023 THE HUNTERS BECAME THE HUNTED
Damen didn't wait for their knives to answer. He bolted, sprinting with everything he had. Against so many Meta-humans, standing his ground would be suicide.
"Flash Dash!"
Damen gritted his teeth. He wasn't stupid—running without using his own Meta skill was pointless. This was life and death. Pretending was no longer an option.
He triggered his own Flash Dash and shot through the maze of alleys, finally breaking into a cluster of abandoned buildings. Crumbling concrete and twisted steel surrounded him.
"Good… this is a perfect place to hide," he thought, slipping behind a chunk of partly collapsed wall.
Moments later, Big Boss and four of his men materialized with the same skill as his- Flash Dash.
Damen's eyes narrowed. "So, it's true… Flash Dash is standard skill for this gang."
He quickly aimed his phone, pulling them into his mining app's radar and tagging all five into his favorites list.
"Spread out. Find that creep," Big Boss ordered.
The thugs fanned out.
Damen crouched deeper in the shadows, forcing his breath into silence. But then… one of them veered toward him with uncanny precision.
"Did he… sense me?" Damen tensed.
The thug's eyes locked onto the concrete slab. "Found you!" he snarled, lunging forward into the shadow with a dagger.
Damen's stomach dropped.
"How the hell did you find me?" he almost shrieked.
He jammed his thumb against the Acquire button on his phone—only for the screen to freeze.
"Dammit! I've hit the acquisition limit!" Panic surged through him. "That trick won't work on these thugs this time."
Previously when he went on a rampage of Acquire in the MMA stadium, he's already taken up to his limit. Acquire doesn't work for him now.
Steel flashed. The dagger stabbed down towards him… missing by an inch.
Damen wasn't the same desperate kid who had fought Mad Cat weeks ago. A month of training at Heroes' Gym had honed his instincts. While there he went for many self-defense lessons from ex-military officers and could handle himself.
He twisted, caught the thug's wrist mid-strike, and wrenched the dagger free.
"What the hell? Are you just a student!" the thug cried, shocked that Damen was a skilled fighter.
Damen's eyes were cold. He didn't hesitate. He reversed the blade and drove it upward, piercing through the skull of the attacker.
Damen didn't train to fight. He trained to kill.
The thug's body stiffened, then crumpled lifeless to the ground.
The dying screams echoed through the ruins. The others were closing in his way.
"Damnit, how can I fight so many meta gangsters at once", he complained.
He slipped into another hiding spot, deeper in the ruined building. The place was cavernous and dark, forcing the thugs to split up again.
"This is Perfect", he thought.
A grin tugged at his lips as he crouched low, dagger in one hand, phone in the other. "I'm ready now."
Footsteps echoed nearby. Another thug drifted too close, unaware of him. Damen's breath stilled. Then, like a striking viper, he lunged from the shadows, his dagger slicing clean across the man's throat.
The thug tried to scream, but only a wet gasp escaped before he collapsed.
Damen wiped the blade against his sleeve, his eyes cold.
"Two down," he whispered. "Three to go."
"The hunters had become the hunted."
-----
Damen picked the meta gangsters off one by one, moving like a shadow and striking without mercy. The alley filled with the wet sounds of collapse and silence.
These gangsters had meta powers, but they were not trained in real combat. Damen had an advantage over them because he had a month of training- training to survive.
When the dust settled, only Big Boss remained.
"Come out, boy. Don't hide. Come to papa," Big Boss taunted, swaggering forward.
Big Boss wasn't like the others. He was bigger, and more composed. Damen estimated he was at least G-rank power at a glance.
The rest of the thugs had been H-ranks like Damen.
[Meta-humans are ranked in alphabetical order, a system that measures their power and abilities.
H-Rank: Ordinary humans and newly awakened metas. Weakest tier.
G-Rank: The first step into the professional class.
From there, strength climbs steadily: F → E → D → C → B → A.
At the summit stand the S, X, and L Ranks—the pinnacle of meta strength. These are revered as Superheroes.]
Damen had to be careful.
Damen hugged the wall and waited. When Big Boss drew near, Damen sprang with the cold focus of a predator. His dagger flashed and slashed across the man's neck.
"Ouch, you little prick," Big Boss snarled, leaping back.
The cut should have been fatal for anyone else. But the blood soon stilled under Big Boss's hand as if stitched shut by his palm. The wounds closed miraculously. He was healed.
Damen's mouth went dry.
"What the hell!! He's got a healing meta," Damen thought.
"Don't underestimate them. I cannot underestimate metas," he repeated to himself.
Before he could move, Big Boss was on him, his huge hands closing around Damen's throat.
"Damnit, he got me."
The world narrowed. The city's noise dropped away.
Fighting a Rank G, Hero class meta, wasn't just hard. It was suicide. They were stronger, faster, and more skillful. Damen felt each of these advantages snarling at him.
"Did I overestimate myself?" he gasped internally.
"Please…spare me. I know about the ring," he blurted, his voice thin in a desperate move.
It was a gamble: he thought by giving information, it might buy him a chance to survive this.
Big Boss loosened his grip and let Damen drop. He smiled, as though indulging a curious insect.
"You know about the ring, bastard?" he asked. "Where is it?"
Damen swallowed. "What ring? Why would you kill for it?"
Big Boss's reply was calm but hungry. "It holds secrets and power beyond your imagination. With it, I rise within the organization."
"The organization?" Damen echoed.
Big Boss chuckled. "Every underground force in Melrose belongs to us."
Damen's mind raced.
Dammit. I stepped into gangster territory.
This was far beyond what he could handle alone. But none of that mattered now. Survival did.
He had only two options—kill Big Boss, or run.
Running was impossible with Big Boss's hand still on him. That left only one choice.
"I have to kill him."
But the thought chilled him. Big Boss was a Rank G—killing someone like that bordered on the impossible.
I need to get close, Damen realized. Sneak an opening.
It was the only plan he had.
Big Boss leaned in, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Now tell me about the ring—or I'll kill you."
"All right," Damen said, his voice suddenly calm, almost obedient. "I'll tell you."
He met Big Boss's eyes and gestured faintly.
"Come closer."
024 THE VIGILANTE IN TOWN
Big Boss obliged, his ears cocked for Damen's secrets but the instant the he bent in, Damen moved.
A soundless strike hit Big Boss's mind—then another, then a third.
He staggered, doubled over, shrieking.
Damen had siphoned attributes from Big Boss mid-fight with his mining app's Acquire function. He couldn't do that with H-ranks anymore, but G-rank was a different story.
Big Boss never had a chance to recover.
Damen's dagger flashed. He drove it straight into the man's skull. The body slumped to the ground, lifeless in a heap.
Damen sank to his knees, his chest heaving, and adrenaline still ripping through him.
He blinked at his phone all of a sudden.
[You have acquired an enhancement to your Flash Dash skill. Proceed? Y/N]
He tapped Yes without thinking. Another notification chimed almost at once:
Congratulations — your Flash Dash has improved to G-Rank.
"Even skills have hero ranks now?" Damen murmured, half in awe, half in dread. He would ask Dorin at the gym later about skill ranks.
For now, there were practical matters to handle.
He moved through the ruined alley like a machine. He stripped the dead of cash, stacked the bodies together, and found a place in Big Boss's jacket to slip the ring he'd salvaged from Mad Cat earlier.
He didn't know exactly what the artifact did—only that the underworld of Melrose had coveted it enough to spill blood. He didn't want that kind of shadow pointing at him.
Getting involved with the underworld was a risk he wasn't ready to take—at least, not yet.
Pouring a slow trail of gasoline over the bodies, he struck a lighter. The flames licked hungrily at ragged clothing and exposed flesh. Smoke curled up and swallowed the alley.
When the fire finally burned out, there would be little left but ash—and the ring that had driven men to murder.
Damen watched the blaze, his chest tight. He'd erased the evidence of the gangsters' killing.
It was time to go home.
-----
Lander finally stepped outside to take a break.
Hours of dismantling and hauling the testing machines had left his muscles aching. He stretched, lifting his gaze to the night sky.
The stars were bright, but something else caught his eye—an orange glow flickering in the distance.
There's a fire.
Dorin walked out after him. "What's wrong?"
"There's a fire in the abandoned construction zone," Lander said, squinting.
She shrugged. "Probably just some homeless people burning trash to keep warm. Not our problem."
But Lander' instincts screamed otherwise.
His meta powers weren't for brute strength or combat—they were reason and intuition sharpened into something beyond human.
And right now, they told him this fire was different.
"I don't think so," he muttered. "Something's off."
He hurried back into the hall and retrieved a handheld instrument—a meta detector. Switching it on, he scanned the area.
The readings spiked.
Dorin frowned. "What's it say?"
"High-level meta residue. That's not trash burning." Lander' voice dropped. "They're burning meta corpses."
Moments later, Lander had a team assembled. They rushed toward the blaze and arrived just as the bodies were almost reduced to ash.
"Put it out!" Lander barked. His team smothered the flames with fire suppressants until only smoldering embers remained. He crouched among the remains, his trained eye scanning every detail.
Then he saw it—half-buried in soot, glinting faintly under the firelight.
There was a ring.
He picked it up, brushing away the char.
Dorin peered over his shoulder. "What is it? Why are you so interested with the ring"
Lander' expression hardened. "This isn't just any trinket. This is the Ring of Power—one of the artifacts developed by the Alliance of Evolution."
Her eyes widened. "What does it do?"
"It's like our skill transmuting chips," Lander explained, turning the ring in his hand. "Those chips can transfer meta abilities into unskilled meta humans, but they burn out after one use. This ring is similar but not limited like our meta chips. It can be used again and again."
Dorin's jaw dropped. "So, with it, you could train an entire army of metas for practically nothing?"
"That's the theory." Lander tucked the ring away, his mind racing. "What do you think happened here?"
"Isn't this gang violence?" Dorin offered.
Then Lander looked back at the charred corpses. "But the real question is—why was the ring left behind? Any boss who finds the ring will cherish it like a treasure."
"Maybe they don't know about the ring's use?"
He shook his head. "No. The ring was clearly put there by someone."
"Then who would do this? Who kills gangsters and leaves their treasure behind?"
Lander' voice was grim. "There's only one answer. We have a vigilante in town."
------
Damen realized that, for the past month, Heroes' Gym had become his only home.
So, even this late at night, he found himself walking through its glass doors. The gym was open twenty-four hours a day, and sure enough, someone was waiting at the front desk.
"Hi, Maureen," Damen greeted.
She didn't answer him, only extended her hand. Damen dropped an Aur card into her palm. A quick swipe across the register and a hundred Aurs vanished from his balance.
Inside, he moved past the glowing rows of equipment, then he headed straight for the testing room. He hadn't checked his stats since absorbing attributes from the fighters in MMA Stadium, and tonight he needed answers.
The screen lit up:
Strength 11.0 | Charm 10.0 | Meta 11.0 | Command 11.0
Damen frowned. His attributes had been capped at 10.0 before—so why were some now at 11.0?
Before he could think through, a sharp ping echoed from his phone. A notification.
Congratulations, you have reached a Meta ranking of G.
"Damnit," he muttered. "So, the mining app tracks my rank too?"
Another alert popped up.
"New System Upgrade is available, do you want to proceed? Y/N"
Damen clicked upgrade immediately. When the upgrade was completed he checked the phone when a new feature popped up.
New feature unlocked: Attribute Scanning.
His annoyance melted into a grin. "Now that's interesting." Without hesitation, he tested it on the nearest target in the gym. New data spilled onto his screen:
Name: Rollback
Rank: F
Strength: 29 | Charm: 7 | Meta: 32 | Command: 30
Damen's eyes widened. "This is incredible. There is no more guessing the target's abilities. I can see everything from my app."
But the surprises weren't over.
Another chime was heard which meant, another feature unlock.