Chapter 2: Weakness in the Code

The beast locked its glowing crimson gaze directly onto Kaelen, its obsidian tail whipping against the asphalt, leaving deep, smoking gouges in the digital grid. It let out a metallic, screeching roar that shattered the remaining glass in the shopfronts behind him. It was fast, lethal, and completely unbothered by the laws of the old world. And it was coming straight for him.

The Cyber-Scavenger didn't hesitate. It lunged, its obsidian joints firing with the force of hydraulic pistons. It traveled ten yards in a fraction of a second, a blur of jagged black glass and bleeding red static aimed squarely at Kaelen’s chest.

In the old world, Kaelen would have been dead before he could blink. But right now, with the icy adrenaline of the Admin Protocol flooding his nervous system, his perception cracked wide open.

Analyze Code! his mind roared.

Instantly, the chaotic, terrifying scene desaturated. The vibrant, terrifying crimson of the beast’s eyes faded into a dull gray, and the entire world slowed to a crawl. The monster was suspended mid-air, its trajectory fixed. But more importantly, Kaelen could see through its outer shell. The monster wasn't solid; it was a complex lattice of neon-green data streams.

And right at the junction where its left shoulder blade connected to its main torso, a small, localized cluster of code was flickering violently in bright, flashing red.

[ Object Scan: Cyber-Scavenger (Lvl 1) ]

[ Total Structural Integrity: 100/100 ]

[ Core Glitch Detected: Structural Instability at Left Core Node. ]

[ Damage Multiplier on Vulnerability Point: 3.0x (True Damage Conversion) ]

"Three times the damage," Kaelen muttered, his voice sounding detached in the slowed-down reality.

The temporal slowdown snapped back to normal speed. The beast was on him. Kaelen threw himself to the right, his boots sliding against the grit of the asphalt. The creature’s razor-sharp glass claws missed his throat by mere inches, slamming instead into the metal side-panel of the abandoned danfo bus. The impact was deafening—the metal buckled instantly, a deep, jagged dent tearing open as the beast’s momentum carried it into the vehicle.

Kaelen scrambled to his feet, his hand instinctively searching the ground for anything he could use as a weapon. His fingers closed around something heavy, cold, and solid. It was a massive, industrial iron tire iron, dropped by a mechanic who had fled minutes prior.

[ Object Identified: Improvised Iron Bar (Trash-Rank) ]

[ Physical Attack: +5 ]

[ Durability: 20/20 ]

It wasn't a legendary sword, but it would have to do.

The Cyber-Scavenger ripped its claws free from the ruined bus, spinning around with terrifying agility. Its crimson eyes flared with increased intensity, furious that its prey had evaded the initial strike. It dropped low, its body vibrating as it prepared for a secondary, closer-range mauling.

Kaelen didn't back away this time. He stepped into a solid stance, gripping the rusted iron bar with both hands until his knuckles turned white. He didn't look at the monster's terrifying jaws; he locked his eyes entirely on that flashing red vulnerability node on its left shoulder.

The beast leapt, its jaws snapping shut in a feral downward arc.

Kaelen didn't dodge. He waited. He counted the microseconds as the creature's shadow fell over him. At the absolute apex of the jump, when the beast's left side was perfectly exposed to the air, Kaelen swung the heavy iron bar with every single ounce of strength in his body.

CRACK.

The iron bar connected directly with the red flashing data node. The moment of impact didn't feel like striking bone or flesh; it felt like breaking through a pressurized barrier of glass. A sharp, digital distortion sound—like a speaker blowing out at maximum volume—shook the air.

The neon-green lattice lines holding the Cyber-Scavenger together violently fractured.

[ Critical Hit! Vulnerability Exploited perfectly. ]

[ Calculation: 5 (Base) + 5 (Weapon) \= 10 Damage. ]

[ 10 Damage x 3.0 (Multiplier) \= 30 Physical Damage. ]

[ Admin Overwrite: [Feedback Fracture] triggered! ]

[ Total Damage Dealt: 135 (Overkill) ]

[ Target Status: Destroyed. ]

The creature froze mid-air, its crimson eyes blinking out instantly. It didn't drop to the ground. Instead, its entire obsidian structure shattered into hundreds of harmless, glowing blue pixels that drifted lazily upward into the darkening sky, dissolving into nothingness.

Where the terrifying beast had stood a second ago, nothing remained except a single, polished violet crystal shard hovering an inch above the ruined tarmac.

[ Combat Scenario Concluded. ]

[ Experience Points Gained: 20 XP (Current Level Progress: 20/100) ]

[ Loot Dropped: 1x Low-Grade Data Shard (F-Rank Resource) ]

Kaelen lowered the tire iron, his breath coming in ragged, heavy gasps. He reached out his left hand, his fingers brushing against the hovering violet crystal. The moment he touched it, the shard melted into a warm, liquid light, absorbing straight into his palm. A strange, comforting wave of energy rippled through his tired muscles, dulling the ache of his rough dive.

"What in God's name... what did you just do?"

Kaelen spun around instantly, raising the iron bar back into a defensive guard. Standing less than five paces away, half-hidden behind a shattered concrete pillar, was a tall, athletic guy. He was wearing a high-fashion, rugged streetwear outfit—a heavy, layered utility vest over a dark charcoal hoodie and wide-leg cargo trousers. He held a thick length of galvanized iron piping in his hands, his knuckles white, his breath ragged with pure adrenaline.

But what caught Kaelen’s attention wasn’t his clothes. Floating just to the right of the man's head was a translucent system tag that read:

[ Citizen: Henry (Lvl 0) ]

[ Status: Calibrating... ]

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