The Blighted Metropolis was a place of decay and death.
Moon moved silently through the shadowed streets and kept his back close to the ruined storefronts.
His enhanced Vitality kept him moving without a hint of fatigue. His iron baton rested easily in his right hand and the acid coated makeshift spear in his left.
He needed a secure location.
Surviving three days on the ground level exposed to wandering hordes and whatever massive abominations lurked in the distance was suicide. He needed the high ground.
He set his sights on a towering eight story apartment complex at the end of the block. Its lower windows were blown out but the structure looked relatively stable.
Moon slipped through the shattered glass doors of the lobby.
The interior was pitch black and illuminated only by the faint eerie glow of the moss creeping up the concrete pillars. The air was thick with dust.
He bypassed the rusted dead elevator shafts and found the stairwell.
He cleared the first three floors methodically and paused at every landing to listen. Nothing. The silence was heavy and oppressive.
As he reached the landing of the fourth floor, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
Skrt... skrt...
It was a faint rapid scratching sound. It wasn't coming from the hallway. It was coming from above him.
Moon froze and his eyes darted upward.
A single drop of viscous black fluid fell from the ceiling and landed with a soft plop onto his shoulder. The acid in it immediately began to sizzle against the fabric of his hoodie.
He threw himself backward down the stairs just as the ceiling ventilation grate violently exploded outward.
BOOM!
A terrifyingly fast skeletal shape dropped from the shaft and landed exactly where Moon had been standing a split second before.
It was a mutant Blight Fiend.
Unlike the bulky armored variant he had killed in the alley, this creature was stripped down to raw pulsing muscle and bone.
It ran on all fours like a deranged spider. Its limbs were elongated and ended in razor sharp sickle like claws.
Its eyes were sewn shut with dark veins but it snapped its jaw blindly to track him by scent and sound.
"Fast little freak," Moon hissed and gripped his spear.
The mutant didn't roar. It simply blurred forward and closed the distance of the stairwell in an instant.
Moon thrust the spear but the creature possessed a horrifying agility.
It sidestepped the thrust mid air and leaped off the concrete wall. It launched itself directly at Moon's face with its sickles raised to decapitate him.
Time seemed to slow down. Moon knew his Iron Baton was too slow for a sweeping block.
Operating on pure instinct, Moon dropped his spear. He channeled [Necrotic Bile] into his empty left hand and caught the mutant mid leap by its throat.
"SZZZZZZ!"
The acidic reaction was explosive.
The mutant shrieked in bubbling agony as Moon's grip literally dissolved its vocal cords and the hardened tendons in its neck.
Using the creature's own momentum, Moon twisted his body and slammed the screeching mutant violently into the concrete stairs.
CRACK!
Before it could recover, Moon brought his Iron Baton down like a judge's gavel and smashed its skull into a pulp of bone and black blood.
Moon collapsed against the railing and his chest heaved.
That thing had been faster than anything he had faced so far. A single mistake and his throat would have been open.
He slapped his hand against the twitching corpse.
[Ding!]
[Plunder Successful!]
[Raw Agility +0.4 acquired.]
A massive rush of kinetic energy flooded his nervous system.
Moon gasped as he felt his synapses literally rewire themselves. His perception of the dark stairwell shifted.
The falling dust motes seemed to hang in the air a fraction of a second longer. His limbs felt incredibly light as if gravity had loosened its grip on him.
He picked up his dropped spear and spun it effortlessly in a fluid blindingly fast arc.
His Agility had spiked to 1.7. He wasn't just faster. His reaction time was fundamentally altered.
A low chorus of guttural snarls snapped him out of his reverie.
The noise of the fight had attracted attention.
Looking down the stairwell, Moon saw the shadows shifting.
Eight regular armored Blight Fiends were lumbering up the stairs and drawn by the scent of fresh blood and combat. They blocked his only exit.
"Perfect timing," Moon grinned and a feral light danced in his eyes. "Let's test the new engine."
He didn't wait for them to reach him. He launched himself down the stairs.
With 1.7 Agility, he moved like a phantom.
He vaulted over the railing and completely bypassed the first two zombies to land perfectly balanced in the center of the pack.
Before they could even turn to face him, Moon became a whirlwind of destruction.
He drove his acid coated spear through the chest of the closest monster and ripped it out in a spray of black blood.
He ducked under a clumsy swipe from the left and stepped into the zombie's guard. He slammed his Iron Baton into its jaw and shattered its face with his 1.8 Strength.
CRACK! SQUELCH!
He was untouchable.
He weaved between their grasping hands and his movements were sharp and violently precise.
He snapped a knee, crushed a skull, and melted a face with his bare palm. He pirouetted through the narrow stairwell like a dancer in a macabre ballet.
In less than twenty seconds, all eight Blight Fiends lay dead. Their corpses piled haphazardly on the concrete stairs.
Moon didn't even break a sweat.
The coordination between his raw power and his new speed was intoxicating.
He knelt down and pressed his glowing acid stained hands against the pile of bodies to harvest his reward. He prepared for the massive influx of stats to flood his core.
[Ding!]
[Target Killed. Limitless Plunder Activated.]
[Scan Complete: Target attributes are too low to provide physical enhancement to the Host.]
[Physical Plunder Failed.]
Moon blinked and his grin faded instantly. "What? Failed?"
He stared at the prompt in disbelief.
He had just slaughtered eight monsters and the system was telling him he got absolutely nothing? His stats had grown so fast that the baseline F Rank mobs were now mathematically useless to him.
"You've gotta be shitting me," Moon cursed and kicked one of the corpses. "I can't hit a wall already. I need stats!"
Before his frustration could boil over, the blue interface flickered. A new string of golden text materialized in his vision.
[Ding!]
[Host's Overall Bodily Power has vastly exceeded the target entities.]
[Limitless Plunder (Stage 1) is adapting to maximize efficiency.]
[New Sub-Feature Unlocked: Trash Conversion.]
"Trash Conversion?" Moon read aloud and his eyebrows shot up.
[Description: When target entities are too weak to yield raw attributes, the Host may actively break down their residual life force and convert the useless remnants into pure Origin Points (OP).]
[Would you like to initiate Trash Conversion on the 8 viable targets?]
Moon's eyes went wide.
Origin Points. The absolute universal currency of the System.
He had earned 500 OP for wiping out a horde in the beginner's trial. He knew from the forums that OP was required for everything from buying system gear to eventually synthesizing high tier skills.
"Yes. Initiate," Moon commanded.
Instantly, the eight corpses beneath his hands began to dissolve.
They didn't rot. They literally turned to gray ash and their residual energy siphoned directly into his system interface.
[Ding!]
[Trash Conversion Successful.]
[+160 Origin Points (OP) acquired.]
Moon watched his OP balance jump from 500 to 660.
A slow terrifying smile spread across his face as he looked at the piles of ash at his feet.
If he couldn't farm them for stats, he would farm them for cash.
The Blighted Metropolis wasn't just a survival mission anymore.
To Moon, it had just become an endless gold mine.
He gripped his weapons, stepped over the ash, and kicked open the door to the fourth floor. He was hungry for the swarm.