The neon-fractured sky of 'The Glitch' cast a sickly, pulsating glow of purple and red over the damp alleyway. The air was thick with the smell of rusted iron and fresh blood. My blood. Aryan's blood.
In the center of my vision, a translucent HUD flickered with a cold, relentless countdown.
[4:59... 4:58... 4:57...]
"You're dead, you little freak!" the first thug roared. He was a mountain of a man, easily twice my size, with a face scarred by years of street brawls. He lunged forward, his massive fist whistling through the air, aimed directly at my temple.
In my old life, I would have flinched. I would have begged. But as the Murderous Ruin Stone hummed against my soul, I didn't feel fear. I felt... hungry.
I didn't move until the fist was inches from my face. With a speed that felt like a blur, I reached out and caught his hand. The impact crackled, but my arm didn't buckle. I looked up into his eyes—my own eyes now glowing with a predatory blue light.
Before he could even register that a 5.3-foot kid had stopped his momentum, I moved my other hand. My fingers were stiff, fueled by the Silent Killer instinct. I drove them directly into his eye sockets.
Squelch.
The sound was wet and sickening. The man's scream was cut short as I pulverized his vision. I didn't stop there. I grabbed the back of his greasy head and slammed it into the concrete pavement.
Thud. Crack. Thud.
I kept going until the pavement beneath him was no longer grey, but a dark, messy crimson. He didn't move again. His skull felt like a crushed eggshell under my grip.
[4:00 Minutes Remaining.]
I stood up, wiping a spray of blood from my cheek. I turned my head slightly to look at Aryan. He was slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. It wasn't just the pain of his broken ribs anymore—it was the horror of seeing his "soft" best friend commit an act of such raw savagery. He looked at me like I was a ghost he didn't recognize.
"P-Please... stay away!" the other three stammered, their bravado shattered. They were trembling now, their boots splashing in the puddles as they tried to back away.
"You wanted a fight," I whispered, my voice sounding like a razor blade against silk. "I'm giving you a massacre."
I blurred. I was no longer running; I was gliding. I appeared behind the second thug before his shadow could even move. I delivered a kick to the back of his knees, forcing him down. As he hit the ground, I brought my heel down on the center of his spine with the force of a hydraulic press.
CRACK!
The sound of his vertebrae shattering echoed through the alley. He let out one piercing shriek of agony that filled the night, but it was silenced almost instantly by a system notification.
[Skill Activated: Gluttony.]
[Status: Absorbing Fear and Life Energy...]
A dark, mist-like energy flowed from his broken body into mine. I felt my fatigue vanish. My muscles tightened with a new, dark power. I was literalizing the vow I had made: 100 times the pain.
[2:30 Minutes Remaining.]
The last two, including their leader, broke into a sprint. They were scrambling toward the streetlights, desperate for escape. I reached out and caught the third one by the collar. With a roar of effort, I swung his entire body and slammed his head against a rusted electric pole nearby.
The impact was thunderous. His skull split open like a melon, and his body slumped to the floor, twitching in the dirt.
Suddenly, my hand reached into the dead man's pocket on its own. It was a reflex—an intuition I didn't know I possessed. My fingers wrapped around the hilt of a jagged folding knife.
[Notice: Silent Killer (Level 1) — Weapon Intuition engaged.]
I gripped the blade. The leader, the man who had ordered the hit on Aryan, was almost at the mouth of the alley. He thought he was free.
I didn't let him take another breath.
I vanished from my spot and reappeared behind him. The world seemed to pause for a fraction of a second. I swung the knife in a clean, horizontal arc. It was so fast that the blade didn't even leave a trail of blood in the air.
His head slid off his shoulders, hitting the pavement with a dull thud before his body even realized it was dead. The decapitated torso took two more stumbling steps, blood geysering from the neck, before collapsing into the trash.
[Quest Completed: The Debt of Blood.]
[Rewards Granted: 2000 Crystals + 1 Lower Health Potion.]
The killing intent in my veins cooled down instantly. A small, ornate glass vial filled with a shimmering, ethereal blue liquid manifested in my hand.
I didn't look at the corpses. I didn't care about the crystals. I ran to Aryan, falling to my knees beside him.
"Aryan! Drink this!" I urged, my voice trembling as the adrenaline started to fade.
He was still in a trance, staring at the headless body of the boss. He looked at the blue potion, then back at my blood-stained face. He hesitated for a second, a flicker of fear in his eyes—fear of me. But he drank it.
The potion was low-level, so it didn't fix everything. It didn't heal his broken ribs or erase the trauma, but the deep gashes on his face began to seal, and the dangerous internal bleeding slowed to a halt. His breathing became steadier.
"Rudra..." he whispered, his voice full of a pain that the potion couldn't touch. "What... what have you become?"
I didn't have an answer. I just looked at the bloody flames on my arm and the pile of bodies behind me. The boy who was a 'Zero' was gone. The Silent Killer was born.