Zeph's mind went cold and calculating the moment he spotted that telltale glow in Buster's eyes. Three years of survival had beaten one lesson into his skull above all others: when you're outclassed, you run.
Pride was for corpses.
The math was brutally simple. Awakened humans weren't just stronger—they operated on a completely different level. Enhanced reflexes that could track a crossbow bolt mid-flight. Superhuman strength that could punch through concrete. Active skills that bent reality around their will.
And that was just the baseline stuff. Depending on their class, they could have anything from elemental manipulation to precognitive combat awareness.
Zeph was fast, smart, and ruthless. But he was still baseline human. Fighting an Awakened as an unawakened was like bringing a knife to a gunfight—if the gun also shot lightning and could read your mind!
'Classic noob mistake,' he thought, keeping his expression neutral while his brain worked overtime. 'Getting cocky before the real game even starts.'
His reputation as the "Ghost" only mattered among the other dregs scraping by in the ruins—kids waiting for their sixteenth birthday, adults who'd somehow never awakened, the broken shells who'd lost their connection to the System for whatever reason.
To actual Awakened? He was just another ant.
Most awakened didn't stick around the ruins long anyway. Why would they? With powers came opportunity. Better to risk the journey to a Sanctuary than waste time bullying children in a graveyard.
Which made Buster's presence here all the more concerning.
"Look, Buster," Zeph called out, raising his hands in mock surrender while subtly shifting his weight toward the opposite end of the bridge.
"I get it, you've hit your power spike. Congratulations on escaping the tutorial dungeon without dying, by the way. That's actually impressive for someone with your... let's call it 'tactical flexibility.'"
Buster's grin widened. "Still running your mouth, Ghost? Let's see how funny you are when I'm carving pieces off you."
He revved the chainsaw again, the sound echoing off the rusted superstructure like mechanical thunder.
"See, that's where you're wrong, my dude," Zeph continued, still backing slowly toward his escape route. "This isn't some anime where the protagonist stands around trading insults before the big fight. This is reality, and reality has a simple rule: don't fight boss battles when you're still level one."
The chainsaw's roar grew louder as Buster started walking forward, each step deliberate and confident.
"You talk too much," the fat boy sneered. "Always have. Time to—"
Zeph spun and ran.
No hesitation, no dramatic last words, no foolish bravado. The moment Buster committed to his advance, Zeph was already in motion.
For someone six-foot-nine, he moved with terrifying grace. His long legs ate up the distance in smooth, ground-covering strides that made no sound on the concrete. The baggy clothes that hid his lean frame flowed around him like liquid shadow.
He was halfway to the other end when Buster's laughter stopped him cold.
The fat idiot wasn't chasing him. He was just standing there, chainsaw idling, watching Zeph run like this was all part of some elaborate joke.
'Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me.'
A figure stepped out from behind the bridge's support structure at the far end. Lean, wiry, holding a short spear with the casual confidence of someone who knew how to use it.
Chen.
Another "former colleague" from Zeph's scavenging days. They'd worked together exactly once, clearing out a collapsed pharmacy for medical supplies.
The partnership had ended when Zeph had claimed the lion's share of the antibiotics, arguing that his intelligence gathering had been more valuable than Chen's muscle.
Chen had disagreed. Loudly. With his fists.
Zeph had won that fight, barely, and they'd been enemies ever since.
Now Chen stood at the opposite end of the bridge, eyes glowing with the same faint light that marked Buster as Awakened. His stance was different too, more controlled, more dangerous.
Whatever reward he'd gotten, it had changed him from a street brawler into something that looked like it could kill professionally.
"Surprise, Ghost," Chen called out, voice carrying easily across the distance. "Turns out we both had the same idea about settling old scores."
Zeph stopped running, trapped between two awakened enemies on a bridge forty feet above certain death.
'Well, this is sub-optimal.'
"Really?" he called back, injecting as much casual disdain into his voice as he could manage. "You're really doing this? Both of you needed to awaken before you felt brave enough to come at me? That's honestly pathetic. Like, maximum cringe levels of pathetic."
"Says the dead man," Buster laughed, starting his slow advance again.
"Dead man who's still talking," Chen added from the other end.
They were coordinating. Moving in sync, cutting off his options with practiced ease. This wasn't some spur-of-the-moment revenge fantasy—they'd planned this.
'Clever little shits.'
Zeph's mind raced through possibilities. Fight? Suicide. Surrender? Also suicide, just slower and more painful. Hide in his shelter? They'd just drag him out or burn him out.
That left exactly one option.
The one that would either save his life or end it in the most spectacular way possible.
"You know what?" he said, loud enough for both of them to hear. "You're right. I am talking too much."
He turned toward the bridge's edge.
"Ghost, what are you—" Chen started.
Zeph ran straight at the railing.
Not toward either end of the bridge, not toward cover or concealment. Directly at the rusted barrier that was the only thing between him and a forty-foot drop onto jagged concrete and twisted rebar.
His long legs covered the distance in four strides. His hands hit the railing and he vaulted over without slowing down, launching himself into empty air with the casual confidence of someone who'd completely lost his mind.
Behind him, both Buster and Chen shouted in shock.
Wind rushed past his face as gravity took hold. The ruins spread out below him in all their broken glory—a landscape of death and twisted metal waiting to catch him.
'Come on,' he thought, watching the ground rush toward him with increasing speed. 'Any time now would be great.'
Thirty feet. Twenty-five.
The dizziness hit him like a sledgehammer.
It started as a gentle wave of vertigo, the kind you might feel standing up too quickly. Then it intensified, becoming a crushing pressure that squeezed his skull from all directions.
His vision went white around the edges.
Twenty feet. Fifteen.
'System integration detected,' a voice whispered in the back of his mind. 'Preparing tutorial transportation.'
Ten feet. Five.
He could see individual pieces of rebar now, rust-stained spears waiting to punch through his chest. Could smell the decay and mold rising from the rubble pile.
Three feet.
The world dissolved into light.
The last thing he heard before everything went white was Buster's furious scream echoing across the ruins: "That cheating bastard! Chen, I'm going to fucking kill him when he gets back!"
Then silence. Then nothing.
Then everything changed.
He had begun his awakening!