The skies above Tianhui had long since forgotten what it meant to be blue. A permanent curtain of ash and crimson haze loomed over the dying city, casting a rust-colored shadow over the cracked concrete and melted steel.
The distant howls of feral beasts echoed through the ruins like the whispers of a forgotten civilization. And at the heart of this desolation, Leo stood, his eyes vacant as he stared at the six survivors lying silently within the old pharmacy.
They were breathing, barely. A man coughed blood into a rag, his limbs skeletal, eyes already glazed with the acceptance of death.
Another woman lay clutching a family photo, too weak to even speak. They had no future here. No strength left. Only a few hours, maybe a day at most, before their bodies gave out entirely. And Stacey... she couldn't bring herself to watch them rot away.
"It has to be done," she whispered, more to herself than to Leo, who stood beside her like a statue. "We can't leave them here. It's not right."
Leo didn't respond immediately. He watched her clench her fists, jaw trembling. He understood. It wasn't a matter of mercy. It was duty. One last kindness.
"You don't need to kill them yourself," Leo said finally, voice low. "It's not easy to end the lives of people you've known... too long. Let me do it."
Stacey's breath hitched, her body frozen between relief and guilt. Before she could reply, Leo moved.
In a single, fluid motion, his hand flicked outward. A sweep of red—like an artist's brushstroke—cut through the air. The blood swiped across the room in a perfect arc.
Silence.
The four heads dropped to the floor almost simultaneously, their bodies remaining still, untouched by the agony they might have otherwise faced. The room fell into an eerie calm. It was over before their minds had registered the end.
"They died peacefully," Leo muttered. "Their souls must have thanked you."
Stacey's eyes filled with unshed tears, but she gave a silent nod. No words were needed.
With dawn breaking through the red haze, the group packed their essentials. Makeshift backpacks stitched from tarps and scavenged cloth held what little they had—dried meat, bottled water, crude blades, and repurposed tools.
Stacey moved with quiet efficiency, her usual stern demeanor subdued by the emotional toll of the morning.
Leo remained at the front of the group, gaze scanning the skyline as if already searching for threats. He adjusted his pace to match the survivors—an annoyance, but a calculated one.
In truth, he viewed them as dead weight. They slowed him, risked exposure, brought complications. But he knew better than to venture alone into the zones. A single man approaching a territory would raise alarms. Zone lords would see him as a threat, an invader.
But a group of ragged survivors? That was human. That was sympathetic. People might hesitate to kill them outright. And hesitation... was opportunity.
Leo wasn't helping them out of compassion. He was playing a game—a game of optics and psychology. A means to an end.
They walked through cracked streets layered in soot and decay. Skeletons of old vehicles lay melted into the earth. Trees, if they could still be called that, were twisted husks of bark and bone, their roots blackened with infection.
"How much of this area have you scouted?" Leo asked quietly, breaking the silence.
Stacey exhaled slowly, keeping pace beside him.
"Not much. Most of this area is considered death zone. The air's manageable, but the creatures… they're a problem. They gather in packs, travel in spirals. I'm Ascended Tier 2, and even I can't survive long here."
She hesitated. "And that's nothing compared to what waits deeper. Balkar's region is worse. We'd be lucky to make it halfway."
Leo nodded but didn't reply. His eyes were already calculating. Weighing options.
Behind them, the survivors marched quietly. A young man named Jian held his sister's hand, whispering songs to distract her. Mei, the former scout, kept an eye on their rear, though her movements were hesitant.
Five miles in, a low rumble shook the earth. Leo raised a hand, halting the group.
From the ruins ahead, fifty gelatinous creatures emerged. Slime-like beasts, their translucent bodies twitching with internal muscle and veined with glowing blue cores. They quivered as they moved, splitting and reforming, always hungry.
"Level 2 Ferals," Stacey muttered, reaching for her blade. "Everyone, get ready—"
"No," Leo said.
She looked at him, confused.
"Stay quiet."
Without further explanation, he raised his hand.
Blood shimmered from his palm, coalescing into a scythe-like arc. With a swift motion, he slashed the air—and a wave of crimson energy erupted forward, slicing through the entire swarm.
In seconds, the battlefield was still.
The creatures dissolved into puddles of corrupted goo, their cores untouched.
The survivors stared in disbelief. Even Stacey's eyes widened.
She'd known Leo was powerful. But this...
She was Ascended Tier 2. She could take on one, maybe two of those beasts at a time with difficulty. But Leo had eliminated all fifty without breaking a sweat. It wasn't just strength—it was something else. Something deeper. Something terrifying.
And those abilities... blood swipes? No system ability allowed for such control.
Where had he learned them?
She looked at him but didn't speak. The others followed her lead. There was an unspoken rule in this world—never question the secrets of the strong.
Leo knelt beside the bodies, his fingers weaving patterns in the blood. Crimson tendrils slithered into the corpses like searching vines. One by one, he carved open their torsos, extracting something invisible to the others.
To the group, he looked like a madman—ripping into flesh, collecting who-knew-what.
But Leo didn't care.
The hidden cores—those only he could see—were his alone. The secret path, the mutation, it was not for their eyes.
He stored them in his backpack, careful not to consume them just yet. He was already at Ascended Tier 10. Eating them now would trigger evolution, and he didn't want that happening in open daylight.
That night, he would ascend.
The hours passed. The sun dipped below the smoky horizon, casting a deeper red over the land. They found shelter beside the skeletal remains of a collapsed skyscraper, using broken walls as windbreakers. A campfire flickered weakly in the center.
Leo left them to prepare camp.
He vanished into the dusk, silent as a shadow.
Nearby beasts sensed his presence—and perished within moments. Blood whips lashed out like sentient serpents, severing limbs and torsos with mechanical precision. Within two kilometers, all threats were eliminated.
Then he knelt, pulling out the gathered cores.
One by one, he consumed them.
A familiar hum began in his bones, like a low thunder rolling through his veins. The system's voice followed:
System Notice: You have leveled up from Ascended Tier 10 to Transcendent Tier 1. Congratulations.
Leo closed his eyes, smiling slightly.
But before he could enjoy the moment, a new message appeared:
System Notice: Requirement to ascend to Sovereign Tier – Acquire 100 Tiers.
Tiers Acquired: 0/100.
He frowned. "What the hell?"
He searched the system interface. The mutated path no longer showed its standard level progression. The menu had changed. The abilities were improving, but the visible path—the ladder—was gone.
Now, absorbing cores gave him raw XP again, rather than mutations. And yet, the mutation still deepened.
Then, as if answering his confusion, the system offered another solution:
New Skill Unlocked: Core Assimilation. You may now absorb monster cores directly through touch. No need to consume physically.
Leo exhaled slowly. That would make things easier.
His blood abilities surged. Stronger. Sharper. Deadlier.
The range of each ability had increased by a large margin. The blood swipe could previously damage a level 3 peak mutant to some extent, but now a single blood swipe could kill anything below level 4 Aberrant.
The blood vipers had become more condensed. Their control had increased.
Leo could now easily use them to attack enemies or extract cores from them.
When he returned to the camp, the survivors were seated quietly around the fire. The meat of the beasts he'd killed earlier sizzled on makeshift pans. No one asked where he had gone. No one dared.
He sat down. Ate in silence.
Even Stacey avoided eye contact. She had seen something she wasn't meant to see. Power like that... was something out of her syllabus.
She knew that Leo had more mysteries to him than what they were currently witnessing.
But the question was Did they have a choice?
No. They were dependent on him to bypass this dangerous land. They had to follow him irrespective of his... Weirdness.
They slept early. The fire dwindled. The stars—if any still existed—hid behind smoke.
Leo didn't sleep. He never truly slept. His mind churned. Mutated. Evolved.
He felt more lively than evert before.
Leo was currently at Level 4 Transcendent (Tier 1). He now had to climb 100 Tiers before reaching the next level. The task was difficult, but the powers were addictive.
At sunrise, they marched again. Thirty more miles remained. The real dangers hadn't even begun.
The journey into the wasteland had only just begun.