The warrior blocked clumsily, the rogue's attacks were shallow, and the mage's firebolts were doing little more than singeing the hounds' fur.
They were struggling against a threat Kairo had dispatched with ease. The gap between a prepared regressor and the average Player was not a gap; it was a chasm. He watched them for another moment, seeing the fear in their eyes, the way they wasted stamina on panicked shouts and inefficient movements. He felt no empathy, no urge to intervene. They were irrelevant. If they survived, they might become stronger. If they died, they were simply part of the System's culling. He turned and continued on his way.
After another hour of careful travel, he arrived at his destination. The area around his warehouse was… different. The air itself seemed to hum and crackle with energy. A faint, silvery distortion warped the view of the building, like a heat haze on a winter day. The dimensional energy was concentrating.
He entered the warehouse, his blade drawn. The interior was empty, but the concrete floor in the center of the room was gone. In its place was a shimmering, swirling vortex of blue and silver light, about ten feet in diameter. It pulled at the air, emitting a low, resonant hum. The Gate to the Labyrinth of the Iron Golem. It had formed.
Kairo didn't rush in. He sat down twenty feet from the Gate, opened his pack, and began his pre-dungeon ritual. He ate a high-energy ration bar, drank a third of his water, and meticulously checked every strap and buckle on his armor. He ran a whetstone over his secondary knife, though it was already razor-sharp. He mentally reviewed his stats, skills, and the layout of the dungeon's first floor as he remembered it. This was the calm professionalism of a man going to work, not a hero stepping into the unknown.
When he was ready, he stood, took a deep breath, and walked toward the swirling portal. As he touched the edge of the Gate, the world dissolved. He felt a nauseating lurch, a sensation of being twisted and pulled apart, before his feet found solid ground again.
He was inside. The air was dry and smelled of ozone and hot metal. He stood in a long, narrow corridor made not of stone, but of massive, rusted iron plates bolted together. Veins of a faintly glowing blue ore, which he recognized as Mana-Conductive Iron, crisscrossed the walls and ceiling, providing a dim, industrial light. In the distance, he could hear the rhythmic clanking of machinery and the grinding of gears.
His eyes scanned the corridor. He was alone for now. He took a step forward, the sound of his boot on the metal floor echoing unnaturally. As if in response, a section of a nearby wall panel slid open, and small, insect-like creatures began to scuttle out. They were each about the size of a large dog, made of scrap metal, with multiple sharp, spindly legs and a single, glowing red photoreceptor for an eye.
[Scan] activated. [Automaton Scrapper], Level 5. Weak armor, fast, attacks in swarms.
A dozen of them swarmed toward him, their metal legs clicking rapidly on the floor. Kairo narrowed his eyes. The confined space limited his movement, but it also limited theirs. It was another fatal funnel. He raised his Runic Blade, its blue aura flaring to life in the dim corridor.
"Round two," he muttered, a cold smile touching his lips as he stepped forward to meet the metallic tide. The hunt had truly begun.