“Gotcha, bitch!” Bianca crowed as another barcode baby exploded in a shower of confetti near Central Park. Her tentacles whirled—scanner in one, the other gesturing like she was some hotshot gunslinger fresh off a spaghetti western binge.
You have new followers!
You got cash!
Hiro kept his pace steady, eyes scanning the ruined streets as they closed in on the next Revenant’s purple beacon. The city had shifted even more than he’d anticipated in the Second Interim. The streets remained cracked, the buildings still stood as battered husks, but the Doom System had rearranged the monsters, and the ever-present advertisements now bathed the city in an eerie, artificial glow, pulsing in ways they never had before.
Times Square was something he still wanted to visit, but with under fifteen hundred Soul Cash to his name, he needed more before making the trip. Still, it had been worth scoping out from a rooftop.
Aside from the bodyguard advertisements, there were huge Blade Runner-esque ads for body modifications, companionship, and stat boosts. Yes, a Survivor could now buy permanent stat boosts, which had apparently driven Survivors into a frenzy to kill anything they could.
Hiro had felt this on their way toward Central Park—the sheer lack of monsters compared to the First Interim. This was why he immediately took notice when he landed in the street and Hachi’s ears perked up, a low growl rumbling in his throat.
Hiro’s grip tightened on his katana. “What is it, boy?”
A blur of black and orange shot out from a ruined storefront.
The horned tiger skidded onto the pavement just feet ahead, its striped body coiling like a spring, muscles tensed beneath bristling fur. Its tail tensed, the barbed tip oozing a glistening green venom that smoked where it dripped onto the concrete.
Bianca zipped backward. “Oh hell no. That thing looks rabid A-F.”
The first time Hiro had faced one of these, he’d barely survived, but he was different now. Stronger. He knew the way it moved, how it hunted, how it killed. And more than that, he had a hunch. The {Stan} skill—something he had barely experimented with.
Will it work on something like this?
Hachi braced to attack, growling deep in his chest. Bianca slithered off Hiro’s back while his bear claw morphed over his hand.
Stop, Hiro thought to the monster, calm as ever.
The horned tiger froze. Its tail flicked once, then stilled. Its muscles remained bunched with tension, ready to spring—but it didn’t.
The air between them crackled with something unseen, something barely understood as Hiro took a step forward, Hachi continuing to bark his head off.
“It’s okay,” Hiro told the demonic pooch. He narrowed his focus onto the horned tiger. “Follow.”
The tiger obeyed, its massive shoulders rolling with fluid grace as it padded forward. Each step was silent, deliberate. Its tail flicked, the toxic barb at the tip twitching in anticipation. The sleek black stripes along its orange coat rippled with every controlled motion, a predator now bound by Hiro’s will. Even restrained, there was an eerie elegance in the way the horned tiger moved, a lethal grace that made it clear—this was no normal beast. It was power, pure and primal, barely contained.
Bianca’s tentacles wavered, her eyes flicking between Hiro and the now-still predator. “Okay, that’s new. Did you just, like… tame it?”
Hiro kept his gaze locked on the beast. “Not tame. Control. A skill I haven’t really played with yet called {Stan}.” He issued another command to the monster. “Go ahead and clear our path.”
The tiger snarled and bounded forward toward Central Park, vanishing into the cityscape. Hachi hesitated, then followed at a cautious distance.
Once the two were gone, Bianca twisted back toward Hiro and took her place on his non-bear arm. “You know you just sent a murder machine ahead of us with no leash, right?”
“It’s just there to protect.”
“What if it runs into another Survivor?”
“Any Survivor should be able to kill something like that by now.”
Bianca curled away slightly at his sharp tone. “I mean, I guess…”
The prompt came a few moments later as they neared what was once a Sephora.
You have new followers!
You got cash!
Hiro exhaled as the notification faded. “See? Looks like it’s already working.”
###
They continued on until they reached a cluster of buildings near Central Park, where Hachi rejoined them, the demonic Shibu Inu trotting up with his tail wagging.
This part of the city had once been a playground for the elite, packed with tourists and the ultra-rich, shopping for things no normal person could afford. Now, the streets were littered with scattered debris and glass, the abandoned storefronts huddled around Pulitzer Fountain like emaciated ghosts of their former selves. Yet the towering buildings of Billionaire’s Row still loomed above, untouched—either too difficult to loot or too dangerous to climb.
Only a few familiar names remained, their signs weathered and barely clinging to relevance. Hiro spotted the faded Bergdorf Goodman lettering, and across the street from it, the frame of what had once been an Apple Store.
Bianca swooned on his arm. “I used to love shopping at the Berg. Got a pair of Miu Miu shoes here once for, like, eight hundred bucks.”
Hiro swept a glance over the wreckage—designer mannequins lying in pieces, their limbs buried in dust and graffiti, display windows shattered and gutted. He arched a brow at her. “Did you just say eight hundred dollars for a pair of shoes?”
“A deal, right? It’s the Prada owner lady’s brand. The shoes were normally, like, a thousand or something.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Hiro exhaled and shook his head, turning his attention toward the park. The horned tiger had vanished, leaving behind an unsettling silence. “Let’s hold here for a moment,” he said, ignoring the hunger pangs. I’ll eat when Mishka wakes up.
He pressed his back to a wall, scanning the area, making sure nothing was creeping up on them. The quiet felt wrong to the point he did something he had done numerous times before, back when there was cell service. Hiro got his phone out. “Call Ben.”
There was no ring, only the sound of Ben’s voice a few moments later coming from his phone speak: “Hiro, I was wonderin’ when you’d hit me up. All good?”
“Good enough.”
“Where are you?”
“Central Park.”
“Not far from me, then. I’m in the Upper East Side myself, trying to find somethin’ to hunt. There’s less than I thought there would be over here.”
“I noticed.”
“But there are still Sentries. I spotted one not too far away, had that glow that told me I wasn’t at the right level to take it on. I also came across one of them Doom System challenges, whatever the hell they’re called. But this one seemed different. I decided against it. Anyway, I’m guessing we should meet up?”
“Soon, yes. The Doom System has given me four Revenants to kill. I took care of one. I’m going to take care of the next one now.”
“Four to kill?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ll bet. And the next one is in Central Park?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m guessing it might punish both of us if we link up to tag team the sonofabitch.”
“Probably.”
“In that case, hit me up when you’re done. I’ll be in the area. And if it gets real serious, don’t hesitate.”
“I won’t, and same. Talk later.” Hiro put his phone away.
“He really does sound like a cowboy,” Bianca said, “but I thought they were only in Texas.”
“We had them in Missouri too.”
“Really?”
“Really. Give me a moment.”
###
Hiro took the spell of eerie quiet that followed to regroup, his mind circling back to the Doom System’s last cryptic message.
SΩU? ￠A$H.
Something about the way the Doom System had spelled gnawed at him. The Omega first, then the Alpha? It was backward. Why? Was it a clue? A joke? A warning?
Hiro stopped himself before he could spiral further. Not now. He couldn’t afford another bout of {Terminal Lucidity}, not here, not in the open.
Bianca drifted away, her tentacles trailing as she passed a shattered display window, peering into its long-abandoned contents. She sighed dramatically. “Ugh, I miss shopping. We could both use some retail therapy.”
Hiro didn’t answer. His mind was still tangled in the Doom System’s cryptic bullshit when Hachi’s bark cut through his thoughts like a gunshot.
Something was moving toward them.
A malformed shape stalked the street, its steps slow but deliberate. It vaulted onto an overturned pedicab, the metal groaning under its weight. Its fur, patchy and matted with filth, bristled along its bony frame. Bone-white antlers jutted out of its back, hooked and splintered.
Hiro knew this monster.
He had fought the wolven creature with antlers on its back alongside Juan and his brother, Marcello, in the First Interim. Both gone. Their sister too. A memory surfaced—Juan, defiant, challenging the Doom System after it had forced a survey. Why hadn’t it done the same to me back in the fallout shelter? he wondered briefly. Why hadn’t it simply finished me off? Is it to torment me further?
Ahead, the wolf-thing’s lips peeled back, revealing jagged yellow teeth. It lowered its head, muscles bunching.
Hiro didn’t wait.
Katana flashing, instincts overrode the grief clawing at the edges of his thoughts as he triggered {Blade Whirlwind}.
Klank!
Steel sang as he carved into the creature, its flesh parting in streaks of red.
Hachi lunged into the fray, his fangs snapping at the beast’s throat. Bianca struck from the side, her tentacles wrapping around its gnarled antlers and yanking—hard. The monster’s balance broke. It slammed onto its side with a guttural snarl, leaving its throat exposed. Hachi took the opening and went for its jugular, killing it.
You have new followers!
You got cash!
“Good,” Hiro said as they regrouped. “That’s more like it.”
“Not trying to humblebrag over here, but the thing was pretty easy to kill.” Bianca flexed her tentacles. “Now that I think of it, I think I ran into one before, back before I went to the catacombs.”
“I did as well, near the river,” he told her as he sent his blade away. “Let’s keep moving.”
It was strange walking the stretch of sidewalk along Central Park, a place that had once been pristine. Hiro had passed through here countless times before, back when the city was still the city—alive, thrumming, chaotic but whole. Now, the trees were twisted, their limbs reaching in unnatural directions. Cracks split the pavement, weeds breaking through like nature itself was trying to reclaim what had been lost. The air smelled different, too—stale, tinged with decay, the scent of something long abandoned yet never truly gone.
They reached one of the park’s entrances, and Hiro came to an abrupt stop.
A figure stood in the open, waiting, about a hundred feet away. The skull icon hovered over his head, but beneath it, a second marker. A dollar sign grayed out that indicated something to Hiro:
He’s been paid.
This was followed by a third sign, the Hunter’s value.
“He’s worth three thousand,” Hiro told Bianca, his eyes bulging with intensity.
“Yoooo, that’s enough for some Miu Mius,” she said.
The Hunter was massive—easily nine feet of solid, muscled mass, his dark green skin thick, rough like weathered leather. Tusks jutted from his lower jaw, curling upward like wickedly curved daggers. But what set him apart, what made Hiro’s grip tighten around his katana, was strange appendage sprouting from his shoulder. A tail. Segmented like that of a scorpion, it coiled and flicked, the movement disturbingly independent from the rest of his body. Its spiked barb glistened and likely venomous.
Description: Breaking news—the UK’s Courtauld Institute of Art has used infrared and X-ray imaging to uncover a hidden portrait beneath a famous Pablo Picasso painting. You’ll never guess who he was sketching in his free time!
Upon being suspended from Alaska’s Juneau-Douglas High School for holding up a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” after a leftist anti-school-shooting rally, Picasso suddenly had more free time than ever, and trust me, he did not use it wisely.
While waiting for the court to decide whether his banner was protected under his First Amendment rights, Picasso entered his famous Blue Period—which art snobs now use to prove he was a master and not just some dude doodling like a toddler for clout.
But I know the truth.
After the sluttiest court in the land rejected Picasso’s lawsuit, stripping him of his First Amendment Rights and deporting him back to Europe or wherever-the-hell he came from, Picasso became insufferable. Seriously. Ask anyone.
His partner, Fran?oise Gilot, described Picasso as someone who expected absolute devotion while offering nothing in return. His first wife, Olga Khokhlova—yes, that’s her real last name—separated from him in 1927, yet remained trapped in legal limbo because Picasso refused to divide his assets, forcing her to stay married-but-separated until her death in 1955. His granddaughter talked about the inescapable stranglehold of his genius.
Are you seeing a pattern? The Brogre sure is.
Maybe you were expecting a standard ogre—a lumbering idiot high off bath salts, keg stands, protein powder, and reeking of Axe body spray. Instead, you’ve got the worst-case scenario.
The bro-gre is mean. He is stupid. He is confused. The brogre doesn’t even know why he’s here, and that should scare you more than anything.
And you know what? It’s your fault.
Have you ever noticed how some people get angrier the more confused they are? Yeah. That’s him. And right now, you’re his remedial algebra homework. Good luck, nerd.
My fault? Hiro thought as his phone buzzed. He hastily checked it to find message from his companion:
“The horned tiger,” he muttered, the realization slamming into him.
A deep, guttural roar cut through the air. Hiro barely had time to look up before a red dome spread over the two of them. The Brogre lunged for Hiro, the pavement cratering beneath its massive feet.