Chapter Four: On the Tenth Floor
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The air was no longer just the only gas surrounding the place but had turned into a heavy substance saturated with the smell of death, ammonia, and cement dust...
The moment that abomination launched itself from complete stillness to a speed that surpassed human comprehension, it wasn't Kage Sora's mind that took control, but years of muscle memory ingrained in this body.
His muscle fibers contracted, and adrenaline flowed like fire through his veins.
He didn't try to block the attack. Attempting to stop something of that size and speed with mere kitchen knives was a guaranteed way to break his arms, and possibly his spine. Instead, he invoked the principles of "Aikido": don't meet force with force; flow with it.
Sora bent his torso sharply to the left, letting the black claws pass right by his right ear. The sound of the air being sliced was like a whip cracking hard. He felt the air pressure from the blow wash over his face.
CRACK!
The concrete floor shattered behind him where the monster's claws landed. Shards of tile and cement scattered like small shrapnel shells. Had Sora been a fraction of a second slower, he would now be shreds scattered across the corridor floor.
"Fast... too fast!" his mind screamed as he rolled onto his shoulder to absorb the momentum and stand up again five meters away.
The monster turned.
It did not move like a human, or even a typical mammal. Its movement was fluid, terrifying, resembling the movement of insects or reptiles but with immense muscle mass. Its open chest and bulging muscles lowered to touch the floor, and its white eyes stared into space, while its long ears twitched, searching for the slightest sound.
Sora immediately grasped the truth. It is blind. The white eyes weren't decorative; they were damaged.
But the way it aimed its head toward Sora's ragged breathing confirmed that its hearing was terrifyingly sharp.
The monster growled, a deep gurgling sound that shook the walls of the narrow corridor, and charged again.
This time, Sora was prepared.
"Inventory: Equip."
In his right and left hands, the heavy kitchen knives he had just collected appeared.
As the monster covered the distance in a single leap, Sora performed a circular motion with his body, using the narrow corridor to his advantage. He jumped, planting his foot on the side wall of the corridor, and pushed himself upward in a perfect parkour move, passing over the charging monster below him.
In mid-air, as he passed over the abomination's arched back, Sora unleashed his hand.
Whish! Whish!
The two knives shot out with speed and precision toward the monster's exposed neck.
But what happened next shocked Sora.
The metal struck the pale skin, and instead of sinking deep and slicing the neck, the blades slid off as if hitting a thick truck tire. The skin was rubbery, tough, and slippery. The knives caused long, superficial scratches that bled black blood, but they were not fatal. Not even close.
Sora landed with the lightness of a cat behind the monster, and didn't stop for a moment to assess the damage.
"His skin is like armor... and normal knives won't penetrate the dense muscles. As for the skull..."
The monster spun around with incredible speed for its size, its long tail whipping the air angrily. The minor scratches did nothing but fuel its rage. The scent of its black blood permeated the air, and the pain seemed to make it more ferocious.
"And now, let's run."
This was not a fight he could win with kitchen weapons and a tight space.
Sora ran toward the end of the corridor, where the "Emergency Exit" sign glowed with a faint green light.
He heard the sound of the monster's claws striking the floor and walls behind him.
Tick-tack-tick-tack. The rhythm was accelerating. The monster wasn't just running on the floor; the sound was coming from the walls too. It was crawling on the sides to bypass the debris and gain greater speed.
Sora reached the heavy door. He kicked it open hard and rushed into the wide, dark stairwell.
"Down!"
He leaped over the steps, skipping three or four steps in a single bound, his hand sliding on the metal railing for balance.
But the monster didn't need to use the stairs.
As Sora reached the ninth floor, he heard a terrifying sound from above.
He looked up and saw the nightmare.
It had jumped from the tenth-floor entrance directly into the void in the middle of the stairwell, clinging to the opposite wall with its claws, and began to descend vertically at near freefall speed, its claws digging into the concrete to slow its descent slightly.
It had cut off the path.
The monster was now standing on the wall between the ninth and eighth floors, blocking the way down.
Sora stopped, his chest heaving. The way down was blocked. The way up was suicide.
The monster growled, pinpointing its prey accurately. Its hind muscles tensed, preparing to leap from the wall directly toward Sora standing on the stairs.
"Damn you!"
Sora summoned three more knives from his inventory. In a desperate move to distract it, he threw them hard toward the monster's face.
One knife struck the monster's shoulder, and another deflected off its hard skull.
The monster flinched, waving its hand to strike the knives away, delaying its attack for a fraction of a second.
In that moment, Sora made a crazy decision.
Instead of trying to fight in this trap, Sora turned and ran toward the closed ninth-floor door. But he didn't open it. The wall next to it had a large ventilation window overlooking the exterior.
The monster leaped behind him.
The monster landed with its immense weight on the stairs where Sora had been standing a moment before. The force of the landing was devastating. The concrete part of the stairs collapsed under the abomination's weight and the force of its impact. Chunks of cement and twisted iron fell towards the lower floors.
Sora didn't look back. He leaped hard, pushing himself off the collapsing wall, and crashed his body through the glass of the ventilation window on the ninth floor.
The glass shattered!
For a moment, Sora was flying in the open air.
"How beautiful this is..."
The cold air lashed his face, the scarf moved like wings behind him, and the burning city stretched beneath him like a map of hell...
He was nine stories high. Falling meant certain death.
He didn't jump away from the building, but jumped alongside it.
"Alright, let's do this."
He twisted his body in the air, aiming his chest and limbs toward the rough exterior wall of the building.
"Hold on! Hold onto anything!"
His body slammed into the exterior wall with a force that knocked the air from his lungs. But he didn't bounce off.
He dug his fingers and the edges of his sneakers into the architectural protrusions and cracks of the facade.
But the momentum was too strong. Gravity was pulling him down mercilessly.
He started to slide.
"Aaaah!" he screamed from the pain as his fingers scraped against the rough concrete. His nails screamed, and the skin began to tear.
He saw the eighth-floor window flash past his eyes quickly. He tried to grab the edge.
He missed it.
The speed increased.
The seventh-floor window.
He hit the edge with his hand, but his bleeding fingers slipped. The pain was burning, as if his hands were on fire.
"Focus! Focus or you'll end up a bag of meat on the pavement!"
He exerted superhuman effort to control his panic. He used the sole of his shoe to slow his slide slightly, enduring the burning rubber.
The sixth-floor window.
It was closer.
This time, he didn't just try to grab it with his fingertips. He slammed his entire elbow and forearm into the protruding window frame.
BAM!
His slide stopped violently. His shoulder screamed in pain, and he felt like his joint was almost dislocated. But he stopped.
He was hanging by his right arm on the edge of the sixth-floor window, his body dangling in the void, and blood dripping from his fingertips toward the distant street below.
"I survived..." his gasping was loud and hoarse. "I really survived..."
But the relief lasted only a second.
A familiar scraping sound came from above.
Sora raised his head with difficulty, sweat stinging his eyes.
On the exterior wall of the building, two floors above him, the nightmare was there.
The monster didn't fall stupidly. It had crawled out of the opening Sora made, clinging to the vertical wall with its four curved claws. It looked like a gigantic demonic lizard defying gravity.
The monster moved its head left and right.
It couldn't see Sora. But...
A drop of blood from Sora's hand fell and hit the edge of a metallic air conditioner below.
Ting.
The scent... the smell of fresh blood emanating from Sora's torn fingers was, for this monster, like a bright beacon on a dark night.
The monster aimed its head directly down, towards Sora.
And it started crawling down. Head first, moving with terrifying speed and confidence on the vertical wall.
"Damn it! Damn it!"
There was no time to rest. Sora pulled himself up forcefully, his muscles screaming from exhaustion, and climbed onto the edge of the window to enter the sixth floor.
"?"
"No, the window is closed and locked."
Breaking the glass would take time, and the monster was approaching fast.
He looked down. The fifth-floor window was slightly open.
"One more jump is what I need."
He had no choice. The monster was only a few meters away, its saliva dripping past Sora's face.
Sora let go of the edge.
He fell one floor. This time, he was more controlled.
He landed with his feet on the edge of the fifth-floor window and clung to the frame.
The window was open just enough.
He pushed himself inside and fell onto the carpeted floor of an office room.
He rolled over and immediately got up, clutching his bleeding hand.
He was on the fifth floor.
The room was an office for some company. Overturned desks, papers scattered everywhere.
He looked at the window he entered through. The monster hadn't come yet, but the sound of claws scraping the exterior wall was close.
It was looking for an entrance.
Sora looked at his hands. His fingertips were stripped raw, and blood was flowing heavily.
"My scent... I'm like a piece of grilled meat to him now."
He had to stop the bleeding, or at least cover the smell, and move.
He opened [Inventory] while running out of the room toward the internal corridors of the building.
A pack of white bandages appeared in his hand.
While running in the dim fifth-floor corridors, he tried to wrap the bandages around his fingers and palm. It wasn't tight medical bandaging; it was messy and quick, just layers of cloth to soak up the blood and prevent drops from falling to the floor and leaving a trail.
He used his teeth to pull the knot tight, making him groan in pain.
"Move, move, move."
He could hear the sound of glass shattering in the room he had just left.
It had entered.
The monster was no longer crawling cautiously now. The sound of it running in the corridors was heavy and violent. It knew its prey was close. The place here was tighter, and the desks and glass partitions formed a labyrinth, but they wouldn't stop a monster that could shatter walls.
Sora turned left, then right, trying to break the scent trail, trying to find the internal staircase to the lower floors.
He found a double door labeled "Emergency Stairs."
He pushed the door with his good shoulder.
The staircase here was intact.
He started descending quickly, calculating his steps. The monster was faster than him in straight lines, and stronger than him in direct confrontation.
His only advantage previously was 'intelligence' and the environment...
He reached the fourth floor.
Then the third.
The monster's sound was getting closer from above. It was smelling the blood despite the bandages. Its sense of smell was stronger than hunting dogs.
Sora paused in the third-floor corridor for a moment.
"I can't keep running forever. My energy is running out, and it doesn't tire."
He looked at his bandaged hands, then at his knives facing an inevitability.
He entered the main hall of the third floor. It was a wide, open space, filled with thick concrete columns.
Sora stood in the center of the hall between the columns, and after drinking some water, he breathed deeply, trying to regulate his heartbeat.
He summoned four knives. Two in each hand.
The art of reverse-grip dual-wielding.
An unconventional style taught to him by a friend from the Philippines...
"Marco-kun, I hope I don't stab myself."
BOOM!
The stairwell door exploded, sending wooden fragments flying.
The monster lunged into the hall. It looked even more terrifying under the flashing red emergency lights. Its saliva dripped, and its body pulsed with continuous energy. It slowly turned its blind head, its nostrils widening as it inhaled the air.
The scent of blood, despite its faintness, guided it to the center of the hall.
The abomination slowly turned to face Sora.
Sora did not run this time.
He slightly bent his knees, raised his knives, his eyes gleaming with a cold determination utterly different from the terror he had felt minutes ago.
The monster's lip curled back from its needle-like teeth, and it let out a terrifying roar that shook the remaining window glass in the hall.
Sora offered a pale, weary smile. He spat some blood from his mouth onto the floor, and said in a quiet voice amidst the noise:
"Alright, ugly... here we go for Round Two."
The round began...
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