The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes late — holiday traffic, bottlenecked streets. Vy didn't wait. She tore the sleeve of her blouse and bandaged the unconscious truck driver herself. Her hands moved fast, precise — the reflexes of someone accustomed to blood. Duc Tran stood three meters away, back against the shattered café wall. The blood from the wound on his back had stopped flowing — he'd pressed a strip of fabric against it, cinching tight, no grimace. He watched her work. *Just like Loop 73. She's always like this — no one needs to ask her, no one needs to give permission. She sees blood, she runs toward it.* "Hey!" Vy turned, eyes landing on the blood staining his jacket. "You're hurt. Come here." "It's not bad." "I'm a doctor. Let me see." Not a question — a command. She crossed the distance, grabbed his arm, made him turn around. Her fingers carefully lifted the hem of his jacket — the cut ran about fifteen centimeters, shallow but still oozing. "Needs stitches." She frowned. "You handle pain well. Most people would've been screaming." "I'm used to it." She studied him — something in her eyes shifting, half curiosity, half concern. But she didn't press. She pulled cotton gauze from her bag — medical residents always carried supplies, he knew — and dressed the wound. "Hospital. Non-negotiable." "Fine." He didn't argue. Not because of her words, but because he needed to get to the hospital — it would be one of the "Safe Zones" when the System activated. --- Haiwan General Hospital, afternoon of January 1st. Quieter than usual — holiday schedule, skeleton crew. Vy brought him to the emergency room and stitched the wound herself. The needle pierced skin. He didn't flinch. "You really can't feel it?" she asked, eyes focused on the suture line. "I can. But I know it'll pass." "That's oddly philosophical." "Experience." She paused, looking at him over her protective glasses. "That's a strange thing to say — 'experience with getting hurt.' Have you been hurt a lot?" *Hundreds of times. Broken bones, severed tendons, blood loss, burns, infections. Died at least sixty-three times from wounds alone.* "Something like that." She finished, snipped the thread. Her fingers brushed the surrounding skin — careful, professional, but with something... gentler than strictly necessary. "Done. No heavy activity for three days." *Three days. Right when the System activates, monsters flood the streets, and he has to fight for survival.* "Thanks." He stood, pulled his jacket back on. Stopped at the door. "Vy." "Yeah?" "Today — don't leave the hospital." She frowned. "Why?" "Just stay here. Until morning." "Duc, you can't just keep telling me what to do without explaining anything—" "I can't explain." His voice — for the first time — cracked. Not broke. Just a hairline fracture in that cold surface. She went quiet. Looked at him. Several seconds. "Fine. I've got a night shift anyway." He nodded, turned, and walked away. *Night shift. Good. She'll be inside the hospital when the System activates.* --- 4:47 PM. Duc stood on the hospital rooftop, facing west. The sea breeze blew harder than usual — he noticed because he'd stood here ninety-eight times. *Almost time.* In every previous loop, the System activated at 4:52 PM on January 1st. Exactly. Never early, never late. He looked down. On the streets below, people moved through their normal lives. A family pushing a stroller, the baby sleeping peacefully. A group of teenagers with leftover fireworks, laughing. An old man on a park bench, reading a newspaper. *Three million people. None of them know.* 4:50. He gripped the rooftop railing. Rust bit into his palm. 4:51. The wind stopped. Abruptly. As if someone had flipped a switch. The air thickened — heavy, suffocating, like the stillness before a typhoon. But this wasn't a typhoon. 4:52. The sky cracked. Duc didn't look up — he knew what it looked like. But he watched anyway. Because this time, he needed to confirm. A crimson fissure appeared in the western sky — starting as a thin thread, then spreading rapidly, like a swollen vein across blue skin. Red light bled through the crack — not sunset light, but something else entirely. Cold. Dead. Then another crack. And another. And another. In less than thirty seconds, the sky above Haiwan looked like shattered glass — dozens of red fissures running in every direction, from horizon to zenith. Below, the screaming began. People pointed upward, shouting, panicking. Cars braked hard, smashing into each other. The baby in the stroller wailed. The old man with the newspaper rose, the paper slipping from his trembling hands. Duc stood motionless. Cold. Still. Then — they fell. From the largest crack, a creature dropped — black, cat-sized, four-legged, eyeless, mouth bristling with needle teeth. It struck a rooftop two hundred meters away, hit the tile, and was instantly on its feet. F-Class. The weakest type. But not alone. Behind it, dozens more poured through — like black rain, pattering onto rooftops, onto streets, onto cars. Screaming became howling. Running. Glass breaking. Duc turned, stepped into the stairwell. He didn't run — walked fast, measured strides, like someone late for work. He knew F-Class wouldn't attack the hospital immediately. They hunted isolated prey first — loners on the street, children separated from groups, the elderly who couldn't move fast. He had about twenty minutes before they reached here. Twenty minutes to prepare. --- Ground floor. The emergency room was already in chaos — patients screaming, nurses scrambling, the on-call doctor shouting into a phone. Vy stood in the middle of the lobby, phone pressed to her ear, eyes fixed on the glass doors — where the red-streaked sky reflected across the polished floor. "...Yes, I'm at the hospital. The sky... the sky is cracking open. I don't know how to explain it..." She turned and saw Duc walking in. Her eyes went wide. "Duc!" "Vy, close the main doors. All glass doors. Right now." "What—" "Something is coming from outside. Not human." She looked at him — at his face, impossibly calm amid the panic. While everyone around them was falling apart, he stood there like a cold shadow in the center of a storm. "You know what's happening." Not a question. A statement. "Yes." "Tell me." "No time. Doors first." She held his gaze — two seconds more. Then — the instinct of a doctor, the instinct to protect — she turned, voice cutting through the room: "Everyone! Close all doors! Lock the side entrances! Anyone near the glass — step away from it NOW!" Her voice — sharp, clear, commanding. In that moment, she wasn't a medical resident. She was a leader. Nurses and patients began moving. Not because she'd explained anything — but because her voice carried the kind of authority people instinctively obeyed. Duc watched her. In that instant, 31% of Humanity Erosion seemed to lighten — just a fraction, but enough for him to feel it. *Still there. I still have emotions.* Then from outside — a growl. Low, continuous, from multiple throats. He looked through the glass doors. In the red twilight, across the hospital parking lot, five F-Class creatures crawled forward — bodies sleek and black, eyeless, mouths gaping wide. Drool pooled on the concrete beneath them. They stopped twenty meters from the entrance. Heads tilted to one side — listening. Then the largest one — bigger than the other four — raised its head. And roared. The sound — sharp, resonant, cutting through glass, through bone. Everyone in the emergency room froze. Vy turned, eyes wide. Duc stepped forward, positioning himself between her and the glass doors. "Stay here. Don't go outside." He bent down and picked up a steel rod from the nearby debris — a chair leg mangled from the truck crash earlier. Heavy, about eighteen inches long, one end tapered to a point. Not an ideal weapon. But enough. He activated his Skill — no verbal command needed, just thought. *System Analysis.* A data panel materialized over the lead creature: --- **[F-Class Monster — Shadow Hound]** HP: 45/45 Weakness: Lower abdomen (thin armor), Nape (nerve cluster) Speed: Medium Attack: Bite (low physical damage) Special: Pack hunter, panics when alpha is killed --- *Kill the alpha. The other four scatter.* He pushed through the glass door and stepped outside. Cold wind hit his face. The smell — metallic, alien, wrong — a scent that didn't belong to this world. Five Shadow Hounds turned toward him. They snarled, bodies dropping low, coiling to pounce. Duc raised the steel rod. No trembling. No fear. *Ninety-eight loops. Sixty-three deaths. This is only F-Class.* The alpha lunged — fast, strong, jaw stretched wide. Needle teeth caught the fading red light. He sidestepped right, barely enough — felt the rush of displaced air graze his forearm — then swung the rod upward from below. The pointed end punched into the creature's underside. It shrieked — a sharp, agonized howl — then collapsed, thrashing. Black blood — not red but black — spread across the concrete. The other four froze. Their heads whipped side to side — panicking, directionless. Then — exactly as the System data predicted — they turned and scrambled back into the shadows between buildings. He pulled the rod free, black blood dripping from the tip. Behind him, through the glass doors, Vy stood perfectly still. Her eyes locked on him — on the way he fought, on his terrible, terrifying calm. He walked back inside. Closed the door. "Safe. For now." Silence in the emergency room. Everyone staring at him — at the blood-smeared steel, at the stains on his jacket, at those eyes as cold as well water. Vy was the first to speak. "Duc." Her voice shook, but she wrestled it steady. "You know what those things are." "Yes." "You know what's happening to the world." "Yes." "Then tell me. Tell all of us." He scanned the room — twenty-four people, patients and staff combined. Twenty-four pairs of eyes, terrified, confused, desperate. He breathed deep. *31% erosion. Long explanations cost emotion. Cost humanity.* But she was watching him. With those dark brown eyes he'd remembered across ninety-eight loops. He spoke. "The world is changing. What you just saw — that was only the beginning. Tomorrow will be worse. And the day after, worse still." He paused. Met each face in turn. "But there's a way to survive. And I know how." Silence. Then Vy stepped forward and stood beside him. "I believe you." Three words. Simple. But in the dim emergency room, under a shattered red sky, those three words weighed more than any Skill the System had ever granted him. Duc gripped the steel rod. *Loop 99. It's really begun.* And outside, between the buildings, wrapped in shadow, a figure stood watching — eyes fixed on the hospital. A face hidden in darkness, only the eyes visible — red, like the cracks in the sky. "He remembers." A whisper no one could hear. "Interesting." The shadow vanished. Only footprints remained on the wet concrete — and a hairline crack running along the wall where he'd stood.