# Fleeing the Nest The roar ripped through the sky, crashing down like a physical sledgehammer. Every remaining pane of glass on the hospital's third floor shattered simultaneously, sending razor-sharp shards embedding themselves deep into the drywall. The sheer air pressure from the bellow weighed heavily on their eardrums, causing ordinary people nearby to instantly bleed from their ears, collapsing to the floor in agonizing moans. Tran Minh Duc shot to his feet, the iron pipe in his hand groaning under the immense pressure of his grip. He stared intently at the glowing crimson rift splitting the sky above. *D-Class.* His calculations were crumbling before his very eyes. Throughout his past 98 loops—counting from the very first one where he began maintaining mental journals—a D-Class monster had never appeared before the dawn of the fourth day. A single D-Class creature held enough destructive power to obliterate a third of the city unless intercepted by heavy military artillery or Awakened who had achieved Level 10 with fully equipped gear. But now? The third day had only just begun. The strongest Awakened he knew of at this moment—excluding that psychotic maniac "Shadow"—were barely lingering at Level 2 or 3. A D-Class dropping into the city right now was no different from a natural disaster being unleashed upon a defenseless village. "Duc?" Le Ha Vy's trembling voice called out from behind him. The soothing pale blue light radiating from her hand had flickered out, replaced by an expression of sheer, unadulterated terror on her pale face. Her eyes were wide, brimming with horror at the bone-chilling sound that had just resonated through the air. "What... what the hell just made that noise?" "Something we cannot fight." Duc spun around, grabbing the medical supply backpack he had scavenged from the nurse's station at dawn, slinging it over his shoulder in one fluid motion. "We have to leave this place. Right now." "Leave? But what about the patients? Dr. Hoang and Nurse Lan are up on the fourth floor..." Vy took a step forward, blocking his path. Even though her legs were trembling, the stubborn resolve in her eyes remained unwavering. "You told them to go up there to hide from the E-Class monsters. Are you going to just abandon them now?" Duc looked at her. His gaze was glacial, utterly devoid of emotion—an apathy honed by witnessing 98 lifetimes of death, 98 loops of watching people inevitably turn themselves into minced meat attempting to play the hero. "Listen to me carefully." He stepped closer, dropping his voice so it wouldn't carry down the corridor. "That sound just now came from a D-Class monster. Regardless of its specific type, it's as massive as this entire hospital, it moves faster than a race car, and its hide is tougher than reinforced steel. It doesn't hunt by sight like the E-Classes. It hunts by noise and body heat. A large crowd clustered together in one spot is a buffet it cannot resist." He pointed a finger at the ceiling, where screams, cries, and the clattering of metal were echoing down from the fourth floor. A terrified mob of over forty people scrambling in panic, desperately trying to barricade doors with hospital beds, shouting for each other’s help. "They are a lighthouse in the dead of night," Duc said, enunciating every word sharply like daggers driving into her chest. "It will come here first. If we stay, we die. You die, I die, everything ends." "But my ability—" Vy looked down at her hands, trying to concentrate and manifest the soothing blue light once more. "-Just a moment ago I felt like I could heal! I could save people! What if the System gives me the power to—" "You're only Level 1, Vy! You can heal a scratch, at best a deep laceration. You cannot heal someone who has been pulverized into paste or torn in two!" Duc forcefully pushed her hands down, his grip not overly tight but incredibly decisive. "In Loop 40, Dr. Hoang shoved a pregnant woman into a monster's maw just to buy himself time to run. In Loop 73, he locked me and three others inside the morgue to use us as bait. And Nurse Lan? She's a good person. Too good. And she dies in EVERY single loop trying to save people who aren't worth saving, including patients who eventually turned on her, biting and clawing at her just to fight over the last remaining carton of milk." "What are you even talking about?" Vy took a step back, her eyes flashing with a mix of fear and disgust. "Are you judging their lives based on... on things that haven't even happened? Things in this delusional 'loop' of yours?" "It DID happen. To me. Dozens of times." Duc picked up his iron pipe, turning toward the emergency exit stairs. "I am not dying with them. And I am not letting you die a meaningless death here either." He grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward. Vy resisted, struggling and trying to yank her hand free, but the strength of an Awakened—even one who hadn't leveled up much yet—far exceeded that of a normal human. Duc dragged her forcefully down the corridor, heading for the eastern emergency stairwell—the farthest point from the shattered main entrance of the hospital. "Let me go! You cold-blooded bastard! Go on without me, I have to warn them!" Vy screamed, punching at his back with her free hand. "Shut your mouth!" Duc hissed, whipping around. His eyes were sharp as razors, an undisguised malice briefly surfacing that completely smothered her resistance in an instant. "If you scream, the D-Class will hear you. And when that happens, not only the fourth floor, but this entire pedigree of a hospital will become a pile of ash!" Just then, an earth-shattering boom reverberated through the air. It wasn't a roar this time, but the sound of something unimaginably massive slamming into the ground right in the hospital's front courtyard. The entire four-story building shook violently, akin to an 8.0-magnitude earthquake. Every remaining window completely shattered, and chunks of plaster rained from the ceiling. A dense cloud of white dust billowed from the fresh cracks in the walls. The air grew thick and heavy with murderous intent. Vy fell completely silent, the blood draining entirely from her face, both knees turning to jelly. "It's here." Duc muttered darkly. "Run!" He released her wrist, turning and sprinting down the stairs. This time, Vy didn't hesitate. The horrifying reality had crashed down upon her, and survival instinct obliterated all her fragile moral arguments. She ran after him with her head down, the frantic thudding of her sneakers echoing off the freezing concrete steps. Above them, from the fourth floor, the screaming began. Not the usual panicked shoving or shouting. It was the desperate, shrill shrieking of people coming face-to-face with absolute hell. The deafening screech of concrete being torn apart, metal twisting violently, and interwoven with it all was the wet, sickening sound of flesh and bone being collectively crushed. The entire fourth floor was seemingly being scraped clean. Ha Vy clamped both hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face, but her legs never stopped moving. She didn't dare look back. She didn't dare imagine it. Duc’s chilling words echoed incessantly in her mind: *How many times has he watched this happen?* They frantically descended to the ground floor. The main lobby was an absolute warzone. The corpses of the E-Class Axe Beasts Duc had blinded and killed the previous night were already rotting, black blood pooling and mixing with the suffocating mortar dust. Daylight bled through the violently peeled-back ceiling, casting a grim illumination over the deadly silence. Duc led her weaving through the demolished waiting chairs, bypassing the main entrance entirely, and bursting out the back exit designated for waste management. Stepping into the rear parking lot, the early morning air was eerily still. The sky was a sullen, resentful gray, with the crimson rifts peaking through low-hanging clouds like the eyes of giant demons staring down at them. "Where... where do we go now?" Vy gasped for air, doubling over, her trembling knees barely holding her upright. "The subway station." Duc checked his watch, mentally calculating their timeframe. "It's deep underground, masks scent, and is easy to defend. And most importantly—I stashed weapons there in Loop 98." "But won't getting underground just... trap us? What if there are monsters down there?" "That's only if you don't have control over the automated security doors. Monsters below C-Class cannot breach the blast doors of the control room. We'll hide in there." Duc explained as he used his iron pipe to smash the plastic housing over the ignition of a heavy-duty motorcycle parked in a dark corner. It belonged to an orthopedic surgeon he knew would never need it again. With two professional swipes of the exposed wires—a trick he had perfected over dozens of lifetimes—the engine roared to life. "Get on." They sped through the deserted streets of Hai Van City. The familiar sights were now twisted into something deeply unnerving. Cars had smashed into each other, billowing thick black smoke into the gray sky. Shop windows were shattered, their contents looted or scattered across the sidewalks. Corpses—both human and grotesque, unrecognizable masses of bloody flesh—littered the roads. Occasionally, the screech of tires and the distant roar of low-level monsters could be heard echoing through the asphalt canyons. Ha Vy clung tightly to Duc's waist, burying her face against his back. The wind rushing through her hair carried the metallic tang of blood and the acrid stench of the burning city. She squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to slow her racing heartbeat. The memory of the hopeless screams from the fourth floor still clawed at her conscience. *Was he right? Would Dr. Hoang really have pushed a pregnant woman to her death?* She didn't want to believe it. Her entire life studying medicine was dedicated to saving people. But she couldn't deny the deadly professionalism in how Duc operated. He calculated events down to the millisecond. He was like a director, flawlessly reenacting a bloody theater production he had watched entirely too many times. The central subway station was three kilometers from the hospital. As they arrived, Duc slammed the brakes, the tires skidding across the cracked, debris-covered tiles in front of the stairwell leading underground. He cut the engine, retrieved his iron pipe from the side of the bike, and hid the keys in a nearby shattered planter. "Off. Stay right behind me. Don't make a single sound, no matter how small." The descending stairwell was pitch black. The power grid had failed city-wide the previous afternoon. The air down here was thick with the stench of mildew, garbage, and a sharp, stagnant odor that mingled with the metallic tang of exposed rebar. Duc clicked on a small, blue-tinted tactical flashlight clipped to his shoulder. Its narrow beam only illuminated the steps strictly in front of them. "Is anyone else down here?" Vy whispered, inching closer to his shoulder. "Possibly." Duc replied softly. "This station was once a refuge for dozens of people in Loop 20. But then a C-Class Witch managed to slip inside, causing a massacre. Absolutely inhuman butchery. However, today is only Day 3, this place should theoretically still be secure." They descended deep into the B1 basement level, approaching the main ticketing hall. The space was dead silent, save for the rhythmic *drip, drip, drip* of water leaking from a broken pipe and echoing off the tiled walls. Suddenly, Duc stopped dead in his tracks. He raised a hand flat against Vy's chest, instantly halting her, and simultaneously killed the blue flashlight. Deadly darkness enveloped them. Vy held her breath, able to hear the frantic pounding of her own heart in her chest. From the direction of the ticket counters near Gate 3, there was a rustling sound. The distinct noise of heavy boots crunching carefully over loose gravel. Someone was cautiously stepping backward. Then came a dry, metallic *clack*. The unmistakable sound of a makeshift firearm being cocked. *Bloodthirsty monsters don't use guns.* "Step out into the light, friend." A deep, drawling male voice echoed from the darkness ahead. Instantly, an intensely bright beam from a handheld spotlight flared to life, shining directly into Duc and Vy's retinas, forcing them to shield their eyes. "I don't know what kind of trash you are, but you brought a pretty girl with you. Strip your gear, hand over the bag, and drop your weapons. And leave the girl." Duc squinted against the blinding glare. But within that harsh light, his System Analysis had automatically triggered, measuring the target's energy. --- **[Awakened — Pham Van Khai]** Level: 2 Main Skill: [Action Acceleration] — Lv.1 Humanity Erosion: 15% --- Khai "Scar." A nobody, a lowly loan shark enforcer who had miraculously Awakened early by slaughtering a group of defenseless teenagers to secure a seat on an evacuation bus on the first day. In Loop 98, he had been a hunting dog serving under "Shadow." Yes, this very scum was the one who had tipped off Shadow to Duc's base in the 98th loop, leading to the massacre of his entire team and Duc himself being severed cleanly in half. A surge of maniacal, burning hatred suddenly ignited deep within Duc's chest, washing away his 32% Humanity Erosion in a single heartbeat. Duc slowly lowered his eyes, and a smile crept onto his lips. It was a smile that would make the devil himself flinch. He slowly raised his iron pipe, tapping it lightly against the palm of his left hand. "I am in a very big hurry. A very, very big hurry," Duc said, his tone entirely flat, devoid of a single ripple, like a drifting iceberg. "If you get on your knees, beg for your life, and fuck off right now, I'll allow you to die with your body intact some other time." "Are you joking, you little shit?" Khai burst into barking laughter, raising the barrel of the gun to point squarely at Duc's skull. "I'm holding a gun, and you've got a rusted pipe. You think a piece of trash like you—" Khai never finished his sentence. Duc vanished. Not figuratively, but the bursting velocity of his physical body in that millisecond exceeded the sensory limit of a normal human retina. [Burst Power]—a basic physical skill Duc had used so extensively over 98 loops that it was practically hardwired into his muscle memory, requiring no conscious thought or System activation. *CRACK!* The horrific sound of snapping bone ripped through the stale air. The spotlight clattered loudly onto the tiled floor, the makeshift gun skidding far away. A miserable, pig-like squeal of agony predictably followed. Khai collapsed to his knees, his right arm twisted backward at a sickening 90-degree angle, the jagged edge of his elbow bone piercing through the flesh, stark white in the dim light. Duc stood towering over his head, grinding his boot heel directly into Khai's bleeding shoulder joint. Somewhere deep in his mind, a tiny notification chimed. *[Warning: Humanity Erosion +0.5%]* "Let me ask you again," Duc leaned down, his voice hissing coldly through clenched teeth. "Do you want your left arm broken next, or that filthy jaw of yours?"