# Awakened Hidden Skill The ringing from the flashbang grenade echoed through Ha Vy's nervous system for a solid half hour. It wasn’t until they had scrambled through countless cracked alleyways, navigated past charred corpses, and returned to the silent confines of the subway station that her hearing finally began to clear. She slid down the freezing tiled wall of the control room, gasping heavily for air. She looked over at Duc. He had just tossed his mangled iron pipe—now dripping with monster blood—into a corner. His chest was heaving with much more strain than usual. The deep gash on the back of his left thigh, inflicted by Shadow's military knife, had been sealed shut by her healing energy, but the massive blood loss and the extreme physical toll of prolonged combat seemed to have drained even a Level 4 Awakened. "You throwing that flashbang... had you calculated that all along?" Vy hugged her knees to her chest, pushing the sweat-soaked hair away from her forehead, her voice still trembling. "Shadow's movements... his speed, his bloodlust... when he slashed you... did you let him do it on purpose just to get close?" Duc dragged a hand across the congealed blood at the corner of his mouth, turning on the dying faucet positioned over a small sink to splash whatever cold water remained onto his face. The freezing water sapped some of the rage that threatened to consume his mind, but his dark eyes remained intensely haunted. "No sane man intentionally lets an opponent slice his leg open, Vy. He was stronger than I anticipated. Unfathomably stronger." Duc slowly turned around. His skin looked ghastly pale under the weak emergency lighting. "In Loop 98, he was just swinging basic knives around. His speed was roughly equal to a Level 4 in the initial days. Today, he unleashed a perfected Level 2 [Rend] skill. If it hadn't been for that military-grade flashbang blinding him, and especially your reckless healing, I would have died my 99th death right there on the pavement." The sharp, brutal honesty in his tone sent a chill down Vy’s spine. Tran Minh Duc, a man wielding the experience of nearly a thousand days fighting through this bloody hellscape, was almost ended in three slashes by a nameless, remorseless killer. "So what do we do now?" Vy asked, her limbs feeling incredibly weak and hollow. Tapping into [Healing] for the very first time in live, active combat had completely drained the biological reserves of a fresh Level 1 Awakened like her. "The monsters are multiplying, the System is crowding us, and now there’s a total psycho with a grudge hunting us." "First of all, we failed the System's Mandatory Event." Duc pointed his finger at the empty space. Hovering in front of them was the bloody countdown timer, visible only to Awakened. There were exactly 45 minutes left to kill ten E-Classes or one D-Class monster at the intersection. But they had fled the scene entirely. "It doesn't matter, though." He moved toward the corner, rummaging through the large tactical duffel bags they had stockpiled earlier. "Whenever you fail an event... the deterrent punishment—'body destruction'—does not happen immediately. The System operates on a ruthless exchange of vitality. To squeeze its participants dry, it will spontaneously open a supplementary trial right at the location where the failure tries to hide." "You mean..." Vy's eyes widened in horror. "My spilled blood. The shockwave of the blast. And the activation of your high-tier ability. All of it is going to draw the hordes lurking in the sewers and streets straight here." Duc tossed her a custom-wrapped aluminum baseball bat studded with welded nails. For himself, he began loading crimson shells into a sawed-off shotgun he retrieved from the bottom of a bag. The *clack-clack* sound of racking the gun felt ironically peaceful. "The morning butchery hasn't concluded yet." As if to validate the 98-loop veteran's prediction, the encrypted steel door of the B3 control room—the supposedly most secure barrier in the station—echoed with a deep, violent *THUD*. It was a terrifying collision composed of sheer, unadulterated mass that made their eardrums pop. A heavy dent immediately appeared directly in the center of the steel door. The security deadbolts groaned under the agonizing stress of tearing metal. "C-Class." Duc frowned, gripping the shotgun tightly, his muscles bulging as he forced his exhausted body into combat readiness. "These bastards absolutely love feasting on the brains of the Awakened to absorb spiritual energy. It tracked the rich aura from the special ability you just used. Vy, get behind the electrical generator cabinet. Absolutely do not use your ability unless I give you a precise cue." *THUD!* The second ramming sent the entire underground room vibrating violently. Thick white dust showered down from the ceiling. The emergency fiber-optic light bulb flickered wildly, signaling an intense shockwave. *CRASH!* The bulletproof door burst open, completely ripped from its hinges, smashing straight into an innocent office desk and sending debris flying across the room. Standing in the jagged doorway was a creature pulled straight from a nightmare. Under the dim lighting, it appeared as an ungodly crossbreed between a northern grizzly bear and a desert scorpion. It possessed pitch-black armor plating, and massive pincers at its front clicked together continuously with a wet, metallic sound. But the most horrifying detail wasn't its shape; it was the single, blood-red eye situated precisely in the center of its chest, furiously scanning for its weak prey. --- **[C-Class Monster — Ironclad Ursine]** HP: 950/950 Weakness: The eye on its chest (Energy Core). Passive: 70% Physical Damage Resistance. Spews acidic venom. --- "A physical tank, huh... So chew on some armor-piercing shells, you son of a bitch!" Duc roared. *BOOM!* The shotgun roared deafeningly, propelling a cluster of buckshot straight into the right side of the Ironclad Ursine’s plating. But the result practically stopped their hearts. The armor merely chipped, revealing a bright silver scratch. Not a drop of blood fell. The ricocheting pellets scattered harmlessly to the floor. The Ironclad Ursine bellowed in fury. Its massive pincers tore through the air, lunging forward in an attempt to snap Duc’s upper body in half. Utilizing his [Burst Power] skill, Duc slipped to the side with the fluidity of a water strider. In that brief instant of dodging, the creature swung its other arm, the sheer momentum throwing Duc backward, where he crashed hard into the solid steel electrical cabinets. Circuit breakers sparked and exploded, sending suffocating white smoke billowing into the room. *[Humanity Erosion: 33%]* The intense frustration of powerlessness, the agonizing feeling of consecutive failures piling up in a single morning, caused Duc to lose his composure. His erosion gauge crept upward. He had no viable heavy damage output. The shotgun was little more than a tickle against this absurdly armored beast. "Didn't you say you'd slap me awake?" Duc coughed violently, a fresh stream of blood trailing from his mouth. Searing pain radiated through his fractured wrist. Slipping down to the floor amidst the gray smoke, Duc watched the colossal beast raise its disgusting pincer to bring it down upon him. A deafening *smash* abruptly echoed through the space. Ha Vy had somehow darted forward. Grinding her teeth, ignoring the absolute terror commanding her, she swung the nail-studded bat with all the strength she possessed directly at the creature's sensitive chest-eye. The physical attack of a Level 1 healer was fundamentally useless against a massive C-Class beast, but her desperate, suicidal strike luckily landed squarely on its vital core, inducing a fleeting moment of panic and disorientation. The creature shrieked wildly as it was struck in the eye. It stumbled backward two steps. Instantly, its rusty, venom-soaked scorpion tail whipped toward Vy's small frame. "Get back, hit the deck!" Duc’s shrill voice tore through the ruined room. Capitalizing on the singular brief opening when the beast’s pincers loosened to protect its chest, he lunged forward, pressing the muzzle of the shotgun flush against that blazing red eye. Pouring every ounce of resentment he harbored from his 98th loop into his finger, he pulled the trigger. *BOOM!* Point-blank. Zero millimeters. The brain and energy core of the Ironclad Ursine detonated into a viscous puddle of black sludge. The 600-kilogram mass of meat immediately collapsed, crushing a bank of monitoring equipment under its weight, its limbs twitching frantically before going completely motionless. Duc dropped to his knees, his lungs whistling painfully with every breath. Vy frantically scrambled over to him on her hands and knees, her faintly glowing hand trembling as she placed it on his shoulder. "C... C-Class. Duc... We actually killed it." But the surprises didn't end with the sickening sound of the monster's chest exploding. Before Ha Vy's eyes, a blindingly intense beam of light erupted, far surpassing the pale jade glow of her [Healing] skill. It began to sparkle with a brilliant golden hue, like a fragment of dawn falling to the mortal realm. It hovered in the air for a moment before shooting straight into the medic's chest. "What... what’s happening?" Vy’s eyes widened. She felt as though every single cell in her body, her mind, and her soul was rapidly expanding, regenerating, and transcending. An unprecedented sense of primal warmth enveloped the hollow emptiness she'd felt merely moments ago. --- **[Awakened — Le Ha Vy]** Level: 3 (Abnormal Breakthrough Level-Up) Main Skill: [Healing] — Lv.2 Hidden Skill: [Recall] — Activated (Mechanism: Slay a C-Class in a life-or-death scenario). Humanity Erosion: 0% --- Duc widened his coal-black pupils. He couldn't physically view Vy's status interface, but with the keen intuition of an expert utilizing [System Analysis], he could still perceive the grand shifting of her energy. The text 'Recall' flashed brilliantly like a beacon inside this underground hell. The prophecy whispered by a dying comrade in the 94th loop flooded his mind. The skill to restore fragments of human memory. The only skill possessing the attribute to purify Humanity Erosion points. The hairs on Duc's arm stood on end. He staggered to his feet, utterly astonished. "Vy. Your second skill... [Recall], what is its system description?" Ha Vy opened her hand. Now, instead of the tranquil dark blue light, countless tiny, miraculous golden dust particles gathered, forming thin, delicate ribbons of luminescence. "It says... I can recall and transfer fragments of original memories. I can also... erase 'Humanity Erosion' from other Awakened, but the cost is that I will extract and permanently lose a cherished memory of my own." Silence enveloped the room. The thick stench of sulfur, death, and monster viscera seemed to be actively repelled by that warm, golden light. This was the brutal law of equivalent exchange imposed by the System. If you want to purify a monster's heart back into a human one, you must sacrifice the beautiful, happy memories of another human. Tran Minh Duc tightly squeezed his eyes shut. His 33% lost humanity screamed and tore at him. The lower he plummeted in his erosion, the less human he became, snuffing out all empathy and compassion. Ha Vy now had the power to pull him back from the brink. But should he allow her to forfeit the memories she treasured most, simply to save his selfish life? *The System's cage. They truly are the most cruel, insatiable Gods in the universe.* "We won't use it right now." Duc turned his face away, kicking the empty, useless shotgun into a corner, instead gripping a discarded dumbbell bar near a trash can tightly. "Conserve your energy. That guy, Shadow, is still out there. The race for Day 7 has only just begun." But in the midst of that sorrowful silence, a burst of harsh radio static suddenly flared. It wasn't derived from the operating system interface, but from an old, battered walkie-talkie dropped near the trash by a long-dead soldier. "Channel 4... *cough* is anyone there... emergency channel 4, respond! We're trapped in the National Library. B-Class... There's something horribly wrong... Goddammit... It's fighting exactly like an Awakened..." A fierce, brutal light flared in Duc's eyes. The National Library. It was exactly one sector away from the System Core. And above all else, in his previous life, it was the prime hunting ground for the butcher known as Shadow. "Pack up, reload water and ammo." Duc issued orders in his sharpest, most militant commanding voice. "No resting. We have a very fated visit to make to the Library."