Deputy Chief Howard wasted no time.

  When I rolled into the detachment at 0800, my first assignment in the new world was pinned to the whiteboard in his tight, neat handwriting.

  Outer perimeter. Solo patrol.

  Perfect.

  I shifted in the cruiser as I pulled out of the lot, the larger Kevlar vest sitting wrong on my shoulders, the bigger duty belt biting into my hips with every bump. The pistol at my side felt heavier than it ever had before, an old life clinging to a new body that no longer fit it.

  I miss my armor already.

  Valen rolled past in a series of empty intersections and shuttered storefronts. Martial law had turned the city into a quiet, frozen thing. No traffic. No pedestrians. Just the low murmur of my engine and the occasional clack of a loose street sign in the wind.

  By the time I reached one of the four main roads leading into the city, the silence felt almost physical.

  I parked on the shoulder and climbed out, stretching my legs and rolling my shoulders as the morning air hit me. The road ahead stretched in a long, grey ribbon, vanishing into tree line and distant hills. No headlights. No movement. Just the faint rustle of wind through roadside grass.

  I summoned my swords just to feel them.

  The familiar weight of the Jian and Gladius settled into my hands, and some of the tension in my chest eased. The steel gleamed dully in the washed-out daylight, solid and real in a way my old sidearm no longer was.

  Howard thinks this is punishment. Stick the problem child on the far edge of nowhere where he cannot break anything important.

  A slow smile tugged at my mouth.

  Maybe it is not the punishment he thinks it is.

  I unsummoned the blades, climbed back into the cruiser, and shrugged out of the bulky vest. The relief across my ribs was immediate. The belt followed, tossed onto the passenger seat in a clatter of metal and leather. The pistol sat there too, holstered, suddenly looking small.

  I opened my menu with a thought.

  Screens flickered to life in front of me, pale blue in the dim cabin. My gaze went straight to my skills.

  Active Skills

  Mana Blade: 38%

  Enhances weapon with concentrated mana. Increased sharpness and penetration.

  Mana Control: 30%

  Improves shaping, stability, and precision of mana flow.

  Mana Tether: NEW

  Throw your blade while maintaining a mana link. Recall or alter trajectory.

  Wind Step: 25%

  Short-range burst of movement powered by compressed air.

  Kinetic Burst: 4.3%

  Releases condensed force in a brief explosive pulse.

  Passive Skills

  (Percentages represent mastery and efficiency. Passives evolve at thresholds.)

  Blade Channeling: 5%

  Weapon conducts mana more efficiently, increasing the power of enhanced strikes.

  Enhanced Perception: 10%

  Danger heightens awareness and reaction speed. Stacks with Flow State.

  Puncturing Strike: 18%

  +2% weak-point thrust damage.

  Cleaving Arc: 11%

  +1% slashing damage.

  Fracture Point: 9%

  +1% armor penetration.

  Grim Resolve: 7%

  +10% Strength under 10% Health.

  Flow State: 14%

  Heightened reflexes activate under extreme pressure.

  Class Synergy

  ? Mana conduction improved

  ? Movement flow enhanced

  ? Reaction time heightened

  ? Faster growth for precision and mana-based abilities

  ? Unlocks weapon tether techniques

  Wind Step is at twenty five percent. No wonder I can feel like the draw on my mana pool is lower. The system is literally making me better at being something that is not human anymore.

  My attention drifted back to Mana Tether.

  Time to see what you can really do.

  I called only my Jian, the simple, straight blade appearing in my right hand. The leather-wrapped hilt fit my palm like it had grown there.

  I inhaled, then pushed mana from my hand into the sword.

  The skill clicked into place like a lock turning.

  Mana Tether proficiency increased.

  A thin line of pale blue unspooled from my palm, connecting to the hilt in a faint, shimmering strand that only I could feel. It was not solid, not really, but my awareness latched onto it.

  I drew my arm back and threw.

  The Jian spun away like a spear, slicing through the air. The mana strand stretched with it, thinning as the distance grew, tension buzzing along it like a pulled wire.

  I grabbed the invisible line with my will and yanked.

  The sword snapped back toward me in a blur of steel.

  I was not ready to catch it.

  Instinct screamed. I severed the mana link and ducked instinctively as the Jian hissed past my ear and slammed into the gravel behind me with a solid thunk.

  Heat flooded my cheeks.

  I glanced around to make sure no one had seen my near self decapitation. The only witnesses were a bored crow on a telephone wire and a very judgmental pine tree.

  Thank you Howard, for the solo patrol.

  I retrieved the sword, shaking my head, and tried again.

  This time I focused on control rather than power. I threw with less force, feeling the mana stretch, then gently pulled. The Jian traced a lazy arc back toward me, slower this time. I reached out and caught the hilt.

  The impact still stung, slapping my palm hard enough to make my fingers tingle.

  There has to be a better way than playing magical catch with a very sharp piece of metal.

  On the third attempt, I experimented. I threw the sword forward, then focused not on yanking it back, but on the connection itself. The strand of mana hummed, a living line from the center of my chest to the hilt.

  The blade hit the end of its natural flight and dropped to the asphalt with a metallic scrape. The mana stayed connected, vibrating with potential.

  I imagined pulling not the sword, but the energy.

  Slowly, the tension shifted. The Jian began to slide backward along the roadway in a slow, grinding crawl that built into a skidding rush. I eased the pull, guiding it until the hilt slid neatly into my waiting palm.

  Better.

  A thought nagged at me.

  What happens if I throw it at full strength?

  I drew my arm back and hurled the sword with everything my Strength stat could offer.

  The Jian became a silver streak, rocketing down the road. The mana strand thinned faster this time, stretching tight, thinner, thinner, until it felt like a wire about to snap. It passed the point of the earlier throws, still gaining distance, when the link vanished.

  The cut was sharp and sudden.

  Something yanked inside my chest. A wave of exhaustion washed over me, leaving my limbs heavy, my breath rough.

  The sword kept going, a dark blur that vanished into the treeline across the road.

  A second later, there was a distant, solid crack as steel met wood.

  “Fuck,” I muttered.

  I triggered Wind Step. The world blurred into smeared grey and green as my body compressed into movement and exploded forward. Air roared in my ears. In the next heartbeat I was inside the treeline, boots sinking into soft earth and pine needles.

  The smell of damp soil and sap filled my nose.

  I found the Jian embedded halfway through the trunk of a massive pine, vibrating faintly. Sap oozed around the blade in thick, amber beads.

  “My bad tree,” I said under my breath.

  I gripped the hilt, braced a foot against the bark, and yanked it free. Bark splintered, and I nearly fell backward with the sudden release.

  I stored the sword, heat still burning across my skin from the effort, and trudged back toward the road. Shame crept up my spine with every step, the image of my sword sailing off into the forest lingering in my mind like a bad throw in front of an entire academy class.

  As the cruiser came back into view, I Wind Stepped again, closing the last stretch in a smooth burst that landed me beside the driver’s door.

  For a moment, I just stood there, one hand on the roof, feeling the faint tug in my chest where my mana pool sat. I should have been wrecked after that much expenditure. Instead, my reserves felt drained but not empty, already starting to refill, a slow, cool tide flowing back in.

  I opened my status page, the additional stats catching my eye.

  Right. I forgot to assign my last points at Kira’s.

  “Good job, genius,” I muttered to myself.

  I distributed my free points, watching the numbers shift, feeling the faint rush as the System accepted the changes. Strength, Agility, Mana, Stamina, all ticking up, each one a step further from whatever I had been before the Gate. My stats now rounded off to:

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Health: 60

  Agility: 75

  Stamina: 60

  Mana: 50

  A low hum started at the base of my spine and spread outward as the stats locked in. My limbs felt lighter. The air tasted sharper. Somewhere deep inside, something that was not quite human stretched and woke up a little more.

  Let us try this again later, I decided. Preferably without deforesting an entire section of Valen.

  I climbed into the cruiser, turning the engine over and cranked the air conditioning. Cold air washed over my sweat-slick skin. I sat there for twenty minutes, letting my mana naturally replenish and my heart rate settle.

  Eventually, duty prodded harder than exhaustion.

  I put the cruiser in drive and rolled back toward the city.

  The streets were emptier than before. Storefronts stood with dark windows and handwritten signs taped crookedly to their doors. Some begged for help. Others simply read Closed or No Food Left. A few residents peered through blinds as I passed, eyes wary, faces pinched with the kind of fear that I didn’t know how to fix.

  A small, familiar pharmacy caught my eye.

  Family owned. The couple lived above the shop. Good people. We had responded to a break-in there once, long before monsters and mana.

  Today, the front door hung crooked on its hinges, kicked inward. Splintered wood scattered the sidewalk. The glass pane was shattered, jagged edges glinting around the frame.

  Something in my gut twisted.

  I was already pulling over before the thought fully formed. The cruiser rolled to a stop in front of the store. I shifted into park and stepped out, closing the door slowly so the latch didn't slam.

  The air felt different here. Heavy. Wrong.

  I moved around the back of the cruiser, boots crunching glass, and stepped onto the sidewalk. Every hair on my arms prickled. My hand drifted unconsciously toward a weapon that was not on my hip, fingers brushing an empty holster.

  A faint sound filtered through the broken doorway.

  Shouting.

  I froze, head tilting.

  A blue screen winked into being at the edge of my vision.

  Enhanced Perception proficiency increased.

  I dismissed it with a thought, listening.

  “WHERE ARE THEY?” A male voice, unfamiliar, raw with panic.

  “I-I don't know,” an older man pleaded. His voice shook.

  “Please don't shoot him,” a woman whispered. Each word trembled.

  My jaw clenched.

  I stepped through the ruined door, moving slow, keeping my profile narrow. The interior was dim, lit by a few emergency lights and the weak daylight filtering through the broken front window.

  Four short aisles. Cash register up front. Pharmacy counter in the back.

  The voices came from behind it.

  I summoned my armor on instinct. The familiar weight of the System gear settled over my body in a ripple of cool energy. Plates slid into place across my chest and shoulders, fitting perfectly, like they had grown from my skin.

  Okay. Dungeon gear beats duty vest. Let us hope it beats panicked idiot with a shotgun too.

  I slipped down the nearest aisle, keeping low. Boxes of over-the-counter meds lined the shelves around me, some toppled in the earlier chaos. A broken bottle somewhere nearby leaked a sharp medicinal smell into the air.

  At the end of the aisle, a security mirror hung in the corner, tilted down toward the pharmacy counter.

  In its curved reflection, the scene unfolded.

  A man in his forties stood behind the counter, both hands wrapped around a shotgun. The barrel quivered as he pointed it at an elderly couple on the floor. The pharmacist and his wife. They clung to each other, eyes wide, faces pale.

  “Please,” the man with the shotgun begged, voice cracking. “Just tell me where you keep the antibiotics.”

  “We don't carry that kind of stock,” the old man stammered. “We are a small clinic. You need a hospital or one of the big chains. Please, son, put the gun down.”

  The man ran a shaking hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up. Sweat shone on his forehead. His eyes darted around, wild.

  He looked less like a criminal and more like someone standing on the edge of a cliff with no way down.

  My hand went to my hip again.

  No pistol. Right. That is in the front seat like an absolute rookie.

  Rookie mistake, Elias. You survive a dungeon full of monsters and you forget your gun.

  I exhaled slowly, forcing my heartbeat to slow.

  The aisles were too narrow for Wind Step. Too many corners. Too many unknowns.

  Talking it is.

  I stepped out from the aisle with my hands raised, palms open.

  The man spun, shotgun tracking with him. The barrel snapped toward my chest like it was magnetized to the biggest threat in the room.

  “Who are you?” he shouted. “What are you wearing?”

  His eyes went straight to my armor. I must have looked like a cross between a medieval knight and a SWAT officer.

  “My name is Officer Elias Stormson,” I said, keeping my voice calm and steady. “I am here to help. I would like to do that without a gun pointed at my chest. That sound fair?”

  “I don't care who you are,” he snapped. His grip tightened. “I just need medication for my wife. She is burning up. They keep telling me no. That they are saving it for themselves. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Behind him, the elderly man on the ground watched us with wide, fearful eyes. The old woman clutched his arm, lips moving silently in prayer.

  You are not dealing with a hardened criminal. You are dealing with a man whose world is collapsing.

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “Then let us figure this out together. No one needs to get hurt.”

  I took a single step closer.

  His eyes flicked down to my movement. The barrel wavered.

  “Don’t come any closer,” he warned.

  “Then listen to me from there,” I said. “What is your name?”

  He hesitated.

  “Glenn,” he muttered.

  “All right, Glenn,” I said. “Here is what we are going to do. You are going to take a breath and lower the—”

  He barely heard me.

  The elderly man suddenly lunged, grabbing for the barrel like he had decided that if someone was going to die today, it might as well be him.

  Idiot the thought formed a I shouted “Stop!”

  Too late.

  The shotgun went off.

  The blast was a thunderclap in the small space. Fire bloomed in front of Glenn’s hands. Nine pellets tore across the room in a tight spread, aimed straight at my chest.

  For a fraction of a heartbeat, I saw it the old way.

  Buckshot. Close range. Center mass. Dead officer.

  Then reality hit.

  The impact smashed into my armor like a sledgehammer. All the air in my lungs ripped out in a single, soundless grunt as the force hurled me backward. I crashed into the far aisle, metal shelving rattling as boxes and bottles exploded around me.

  The wall stopped my flight. My head rang. For a second, the world narrowed to a high pitched whine and a blur of fluorescent lights.

  I slid to the floor, gasping.

  My hands flew to my chest, searching for blood, for shattered ribs, for the hot, wet wrongness that always followed that sound on the range.

  Nothing.

  My fingers brushed smooth, unmarred armor. No dents. No fractures. Just a faint warmth.

  He didn't miss. I remembered the impact. My ribs throbbed underneath, the deep ache of a massive bruise, but even as I focused on it, the pain ebbed. A cool sensation rippled out from the center of my chest, washing down my sides and across my back.

  Health stat, doing its work.

  Right. Bullets don't work on System gear.

  And neither do they work the same on whatever I am now I guess.

  Voices crashed in as the ringing faded.

  “You killed him!” the old man screamed.

  “You attacked me!” Glenn shouted back, voice cracking in panic.

  Something small rattled near my hand. A single buckshot pellet lay on the linoleum beside me, flattened into a useless metal disc.

  I pushed myself to my feet. My body protested for half a second, then the pain steadied into a dull pressure and slid even lower, fading like a bruise days into healing.

  Both men stared at me as I stepped into view.

  “Holy shit,” Glenn whispered, eyes wide. The shotgun drooped in his hands.

  “Oh my God,” the old man breathed, sagging to his knees. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  I walked straight up to Glenn.

  He flinched when I reached for the shotgun, then let me take it. My voice came out sharper than I intended, edged by pain and adrenaline.

  “Give me that,” I said. “Children should not play with things that kick this hard.”

  I broke the shotgun over my armored knee in anger. The buttstock shattering from where it connected to the chamber, red shells dropped from the magazine tube onto the floor. I dropped the buttstock to the ground.

  “I am keeping this” I shook the mangled barrel and chamber at Glenn.

  “Sorry, Officer,” Glenn muttered, shame soaking the words.

  “I am sorry too,” the old man said quickly, eyes wide. “I panicked when he raised it at you.”

  “The world has stopped making sense and the two of you are using a loaded gun as a debate tool,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. A headache throbbed behind my eyes, more from frustration than the shot. “That is how people die. How I should have died.”

  I let that hang there for a breath, then exhaled.

  “Now,” I said more evenly, “what is actually going on?”

  The switch flipped in the old man’s eyes. He remembered why they had been fighting in the first place.

  “This man forced his way in with that shotgun,” he said, pointing at Glenn. “He demanded antibiotics. We told him we didn't carry that kind of stock. He wouldn’t listen.”

  Glenn wilted under the accusation, but didn't deny it.

  “My wife is sick,” he said. The anger had drained out, leaving only desperation. “She is burning up. Everywhere I went, they said they were keeping the medication for themselves in case they got sick. I didn't know what else to do. I was scared.”

  He looked smaller now. Less like a threat. More like a man cornered by circumstances he couldn't understand.

  I sighed, feeling the last of the ache in my ribs fade completely.

  “Okay,” I said. “We will start with names. You said Glenn, right?”

  He nodded.

  “And you two?” I asked, turning to the couple.

  “Odu,” the old man said. “And this is my wife, Farah.”

  “Right,” I said. “Glenn, you are under arrest.”

  Panic flared in his eyes. He opened his mouth.

  I held up a hand. “Listen before you argue. You threatened two people with a shotgun. That cannot just slide. But I might be able to get help for your wife. You need to comply and come with me. Understand?”

  He hesitated, then nodded once, shoulders slumping.

  “Good,” I said.

  I guided him toward the front with a firm grip on his wrist. Outside, I retrieved a pair of cuffs from my abandoned duty belt on the passenger seat. The metal felt almost absurd after everything inside, a relic of a world that had measured danger in calibers instead of stat windows.

  After a quick search, I secured him in the back seat of the cruiser. He stared straight ahead, jaw clenched, breathing shallow and fast.

  I locked the car and headed back into the pharmacy.

  Inside, Odu and Farah were already picking up fallen items, their movements shaky but determined.

  “Are you both okay?” I asked. “Any injuries? I can get an ambulance, or take you in myself.”

  Farah shook her head. “We are all right, Officer. Just shaken.”

  “Do you want to press charges?” I pulled my phone from my pocket, ready to record their statements.

  The couple exchanged a long look.

  “Honestly,” Odu said slowly, “with how things are now, I don’t know. He was wrong to come in like that, but he was doing it for his wife. If the courts are even working, I don’t know what justice would look like anymore.”

  He sighed. “I don’t think we want to press charges. Not today. Not like this.”

  “You are probably right about the courts,” I said. “I will document everything anyway. If you change your mind later, come to the detachment. We will take it from there.”

  I fished a business card from my pocket and handed it to him. “I am sorry about your store.”

  “Thank you, Officer,” Odu said, gripping the card like it was a lifeline.

  I stepped out into the street again, the weight of the morning settling across my shoulders.

  “Sir?” Glenn called softly from the back seat.

  “Yes, Glenn?” I asked, leaning against the open driver’s door.

  “Can you apologize to Odu and his wife for me?” he asked. His voice cracked. “I didn't want to scare them. I just… I didn't know what else to do.”

  “They know,” I said quietly. “But I will tell them.”

  I slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The cruiser hummed to life.

  As I pulled away from the curb, the city seemed even more fragile than before. People didn't need monsters to destroy each other. Fear did that well enough.

  On the drive back, my ribs felt completely fine. If anything, I felt stronger. More aware of the way my body sat in space, of the steady flow of mana slowly refilling inside me.

  Human bodies don't walk off a shotgun blast to the chest.

  Mine just did.

  Back at the detachment, life moved in a slow, exhausted rhythm.

  I swung into a parking space and killed the engine. The lot was half full of cruisers and civilian cars. People milled around the entrance, some in uniform, most not. All of them looked tired.

  I rolled down the window.

  “Hey, Jamie!” I called.

  His head snapped up. He jogged over, boots clacking against the asphalt, dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

  “Hey, Elias,” he said, then peered through the bars into the back seat. “Who is that?”

  “This is Glen. Not sure what the charge will end up being here,” I said. “Where is Kira?”

  I let out a long breath, the kind that scraped its way out of my chest. “Figures. Jamie, grab my vest and duty belt from the passenger seat. Put them in my locker.”

  He blinked. “Why?”

  “Because I need Kira. And she does not need to know I did something stupid.”

  Jamie’s expression said he suspected exactly what kind of stupid I meant, but he didn’t press. He nodded, grabbed the gear, and jogged inside the detachment.

  I leaned back against the cruiser and rubbed at the spot where the shotgun had blasted me. My ribs still throbbed in a dull, deep way, the kind of ache that would have laid me out for days before the Gate changed us. Even as I stood there, though, the sharp edge of the pain softened. Warmth pulsed under my skin, the slow, steady tide of regeneration knitting bruised flesh back together. A reminder that the world had changed. That I had changed. That bullets, once the defining fear of every cop’s life, meant almost nothing now.

  Footsteps approached at a light jog.

  Kira rounded the corner, eyes alert, braid swinging behind her. “Elias? Jamie said you needed me.” Her gaze flicked past me to Glen sitting in the backseat, hands shaking in his lap. “What happened?”

  “We need to heal his wife,” I said.

  The sharpness in her posture melted instantly. “Then let’s go.”

  Glen’s voice cracked as he leaned forward. “Thank you. Please… thank you. You are a saint.”

  “Kira is,” I said without thinking.

  She nudged my arm with her elbow. “Shut up.”

  Her cheeks were pink, though.

  We climbed into the cruiser. Glen guided us through quiet, half-abandoned streets, the city feeling eerily hollow. Martial law had stripped it down to its bones. The sound of our engine echoed off shuttered storefronts and dark apartment blocks like we were driving through the hollowed-out ribs of something that used to be alive.

  Glen’s building was old, the kind of place that felt warm even in chaos. He led us up a narrow staircase and down a hallway smelling faintly of boiled tea and dust. Inside his apartment, his wife lay on a couch drenched in sweat, her breaths shallow, each rise and fall of her chest uneven and strained.

  The kind of scene that twists a man in half.

  Kira knelt beside her, her movements soft, deliberate, almost reverent. Her staff materialized in her hands with a shimmer of pale green light that cast faint reflections off the picture frames lining the wall. Mana flowed from her palms in gentle waves.

  The woman inhaled sharply as the healing washed over her. Her breathing steadied. The tension drained from her features. Color crept back into her cheeks like dawn returning to a long night.

  Glen pressed both hands to his mouth, shoulders shaking. Tears streamed down his face, bright and unashamed. “Thank you. Thank you both. She is everything I have.”

  I crouched beside him. “Glen, listen carefully.” My voice softened, but it didn’t waver. “What you did today cannot happen again. I understand why you were desperate. But pointing a gun at people will get you killed. Next time, charges will stick. And I will not be able to protect you.”

  He nodded so fast I thought he might hurt himself. “I swear. Never again. I will never pick up a gun like that again.”

  We left his apartment to the sound of his wife quietly calling Kira an angel, thanking her between slow, steady breaths. Glen stood in the doorway, arm around his wife’s shoulders, watching us leave like he was seeing sunlight for the first time in days.

  Back in the cruiser, Kira let her head fall gently against the window. Outside, the city crept past us in muted shades of grey and brown, a place wounded but still clinging to life.

  “Counting MREs,” she muttered. “That is what Howard thinks of me.”

  “Howard is scared of you,” I said. “That is all he is. You are power he cannot control or belittle.”

  She snorted softly. “Maybe.”

  “If he sticks you down there again,” I added, “I will talk to Chief Dobson. You should be helping people, not stuck in a basement doing inventory.”

  Her smile warmed, small but real, a glow that made the scarred city outside feel a little less broken. “Thanks, Elias.”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence. A calm, companionable silence. The kind that sits comfortably between two people who have survived too much together.

  And for the first time since stepping out on solo patrol, with bruised ribs and shotgun pellets still ringing faintly in my memory, I felt like myself again.