The world narrowed down to velocity and teeth.

  The Alpha did not just run. It launched itself as a hairy calcified missile aimed straight for the throat of Mike.

  In the old days Mike would have died. He would have flinched and covered his face and been torn apart. But the Mike standing in the toxic fog was not a starving sifter anymore. His perception was sharpened by the System and the adrenaline slowed the moment down. He saw the tensing of the hind legs of the wolf. He saw the spray of sludge as it pushed off.

  He did not dodge away. He stepped into the space where the wolf was not. With a grunt of exertion Mike pivoted on his heel and his Strength stat of 14 flared like a piston firing. He swung his right arm in a savage arc. It was not a punch but a hammer blow.

  His forearm connected with the side of the head of the Alpha mid-air.

  CRACK.

  The sound was wet and heavy. The force of the blow knocked the massive beast sideways and sent it crashing into the side of the bus. Metal screeched as the warped bone plates of the wolf scraped against the hull.

  But the other two were already on him.

  "Grim! Left!" Mike shouted.

  He did not need to shout. Before the words were fully out of his mouth the weight on his shoulder vanished. Grim launched himself like a furry cannonball. He did not aim at the wolves but at the face of the one on the left. The rat hit the smaller wolf right in its good eye and sank claws deep into the soft tissue. The wolf yelped a high-pitched sound of shock and thrashed wildly as it snapped its jaws at the grey blur clinging to its face.

  That left the third one. The Bone-Leg.

  It lunged for the legs of Mike with jaws snapping for his femoral artery. Mike kicked. He did not think about technique. He just let the violence flow. His bare foot was calloused and tough as boot leather and caught the wolf under the chin. The head of the creature snapped back but it did not stop. It scrambled and its claws scrabbled on the wet pavement as it tried to drag Mike down.

  Mike roared a sound that tore at his throat. He grabbed the wolf by the scruff of its neck, rotting fur and wet sinew, and hauled it up. It was heavy with sixty kilos of hate but Mike held it.

  He flexed his right wrist.

  SHHINK.

  The bone spur erupted. It did not hurt this time. It felt good. It felt like unsheathing a sword. The calcified blade slid out of his forearm as six inches of serrated ivory-white death glistening with a thin film of his own blood.

  He drove the spur down.

  It punched through the skull of the wolf just behind the ear and cracked through bone to sink into the brain matter. The wolf went rigid and then limp as dead weight in his hand.

  Mike shoved the corpse aside and spun around. The Alpha was back up. It shook its head and black bile sprayed from its deformed jaw. It looked at Mike and for a second the glowing tumorous eye seemed to flicker with something like doubt. But hunger won out. It charged again lower this time and smarter.

  At the same time Grim was thrown. The blinded wolf thrashed its head and sent the rat flying. Grim hit a pile of rubble with a sickening thud and rolled.

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  "NO!" Mike screamed.

  The rage that hit him was white-hot. It was not the cold calculation anymore. It was fire.

  The Alpha lunged. Mike did not sidestep. He caught the wolf in mid-air. His hands were strengthened by the System and clamped onto the shoulders of the wolf. The momentum drove Mike back and his heels carved grooves into the sludge but he did not fall. He held the beast back and stared right into its glowing eye. The calcified jaw snapped inches from his nose and the smell of rot choked him.

  "Grim!" Mike gritted out.

  He did not look. He just knew. From the rubble pile a grey blur shot forward. Grim was not hurt. He had rolled with the impact. He scurried between the splayed hind legs of the Alpha and moved with a fluid terrifying grace. The wolf was focused entirely on crushing Mike and did not feel the rat until it was too late.

  Grim did not bite. He slashed. He targeted the soft exposed nerve cluster under the belly of the wolf and the thick tendon that connected the malformed leg to the spine.

  Wet tear. Hiss.

  Caustic fluid showered onto the wet ground. The Alpha howled and its back legs seized up as the connection was severed. It slumped forward and its weight collapsed onto Mike. Mike did not waste the opening.

  He wrapped his arms around the neck of the wolf and locked it in a chokehold. He felt the hard ridges of bone protrusions grinding against his chest. He squeezed. He felt the windpipe collapse under his forearm. But he did not stop there. He drove his bone spur into the side of the neck and ripped sideways.

  Hot blood and cold sludge washed over his chest. The glow in the tumorous eye flickered once twice and died. Mike shoved the heavy carcass off him. He stood there with chest heaving covered in gore that was not his.

  The third wolf, the one Grim had blinded, was backing away and whining. It could smell the death. It turned to run.

  "Get it," Mike whispered.

  Grim was already moving. He chased the fleeing wolf into the fog. A moment later there was a squeal cut short by silence.

  Mike stood alone in the quiet. The adrenaline was fading and leaving him trembling but not with fear. With power.

  The air in front of him shimmered.

  [LEVEL UP]

  [LEVEL 11]

  Mike stared at the red letters floating in the mist. Level 11. He was getting stronger. Every kill and every scrap of meat and every breath of poison was building him into something else.

  He wiped the bile from his eyes. Grim trotted back from the fog with his muzzle stained dark. The rat climbed up the leg of Mike and ignored the gore to settle back onto his shoulder. Mike reached up and scratched the rat behind his remaining ear. Grim leaned into the touch and let out a soft vibrating purr.

  It hit Mike then.

  During the fight when he had called out Grim had not just reacted. He had anticipated. When Mike held the Alpha Grim knew exactly where the weak point was. It was not just training. It was not just a smart animal. It felt like they were two limbs of the same body.

  Mike closed his eyes and focused on that feeling. It was a thin silver thread in his mind connecting him to the small beating heart on his shoulder. He could feel the satisfaction of Grim. He could feel the echo of the pride of the rat.

  We are the pack, the feeling said.

  "Good boy," Mike whispered and his voice was thick with emotion. "You are not just a rat are you?"

  Grim chittered softly and cleaned his whiskers. Mike looked back at the floating red text. He dismissed the notification with a thought. He did not assign the points yet. He wanted to feel this. The raw unallocated potential burned under his skin.

  He looked down at the dead Alpha. There were resources there. Dense bone plates. Maybe a concentrated toxin sac he could sell or eat? The thought intruded unbidden. Eat.

  Mike shook his head. Not the tumorous flesh. Not yet.

  He knelt down and began to strip the useful parts from the carcass. His movements were precise and practiced. He was a scavenger. A sifter. But as he worked surrounded by the glowing fog and the silence of the Dead Zone Mike knew the truth. He was changing in more ways than one.

  "Let us eat," Mike said to the empty air. "And then we keep moving."

  West. Deeper into the green. Into the places where the monsters lived. Because now he was one of them.