Chapter 5: The First Feast

Serena’s POV

The neon dashboard lights of Jackson’s tactical van cast a low crimson glow over our faces as we tore through the rain-slicked city streets at ninety miles an hour.

Maya sat huddled in the back seat, wrapped in a heavy emergency blanket, her knuckles white as she gripped the leather upholstery. Jackson navigated through traffic with cold, mechanical efficiency, one hand on the steering wheel, his dark eyes shifting between the rearview mirror and the digital scanner mounted to the center console.

"We're four minutes away from the industrial park," Jackson growled, shifting gears as the engine roared. "If whoever sent that text has a team inside your storage unit right now, they're going to burn your gear or load it into a transport. You sure you don't want me calling in a heavy team?"

I sat in the passenger seat, quietly cleaning the blood off the combat knife I had looted from the operative at the apartment. My expression was unreadable.

Then, a faint, dark smile touched my lips. "Let them search," I said softly.

Jackson flicked a glance at me, his brow furrowing. "What?"

"I knew my online order receipts under that fake alias could be traced if someone with high-level clearance tapped the network," I said, my voice sharp and calm. "That storage unit in the industrial park? It's a decoy."

Maya leaned forward from the back seat, her voice trembling slightly. "A decoy? Serena, you spent forty five thousand dollars—"

"I spent eight thousand on that unit," I corrected, turning to look at her. "I filled it with cheap industrial surplus,empty military crates, and three dozen pressurized propane tanks rigged with remote ignition triggers. My actual supplies—the composite armor, water purifiers, medical grade kits, and freeze dried rations were redirected to an abandoned subterranean rail bunker beneath the old Westside distillery yesterday morning."

Jackson stared at me for two solid seconds before letting out a harsh, booming laugh. "Jesus Christ, kid. You didn't just plan a retreat, you built a kill box."

"The hit squad at the apartment was meant to draw my attention while their primary strike element raided my base," I continued, testing the razor edge of the blade with my thumb. "They think they've backed me into a corner. They think I'm running scared. They have no idea I'm coming to flush them out."

Jackson pulled the van into an unlit alleyway across from the industrial storage facility, cutting the headlights and rolling to a silent stop behind a row of rusted shipping containers.

Rain lashed against the windshield. Through the downpour, the security gate to unit 104 had been forced open, its heavy metal lock sheared in half by high-grade hydraulic cutters. A matte-black SUV with blacked-out windows sat idling near the entrance.

"Two guards outside holding silenced carbines," Jackson observed, unbuckling his harness and reaching into the back to grab a suppressed bolt action rifle. "One inside the unit sweeping the crates. Professional posture,military spacing. These aren't street thugs, Serena. They're private military contractors."

"The man inside isn't just a contractor," I said, my eyes narrowing as my Devouring trait pulsed beneath my skin, sensing a strange, unnatural energy radiating from within the dark unit. "He's modified."

Jackson paused, his hand on the door handle. "Modified?"

"Someone supplied him with a pre-System evolutionary core," I whispered, feeling the faint, rhythmic vibration of rift energy emanating from the doorway. "He's already absorbing abnormal strength before the rifts open.Keep the two guards outside suppressed from the roof, Jackson. The one inside belongs to me."

"Don't get yourself killed, kid," Jackson said, his tone dead serious. "I'm not picking up your pieces."

"Just cover my back."

I slipped out of the van, staying low in the shadows of the downpour.

The cold rain soaked through my black tank top, but I didn't feel it. The stat boosts from my previous training update—+1 Stamina, +1 Agility—made my movements fluid, silent, and effortless. I moved like a ghost between the steel shipping containers, closing the distance to unit 104.

THWIP. THWIP.

Two muffled cracks echoed through the rain above. Across the yard, both guards outside the SUV stiffened,bullet holes appearing precisely through their ballistic visors. They collapsed silently into the mud before their bodies even hit the ground.

Nice shot, Jackson.

I didn't waste a second. I breached the narrow side door of unit 104, stepping quietly into the dark, cavernous space.

The air inside smelled of dust, machine oil, and a sharp, metallic tang like ozone and copper. In the center of the room, surrounded by stacked wooden crates, stood a massive man over six-foot-six inches tall. He wasn't wearing standard tactical gear, his shirt was torn open, revealing graying, hyper-dense skin that looked almost like polished stone, crisscrossed with glowing violet veins.

He had an empty glass vial crushed in his fist. He had just consumed a raw, unrefined Tier-0 Evolutionary Core.

The giant turned slowly, his glowing purple eyes locking onto mine in the dim light. A deep, guttural chuckle rumbled in his chest.

"Serena Blake," the giant growled, his voice sounding like grinding tectonic plates. "The boss said you'd be fast... but he didn't say you'd walk straight into your own grave."

"Who gave you that core?" I asked, taking a slow step forward, my fingers tightening around the grip of my combat knife.

"Someone who operates above the law," the giant sneered. He took a heavy step toward me, the concrete floor cracking beneath his bare feet. "Someone who knows that in thirty days, trash like you will be nothing more than livestock for the strong!"

He lunged.

Despite his massive size, the rift core had granted him terrifying, explosive speed. He surged across the twenty-foot gap in a fraction of a second, his stone-hard fist whistling through the air straight toward my chest.

I reacted instantly. My boosted agility flared, my temporal combat instincts kicking in. I dropped beneath his swing, the air pressure from his blow fanning my hair, and slashed my blade hard across his exposed ribs.

SPARK!

The steel knife struck his gray skin, spraying bright sparks as if I had hit solid granite. The blade skittered off without leaving a single scratch.

"Hah! Human metal can't pierce stone skin!" the giant roared, spinning on his heel and driving a brutal backhand into my shoulder.

The sheer physical force hit me like a runaway train. I was launched backward, crashing through a stack of wooden pallets before slamming hard against the concrete wall. Pain exploded through my left side, stealing the oxygen from my lungs.

[WARNING: PHYSICAL INTEGRITY AT 78%]

[HEAVY IMPACT DETECTED]

I coughed up a speck of blood, dragging myself out of the splintered wood. The giant grinned, stomping toward me with agonizing slowness, confident in his invulnerability.

"Pathetic," he spat. "You're nothing without a weapon that can bite."

"I am the weapon," I whispered.

I didn't reach for another blade. Instead, I activated the raw power of my exclusive trait. Deep within my chest,a dark, hungry crimson flame ignited, flooding my veins with predatory heat.

The giant raised both fists overhead, intending to crush my skull into the floorboards. "Die!"

As his hands came crashing down, I didn't duck away. I stepped into his guard, driving my left palm straight against the center of his chest, right over his glowing violet veins.

The giant scoffed. "You think a weak hand can stop—"

He froze.

The glowing violet veins under his skin violently reversed direction. The ancient runes of the Regression System flared to life across my skin, turning my forearm into a vacuum of crimson light.

DEVOURING (RANK EX)—ACTIVATED.

"What... what are you doing?!" the giant screamed, his voice suddenly laced with pure, unadulterated terror.He tried to pull back, but his body was locked in place, held by an invisible gravitational pull. "Stop! My energy—my power—!"

"You consumed an unrefined core," I said, my grey eyes burning with harsh crimson light as I looked up into his trembling face. "You didn't integrate it. You just stored it. And now... it belongs to me."

The violet light beneath his skin was violently ripped from his body, surging through my palm and into my bloodstream like liquid fire. His stone-hard skin cracked, graying ash flaking away as his muscle mass shrank back to normal human proportions in seconds.

The giant collapsed to his knees, gasping, withered, and completely drained, before falling face-first onto the concrete, dead.

A series of blinding crimson system windows expanded before my eyes, flooding my vision with notification after notification:

[TARGET ELIMINATED: PRE-SYSTEM MODIFIED OPERATIVE]

[EXCLUSIVE TRAIT "DEVOURING (RANK EX)" ACTIVATED]

[DEVOURING TARGET...]

[SUCCESSFUL ABSORPTION!]

[STATS ACQUIRED: +3 STRENGTH, +2 ENDURANCE]

[TRAIT EXTRACTED: STONE-HIDE DENSITY (RANK D)]

Effect: Temporarily hardens user's skin and bone structure by 30% against physical impacts.

[REGRESSION QUEST UPDATE: "PREPARE FOR THE END"]

Task: Reach Physical Fitness Level 1 — STATUS: COMPLETE (100%)

REWARDS UNLOCKED: Starter Skill Scroll [Shadow Strike] & Hidden Class Compatibility Ticket!

A wave of overwhelming power surged through my bones. My bruised shoulder healed instantly, the muscle fibers reweaving themselves denser, stronger, and far more resilient than before. My skin shimmered with a faint, obsidian sheen before returning to normal.

I took a deep, exhilarated breath. The sensation was intoxicating.

I was growing stronger.

I knelt beside the operative's body and reached into his tactical vest, pulling out a heavy, satellite encrypted military smartphone. The screen was still active.

An encrypted voice line was connected on speaker.

A smooth, refined, and chillingly familiar male voice spoke from the phone's speaker, echoing through the empty, shadowy storage unit:

"Report, Agent. Is Serena Blake dead? Have you secured the storage unit?"

My blood turned to ice.

I knew that voice. It wasn't Jonas Cole. It wasn't some random government official.

It was Leo McLauren—the ruthless, legendary leader of the Sovereign Guild who had ruled the Eastern Wastelands in my past life with an iron fist, responsible for the deaths of thousands. In this timeline, he already possessed Level-5 defense clearance... and he was actively hunting regressors.

I picked up the phone, pressed it to my ear, and let out a low, cold breath.

"You sent the wrong man, Leo," I said into the receiver, my voice steady as steel.

There was a long, suffocating pause on the line. Then, Leo let out a soft, amused chuckle that sent a shiver down my spine.

"Ah... Serena. So you really did come back too."

My eyes widened in sheer shock.

"Did you really think you were the only one who satisfied the System's death condition, little bird?" Leo whispered, his tone dripping with dark satisfaction. "See you at the Metro Drop on May 14th. Let's see who devours whom."

The line went dead.

Outside, the rain thundered against the steel roof. I stood alone in the dark, holding the dead phone, as the crimson interface hovered above my hands.

The board was set. And the enemy already knew my face.