The next two days passed without any incident.

It was a surreal thing, Sen realized, to watch the world around his home slowly mutate into a kill-or-be-killed hellscape without involving himself in it whatsoever. It was almost dreamlike. In the mornings, when the scorched embermoon was high in the sky, he watched vampires and nightmare spawn flood out from holes in the ground. They would hunt the creatures of the Fogsea’s coral forest.

Together, he and Em would stare out of the windows, watching a horde of mutated corpses tear into a swarm of giant, crawling prawns. The dog-sized creatures would flee, leaving behind the few that were eaten alive. Sometimes they watched as the vampires hunted the four-clawed crabs; tank-like creatures with shells of dull, hardened green, lumbering half-hidden through the mist like ancient beasts. But other times, the vampires would draw the ire of bigger things. Of giant, floating leviathans, floating through the mists in a titanic mass of carapaces, tentacles, and eyes.

In those times, it would be a slaughter. The vampires would retreat, half-wiped out, and return to the hunt once the beast drew away.

But then, once night drew near and the moon faded from the sky, the monsters crawling in the mists vanished. They fell into slumber, deep inside the crags and limestone caves lurking between the corals. Some of them slept in nests of kelp and bone, peering over the roads of Dubai in silence. Or others would burrow into the concrete, scraping away at the asphalt as if it were dirt until they sat nested in a pit of stone chunks.

Sen watched it all happen through the windows of his home, as if the events outside were some faraway thing. Slowly but surely, the world outside was going insane. And as it did, what did he do?

Nothing.

He and Em simply let the time pass.

Tak! Sen moved his body across one side of the table, the paddle moving deftly in his hands. Em caught his serve and returned it. Sen countered. The ball bounced high. She smashed it down, catching him off-guard and sending the ball where he couldn’t—

“Sen Salazar is faster.”

The world slowed. Sen surged to the side and his paddle crashed into the ball, harder and faster than Em hit hers, and it bounced off the table with a sharp crack! It shot off past her guard and into the far wall, ricocheting across the room a few times, before bouncing away into the living room.

Sen sported a self-satisfied smirk as Mortal Commandment wore off. He turned towards Em and found her glaring at him from across the table.

“Not fair,” she said.

“It would be, if you used your Ability as well. You’d just have to transform in front of me again, talking about how the moon is dark and bloody.”

She gave him a flat look. “I want to hit you,” she said. “Can I hit you?”

Sen nodded. “You may. Once I have Bone Armor on.”

Em groaned and set her paddle down on the table, before dejectedly waddling into the living room. She came back with the ping-pong ball in her hand. She raised it—served. The ball bounced, and their twenty-fifth game of table tennis began in earnest. Tak! The ball whipped between them, as fast as any professional game without any of the actual skill to back it.

As they played, Sen took a glance at the window, which was covered by three layers of curtains that they’d looted from the other rooms. The apartment had, unsurprisingly, a lot of supplies inside of it. And aside from a few essence-deprived Tier 0 vampires inside some of the rooms, it was mostly theirs to loot at their leisure.

Now, Sen and Em stood in his apartment room, surrounded by boxes of scavenged supplies. Enough to last them… well, weeks. Plenty of people kept water in the fridge, away from the sunlight. And canned food was in practically every room.

And with the creatures outside mostly keeping out of their way once the lobby was fully boarded up, things were finally peaceful once again.

Not that it was going to stay that way for long.

“So,” Sen started, practically mumbling his words as he and Em exchanged shots over the table. “Today’s our last day, right? We’ll go tomorrow.”

She nodded.

“Right. We’ve wasted enough time,” she said, as she caught the speeding ping-pong ball with a smooth return. “We’re already rested, and we’ve found a base of operations that’s packed full of supplies. It’s… it’s about time we head out. Look for other people.”

“And figure out if there’s any police or military still out there.”

“And get somewhere safe.”

“And get internet and back to civilization again.”

“So you can fly back to Spain—”

“And you can check on your parents in the UK,” Sen finished, and he returned the ball to across the table, where Em stood. She didn’t hit it back. Instead, it bounced off the table, rolled, and stopped next to the fridge. Em wasn’t even looking at it when it passed her.

Instead, she stared at the window and the dark, looming curtains. She watched the shadows around them, suffocating them, as they were too afraid to draw attention to their base by using a light. Em seemed to stare past the walls and into the outside, into the foggy, coral hellscape that had taken over Dubai.

“…I don’t want to go back out there,” she muttered.

Sen sighed and nodded, setting down the paddle on top of the table. He walked to her side and looked out, his lips pursed. “I know,” he said. Em continued looking outside.

“We were supposed to leave yesterday. But we didn’t.”

“We realized we needed to prepare more supplies, remember?”

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “We both know that was just an excuse,” she said. “You told me we had to, once we stood in front of the fire exit for ten minutes, unable to take a step outside.”

“We just need time.”

“But we’ll never have enough. What kind of sane person goes back out there? We’re safe here. We have food. Water. Company. I could wait here forever, I think. Until I got tired enough of it all to just put a bullet in my head.”

“Would you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “What about you, Sen? You left two bullets in the magazine. Wasn’t that intentional?”

“Only for when they’re the only choice we have left.”

Em nodded quietly at that, and Sen remembered the Nightmare’s underground next. The vast, winding tunnels. The blood-soaked walls and the ground, swallowing them, trapping them underneath; when it left them unable to breathe or move or ask for help and—

Sen shuddered. It was moments like those: the small, horrific times, that he decided to leave two bullets inside their gun.

Not that he ever planned on using it. But, as dark as it was…

It made him feel better knowing he had a second option. Just in case things ever got so bad that he had to choose between a painful death and a quicker escape. But just as it brought him comfort, it also made him weak. It brought forth a sentiment of defeat. One neither of them could afford to have. Sen closed his eyes as he leaned back against the table, letting his thoughts go blank. He just sat there, breathing. Letting the air come in and leave again and again.

And then, after a few minutes of silence between him and Em, Sen opened his eyes.

He reached into his pocket and brought out the gun.

Em didn’t look at him. She stood waiting, as if she wouldn’t care if he simply aimed the gun and shot her in the head. It was easy to feel that way. To want to take the easy way out. And as long as they had this weapon with them, it would always be that voice. That option, whispering in the back of their minds.

Sen couldn’t let that happen. And so, he spoke a decree.

“This gun becomes liquid.”

The Glock melted in his hand. It splashed away, flowing free from his fingers, and Sen watched it pool atop the table like storm-shaded mercury. Mortal Commandment’s duration ticked away. But before it could, Sen brought his hand down on the puddle of gun, splitting it into two parts.

Mortal Commandment wore off.

The gun turned solid again.

But when it did, it was severed neatly in two, as if someone had cut it perfectly down the middle and severed the barrel from the handle with a single, diagonal slice. Sen offered one half of it to Em, the severed barrel sitting on his palm.

She stared down at it, her smile tired.

“You broke it,” she said.

“I did.”

“That wasn’t fair of you to do, you know. That wasn’t just your choice to make.”

“I know.”

Em stared at him. She closed her eyes, breathed, and then she took half of the Glock, storing it in her pocket. “Thank you,” she told him, as she turned away. “I didn’t want to be the one who did that. And even if you can fix it again…”

“I don’t plan to. Ever.”

“And if we need it against those monsters?”

“Better not to have it if we just think about using it on ourselves.”

She chuckled. “True. So this is it, then? We’re finally going out there again.”

“No more running,” Sen said, squeezing down on his half of the gun. “We can’t stay like this. Not for any longer. I have friends to find and an aunt to get back to, and as much as I want to just hide like this, that isn’t something we can do.”

“…Yeah,” she nodded. “Not with what’s happening to us. Did you get the message, too?”

“I saw it yesterday. Right after I opened my interface again.”

Sen moved his eyes to the corner of his perception, and as soon as he prompted it to return, the golden text waved into his vision again. He brought up a notification—two days old—that had appeared the second time he made contact with the sunlight.

(???) [Stage 0] has progressed to Blood Curse of Kulv’arash [Stage 1].

After sufficient exposure to ambient Odd, foreign energy begins to change the user. Vampiric Transformation ongoing. Slight increase to the effect of all Attributes. Flow costs slightly decreased. User consumes 50 essence a day to feed the growth of the Blood Curse, increasing with each successive stage.

Failure to meet this requirement within 24 hours will result in the user’s death.

Blood Curse of Kulv’arash [Stage 1] will progress to Blood Curse of Kulv’arash [Stage 2] after consuming [150/1,000] essence.

Em poked at the air in front of her, no doubt messing with her own notifications. She quirked the corner of her lip with a dissatisfied look. “As if the end of the world wasn’t bad enough, right? It’s like some sadistic game master’s out there watching us, just trying to find every chance he can to make our lives hell.”

“With the way things have been recently? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a god out there, just doing this because he finally had enough of humanity.”

“If extinction was the plan, god’s doing a bloody shit job at it.”

“Or we could just be better at surviving than he is at wiping us out.”

“Careful,” Em warned. “Don’t go talking shit and raising a flag, Sen. We’ve had enough bad luck this week. I won’t be able to handle another surprise like that Commander-class enemy.”

Sen managed a smile at that. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the notifications in his line of sight, sending the golden letters dissipating into smoke. In its place, he brought up his interface as he gave Em a sideways glance. Sen bit down on his knuckles, thinking.

“If we’re resolved to go out tomorrow, then don’t you think it’s time we finally stopped sitting on all of this essence?”

“So you’ve been putting it off too?”

“…Yeah. I needed to get my mind away from all this. Just for a while. And now that we’re rested again, we have to push forward, right?”

“Forward’s the only way to the good ending we’re hoping for.”

“Whatever it is, that ending better be worth it,” Sen muttered, before reaching forward. He willed his interface to appear in front of him, right at the tip of his finger. The golden essence gathered and coalesced. Letters formed. Numbers appeared.

And they were very good numbers indeed.

Status

Name: Sen Salazar – Tier 1 Human [17/30]

Ability: Mortal Commandment [Spirit] – Tier 1

Attributes

(0) Mind – Rank V [0/500] (+)

(1) Body – Rank II [0/100] (+)

(0) Spirit – Rank V [0/500] (+)

Essence: 1,782

Skill Orbs [6/6]

Psionic Force (Tier 1 – Purple) [Spirit] – Defensive Augment Fiendish Physique (Tier 1 – Yellow) [Body] – Demonic Resilience Augment Bone Armor (Tier 1 - Yellow) [Body] – Shatterburst Augment Claw Fighting (Tier 0 – Orange) [Spirit] – Upgrades Available Darkvision (Tier 0 – Blue) [Mind] – Upgrades Available Predator’s Tongue (Tier 0 – Blue) [Mind] – Upgrades Available

The doubled essence gains from the Nightmare’s territory really showed its work. Sen marveled at the sheer amount he had, absorbed through the mass slaughter of enemies deep underground. He had killed most of them with the bus and the fire, but even with the essence he wasn’t able to absorb, it still left him with more than enough to shore up one of his most damning weaknesses.

Flow consumption.

Sen jammed his finger into the screen without hesitation.

Spirit [Tier 0] increased! Rank V -> Rank I

Spirit increased to [Tier 1]! Attribute reset to Rank I.

Spirit [Tier 1] increased! Rank I -> Rank III

Body [Tier 1] increased! Rank II -> Rank III

The upgrade was immense. As soon as the numbers flashed past his vision, Sen felt the puddle of Flow inside of him push outward in a tidal rush, expanding into a small pond that churned and swirled around his scorched heart. It felt like holding an explosion in his chest, eager to burst out of him. Sen swallowed, clenching his fists as he felt his whole being fill up with power.

Overall, the upgrade had cost him just over seven hundred essence. Enough to leave him with over a thousand left to spend.

Sen knew exactly what to spend it on.

Augment for Bone Armor (Tier 1 – Yellow) [Body] changed!

Shatterburst Augment -> Bone Manipulation Augment

Bone Manipulation Augment [500/500]

Passive. Control over Bone Armor is greatly improved. Bone Armor durability increased. Skill may now be manipulated to create more complex extensions like blades, knuckle claws, mauls, and shields on the user’s body.

Shatterburst had served him well, but it was far from ideal. Sen had initially chosen it in his fear of fighting the vampires up close, but now… It was the weaker option of the three augments. He had already locked himself into the melee in recent battles, and he needed to become as durable as possible if he wanted to survive. Sen chewed on his knuckles.

Their enemies had all kinds of ways to kill him. Spears, teeth, claws, acid—more and more, he would encounter things that would kill a person without any protection.

And if he had to be that protection, then so be it.

He would be damned if he let his only companion die. Em’s presence was the only thing stopping him from going insane. He needed another person with him. He needed anyone he could call a friend.

Sen breathed out a sigh. He had around five hundred essence left. And while an upgrade to Mind was tempting, Sen could somewhat make up for his weaknesses in that regard with Skills and Mortal Commandment. And so, he chose to look at his other options first. Sen brought up his interface a second time, and his finger glided to the bottom of the screen. Sen opened the Essence Exchange.

He looked at the option that had caught his interest from the moment he opened it the first time.

Essence Exchange – [Updates in 18 hours, 11 minutes, and 15 seconds]

Convert Essence -> Craft Basic Skill Orb [Tier 0] [0/100]

It was time to see what this shop system was all about.