Chapter 4: When the Sky Bleeds
The transition from the pitch-black, damp tunnels of Subway Line 4 to the bustling concrete streets of Manhattan was jarring.
Leon stood outside the station entrance, leaning casually against a cold metal railing. He had wrapped his dirt-stained suit jacket around his left arm, using it to mask the gray monster ash and dried black ichor coating his shirt sleeves. To any casual passerby hurrying along the sidewalk, he looked like just another overworked, burnt-out salaryman who had spilled his morning coffee during a bad day at the office.
They had no damn idea.
Leon pulled his phone from his pocket, checking the screen one last time. 11:58 AM. The battery icon showed a healthy ninety percent, but within two minutes, the device would become nothing more than a useless, expensive brick of glass and copper. The electromagnetic pulse radiating from the Tower’s descent would fry every satellite orbit, wireless tower, and electrical grid on the planet.
Around him, the city hummed with its usual, arrogant indifference. Yellow cabs honked loudly at intersections, pedestrians ignored each other while staring blankly at their screens, and a street vendor on the corner was shouting out the prices of his hotdogs.
"Look at the sun," a woman near the crosswalk suddenly muttered, squinting upward and shielding her eyes. "Is that... a solar eclipse or something?"
Leon didn’t need to look up to know what was happening. His newly acquired Perception stat was already screaming inside his head. The air felt heavy, suddenly thick with a suffocating, metallic static pressure that made it physically hard to draw a full breath. The ambient temperature plummeted by ten degrees in a matter of seconds, turning the warm summer noon into a freezing winter chill.
11:59 AM.
The birds were the first to lose their minds. Hundreds of pigeons suddenly erupted from the city parks, screeching in pure terror as they flew in chaotic, blind patterns. They smashed into glass office windows and brick walls, killing themselves just to escape the upper atmosphere.
Then, the clock struck 12:00 PM.
A sound like tearing steel plates echoed across the hemisphere—a crack so loud and deep that it vibrated straight through the asphalt, into the soles of Leon’s shoes. The blue sky didn’t just darken; it literally split open. A jagged, violet rift tore across the clouds, stretching from horizon to horizon like a bleeding, infected wound in reality.
From the center of that cosmic rift, a colossal, shadow-drenched monolith began to descend. It was the Tower of Judgment. Its ancient, black-stone surface was carved with glowing crimson runes that hummed with a gravity-defying power.
Simultaneously, every smartphone, television screen, and digital billboard in New York glitched violently into static before displaying the exact same words in stark, monochromatic font.
[The World System has officially initiated.]
[Earth has been designated as Zone 44-B: The Testing Grounds.]
[The first wave of the Incursion has begun.]
[Objective: Survive for 24 Hours.]
Panic didn’t happen instantly. It took ten seconds of dead silence for humanity to realize this wasn’t a movie promo or a well-coordinated hacker attack.
Then, the world erupted into screams.
The streetlights went dead. Car engines sputtered and died simultaneously, causing a massive, multi-car pileup right at the intersection in front of Leon. Metal slammed into metal, airbags deployed, and shattered glass showered the asphalt.
But the car accidents were nothing. Inside the violet rift in the sky, thousands of smaller, swirling vortexes—Dungeon Gates—began to drop toward the ground like meteors. One of those gates, a swirling whirlpool of green and black energy, slammed straight into the middle of the crowded crossroads, crushing a yellow cab instantly.
Roaaar!
Out of the portal surged the vanguard of the apocalypse.
They were Iron-Fang Kobolds—bipedal, dog-like monsters standing six feet tall, covered in coarse gray fur, and wielding jagged, rusted meat cleavers. Their eyes glowed with an unnatural, bloodthirsty hunger. The moment their claws touched the pavement, they didn’t hesitate. They lunged at the nearest trapped motorists.
"Help! Oh god, someone help me!" a woman screamed, scrambling out of a smashed sedan as a Kobold tore the driver-side door clean off its hinges. The beast raised its rusted weapon, its jaws dripping with thick, rabid saliva.
The crowd of civilians scattered like ants, trampling over each other to get back into the subway station or inside locked shops.
Leon didn’t run. Amidst the sea of fleeing, screaming humans, he was the only one walking forward, casually stepping over shattered glass, abandoned briefcases, and dropped phones. His dark eyes were fixed on the three Kobolds currently butchering their way through the traffic.
To his Perception, these monsters were incredibly weak. They were barely Level 3 or 4 common entities. In his past life, a single one of these beasts would have chased him for blocks until he bled out. Today, they were just bags of experience points waiting to be harvested.
"Hey, doggie," Leon said, his voice flat, completely cutting through the chaotic noise of the screaming crowd.
The nearest Kobold snapped its dog-like head toward him, letting out a vicious snarl. Seeing an unarmed, fragile human male walking calmly toward it, the monster kicked off the hood of a crumpled car and leaped through the air, bringing its heavy iron cleaver down toward Leon’s skull.
"Watch out!" a fleeing citizen yelled from behind a concrete pillar.
Leon didn’t even bother to dodge. He didn’t even raise his arms to block the incoming strike.
"[Sovereign’s Domain: Decay]," Leon commanded softly.
The ten-foot circle of absolute darkness exploded outward from his boots. The airborne Kobold crossed the threshold of the domain mid-leap.
Instantly, the momentum of its jump vanished. The creature’s rusted iron cleaver dissolved into a puff of orange rust before it could even get within three feet of Leon’s face. The monster’s thick, muscular legs withered into gray, rotting skin and brittle bone mid-air. By the time the Kobold actually landed on the asphalt at Leon’s feet, it was no longer a fierce predator—it was a half-rotted, hairless corpse that couldn’t even lift its own jaw.
Leon calmly raised his shoe and brought his heel down on the creature’s weakened skull with a sickening crunch.
[Target destroyed.]
[You have gained 50 Experience Points.]
[SSS-Rank Passive: Absolute Extraction Activated...]
°Strength +1
°Agility +1
Leon looked up, his cold gaze locking onto the remaining two Kobolds. The beasts had frozen in place, their primitive minds suddenly overwhelmed by a primal, terrifying instinct that they were no longer the apex predators on this street.
A cold, vicious smile spread across Leon’s face. "Next."