Chapter 62: 00:05:00

“It’ll tear him apart!” Mr. Lee’s voice echoed loudly.

“The parameters are adaptive. He must face what he draws to himself.” She glanced at Mr. Lee with an unreadable expression. “It will help us know him better.”

Mr. Lee’s jaw clenched as he took a half-step back. He forced his arms to fold across his chest and leaned against the wall by the door.

The wires connected to Leon’s chair thrashed like an agitated serpent as Leon convulsed.

In the virtual world, Leon ran as his survival instincts overrode the blinding pain. His boots pounded the rubble-strewn ground, each footfall sounding like a thunderclap in the narrow space.

Behind him, the Corrupted Canis moved with a silent, tarrying speed.

The crunch-whine of its steel-tipped tail whipped through the air and sheared through protruding piers and stone corners.

Leon’s lungs burned, causing his breath to rag. The torch beam bounced erratically, illuminating flashes of dead ends and collapsed passages.

Then his eyes flickered past a chaotic pile of collapsed sandstone.

He dove and scrambled behind the largest slab just as a blue-tinged claw swiped through the space where his head had been.

Dust showered over him like rain. He huddled, his back pressed against a cold rock. The world reduced to a violent hum of his heart and the rancid breath of the beast just feet away.

At two beats, inhaling through the dust, the timer glowed mockingly in his vision: 00:05:00.

’Is this a test or a suicide task?’ thoughts reeled in his mind while screams, which should have echoed loudly, remained trapped between his teeth.

He could feel as if his chest wanted to burst open.

Then, a cold voice surfaced through the searing pain.

’This is just a simulation. My body is safe in a chair. What happens if I just… stop?’

A strange, grim smile touched his lips. “Would the test end if I surrendered?” he said calmly.

After a few minutes, the smile widened. “If I let the creature have me, it will just be a virtual death, right?”

He swallowed hard, then gathered the little courage forming within. He slowly and silently shifted to peer around the edge of the sheltering rock.

The timer pulsed once again: 00:04:59.

At that same moment, the Corrupted Canis struck, not at where he was, but at where he was going to be.

Its claw, wreathed in that eerie blue energy, sheared through the top third of the stone slab in a spray of granite shards.

The force of the blow vaporized his cover.

Leon recoiled and fell back onto the jagged ground. The dust got blown away by the creature’s power.

There, Leon became fully exposed, seated in the center of the alley. The towering obsidian wolf loomed over him, its blue eyes burning intensely.

Crawling his way on the ground, Leon’s palm brushed against something metallic. A sudden, desperate anchor struck in him.

He didn’t think; he just tightened his grip on whatever it was.

As the Corrupted Canis lowered its head, jaws stretching wide to engulf him, Leon drove the rod upward with all the force his screaming muscles could muster.

The sharpened end punched into the soft tissue under the creature’s jaw.

Thunk!

A sickening, wet thunk vibrated in Leon’s arms.

The creature’s blue eyes flared with shock as it recoiled with a strangled, gurgling roar, wrenching the rod from Leon’s hands.

Black and steaming ichor spurted from the wound as the creature stumbled back, its powerful legs tangling sideways.

Its long, metallic tail lashed out in an uncontrolled arc and screeched across the ground. It sheared through the rubble with a sound that echoed like tearing metal.

The pale-hare proctor’s words surfaced in Leon’s mind: Your performance will be graded on threat elimination, damage mitigation, and environmental adaptation.

Leon pushed himself up from the ground as he gasped heavily for air.

His left side, where the creature’s tail had grazed him, burned, giving his virtual nerves the feel of a line of fire searing through him.

He scrambled for the rod, wrapped his fingers around the wet metal just as the wounded Canis amended itself.

It moved in a jerky and uncoordinated manner, but its rage remained like an intense force. It charged again.

Leon didn’t run. He planted his feet, letting the rough asphalt grate under his boots. He raised the rod like a spear while his arms trembled with a terrible, focused strain.

As the creature lunged, Leon didn’t aim for the head; he dropped low and thrust the rod forward with a precise desperation, aiming for the weak spot of its front leg.

Crunch.

The creature’s legs buckled as the rod came into contact with it, causing it to crash to the ground.

The momentum it carried moved it past Leon in a tumbling heap of snarling fury and splattering ichor.

It tried to rise, but the injured leg didn’t allow it.

Leon didn’t wait for it to amend itself the second time. He advanced, raising the rod, which now seemed heavier in his hands, over his head.

The creature thrashed its left limb. Its blue eyes locked on Leon’s with a hatred that felt chillingly good.

The timer in Leon’s vision pulsed: 00:01:15.

He couldn’t outlast it. He had to end it completely.

With a raw shout from his throat, Leon raised the rod high and pointed it downward. He drove it down with all his weight, adding the force of his fall behind the blow to it.

The sharpened edge of the rod pierced through the creature’s neck where the armored plates met.

A final, shuddering breath hissed from its jaw as it stiffened. The fierce blue light in its eyes flickered, dimmed, and went out.

Leon stood over it, panting so hard his vision spotted. He unwrapped his fingers from the rod, which had been buried deep, yet the stinging and slick gore dressed his palms.

Only Leon’s ragged breathing and the distant, eerie moan of the wind tore through the ruined building.

00:00:30.

A few minutes later, a new sound cut through the ruling silence. A deep, resonant roar seemed to vibrate up from the very foundation of the ruined land.

This didn’t have the shriek of the Canis. This was lower, older, and heavier with a predatory weight that made the air itself feel thicker.

Leon’s head snapped up as he searched the dust-choked sky. “Isn’t the time over yet?” he cried out.

The timer flashed insistently in the center of his vision: 00:00:15.

Then, from the mouth of the alley he’d entered, the collapsed windows above, and the side passages he hadn’t seen, shapes emerged.

More Corrupted Canis. It wasn’t one or two, but five, six. Their blue eyes ignited in the gloom like a constellation of malevolent stars fixed solely on him.

Their low, collective growl came like a promise of evisceration as they fanned out, blocking any escape.

Leon’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.

00:00:09.

He swallowed hard and stumbled back until his shoulders hit the cold, unyielding wall of a building. Trapped.

His eyes darted around but found no shelter, only the advancing pack.

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