Something was not right.I knew it from the first heartbeat that passed without the familiar chime of my interface, yet the certainty only sharpened as the seconds trickled by. The pavement beneath my boots trembled with each winged corpse I cast aside, each one lighter than it should have been, each one making that strange wet crackle as if its bones were honeycombed with air. I carved through another of the buzzing horrors, felt cartilage and tendon give way, heard the brittle crunch that always made my pulse surge in guilty satisfaction, and then I paused. No green text scrolled across my retina, no digital fanfare, no celebratory sparkle of fresh Action Points. The silence in my brain‐space hit harder than any claw ever could. I flicked an irritated glance at the floating system window. It quivered, lights blinking in what looked like an apologetic shrug.Long-Run Mode (1):* -1 AP / Second ** +8 Endurance / Second *STATUS: No API’d burned through what little AP I’d saved up to activate Shimmer and the rest to bolster my endurance, this was going to be a long endeavour. The goal had been to use the scattered monsters to shore-up my stats before the bigger wave reached us, yet I’d not earned a single shred of AP from any of the flying monsters I’d killed so far.It wasn’t lost on me that they all looked the same, yet I did not recognize them from any of the monster encyclopedia entries I’d studied at the academy. Was this a new kind of low-class monster? I vaguely remembered Dr. Moreau mentioned how the number of variants and strength of monsters had been growing over the years, maybe it had some weird ability-denial skill?It still didn’t sit well with me, something felt off.Also…BANGThe sound hurt a lot more than the .22 bullet that bounced off of my shoulder-plate. Ears ringing, I turned and found the source: a little boy, oil-stained face pale as the Falcaro-logo, (...)