Doomsday: My Fortress levels up when I bond with heroines2 / 3

Chapter 2 : Blood Moon

The moon didn't just rise; it bled into the sky.

Jax crouched behind a collapsed concrete culvert, fifty yards from the bunker door. He watched the pale disc swell and darken until it hung over the dead suburb like an open wound. A deep crimson light washed over everything-the rooftops, the cracked asphalt, the rusted shells of abandoned cars. Even the shadows looked red.

He checked his watch. 11:47 p.m.

Thirteen minutes.

He remembered exactly when it happened the first time. Midnight, on the dot. It was as if the end of the world had a schedule.

His grip tightened on the rifle. The weight of the weapon was familiar and comforting. Two hundred meters down the road, a streetlamp flickered once and died. Somewhere in the distance, a dog began to howl-a long, ragged sound that cut off abruptly, as if something had snapped its neck.

Even the animals know, he thought.

(System Notice: Blood Moon event in 13 minutes.)

(Warning: Aether concentration rising. Recommended: Seal all respiratory passages or return to sanctuary.)

Jax ignored the prompt. He had a respirator mask from the bunker's supply shelf-a cheap piece of military surplus with a cracked strap. He pulled it over his face and tightened the seal.

Not for long, he told himself. Soon, the Aether wouldn't hurt him.

Soon, nothing would.

At midnight, the sky screamed.

There was no other way to describe it. A pressure wave rolled across the horizon, silent at first, then building into a tearing roar that blew the windows out of every house on the street. Glass rained down. Car alarms shrieked in a dozen different keys, then went silent one by one.

Then the red snow began to fall.

It drifted down in slow, glittering flakes of crimson light. Wherever it touched the ground, the dead grass shivered and turned black. Where it hit the roof of a parked car, the paint blistered and peeled away.

Jax felt a flake land on his forearm. It gave him a tingling sting, like a shock of static electricity.

(Aether Exposure Detected.)

(Host biology: Analyzing...)

(Warning: 80% mutation probability for unprotected humans.)

(Sovereign Bond System: Partial Aether Resistance granted. Awakening sequence queued.)

"Queued," Jax muttered. "Hurry up."

Then he heard the first scream.

It came from the house across the street-a woman's voice, high and thin, filled with terror. A door slammed. Something heavy hit the floor. The scream turned wet, then shifted into a sound that wasn't human at all.

Jax didn't move.

In his first life, he would have run toward that sound. He would have kicked in the door, fought whatever was inside, and carried out any survivor he could find. He'd done it dozens of times.

And every one of those survivors had watched him die.

Not tonight.

He pressed his back against the culvert wall and let the screaming happen. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

By 12:20, the street was no longer a street.

Shapes lurched through the red snow. Some still looked human-a man in a bathrobe, a teenager in a school jacket-but their skin had gone gray and slick, their limbs bent at wrong angles, and their mouths hung open to reveal too many teeth. They moved in uneven bursts, twitching and stumbling, drawn toward any sound.

(Appraisal Eye: Scanning...)

(Target: Rotting Shambler | Rank: F | HP: 120 | Aether Core: Yes (Minor))

(Threat Level: Low (individual) / High (swarm).)

Jax counted twenty-three of them within sight. More were coming.

The pressure in his chest was building. It wasn't fear, but a heat, a pulse spreading outward from his sternum like a second heartbeat.

(Awakening sequence: 40%... 60%... 85%...)

His breath caught. For a moment, every muscle in his body felt like it was being rewritten.

(Awakening complete.)

(Host Rank: F (Awakened).)

(Affinity: None (Pending Bond).)

(Base Stats: Strength 12 | Agility 10 | Perception 15 | Endurance 11.)

"F-Rank," Jax said quietly. "Pathetic."

But the system hummed a final line, and he almost smiled.

(Note: Host Rank will advance rapidly through Origin Bonds.)

(Current Objective: Secure first Aether Core. Reward: 200 SP.)

Two hundred points. Not much, but it was a start.

A Shambler staggered around the corner of the culvert, thirty feet away. It had been a woman once, wearing a blue nightgown, her hair matted to her scalp. Her head swiveled toward him, nostrils flaring.

She opened her mouth and shrieked.

Jax rose smoothly and put a round through her skull.

The shot cracked across the dead street like a thunderclap. The Shambler dropped. For one frozen second, nothing moved.

Then every head on the street turned toward him.

Ah.

He fell back through the culvert, boots splashing in black water, and came out the far side with a Shambler already on his heels. He didn't turn; he fired over his shoulder and heard it fall.

One. Two.

He reached the retaining wall behind the culvert and vaulted it, landing hard on a patch of broken sidewalk. A second creature lunged from a doorway-a man in a security guard's uniform, jaw hanging loose. Jax swung the rifle like a club, caved in its skull, and kept moving.

Three.

He had a plan. He'd had one for seventy-one hours. The old pharmacy two blocks east had a loading dock with a steel roll-up door. Narrow. Defensible. Shamblers could only come at him two or three at a time.

Funnel them. Kill them one by one. Take the cores.

He ran.

Behind him, the horde grew. The red snow thickened. His lungs burned through the respirator, and every breath tasted of copper.

He reached the loading dock, vaulted the railing, and spun around with the rifle at his shoulder.

The first Shambler hit the dock three seconds later.

Four.

The second took a bullet to the eye. Five. The third lunged, and Jax stepped aside and drove the rifle's stock through its throat. Six.

His arms ached. His ammunition count was dropping. Forty rounds. Thirty. Twenty-two.

And still they came.

Think. Don't just fight. Think.

He jammed the empty magazine home and glanced at the building above. A fire escape ran up the back wall, rusted but intact. The roof would give him a clear line down onto the dock.

He started climbing.

A hand grabbed his ankle. Cold. Wet. Impossibly strong.

Jax didn't look down. He kicked backward with his free leg, felt something crunch, and hauled himself onto the first landing. The Shambler fell away with a wet crack.

He climbed. Third floor. Fourth. The roof.

He rolled over the parapet and lay on his back for three breaths, staring up at the red moon, his heartbeat hammering in his ears.

Then he rolled onto his stomach, raised the rifle, and began to pick them off.

By dawn, the street below was littered with bodies.

Jax came down the fire escape slowly, rifle in hand, boots crunching on spent shell casings. The red snow had stopped. A weak, gray light crawled across the rooftops. The air was thick with the smell of rot and burnt metal.

Forty-one corpses. He'd counted.

He knelt beside the nearest one and drew his knife. The blade slid into the creature's chest with a sickening wet sound, and he pried out a small, glowing crystal, no bigger than a grape, pulsing faintly crimson.

(Aether Core (F-Rank) acquired.)

(Absorb? Y/N)

"Yes."

Warmth poured up his arm, through his chest, into his skull. For one dizzying moment, he felt every muscle tighten and release.

(Aether Core absorbed.)

(Strength +2. Agility +1. Endurance +2.)

(Sanctuary Points +200.)

He repeated the process forty more times.

When it was over, his hands were slick to the elbows and his body was trembling with exhaustion, but the numbers on his panel made him smile.

(Host Rank: F (Rising).)

(Strength: 31 | Agility: 22 | Perception: 18 | Endurance: 29.)

(Sanctuary Points: 8,200.)