A high-pitched whine drilled into John's skull like a dentist's tool, so loud and persistent that for a moment it was the only thing that existed. No sight, no smell, no sense of up or down. Just that piercing, endless tone that seemed to emanate from inside his own head.

Then came a full-body wave of protest from muscles and bones and skin that had been subjected to forces they were never meant to endure. His chest ached with every breath, his shoulders throbbed, and there was a sharp, stabbing sensation in his left side that suggested at least one cracked rib.

But he was alive. And more importantly, he was already healing.

John felt the warmth of Cellular Regeneration flooding through his system, his body's new passive regeneration working overtime to knit torn tissue and mend fractured bone. It was slower than a level-up, less dramatic than Biomancy, but it was constant, reliable, a background process that had already saved his life several times.

He activated Biomancy anyway, diving into that strange awareness of his own biology. The 3-D map of his body materialized in his mind, showing him the damage with the aid of First Aid and Medic. Cracked ribs. Extensive bruising. Minor lacerations. A mild concussion. Nothing life-threatening, nothing that warranted the expense of a level-up. Level 9 Vitality made him very durable, it seemed.

He set to work methodically anyway, using Biomancy to accelerate the healing in key areas, prioritizing function over complete restoration. The ribs knitted faster, the worst of the bruising faded, the concussion cleared. It was boring work, tedious in a way that healing via level-up never was, but it was economical, and economy mattered when his Aura reserves weren't infinite. Even though he'd just gained an unimaginably huge sum, that didn't mean he was willing to just spend the levels themselves frivolously. He didn't have many left to work with.

His hearing was the last thing to return. The ringing faded gradually, replaced by the sound of crackling flames, the groan of stressed wood and metal, and the harsh, laboured breathing of people who'd just survived something deadly.

John's eyes snapped open. Dust. Everywhere. The air was so thick with it that visibility was measured in feet. The entrance of the Meriden Community Centre—or what was left of it—was a wreck of shattered brick, splintered wood, and twisted metal. The explosion had torn through the building's facade like a giant fist, leaving a gaping wound that vomited smoke and debris. He couldn't hear any fire, at least. Small mercies.

John pushed himself to his hands and knees, coughing, his lungs protesting at the acrid smoke. The taste of concrete dust and burnt chemicals coated his tongue. He spat, trying to clear it, but it just kept coming back.

"Doug!" he called out, his voice hoarse and raw. "Lily! Chester! Jade!"

A groan answered him from somewhere to his left. Then a cough. Then, barely audible over the crackle of flames: "Here. Fuck. I'm here."

It was Doug's voice, strained and pained but unmistakably alive.

"Sound off!" John shouted, louder this time, pushing himself to his feet. His balance wavered, his inner ear still scrambled from the blast, but he set his Biomancy to prioritise that problem next and forced himself upright. "Everyone sound off!"

"Here," Lily's voice, shaky but present, came from somewhere ahead and to the right. "Had to level up."

"Chester!" John called.

A beat of silence. Two beats. Three.

Then, faint and trembling: "I... I'm okay. I think. Had to level too."

"Jade!"

No response.

"Jade!" John called again, panic beginning to edge into his voice, turning it into more of a bark.

"I'm fine. The explosion ignored me, somehow," came the reply, but it was distant, muffled, coming from deeper in the building. "Just... give me a second."

John's shoulders sagged with relief, even as his mind raced. They were all alive. Separated, injured, disoriented, but alive. That was what mattered. Now they just needed to regroup, assess the damage, and—

Movement. It was barely a flicker in the dust-choked gloom, a shadow that was there and then wasn't, but John's enhanced perception caught it. From the outline, it had looked a lot like a ninja.

His hand went to his side, summoning his katana in a burst of will, the black blade materializing in his grip. He barely felt the weight of it anymore, Level 9 Strength trivialising the 60 or so KGs it had to weigh.

"We're not alone," he said, his voice cutting through the groaning wreckage. "Everyone, weapons up. Stay alert."

Then came the strike. It was so fast that John barely registered it. A blur of motion erupting from the dust, a dark shape moving with lethal precision. There was a wet, meaty thunk of impact, followed by a choked gasp of pain.

John spun toward the sound, his katana raised, but the attacker was already gone, melted back into the oppressive gloom like they'd never been there at all. Through the dust, John could just make out Doug's bulky silhouette, hunched and holding his side.

"Bastard got me," Doug growled, his voice tight with pain. "Shallow cut. I'll be able to reverse it without wasting a level. But he's fast. Real fucking fast."

John's mind raced. An ambush predator. Someone who knew the terrain, who'd rigged the explosion to separate them, disorient them, and now was trying to pick them off in the chaos. Someone who had the advantage.

Before he could formulate a plan, before he could even begin to strategize, a sound cut through the wreckage like a knife.

Crackling static erupted from speakers John hadn't even known the community centre had, nor how they'd survived. Maybe they'd just been installed. The tannoy system, dormant and forgotten, suddenly roared to life with a burst of white noise that would have made him flinch if he wasn't digging so deep into his body with Biomancy.

Then came the voice. It was distorted, filtered through cheap speakers and the acoustics of a ruined building, but the raw emotion bleeding through was unmistakable. Hatred. Pure, simmering, all-consuming hatred.

"I would hope you folks haven't forgotten me already," the voice said, each word dripping with venom. Male. A faint accent John couldn't place. "I'd hope I was pretty memorable, but you can never be sure in this place. Maybe I was just one among hundreds you've faced. Another enemy to cut down. Another body to leave bleeding in the street. Barely worth consideration."

John's blood ran cold.

"But I certainly remember you, Jade." The name was spoken like a curse, like something rotten and foul. "I remember watching you kill my brother. I remember his screams. Do you remember them, Jade? Do you remember the sound he made when your red hand closed around him? When your power boiled his flesh and melted his skin?"

In the dust and darkness, John heard Jade's sharp intake of breath.

"He screamed for seven seconds," the voice continued, calm now, almost conversational, which somehow made it worse. "I counted. I couldn't do anything else. I just... counted. And watched. And when you finally ended it, when you cut him in half like he was nothing, I watched that too."

The static crackled, the silence stretching, pregnant with malice.

"I've been watching you ever since. Following you. Learning your patterns, your abilities, your strengths and weaknesses. I know where you sleep. I know how you fight. I know that the big man favours his right side, how long the American girl hesitates before sighting her shots, that the muscle-bound coward flinches at his own shadow."

Chester made a small, wounded sound somewhere in the darkness.

"I know that your friend with the katana is the real powerhouse of your team. But I know his moves. Those were some very interesting moves, back in that portal. Scary guy, he is. Had to rush to switch things up a bit. Change some plans. What will he do against someone who's come prepared? Don't go thinking he'll come save you."

John's jaw clenched.

"And I know you, Jade. I know you haven't slept. Haven't eaten. Haven't been able to look at your own hands without seeing them covered in my brother's blood. Good. I want you to suffer. I want you to know what's coming."

The speakers cut to silence for a moment, leaving just the groan of settling debris.

Then: "The base you've been hiding in is no more. I've replaced it. This building is mine now. Every corridor, every room, every shadow. I'm in the walls, in the floor, in the roof. I may not have the full range of ambush options anymore after you killed Mikey, but I think my preparations cross that gap. I saved up a lot of points for this. You're not survivors anymore. You're my prey. And I'm going to take my time."

The static died with a sharp click, plunging the ruined entrance hall into an oppressive silence.

"Regroup," John said, his voice hard. "Now. We need to—"

He was cut off by a sharp twang from somewhere ahead in the dust, followed instantly by Lily's cry of alarm. Before he could even process the sound, a deep groan echoed from above them, the tortured sound of stressed metal giving way. The floor shuddered. Then, with a deafening roar, a section of the unstable ceiling directly in front of him came crashing down. The impact threw up another thick cloud of debris, a wall of choking dust that slammed into him and forced him to stumble back, covering his eyes and mouth. Sounds of splintering wood and shattering plaster rang out, forcing everyone to instinctively scramble for cover, scattering in the gloom.

When the dust settled, John knew with sick certainty that they'd been split up even further. He could hear Doug cursing somewhere to his left, heard Chester's panicked breathing to his right, but couldn't see either of them through the haze.

And Jade's voice, when she let out a groan, was distant. Too distant. On the wrong side of a pile of rubble that hadn't been there seconds ago.

"Motherfucker!" Lily's voice, sharp with alarm, somewhere ahead, beyond the wall of rubble that had come down when she'd moved. "He's herding us! The traps are—"

Her voice cut off with a yelp as another trap was sprung with a loud snap, followed by the groan of tearing metal. John tried to push toward Doug, only for a section of the floor to give way, revealing a shallow pit lined with rebar that forced him to leap back, grimacing. He heard Chester try to move, followed by the hiss of a gas canister rupturing and a sharp bang that sent the man stumbling back. This wasn't just falling debris; it was a series of interlocking traps, a mechanism designed to herd them like cattle into separate pens. Frustrated, John decided to bypass the physical obstructions entirely.

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Fucker really has set this whole place up while we were gone.

"Lily, stay put!" he yelled, focusing. He'd use Teleport. Just jump straight to her position. As he activated the ability, his perception of the world shifted, giving him a targeting-eye view of his destination.

But what he saw made him dizzy. The hallway Lily was supposed to be in wasn't stable. Even in the brief snapshot of the world Teleport gave him, the walls were rippling, the floor tiles shifting and rearranging themselves like a puzzle box. The entire internal structure of the community centre was in flux, a constantly changing labyrinth. Before he could fully process the impossible sight, or abort his Teleport, a pale blue glyph flared to life on the floor beneath him. A surge of alien energy hijacked his own. Instead of moving to Lily, the world dissolved into a nauseating lurch and he was shunted sideways, slamming hard into a brick wall in a corridor he didn't recognize, even further from the others than before.

The tannoy crackled back to life, and this time there was amusement in the distorted voice. "Divided and conquered. Classic. Now, let's see how long you last when you can't hide behind each other."

John's grip tightened on his katana. His mind raced through options, strategies, counter-tactics. His wide-area abilities like Draconic Inferno or Meteor Strike or Hurricane were useless here—too much risk of collateral damage, too much chance of bringing the entire building down on their heads or just straight up hitting his comrades dead on. His mobility spells were hampered by the tight quarters and limited visibility.

But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was keeping his team alive against this vengeful piece of shit. The sheer fucking audacity to blame them when his brother had died in a fight they started made John's blood boil.

"Doug! Can you get to Lily?" John called out.

"Working on it, kid!" came the reply, followed by the sound of rubble being shoved aside.

"Chester, sound off every thirty seconds. I need to know where you are."

"O-okay," Chester's voice wavered.

"Jade—"

"I'm fine," she cut him off, and there was something in her voice John didn't like. Something resigned. "Just focus on the others."

"Negative. We stick together. That's the plan. Stay put and I'll—"

Movement again. This time John was ready, picking up the disturbance in the air, the ripple of displaced dust particles. He spun, his blade sweeping out in a deadly arc, but it cut through nothing. The attacker had already moved, already repositioned, a hazy shadow slipping through the dust cloud like a wraith.

A flashbang detonated somewhere near Chester's position. The sound was muffled by the wreckage, but John heard Chester's cry of alarm, heard the stumbling footsteps as the young man was blinded and deafened.

The PA crackled.

"One down."

"Chester!" John launched himself forward, throwing caution to the wind and using Flash Step to blur through the debris, his enhanced agility letting him navigate the treacherous footing. He launched himself down a corridor, almost crashing into a wall, then turned a corner, then another, following the sound of Chester's pained cries. He found Chester stumbling blindly, hands over his face, completely disoriented.

John grabbed him, steadying him. "I've got you. Just breathe. Your eyes will clear."

Another trap triggered. This one was a door, rigged to swing shut with tremendous force. John barely got Chester clear in time, the heavy metal panel slamming closed with a boom that echoed through the ruined building.

And now Doug and Lily were on one side. John and Chester on the other. And Jade...

Jade was alone, somewhere deeper in this deathtrap of a building.

"Jade!" John shouted, abandoning any pretence of tactical communication. "Get back here! Now!"

"I'm trying!" Her voice was strained, accompanied by sounds of combat. "He's between me and—fuck!"

The sound of impact. A pained grunt.

John threw himself at the door, slamming his shoulder into it, but it budged only a few inches, cracks spidder-webbing across the walls on either side. Magically barricaded, somehow. Had to be. No mundane door could stand up to the Strength in his wiry frame now. He could use Draconic Inferno to melt through, but that would take time, and time was something he didn't have.

He could hear it now. The sounds filtering through the wreckage. The clash of weapons. Jade's defiant shouts. And underneath it all, audible through the PA system, the attacker's voice, taunting.

"Does it hurt, Jade? Does it hurt like Mikey hurt?"

John's vision tinged red at the edges. Incandescent rage flooded through him, but he forced it down. Anger wouldn't help Jade. Strategy would. Speed would.

He activated Accelerate and pivoted, looking for another way through even as he calmed his heartbeat with Biomancy, stymying the rising panic. There, a few metres along from the door: a gap in the rubble, narrow but passable. He dismissed Chester with a sharp command to stay put and guard, then squeezed through, his frame just barely fitting.

The corridor beyond was a nightmare of debris and smoke. Weakened floors, unstable walls, the constant threat of collapse. It felt like every other step he took activated a trap; everything was meant only to slow down reinforcements now. Pitfalls, swinging pendulums, weights crashing through the ceiling. It was maddening. How the fuck had the guy even set all this up? He supposed it didn't matter. Spells and Skills of some kind.

John moved as fast as he dared, picking his way through the chaos as best he could, tracking the two sources of distorted sound up ahead. Jade was still fighting. Still alive. He just had to reach her in time.

The tannoy continued its commentary, the attacker's voice following him through the building like a malevolent ghost.

"You know what the worst part is? Watching you try. Watching you fight back with those same powers that killed him. Every time you use that hand, every time you swing that blade, you're just reminding me why you need to die."

Accelerate ended just before John burst through a doorway into what had once been a dance studio. Through the haze of smoke and dust, he could see them now. Two figures locked in combat, trapped within a cage made of black metal, glowing red runes floating between the bars.

Jade's armour was dented and scorched, blood trickling out between joints, her movements desperate and defensive. And her attacker, clad in dark ninja gear, moving with a fluid grace that spoke of years of training, or perhaps weeks of gaining levels with whatever cruel System had been inflicted on him. He was toying with her, John realized. Landing cuts that hurt but didn't kill. Wearing her down. Making her suffer.

John threw himself at the black bars of the cage, katana raised. The blade struck the metal with a ringing clang that reverberated through his bones, but instead of cutting through, it rebounded. The force of the impact travelled up his arms and threw him back two steps, his grip on the katana nearly failing.

"John!" Jade's voice came from inside the cage. "Get out of here!"

John ignored her. He raised the katana again and brought it down with all the force Level 9 Strength could provide. The blade hit the same spot. Another clang. Another rebound. The cage didn't even have a scratch.

"It won't work," the ninja said. He was standing over Jade now, blade held low, watching John through the bars. "That cage was crafted from the bones of a boss monster, apparently. You're familiar with them, yes? A group of adventurers killed one, and had it made into this. Invincible, they said. They were talking about using it to contain enemies they didn't want to kill. Acquiring it took quite some effort."

John circled the cage, searching for a gap, a weakness, anything. The black metal bars formed a perfect cylinder around Jade and her attacker, ten feet across and reaching from floor to ceiling. The glow of the red runes seemed almost malevolent.

Activating Teleport, he focused on the space inside the cage, right next to Jade. The world lurched. For a fraction of a second, he felt the spell taking hold, felt reality shifting to accommodate his movement. Then something slammed into him. The cage's magic seized his spell and twisted it, spat him out. He materialized ten feet away, stumbling, nearly falling.

"I told you," the ninja said. "Invincible."

"We'll see about that," John growled.

John activated Draconic Inferno with a roar, and pure white flames erupted forth, a torrent of dragon fire hot enough to melt steel. He directed the stream at the base of the nearest bar, where it met the floor. The metal began to glow. Orange at first, then yellow, then white.

The bar was melting. It was slow. Too slow. The cage's enchantments fought against the heat, the red runes pulsing faster now, drawing power from somewhere to cool the metal. But John could see it working. The bar was thinning, sagging slightly under its own weight.

"Persistent," the ninja said. He turned his attention back to Jade. "But not fast enough."

John's roar deepened, powered by Biomancy to keep him from losing his breath. The flames intensified. The bar melted faster, molten metal dripping onto the floor. He could hear it now, the crackling hiss as the enchantments broke down under the sustained heat.

The ninja moved. He was fast, inhumanly so, his blade a blur as he struck at Jade. She rolled, bringing her own machete up to parry, but she was slower than she should have been. The cut on her arm was worse than she'd let on. She parried the first strike. The second. The third drove her back against the bars.

John roared louder, redoubling his efforts. The bar was half-melted, sagging like a candle left too close to a flame. Just a few more seconds.

The ninja pressed his attack. Jade defended, but barely. She was tiring. Each parry came a fraction of a second slower than the last. The ninja didn't speak now. He just attacked, methodical, precise, working through her defences like a surgeon cutting through tissue.

John watched as the ninja feinted high, then struck low. Jade tried to block, but her blade was out of position. The ninja's blade slipped past her guard and punched through the gap at her armpit, where the armour plates didn't quite meet.

Jade made an awful sound then, a sharp exhalation, like someone punched in the stomach, winded. The ninja withdrew his blade and stepped back.

John felt something inside him crack. The Draconic Inferno surged, fed by something beyond mana. It blazed brighter. The bar he'd been working on gave way entirely, the molten metal pooling on the floor. The bars on either side began to soften.

"This is for you, brother. Watch from wherever you are. This is justice," the ninja said. He raised his blade. "Goodbye, Jade."

Jade tried to stand. She got her feet under her, pushed up, but her legs wouldn't hold. She collapsed back to her knees. Blood was running down her side now, soaking into her armour, dripping onto the floor.

The Inferno was consuming the cage now, bar after bar melting under the onslaught. The red runes flared desperately, pulsing so fast they were nearly solid. Three bars down. Four. Five.

Not fast enough.

The ninja's blade came down. Jade tried to raise her machete, but it slipped from her fingers. The ninja's thin blade struck her in the neck, right where the helmet met the gorget. It punched through the gap and sank deep.

John's vision went white. He didn't remember activating Titan Tendons. Didn't remember triggering Limit Break or pushing Adaptive Musculature to its maximum. He just moved. His hands closed around two of the cage's bars, and he pulled, even while the dragon fire was still pouring from him.

+1000 Aura

The metal groaned. The enchantments screamed, the red runes flaring so bright they seared afterimages into his vision. John didn't care. He pulled harder, his fingers sinking into the softened metal, feeling it give under his grip. Titan Tendons multiplied his strength. Limit Break pushed him past his physical limits. Adaptive Musculature restructured his muscle fibres on the fly, giving him leverage that shouldn't have been possible.

The bars bent. Then broke. The entire section of cage tore free with a shriek of tortured metal and dying enchantments.

The ninja was already moving, sprinting for the shattered windows at the far end of the studio, somehow slipping through the bars like they weren't there.

John could have gone after him. Should have. But Jade was on the ground, both hands pressed to her neck, blood welling between her fingers.

John dropped to his knees beside her, his hands already moving to assess the damage. The wound was bad. Deep. Blood was spurting out like it was coming from a hose. She was going into shock, her skin pale and clammy, her breathing growing heavier by the second.

There was a flicker, a few bruises on her face fading away, her shoulders squaring, and she seemed to healthier, brighter. For a second, the blood stopped. Then her eyes widened as a stream of crimson burst past her fingers once more, her face turning paler than milk.

John rushed to press his hands over hers, trying to stop the bleeding, but it kept coming. Jade's eyes found his. She was trying to say something, her mouth opening and closing, but all that came out was a wet, choking sound. Blood bubbled up past her lips.

The look in her eyes was the worst part. He'd expected the fear and pain of a woman who was on death's door and knew it.

Instead, he saw… relief. Acceptance. There was a softness to her gaze as she stared up at him, and he felt her hands ease the pressure on her neck, slipping out from beneath his. He immediately reached down to reapply the pressure, slicking his hands with blood.

Her bloody hand came up to his face, gently cupping his cheek.

"Don't," John said, his voice breaking. "Don't you fucking dare. You're going to be fine. Just hold on. I can fix this. I can—"

Somehow, impossibly, she managed a weak laugh, gurgling through the fluid filling her throat. She shook her head.

"Stop that!" he roared. "You're going to be fine. You're—"

But even as he said it, he felt it. The moment when her grip on his arm loosened. When her breathing, already laboured, began to slow. When the light in her eyes started to dim.

"No," John said. It wasn't a plea. It was a command. An order to the universe to stop, to rewind, to let him fix this. "No, no, no!"

Her lips moved, forming words he couldn't hear. Then her eyes closed.

And she was still.

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