NOVGO.NET Chapter 31: Blood In Rain
Chapter 31: Blood In Rain
Electric commuter trains rumbled through the Eastern Metro transit concourse, vibrating beneath the tiled floor as evening workers packed against the glass.
"This rush hour is always a disaster waiting for an excuse," he muttered, adjusting his collar against the falling mist outside.
’Forty minutes until the night crews reach this platform,’ he thought, watching crowds of tired workers scramble toward the gates.
The tile platform shattered without a siren warning, tossing commuters sideways as a violet spatial fracture tore through the lower track bed.
"Agh! Gate breach under track three!" a transit guard screamed, dropping his electric stun baton while sprinting toward the emergency stairs frantically.
Four scaled venom-drakes scrambled through the smoking rupture, snapping barbed tails against the station pillars while hissing with hungry predatory fury.
"They are not targeting the rails, they are heading for the turnstiles!" he shouted, already checking the weapon slots in his inventory.
Ruby bypassed the fractured rift immediately, planting her spear forward while sprinting toward the crowded civilian bottleneck near the main exit.
"Evacuation protocol, clear the stairs!" she commanded, raising her kite shield to intercept three drakes leaping toward a cluster of commuters.
A compromised roof beam sheared loose from the ceiling above, threatening to crush forty screaming civilians trapped against the locked turnstiles.
"Brace the line!" she grunted, diving beneath the descending beam while bracing the rim of her shield upward with unyielding bone-jarring resolve.
The structural timber crashed onto her guard with concussive force, driving her knees downward until the tile buckled beneath her sneakers.
A lunging drake whipped a stream of corrosive green venom across her exposed flank, sizzling against her tactical coat with bitter smoke.
"Agh... take the rear exit, evacuate the civilians now!" she roared through clenched teeth, her shield arm trembling beneath the crushing load.
"The civilians have working legs to run with," he answered in a flat voice, stepping past her trembling shoulder without flinching.
’You are the only shift that matters right now,’ he thought, letting his vision narrow onto the hissing pack of predators.
He dropped every shred of concealment before fifty recording smartphones, engaging his burst mobility skill without caring who watched the footage.
[ Active skill: Overclock initiated ]
[ Stamina: 100 → 60/100 ]
[ Agility: 78 → 234 (temporary surge) ]
’Twelve seconds to clear this entire platform,’ he thought, feeling the world slow into a frozen tableau of suspended water droplets.
He refused to draw his weapons, relying on the condensed kinetic density packed into his skeleton to dismantle the lunging beasts directly.
He drove his bare knuckles into the lead drake’s snout, shattering bone plates with a concussive crack that echoed across the station.
"Hah!" he exhaled, catching the second monster by its tail before swinging the thrashing beast violently into the tiled support pillar.
The third drake snapped at his forearm, coating his sleeves with acid that bubbled against the fabric.
’This corrosive poison tastes like cheap vinegar,’ he thought, wiping venom from his sleeve before it could soak through.
His passive skin trait absorbed the raking claws like blunt spoons, allowing him to drive his palm through the creature’s chest core.
He caught the fourth predator twenty paces down the track, breaking its neck before it escaped.
The entire skirmish collapsed within six seconds, leaving four lifeless carcasses smoking in the culvert while terrified commuters stared in utter disbelief.
"What kind of porter moves like that?" a trembling commuter whispered, pointing a phone camera toward the blurred figure on the tracks.
[ Venom-drake pack neutralized: +18,600 EXP ]
[ EXP: 31,400 / 2,500,000 ]
[ Toxic Blood Inoculation: venom neutralized after exposure; external acid remains hazardous ]
He returned to the falling girder, sliding his shoulders beneath it to take the load from her arms.
"Let go of the shield before your joints snap," he ordered, lifting the falling roof beam with his augmented golem density.
"Agh... I had the angle covered," she gasped, her face pale as her trembling fingers finally released their white-knuckled grip on the strap.
He tossed the broken girder aside into the empty ticket booth, letting the timber shatter without endangering the fleeing crowd behind them.
He scooped her frame into his grip before she could argue, carrying her shield and spear while sprinting toward the surface rain.
’Her breathing is shallow and the venom burn is spreading along her ribs,’ he thought, leaping up the stairs three at a time.
Commuters parted like water before his rushing stride, dozens of phones capturing the dark silhouette carrying the Association shield specialist into daylight.
"Put me down, people are filming this," she muttered weakly, her fingers digging into the fabric of his collar for support.
"Let them film whatever they want while you stay alive," he answered, kicking open the triage tent flap with his sneaker.
The medical bay smelled of antiseptic and ozone, three emergency doctors freezing in shock as the bloodied pair crashed through the threshold.
"Clear the center table immediately!" he barked with the absolute authority of a foreman managing a catastrophic packaging floor emergency.
"H-Hey! Who authorized you to give orders in this clinic?" a young doctor stammered, stepping back before his terrifying glare.
"Clear the table before I clear it with your head," he replied in a voice devoid of humor, setting her down gently.
The medical staff scrambled without another word, cutting away the scorched fabric of her jacket to apply antivenom foam to her ribs.
"That medical foam stings worse than the drake fangs," she wheezed, clenching her teeth while gripping his forearm with sticky fingers.
"You are the worst anomaly I ever filed an incident report on," she whispered, looking up through dark strands of hair.
’She held forty lives on her back without asking for a bonus,’ he thought, feeling a fierce quiet warmth behind his ribs.
"You did good holding that beam," he murmured, leaning closer as the rain drummed against the canvas roof above them.
Their breath mingled in the narrow space between the cots, the lingering adrenaline of battle humming through the silence between their lips.
He leaned down another inch toward her mouth, intending to take what they both wanted before the next emergency siren could sound.
A violent burst of cosmic static detonated inside his skull, rattling his teeth like an electric shock discharged through an open wire.
’You lean toward mortals while the sky burns, little spark?’ the unnamed goddess whispered, her velvet voice dripping with jealous, possessive amusement.
He jerked his head back as celestial static pinched the nerve behind his ear.
Ruby let out a ragged, breathless chuckle on the cot, resting her head back against the pillow while watching his annoyed expression.
"Is your earpiece giving you trouble?" she asked weakly, closing her eyes as the painkiller injection took effect.
"Just a bad frequency," he answered, wiping dark venom residue from his sleeve before stepping back toward the tent exit flap.
The rain outside washed across the cobblestones, carrying the distant wail of emergency sirens rolling from the far side of the district.
’The storm is only starting, and the city is already breaking apart at the seams,’ he thought, looking toward the dark horizon.
Four finger marks remained on his collar, preserving her grip after she released him.
Across the street, a dozen commuter video clips uploaded to the local hunter forums, igniting a viral storm under a single title.
’The Ghost of Metro Station Four,’ he read from a nearby public billboard, smiling faintly before vanishing into the rainy evening shadows.