[You have achieved Level 2: 1 Chaos Point gained]
[Chaos Meter: 0/120]
This was the first message of good news he got from when he killed his twentieth Burning Husk. The Chaos Meter seemed to increase by 20 every time he got a new level, though he doubted that it would be so easy to gain levels. His first thought was to put it into the stat that was ready to allow him to be faster even while Shackled. Cyrus put his newly acquired point into DEX to bring it up to 4. Now he was better with his handgun and short blade. For when he killed another Husk it seemed to go down much quicker. He had discovered that unless he hit in a critical spot, the Husks would continue to move. As evident with one's head being ripped off but not damaged. The body will still move and attack while the head slowly dies.
Sometimes he can't get a clean hit even on a husk cause they usually came in groups. Relying on his quick movements to dodge their grasping hands and nasty teeth he managed to kill enough and level up. When it happened the shackle burned and his arm felt like it was on fire again. But it the pain was short lived as it went away as quick as it came. He continued to hunt the remaining husks as he went to the top of the building. For he remembered why he was here. He had to escape and it was approaching that first hour. His HP wouldn't regenerate until the first hour had passed. As he climbed higher of the building, the shackle started to pulse. Letting him know that the exit was close by.
His first initial thought was that of the top floor. So he climbed from floor to floor, killing some Husks along the way. Devouring as he went, which he also found has a specific range to use the Devour skill. He had to guess it was within 5m to use properly. So he had to be close to the bodies most of the time. When he got closer to the top floor the pulsing from his shackle felt like a heartbeat with how powerful the thumps were. He could feel it all through his arm and chest. That was until he reached the top floor.
Pushing the door that opened to the roof, he looked about and saw mostly crumbled rooftop. Except for a spot near the center of the building where a nest seemed to have been built. The pulsing seemed to resort to a low hum as he was close to the exit crystal. As he closed the door and moved some rubble to block the Husks from following he slowly drew his pistol and short blade out. Moving close to the nest he saw that inside were glowing orbs of what seemed to be eggs with a wooden like texture. But from in between them all was a pulsing blue crystal. He had found the exit crystal and was still within the time limit to get the bonus.
Right as he was about to reach it, some came crashing towards him and knocked him away from the nest. Rolling and attempting to recover from the hit Cyrus took. Eventually he had rolled off the side of a crumbled section of the roof. Barely managing to catch himself by holding onto a bar sticking out, he sheathed his short blade and then his side arm to then climb back up. Looking for what had attacked him he managed to spot something flying around the building. He couldn't get a good look at it, but for some reason it had knocked him away from the nest.
Standing tall and redrawing his weapons, he moved forward, keeping an eye on the thing that moved. Noticing it in the thick red and brown clouds that seemed to be covering the whole city he saw it dive bombing him again. This time before it had made contact with the building, it spread its wings and roared. In front of Cyrus was a winged creature that was similar to what would be known as a dragon.
[Detected Withered Husk: Dragon; Type: Beta]
[Kill and devour for a reward]
Cyrus had no issues wanting to kill the creature for getting in his way. But now there was more incentive, with only 5 minutes left to go before the first hour had ticked over he only needed to kill it and collect the crystal. But the problem was he was low on ammunition. He used his pistol more than he would have liked coming up from the lower floors. For he had to kill a whole hoard of the husks, but he didn't want to get surrounded. But now, he had one and a half mags left. This excluded the explosive rounds, for he had a total of 8 shots left in that mag.
It was now or never, with the clock ticking he didn't want to waste time. As the Withered Dragon roared again, it then swelled its chest. A orange liquid formed inside it and it let out a belching sound as it lobbed a ball of orange goo towards him. He dodged out of the way and saw the floor begin to melt away before hardening. He fired a few rounds into the creature's wings to possibly bring it down, but the wings seemed to absorb the impact.
Cyrus cursed at the creature and dodged another lob of goo. He did not want to get touched by that sludge or he would be most likely melted in a matter of moments. So he looked up at the creature again. This time he decided to activate his Enhance and focus on using his perception of time and speed. Something his mentor taught him was to focus on the brain's perception of time allowing one to analyze a situation a little more clearly. This allowed Cyrus to bring down the Aberrant so he thought he could use it again to bring this creature down.
[Enhance (Focus): Increasing a certain part of the body will increase the drain of CEP by double. However, this still gives the rest of the body the "Enhance" feature.]
Without realizing it, the technique was adapted by the system, but increased the normal consumption of CEP to 4 points instead of 2. Which meant for every minute he used this he would lose points faster. So he didn't want to lose on the chance to use this opportunity. He saw the sack in its chest begin to swell. Nothing else on the creature's body was vulnerable. Except as it was swelling its chest.
For the creature had spots on its body that allowed the goo to swell like a balloon, but stretch the skin out to reveal parts of it that are exposed. Switching to the explosive rounds, he needed the best option to make the sack explode. So using the slowed perception of time he raised the gun and aimed for the spot that was most exposed. He couldn't target anywhere else, if he missed it would probably fly away and he would waste more time. The dragon had its chest nearly full of the goo as he had pulled the trigger. Cyrus saw the flash of the gun, the sound was even slowed as he watched the bullet fly towards the holes in its chest.
The small bullet flew and as the sack was completely full of the bullet was at the chest and membrane of the sack within its chest. Just before it went to expunge the goo, the bullet pierced through the membrane and hit whatever was inside the dragon's chest. As the moment of time had been slowed, he could watch as the chest had exploded outwards. Exposing everything underneath. Even in slow motion, it was an odd sight. For there was no heart, just the exposed crystal and its orange soft flesh surrounding it.
Cyrus rushed forward as the creature was falling to the roof. His movements were doubled at the right moment to allow him to get close enough to the creature as it hit the ground. But as he pulled up his blade to strike at the orange flesh, the Enhanced effect had worn out. He was still in the air as the dragon's tail slapped Cyrus in the chest away from it. He felt his body give way to the impact but as he rolled to recover from the impact he noticed no broken ribs or bones. Just the damage he felt from the strike had knocked his HP down.
[HP: 3/10]
That single hit took out 6 points of his HP and he could feel his body ache from the impact. But he stood and readied himself for it to approach. When the creature's chest exploded, it erupted into a shrapnel blast that tore through its wings. With the dragon no longer able to fly, it was only stuck to ground attacks. Cyrus needed only another good hit to its body for he could see that explosion did the trick in heavily wounding it. He needed just one solid hit before he could end the beast.
He looked at his time and saw he had just another 2 minutes before the timer clicked over. He wasn't about to stop now, so he rushed in and prepared to use another Enhance. Just as it had done before, it swung its tail out like a whip, but Cyrus was prepared for it and time seemed to slow again for another minute. He saw the whip close to his face and he side stepped it. Using his rotation to then flip into an unorthodox attack to flip over the dragon. Its tail still in motion as he was now behind it. The dragon was slowly turning around, attempting to bring itself up to protect its underbelly.
But Cyrus didn't need much space to sneak his blade in, but he wanted to make sure it reeled back for him to kill it. As he pulled out his sidearm, another two explosive bullets came flying out. One hitting the floor in front of the dragon, causing it to lift its chest to get it away from the explosion, then the second to hit the creature in the face to disorient it. The dragon was now on its hindlegs and reeling from the explosions.
With a quick motion of his short blade he had moved in front of it and stabbed into its chest. With a quick release of the charged blade, he saw the lightning course through the dragon's body and cause it to twitch and writhe in pain. As he saw this, fired another few explosive rounds into the creature's chest protecting the crystal. This allowed Cyrus to have full access to it when he was that close.
Letting go of the short blade, he reached out and touched the crystal. Just as he did that, he got the notification he was looking for.
[Do you want to Devour?]
He screamed, "Yes, devour this creature!" As it done once before, his arm caught fire in purple flames his hand shot out chains with bound the crystal in the creature's chest and bound it to the roof. It squirmed and shook attempting to get the chains off. But whatever it was trying was failing, until a sharp spike pierced the crystal and drew it into Cyrus' hand. The Withered Dragon collapsed, shaking the roof and cracking it.
[You have defeated a Withered Husk: Dragon]
[Chaos Meter: 75/120]
[Reward collected after Penalty Zone is completed]
Pulling out the sword from its chest, he quickly went over to the nest and grabbed the exit crystal. He also touched one of the eggs with his right hand and another notification popped up.
[Would you like to claim a Withered Dragon Egg?]
[Intelligence too low to summon it, but can be claimed]
[Summons: 1/2]
He saw that he already had a summon, but he thought that was impossible. The system didn't reveal that to him before, but why now. He decided it would be an interesting thing to keep so he selected [Yes]. As he did, the egg became a small sphere of light and went into his shackle, becoming a spherical gem on it. He didn't notice it before, but there was another gem on the shackle. Then the system asked if he wanted to devour the other two eggs.
[Use Devour to transfer Chaos Energy into Withered Dragon Egg?]
He selected use for he had already gain the reward for killing it. He watched as the chains broke the eggs and took the Chaos Energy from them and fed the egg the energy. Now it was just to leave the Penalty Zone. Cyrus pulled out the exit crystal and was about to use it before the floor cracked from underneath him. He fell through the nest as the whole roof had caved in. Falling he realized that there was only a few seconds left. He looked up and saw the crystal below him, he extended out his right arm and reached for it.
5...
4...
He almost had it, "Just a little further!" he cried out.
3...
2...
The lower broken floors with rebar and large chunks of building were fast approaching. With the last second about to come, he managed to snag it with his right hand shouted the only thing that popped into his mind when he held it.
1...
"RETURN!!!" Just before his head touched the rebar, it all vanished and instead of crashing into broken pieces of building. He returned from the Penalty Zone and crashed to the floor of the hospital. His body appeared in a cloud of ash, covering the floor in grey powder. He rolled over and watched as the exit crystal disintegrated from his hand. The crystal was gone and he slumped on the ground.
In front of him he saw the message appear:
[Congratulations for finding the crystal before the first hour was up]
[Rewards: 3 Chaos Points, a loot chest, and one Skill crystal.]
[Rewards for killing a Withered Dragon: Sword of the Withered Dragon]
[Adds +3 to Intelligence and Strength stat, Deals Fire Damage when striking foes and increases the swords length by 1m when using its skill: Flame Blade]
Cyrus looked up at the rewards and just smiled. He heard the door open as a nurse walked in and called for a doctor to help her with Cyrus who had just passed out on the floor. He luckily didn't go into Unshackled mode he had gained one HP for getting to the hour.