Acid rain in Sector 404 was never just weather. It was alive. It tasted like cheap metal, burnt plastic, and old promises that never came true. The drops hissed as they struck the neon signs of abandoned bars — "Bloody Nectar" and "Last Sip" — turning their light into blurred stains of poisonous pink and electric blue that trembled like dying hearts.
Astra Nova Luna stood in a narrow alley, her back pressed against a rough wall covered in mold and graffiti. Her old synthetic-leather coat was soaked through, hanging heavily from her shoulders. In her hands she gripped the "Peacemaker-7" — a battered shotgun that had witnessed more deaths than she had years of life. The metal felt unusually cold, as if it feared what was about to happen.
[TARGET AT TEN METERS. HIS HEART IS BEATING AT 180 BPM. IT ANTICIPATES YOUR FEAR, MY REAPER.]
The voice of Thanatos echoed inside her mind — icy, yet strangely familiar by now. There was a hint of amusement in it, like an old lover who knows all your weaknesses and still stays close.
Astra smirked with the corner of her split lip without taking her eyes off the pile of rusted containers.
"Let it anticipate, handsome," she whispered so quietly that even the rain could barely hear it.
"Soon it won't be beating at all. Then we'll see who the real predator is."
From behind the containers, a head slowly emerged with a wet, sucking sound.
The Garbage Ripper.
A disgusting hybrid of flesh and cybernetics: in place of its left eye pulsed a red sensor, and its jaws were reinforced with hydraulic pistons that snapped like gigantic scissors. The creature sniffed the air, pulling in the scent through rows of steel teeth, and let out a low grinding sound — like metal slowly being torn apart.
Suddenly, a message flashed inside Astra's mind, cold and sharp, as if burned into the inside of her skull.
SKILL ACTIVATION: "DEATH SIGHT"
Cost: 0 (Passive Gift — Level 1)
Effect: You see structural weaknesses and energy nodes of living beings.
For a moment, the world lost all color.
Everything turned gray. Flat. Dead.
Everything except one point.
At the base of the monster's neck, where the biological spine fused with a titanium implant, a bright crimson spark pulsed. It trembled like the heart of a butterfly caught in a spider's web.
"There you are, you son of a bitch," Astra exhaled quietly.
The Ripper leaped.
Three meters of armored flesh and metal launched into the air with terrifying speed. An ordinary bounty hunter wouldn't even have had time to blink.
But Astra… Astra was no longer ordinary.
Time stretched around her like rubber.
It wasn't magic. It was her brain — sharpened by the presence of the Sleeping God — now operating on a quantum level. Faster. Colder. More precise.
One.
She stepped to the left. The clawed paw passed within centimeters of her face, tearing through the air with a howl.
Two.
The Peacemaker-7 was already pressed against the pulsing crimson point. A thin stream of absolute darkness flowed from Astra's fingers — a gift from Thanatos — wrapping around the shotgun barrel like a black serpent.
Three.
BOOM.
The blast in the narrow alley was so loud that the last remaining windows in the nearby building shattered instantly. The shotgun shell, infused with the dark mist, slammed directly into the implant node.
A wet, cracking sound echoed — like someone tearing open a bag of chips.
Except the chips were flesh and metal.
The Ripper convulsed.
Its hydraulics screamed on a single high note, spraying black oil and thick, nearly black blood. The massive body flew past Astra from sheer momentum and crashed into a pile of garbage bins, scattering them across the alley.
Astra didn't relax for even a second.
She approached the twitching creature, which was still scraping its claws across the wet asphalt, leaving deep grooves. There was no pity in her eyes.
Only cold, predatory calculation.
"Your soul is mine now," she said softly, almost tenderly, leaning closer.
"Sweet dreams, freak."
[THE HARVEST HAS BEGUN,] Thanatos purred inside her mind, clearly pleased. His voice carried genuine delight — like someone savoring their favorite wine.
[OH, HOW I LOVE THIS MOMENT. YOU CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE HOW GOOD IT FEELS WHEN MY AVATAR FINALLY STARTS WORKING.]
A gray, semi-transparent mass burst from the monster's chest. For a brief moment it hovered in the air, forming the terrified, twisted face of whatever the creature had once been.
Then, with a soft hiss, the mass was drawn into Astra's palm, leaving behind a faint chill.
RECEIVED: 1 SOUL (LOW RANK — MUTANT)
BALANCE: 1 SOUL
AVAILABLE IN THE GOD'S SHOP:
• Thanatos Cigarettes (0.5 Soul) — "The taste of death, no hangover."
• Weapon Oil "Black Whisper" (1 Soul)
• Primary Regeneration (5 Souls) — "Will close even a hole in your heart. Almost."
Astra spat blood from her split lip and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"One monster — one soul. That's going to be a long, filthy road to the top, Thanatos. You sure I'm worth it?"
The voice inside her laughed — low, velvet-smooth, almost gentle.
[MY GIRL, YOU ALREADY ARE. I'VE SEEN THOUSANDS OF AVATARS IN MY ETERNITY. NOT ONE MADE ME SMILE IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES. BUT YOU… YOU JUST DID IT. KEEP GOING LIKE THIS, AND I'LL TURN YOU INTO A STAR THAT WILL SET THIS ROTTEN UNIVERSE ON FIRE.]
She picked up the hot shell casing from the ground.
The rain kept pouring, washing blood and oil into the drains. But inside Astra something new was burning now.
A dark fire.
Hungry.
Unquenchable.
Astra pulled out an old, battered communicator and pressed the call button for her client. The holographic screen flickered, revealing the tired face of a man in an expensive suit.
"Object 404 eliminated," she said calmly.
"Prepare my five hundred credits. And don't even think about bargaining. I need to buy a ticket upward. A real one."
The client nodded and disconnected.
Above her head, through thick smog and acidic clouds, a bright silver point appeared for a moment.
One of the space stations of Empty Beach.
It hung there like a distant, cold star — tempting and dangerous.
Astra looked up and whispered quietly into the empty sky:
"Soon I'm coming for you, New Eden. And then we'll see who the real hunter is."
[I'M ALREADY WAITING FOR THAT SHOW,] Thanatos replied with a slight smile in his voice.
[COME ON, MY LUNAR STAR. FORWARD. THE NEXT SOUL IS WAITING.]
The rain kept falling.
But Astra no longer felt the cold.
She walked forward.
And the world around her had just begun to change — forever.