Torchlight danced across mountains of crystal corpses and bone fragments that carpeted the rust-colored sand.

  Ace had killed the alpha, sure, but his job wasn’t over yet.

  Grimacing, Ace pushed himself toward the tunnel where Tara had vanished, each step sending shards of agony through his chest. His broken ribs screamed in protest, and his shattered hand had gone from burning pain to a disturbing numbness that his combat training told him was a very bad sign.

  "You're at 39% HP, you know.” Yet again, the System’s voice echoed in his skull.

  He groaned in annoyance. “Didn’t you want me to get back to the killing?”

  “Of course,” she said cheerily. “But you can’t really kill things if you die.”

  “Go away,” he said with a low growl of pain.

  “There’s no excuse to resist feeding,” she continued with a bored little sigh, as though he hadn’t said anything. “I mean, look at all these fresh corpses. Premium grade, barely used!"

  Ace ignored her, just as he had learned to ignore the burning in his lungs during forced marches in Basic.

  Pain was data. Nothing more.

  Yet again, the System popped to life right in front of him. She hovered midair, frowning in disappointment as she leaned toward him, her face Levelwith his.

  "Come on,” she said, pouting. “They're not even using all that precious blood anymore. Don't be such a—"

  But something shifted in the tunnel shadows where Tara had disappeared, and he tuned out the little girl’s nonsense.

  A human silhouette appeared in the darkness, a shade or two lighter than the tunnel around it, and it limped toward the torchlight at a steady pace.

  He paused midstride, not wanting to get his hopes up even as he became more and more sure of what he was looking at.

  Sure enough, Tara emerged from the darkness like a living shadow. Crimson droplets fell from her chin in a steady rhythm. Her eyes held a new awareness—the unmistakable clarity that came from making that first kill. Gone was the hesitation that had marked her movements just minutes ago. In its place was something older.

  Something sinister.

  “You’re not even listening!” The System righted herself and stuck out her tongue.

  “Nope,” he confirmed.

  He had something else on his mind.

  The sergeant studied the way Tara moved across the blood-stained sand, each step a fluid calculation of distance and momentum. The arena's ancient torches cast her shadow in multiple directions, and each one seemed to move with its own predatory intent. The scaled horrors watching from above had gone silent, sensing the change in her the same way sharks could smell blood in the water.

  “Oooh, is someone developing a crush?” the System asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Shut up,” Ace ordered.

  The System merely giggled and, with a pop not unlike a bubble bursting, disappeared into thin air.

  As Tara limped nearer, the large gash in her leg slowly healed. She let out a breath of relief, her eyes fluttering momentarily closed, and her limp faded entirely. She rolled out her shoulder, testing it tenderly, and she stretched her fingers wide as she stared down at her new claws. Her newly awakened instincts had already rewritten her body language into something lethal and precise. The Marine in him recognized the transformation—it was the same shift he'd seen in fresh recruits after their first firefight, but amplified by whatever dark evolution the System had encoded into vampire blood.

  She wasn't just a survivor anymore.

  She was a predator.

  Once she reached him, Ace caught a whiff of fresh blood and sweat. His heightened senses cataloged the evidence of her kill with military precision: arterial spray pattern on her clothes, the way her new fangs had lengthened just enough to be visible when she breathed, how her pupils had dilated to track movement in the shadows. The System's "gift" had activated fully now, transforming her into something that would have triggered every warning bell in his human instincts.

  But he wasn't human anymore either.

  She met his gaze without flinching, and he saw his own transformation reflected there. The same predatory awareness. The same hunger coiled beneath a thin veneer of control. Her hand flexed unconsciously, muscle memory already adapting to the deadly new appendages the System had "blessed" her with.

  Impressive.

  Above them, the scaled horrors continued their vigil, their interest shifting from hunger to something closer to respect. They recognized what she'd become—what they'd both become. Not victims. Not prey.

  But apex predators.

  The System might have forced them into this nightmare, but they'd make it their hunting ground.

  “You good?” he asked.

  “Thanks to the blood, yeah.” Her eyes scanned his broken body. “You still haven’t fed?”

  He studied her face for a moment before simply shaking his head.

  “Don’t fight it, Ace,” she warned.

  In answer, he simply frowned.

  Movement at the far end of the arena drew their attention. Victor's massive frame led the group, with Rachel and Marcus flanking him like honor guards. The dragon shifter prowled behind them, scales still smoking from whatever hell he'd unleashed in the part of the fight Ace hadn’t witnessed. Olivia brought up the rear, her torn dress stained with her blood.

  “No casualties,” Ace said with a sigh of relief.

  Victor huffed indignantly and cast a side-long glare at Marcus. Whatever had gone on between the two had apparently pissed Victor off, but Ace didn’t care enough to find out what it was.

  Before anyone could reply, glowing blue screens materialized in front of them one by one, bathing their faces in ethereal blue light.

  The notifications cascaded around everyone except Olivia. She stood apart, her hands clenched at her sides as she watched the floating blue screens pop to life. Her jaw tensed, and she caught his eye just as Ace pieced together what had happened.

  She was the only one who hadn’t made a kill.

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  "Quite the party you've all had!" The System materialized in the center of the small circle, her childlike form practically vibrating with glee. "So many wonderful choices made! Well, almost everyone."

  The floating girl’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Olivia with predatory interest.

  Ace's screen hovered before him, its ethereal glow highlighting the blood spatters on his knuckles.

  ———

  CLASS PATHS AVAILABLE

  Shadow Sovereign (Common)

  Savage Ripper (Uncommon)

  Mind Drinker (Uncommon)

  ———

  This was it.

  Their classes. It was time to Levelup.

  His head buzzed as he started analyzing the options, but there wasn’t much to go on in terms of explanation for each. His finger hovered over one of the options, but he paused.

  Something felt off about this whole setup.

  He cast a side eye at Rachel, who fidgeted in annoyance as she glared at her screen. Apparently, she didn’t like whatever she saw on it. Perhaps it was the direction her class evolution was headed, or perhaps she was regretting choosing her class too soon.

  “Weak,” the former CEO muttered under her breath. “I should’ve waited.”

  Huh.

  Well, now, that gave him an idea.

  "Hey kid," he called out to the System. “Are we done? Is this trial of yours over?”

  “Maybe,” she said coyly. “Maybe not. I’ll never tell.”

  Easy enough to decipher what that meant.

  The answer was no. They would face even more hell in this arena.

  He rubbed his jaw as he thought through the best course of action from here. The others glided their hands over their stats screens, more details popping up as they perused their options, but he was starting to doubt that choosing a class now was a good idea.

  If they were going to fight more monsters, then yes—a class and its affiliated skills would be helpful… unless this little gremlin floating beside him unleashed those monsters while they were trying to get their bearings. When Rachel had chosen her class, she had been engulfed in light and high off the newfound power for a while. She was lucky they hadn’t been under attack, or she could’ve gotten mauled while she was defenseless and distracted.

  "These class selections,” he asked the System. “Is there a time limit?"

  “Of course, silly,” the System said with a little giggle. “You have to pick something in the first twenty-four hours. Tick tock!”

  “So we don’t have to pick something now?”

  With a little gasp, the girl covered her lips with one hand, as though she regretted saying anything at all. “I mean, sure, technically you don’t have to, but wouldn't you rather—"

  "Hold up," he cut her off, addressing the group. "Nobody pick a class yet."

  Everyone’s head snapped toward him, and they all narrowed their eyes in confusion.

  “Think about it,” he continued. “We become what we kill, right? I’d bet good money we will get better class options by killing higher-Leveled monsters, and she’s clearly going to unleash more of them on us before we get out of this arena.”

  Victor scoffed in disgust. "The Skills could help us survive whatever comes next."

  "Or…" Tara interjected, her voice carrying a new predatory edge. "Or Ace is right. Maybe we should wait. Kill stronger enemies. Unlock better options." Her eyes gleamed with tactical understanding that matched Ace's own thoughts.

  The System's bottom lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout. She crossed her arms in an irritated huff.

  Bingo.

  Ace grinned with satisfaction. She had just given away the answer. The System's theatrical display of disappointment told him everything he needed to know. Whatever these initial class options were, they were probably the bottom of the barrel.

  “I’m waiting” Ace declared, watching their tormentor's reaction carefully.

  The dragon shifter rumbled in anger, smoke curling from his nostrils. "You lot go ahead. I’m not taking the risk."

  “Suit yourself,” Ace said with a shrug. “Anyone else joining our scaly friend over here?”

  One by one, the others shook their heads, the screens winking out as they dismissed them. The System righted herself with a dramatic sigh. "You're all so boring. But fine, have it your way. I'm sure you'll make much more... interesting choices after what comes next."

  “But—but my class!” the shifter yelled after her. “I choose Winter's Executioner!”

  The System paused, her eyes drifting slowly toward him, and the shifter flinched under the sheer weight of her glare. A slow, toothy smile spread across her face, and she nodded once.

  “So be it, little dragonling,” she said darkly.

  Without another word, she disappeared, leaving them alone in the blood-soaked arena.

  Time to see if Ace’s gamble would pay off.

  Before anyone could say anything, green light erupted from the dragon shifter's skin like solar flares, casting writhing shadows across the arena walls. His body went rigid, muscles locking as the transformation seized him. A low, crackling growl tore from the shifter’s throat, and the sound made Ace's bones ache.

  White light consumed the shifter's eyes until the irises faded completely. His claws extended with the sound of steel being drawn from a sheath, each finger elongating into obsidian daggers that leaked emerald vapor. His scales thickened in a rippling wave, each one igniting with that same sickly green glow.

  The air around him began to distort, reality bending as if unable to contain whatever he was becoming. His shoulder blades cracked and reformed, pushing against his skin like something trying to break free. Tendrils of light wrapped around his frame like living chains, each pulse forcing his body to reconfigure itself according to some impossibly complex blueprint. Steam rose where drops of blood hit his skin, the liquid evaporating on contact with the supernatural heat rolling off him in waves. His jaw began to elongate, teeth splitting and multiplying in an eerie display of raw power.

  But the change was lasting entirely too long. He hung there, suspended, transforming before their eyes at a glacial pace.

  A delicate chime pierced the air, and the ground beneath their feet trembled. Ancient stone groaned as another set of massive doors ground open, the sound of their mechanisms echoing through the arena like the death rattle of some mechanical beast. Then came the footsteps—dozens, maybe hundreds, moving with an unnatural synchronization that made Ace's combat instincts scream.

  And yet, the shifter remained suspended within the green light.

  "Behold!" The announcer's voice cracked, fear bleeding through his theatrical delivery. "I give you, baby Fleshstitchers!"

  “Oh great,” Tara said dryly. “That sounds delightful.”

  The crowd went silent. Not the anticipatory hush before a spectacle, but the dead silence of prey trying not to attract a predator's attention. Even the scaled horrors in their viewing boxes drew back from the railings.

  "Well," Ace muttered. "That's not a good sign."

  The footsteps grew closer, each impact sending vibrations through the blood-soaked sand. Beside him, the dragon shifter's transformation continued its agonizing progression, body suspended between forms like a glitch in reality's code. Steam rose from his mutating flesh in green-tinged clouds, and that bone-rattling growl in his throat had taken on a harmonic quality that set Ace on edge.

  Tara's new claws flexed unconsciously. "Should we try to move him?"

  "If you want to lose your hand, then sure," Victor warned, his massive frame tensing as the footsteps drew nearer.

  “There’s no guarantee that—”

  “He’s right,” Ace interrupted with a glance at Tara. “We don’t want to mess with the System. The best we can do is protect him until he snaps out of it.”

  An unholy chittering filled the air, like a million cicadas trilling at once, and Ace winced as the sound clawed its way into his skull. His enhanced hearing picked up every minor detail, every voice within the crowd, and he grimaced as it penetrated his very thoughts. Everyone else in his squad did the same, save for the dragon shifter still suspended in his transformation.

  A low rumble built under the trilling, and the sergeant settled into his stance as he forced himself to push through the pain in his ears from whatever the hell was causing that sound.

  A hand emerged first, though Ace wondered if he was right about what this even was. The appendage unfurled from the darkness like a lethal flower blooming, each finger a precision-engineered blade that caught the arena's torchlight. The edges weren't just sharp—they were perfect and serrated, as though designed to slice things open.

  The torso followed, unfolding with that distinctive stop-motion stutter that marked it as fundamentally wrong. Translucent tissue stretched between serrated bone structures. Its thin skin was nearly translucent, pulsing with dark fluids that moved through jet-black veins.

  When the thing had fully left the shadows, Ace’s breath caught in his throat.

  He stared at what should have been a face, but it was blank. No mouth. No nose. Just a blank canvas of skin and pulsing black veins that studied him from afar.

  In an instant, the chittering was gone, and the arena became eerily silent.

  For one suspended moment, Ace cataloged every detail with the hyperclarity of adrenaline-enhanced perception. The way condensation formed where its cold body met the arena's hot air. How its edges left pristine slices in reality itself, like watching a razor cut through silk in extreme slow-motion.

  Then, like a bullet leaving the chamber, all hell broke loose.

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