Hayden turned his back on the room and walked toward the heavy oak doors.
The rubber soles of his combat boots peeled off the sticky, blood-flecked floorboards with a sickening tearing sound.
“Trying to run?” Boss Leo barked, his voice cracking slightly as he slammed a meaty hand onto the glass coffee table.
Empty liquor bottles rattled.
“Get him!
And don’t damage the merchandise!” Seven heavily tattooed thugs surged forward, their combat knives catching the dim, flickering light of the bar.
Hayden didn’t break stride.
His right hand moved in a blur, and his suppressed Uzi materialized in his grip.
Bullet Time.
The world instantly dragged into a glacial, agonizing crawl.
The thugs were frozen mid-stride, their faces contorted in ugly, eager snarls.
Hayden calmly stepped to the left, bypassing the wild, telegraphed slash of the first attacker.
He raised the Uzi, aligning the triticum sights with the center mass of the nearest thug, and squeezed the trigger.
Thwip-thwip.
Two 9mm rounds punched through the man’s sternum.
Hayden pivoted, his movements methodical and devoid of hesitation, firing controlled pairs into the remaining six.
Time snapped back to normal with a violent rush of displaced air.
The deafening, overlapping cracks of the suppressed gunfire tore through the speakeasy.
The thugs didn’t fall like scythed wheat; they collapsed with the heavy, uncoordinated thuds of dead weight, their nervous systems instantly severed.
Thick, dark blood immediately began to pool across the linoleum, mixing with spilled whiskey to create a sickly, sweet-smelling foam.
Hayden lowered the weapon.
His chest heaved.
A violent wave of nausea washed over him, the sheer volume of gore triggering a primal alarm in his brain.
He swallowed hard, forcing the bile down his throat.
They were going to carve you up, he reminded himself, his grip tightening on the gun until his knuckles turned white.
Just survive.
Keep moving.
He stepped over the twitching corpses and walked straight up to Leo.
The massive boss was pressed deep into the velvet sofa, his face the color of old ash.
His tough-guy persona had evaporated, leaving behind a pathetic, trembling coward.
“What…
what are you?” Leo stammered, his voice a dry, reedy wheeze.
“You’re just a college kid…” “Who wants my organs?” Hayden asked.
His voice was flat, stripped of all empathy.
“I don’t know!
I swear!” Leo sobbed, holding his hands up as if they could stop a bullet.
“I’m just the middleman!
A VIP buyer placed the order through a proxy.
I don’t have the clearance to know his name!” Hayden didn’t yell.
He didn’t monologue.
He simply raised the Uzi and fired a single round into Leo’s right kneecap.
Thwip.
The bone shattered with a wet crunch.
Leo’s scream was a high, piercing sound that tore his throat.
He collapsed onto the floor, clutching his ruined leg, his expensive suit instantly soaking up the blood.
“Where does Silas Thorne live?” Hayden asked, stepping closer.
Leo gasped, his eyes rolling back as the shock set in.
“South District,” he choked out, tears and snot streaming down his face.
“Emerald Lake Estates.
Villa 17.
Please…
just kill me…” “Done.” Hayden aimed at the center of Leo’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The heavy thud of the body hitting the floor was the only punctuation the room needed.
Hayden stood in the silence for a moment.
He looked down at his hands.
They were trembling.
He clenched them into tight fists, taking a slow, deep breath until the shaking subsided.
He wasn’t a psychopath.
He was just a guy who had learned how to turn off his humanity when the alternative was dying on an operating table.
He holstered the Uzi and pushed open the heavy steel door to the back rooms.
The prep room was cold, smelling sharply of bleach and copper.
The woman from the lounge lay on a stainless-steel table.
She was dead, her skin pale and waxy, the terror of her final moments permanently etched into her relaxed features.
Hayden stared at her for a long moment.
He didn’t say a prayer; he didn’t have the right.
He just reached out and gently pulled the cheap plastic ID bracelet off her wrist, slipping it into his pocket as a grim receipt of the Syndicate’s sins.
Then, he walked out.
Stepping out of the speakeasy into the cool, smog-choked night air, Hayden felt the adrenaline finally begin to recede, leaving a profound, aching exhaustion in its wake.
As he walked down the alley, he noticed a small figure sitting on a milk crate outside the laundromat next door.
It was a little girl, no older than eight.
She wore a faded school uniform that was two sizes too big, her cheap plastic sandals held together with duct tape.
She was hugging her knees, staring blankly at the closed doors of the laundromat.
She looked up as Hayden approached, her eyes wide and timid.
“Mister,” she asked softly, her voice trembling.
“Did you see my mom?
She said she was going to the clinic to pick up her paycheck.
But it’s getting late.” Hayden stopped.
He looked at the closed doors of the laundromat, then back at the heavy oak doors of the speakeasy next door, where a little girl’s mother was currently lying on a steel table.
The suffocating weight of the slums pressed down on him.
He remembered being this exact same age, starving, bruised, and waiting outside a dirty laundromat for a mother who would never come home.
The System hadn’t given him a stat boost for empathy, but his past gave him the context.
He couldn’t tell her the truth.
He couldn’t drag this kid into the blood-soaked reality of his world.
“She had to work late,” Hayden lied, his voice unconsciously softening.
He reached into his jacket, pulled out a thick roll of cash—roughly a thousand dollars in mixed bills—and knelt down, pressing it into her small, cold hands.
“She left this for you.
Go to Mrs.
Gable’s down the street.
Tell her your mom sent you, and don’t come back here tonight.” The little girl looked at the money, then up at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
She nodded obediently, clutching the cash to her chest, and scurried off down the street.
Hayden watched her disappear into the shadows.
He didn’t walk her home.
He was a wanted assassin with a trail of bodies behind him; lingering was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
He had given her the means to survive.
That had to be enough.
Leaving the slums behind, Hayden climbed into the driver’s seat of his BMW and locked the doors.
The silence of the cabin was a stark contrast to the chaos he had just left behind.
He opened his LitRPG interface.
The glowing blue screen illuminated his blood-spattered face.
His total health pool sat at a meager 100 points.
He navigated to the skill tree and selected a new passive ability: [Vitality Expansion Level 1].
Cost: 200,000 Points.
He confirmed the purchase.
Instantly, a deep, burning ache bloomed in the center of his chest.
It felt as though his marrow was being replaced with liquid fire.
He gripped the steering wheel, gritting his teeth as his muscle density expanded and his cardiovascular system forcefully reinforced itself.
The pain was blinding, but as it faded, he could feel the difference.
His base health had permanently doubled to 200 points, his body now capable of absorbing damage that would have previously killed him.
He flexed his hands, feeling the new, coiled strength in his fingers.
Before he headed to the South District to hunt down Silas Thorne, he had one final, unavoidable appointment.
[Trial Instance 2] was opening.
Hayden reclined the seat, locked the doors, and slowly closed his eyes.
…
The transition was instantaneous and violent.
The quiet, smoggy air of the city was violently ripped away, replaced by the choking, sulfurous stench of cordite, rotting mud, and decaying flesh.
The silence of the BMW was obliterated by the earth-shattering, rhythmic boom of heavy artillery.
The ground beneath him didn’t just shake; it heaved and bucked like a living thing.
Frantic, desperate screams in French pierced the chaotic, deafening din.
“Attaque ennemie!
Tout le monde dans les tranchées!
Les Allemands percent les lignes!” Hayden’s eyes snapped open.
He wasn’t in his car anymore.
He was waist-deep in freezing, blood-soaked mud, the sky above him a churning canopy of black smoke and tracer fire.
A terrified French soldier, his face caked in dirt and blood, grabbed Hayden by the tactical vest and dragged him down into the trench.
“Get down, you idiot!” the soldier screamed over the roar of an incoming mortar.
“They’re breaking through!” Read ahead with 70+ chapters now with daily updates!