There was no time to think. There was only time to survive.
Moon backed away from the shattered window as the shrieks and thundering footsteps echoed from the first floor of the bank. The horde had breached the lobby. He could hear them tearing through the drywall and swarming up the central stairwell like a wave of rotting meat.
"Okay. Okay," Moon breathed rapidly.
He stood in the center of his barricaded safe room. He gripped his carbon-steel spear in his right hand and held his left hand out. The green glow of his [Necrotic Bile] immediately coated his palm.
BANG!
The heavy oak desks he had used to barricade the door shuddered violently.
BANG! CRUNCH!
Wood splintered. The metal door hinges groaned under the sheer weight of dozens of bodies pressing against it.
"Come on in," Moon snarled.
The door exploded inward. Desks and chairs were violently shoved aside as a bottleneck of six Blight-Fiends spilled into the room. They tripped over each other in their frenzy to reach him.
Moon stepped forward and fully embraced the combat knowledge of [Lethal Flow].
He didn't swing wildly. He executed a flawless sequence of thrusts.
SQUELCH! SQUELCH! SQUELCH!
The carbon-steel blade punched through three skulls in less than two seconds. Black blood sprayed across the walls. But the horde didn't care. As the first three dropped, four more lunged over their corpses. Their jaws snapped inches from his face.
A Blight-Fiend managed to swipe its heavy armored forearm across Moon's chest.
CLANG!
His E-Rank [Toxic Carapace] absorbed the brunt of the impact and turned his skin into treated leather. But the sheer force still bruised his ribs.
The monster shrieked as the acidic poison of his skin immediately melted its hand. But the minor damage to Moon was already done.
"Too many," Moon grunted. He kicked a zombie backward into the doorway to clog the entrance.
If he stood here, he would be buried in bodies. He had to move.
Moon lunged forward and spun his spear to create a brief pocket of space. He drove the butt of the spear into a monster's throat and shattered its windpipe.
As the creature fell, Moon dropped to one knee and slapped his bare glowing left hand onto the fresh corpse.
He aggressively pushed his intent into the System.
[Limitless Plunder: Rapid Siphon Activated.]
[Raw Vitality +0.1 acquired.]
A tiny sliver of cool energy rushed into his body. The raw life force instantly went to work on his bruised ribs and soothed the dull ache.
"That's the ticket," Moon laughed loudly over the roar of the horde.
He became a terrifying machine of death and theft.
He thrust his spear into an eye socket, ripped it out, and deliberately slapped the falling body.
[Raw Vitality +0.1 acquired.]
He ducked under a swipe and grabbed a zombie's face with his acid-coated hand to melt its eyes. He snapped its neck and siphoned the dregs of its life force.
[Raw Mana +0.1 acquired.]
He was using the trash mobs as living health potions. Every minor cut and every strained muscle from his frantic movements was instantly knit back together by the continuous plundering of trace stats.
But the room was filling up. The hallway outside was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with roaring monsters.
Moon backed up against the far wall of the office. He looked at the doorway blocked by a sea of gray flesh and rusted armor.
"Let's see if this 1.7 Agility is worth a damn," he muttered.
Moon took a deep breath. He lowered his spear and sprinted directly at the massive horde flooding through the doorway.
The leading Blight-Fiends raised their claws and got ready to rip him to shreds.
Three feet away from the mob, Moon leaped.
He didn't jump into them. He jumped onto them.
His sneaker planted firmly onto the chest of the first zombie. Before the creature could even react to the weight, Moon pushed off and used its body as a springboard.
He vaulted into the air and completely cleared the first row of monsters. He came down hard and his left foot landed squarely on the head of another Blight-Fiend.
CRUNCH!
The zombie's neck compressed under his 3.3 Strength. But Moon was already moving. He used the sinking head as a stepping stone and launched himself forward again. He surfed across the sea of undead.
Claws swiped at his legs and tore at his jeans. But his [Toxic Carapace] deflected the glancing blows and punished the monsters with burning acid.
He bounded across three more heads and lost his balance slightly as one of the monsters thrashed. He expertly rolled mid-air and cleared the doorway to land heavily in the hallway beyond the choke point.
He didn't stop to look back.
Moon hit the ground sprinting. He darted down the hallway and took a hard right. He bypassed the central stairwell which was still overflowing with the horde.
He found an emergency maintenance shaft and ripped the metal grate off the wall with pure brute force. He dove inside and slid down the dark chute into the basement levels.
The heavy thud of the horde above him echoed through the building. But they had lost his scent in the maze of the bank.
For the next twenty-four hours, Moon didn't fight. He survived.
He understood his Bottleneck. He couldn't risk fighting elites until he found a way to massively boost his Vitality. Fighting regular mobs was a waste of energy unless he needed to rapid-plunder for a quick heal.
He moved through the ruined subway tunnels and held his breath as patrols of armored Fiends lumbered past. He slept in the rafters of an abandoned grocery store with his spear tied to his wrist.
He existed purely as a ghost in the ruins.
Finally, as he was crouched beneath the rusted chassis of a military transport vehicle, his vision flickered. He was watching a patrol of feral hounds pass by.
The gray ash of the Blighted Metropolis paused mid-air.
The snarls of the hounds faded into complete silence.
[Ding!]
[Trial Timer: 00:00:00]
A soothing pale blue light washed away the darkness of the ruined street.
Moon let his head fall back against the cold concrete. He let out a long exhale. His clothes were shredded and he was covered in black gore and green acid burns. He was starving but he was alive.
[Congratulations, Candidate. You have survived the F-Rank Trial: The Blighted Metropolis.]
[Calculating Rewards based on performance...]
[Ding!]
[Exceptional Combat Efficiency Noted. Boss-Tier Entity Eliminated.]
[Rewards Distributed:]
[- 1x F-Rank Vitality Crystal]
[- 1x System-Crafted Iron Baton]
[- 1x Minor Stamina Potion]
Three items materialized in the blue space and dropped directly into his inventory.
Moon's eyes locked onto the first item on the list. A Vitality Crystal.
"Exactly what the doctor ordered," Moon grinned.
[Initiating Return Sequence.]
The spatial distortion grabbed him. The ruined city dissolved and pulled him back across the Convergence and toward home.