Chapter 176: Shard and Shadow
Fourteen of them. Blood-slicked and silent. I watched them gather through the jagged frame of the shattered station window, their eyes gleaming with fanaticism. I could feel it—there was no fear in them. No humanity, either.
Just programming.
They weren't alive in the way I was. They were tools. Designed, trained and optimized.
But the system had just done me a favor.
The pain dulled. My breathing calmed. Muscles realigned like they remembered what it was to win. The shard of glass in my hand was long—maybe twelve inches. Thick at the base, tapering to a clean, savage point. My fingers curled around it like it was an extension of my will.
"Alright," I said, cracking my neck, "round two."
I ran.
—
The first subject leapt down from the platform with the grace of a cat. I slid beneath their landing strike, swept behind them, and slashed at the back of their calf—clean, deep. They dropped to one knee. I kicked forward, jamming the flat of my boot into the side of their head. Out cold.
One down.
Another charged with both fists raised. That was dumb. I ducked under the swing, hooked their shirt up over their face in one motion, then pivoted and drove them backward—headfirst—into the station bench. The wooden back cracked. They slumped, unmoving.