The chaos was absolute. The other students had retreated to the far corners of the gym. Mike was gone. Jace was hiding up in the bleachers.
That left Chen.
He was backed against the wall under the broken basketball hoop. The Drake had him pinned. It snapped, and Chen blocked with his spear, the wood shaft cracking under the pressure.
"Please!" Chen sobbed. His arrogance had evaporated, leaving just a scared kid who realized his parents' money couldn't buy hit points. "I don't want to die!"
The Drake swiped a claw. It tore through Chen’s Starter Armor like wet paper. Blood—bright red pixels that solidified into liquid—splattered against the wall.
[HP: 15 / 120]
One more hit and he was dead.
I looked at Seraphina. She hadn't moved. She was watching the Drake, her hand hovering near her waist, perhaps ready to cast a spell if things went too far. Or maybe she was just waiting to see if I would let him die.
If I saved him, I was a hero. If I let him die, I was a monster.
But I wasn't either. I was a gamer. And I saw an opportunity to power-level.
I started running.
"He's helping!" someone shouted from the back. "Kai is helping!"
I splashed through the water, closing the distance. The Drake reared back for the killing bite on Chen.
I didn't attack the Drake. I slid past it.
"Kai?" Chen looked at me with hope in his eyes.
"Duck," I said.
Chen ducked.
I reached out, my hand glowing with a dark, violet light that was invisible to everyone but me. I didn't grab the Drake. I grabbed the space where Mike had died.
The lingering data of a fresh kill. The "Soul Echo."
[CONSUMING ECHO...]
A rush of cold energy hit me. It wasn't much—Mike was weak—but it gave me a burst of mana.
I pivoted. The Drake lunged at Chen, its jaws clamping down.
Crunch.
Chen's HP hit zero. He didn't even scream. He just shattered into blue particles.
"No!" Seraphina stepped forward, her calm finally breaking. "Too slow."
She raised her hand to delete the Drake, to end the tutorial before more students died.
"Mine," I whispered.
I didn't use a weapon. I lunged into the blue particle cloud of Chen’s death, right as the Drake was inhaling the EXP.
My hand slammed onto the Drake's snout.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: SOUL DEVOUR.]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4euLNwd3YQ
[TARGET: JUVENILE SWAMP DRAKE + 2 HUMAN SOULS.]
The world went gray.
Time stopped.
I wasn't in the gym anymore. I was in a tunnel of memories. I saw Chen stealing lunch money. I saw Mike laughing at a kicked dog. I felt the Drake's primal hunger, its instinct to hunt, to shred, to eat.
All of that data—the guilt, the fear, the hunger—poured into me. It felt like drinking molten lead. My veins burned. My heart seized.
The cost of the skill. To eat power, you have to eat the pain.
I gritted my teeth and swallowed it all.
More, the void inside me demanded. More.
The Drake didn't just die. It imploded. The massive reptile shriveled, its scales turning to ash, its flesh dissolving into streams of black code that spiraled up my arm.
The beast let out a glitching, distorted shriek that shattered the glass of the scoreboard.
Then, silence.
I stood alone under the basketball hoop. The water around me was clear. No blood. No bodies. No monster.
Just me.
A series of notifications cascaded in my vision, bright gold and beautiful.
[TARGETS CONSUMED.]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnKpDKjx97T
[CALCULATING EXPERIENCE...]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbvljX53ST3
[LEVEL UP!]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiSEzjALWfk
[LEVEL UP!]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFrYh8fGKcO
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 15]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH3buavFuQB
[STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 40]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCmIGAm4un8
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: PREDATOR'S SENSE (PASSIVE)]
I took a deep breath. The air tasted sweet. My ribs didn't hurt anymore. My muscles felt dense, packed with new power. I wasn't starving. For the first time since I woke up in this hell, I was full.
I slowly turned around.
The rest of the class was staring at me in horror. They didn't understand what had happened. They just saw the monster vanish and me standing in its place.
But Seraphina understood.
She was standing ten feet away. The water around her boots was frozen solid—a side effect of her leaking aura. Her silver eyes were wide, the data scrolling across them moving so fast it was a blur.
She had seen the violet light. She had seen the glitch.
"You," she whispered, her voice tight. "You didn't kill it. You... erased it."
I looked at her. I could have lied. I could have said it was a critical hit, or a bug in the system.
But I was Level 15 now. I wasn't helpless anymore.
I raised my hand, wiping a smudge of black code from my cheek. I looked her dead in the eye and gave a small, cold shrug.
"It was in my way," I said.
A crack of thunder shook the building, signaling the end of the tutorial. The mist began to fade. The walls started to reform into normal gym walls.
But before the dungeon closed, a new notification popped up in front of everyone—a massive, red warning box that hovered in the center of the room.
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡetNyiVqwM9
[GUILD INTERVENTION DETECTED.]18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkiHRH8I4v3
[THE OUROBOROS GUILD HAS ENTERED THE INSTANCE.]
My blood ran cold.
Ouroboros. Viper's guild.
I looked at Seraphina. The color had drained from her face. She looked at the notification, then at me.
"That's not possible," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "This is a restricted school zone. High-level guilds can't enter unless..."
"Unless they were invited," I finished for her.
I clenched my fists. Viper wasn't just farming. He was here for something specific. And if he found Seraphina—an Admin proxy—he would kill her to keep his secrets. And then he would kill me just for fun.
The ceiling of the gym began to crack. Not from a monster, but from something trying to break in from the outside.
I looked at the girl who had been sent to hunt me.
"Hey, Inspector," I said, my voice low. "How good are you at fighting Level 50s?"
Seraphina looked at me, fear warring with confusion in her eyes. "I... I'm restricted. My combat functions are locked."
"Well," I said, summoning the rusty spear Chen had dropped. "You better unlock them fast. Because we just skipped the tutorial and went straight to the boss rush."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.