Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users - Chapter 429

Capítulo 429: Good. In You Go. Don’t Make Me Come Fetch You 3

It had seen someone else fail that way and learned, or the sim wanted him to work a little harder for the second cut.

He didn’t mind. He liked honest work. He set the knife and waited for the step that would open the place he had picked.

The first drop in a pattern is always the most dangerous because you haven’t proved to yourself that you chose right yet.

He cut when the foot lifted. The joint gave the way joints do when they aren’t meant to carry panic, and the body folded.

He braced for the other to spin, and it did, too fast for comfort. His shoulder took a glancing hit that threw heat down his arm and made his fingers want to open.

He kept them closed by name, not by force. Hand, he told it. Knife. Move.

He didn’t look for a clean stance. He went ugly the way a fighter does when the room is too tight. He slammed his weight into the plate face and shoved it against the wall.

The plate made a sound like a pan hitting a stone. The body tried to lever free. He put the heel of his boot on the downed one’s neck and pushed.

The sim let that count. It broke with a hiss and crumbled fast. He breathed once, shallow and even, and gave the second a cut it would respect, along the seam where its head plate nested into the neck casing.

The plate shivered and stilled. He didn’t chase the last twitch. He stepped back. He listened. The insects spiraled. The wind told the truth again.

“Adapt,” he said to himself, simple as the word is. “Fine.” He cleaned the blade again. He drank one more mouthful of water because rules work best when you follow them when it’s easy.

He felt the panel in his mind blink a small confirmation and then dim, as it did when it wanted him to carry the next part without help.

He looked up at the broken towers. High ground is a rumor until a ladder says it’s real. There were ladders here, but they were lies written in rust.

He didn’t climb. Instead, he moved toward the sunken courtyard because his first look had told him it kept a story.

A fake stair led down, the kind that invites ankles to break. He took the longer path along the wall and found the real steps tucked into a shadow cast by nothing obvious.

The sim rewarded people who listened to shadows like they meant what they said.

The air felt cooler at the bottom, and the metallic scent strengthened. He knelt and touched the stone.

A faint vibration lived there, almost like a purr. Machinery deeper in the build. The exam loved to stitch old clan work into its bones.

He put his ear to the wall and caught a slow, heavy thump like a heart—not alive, but a pump. It would flood this bowl if the lesson required it.

He measured the distance to the exits again, counting how fast he could reach each. He pictured Everly calling routes in that simple, loud way that makes people move without arguing.

He pictured Evelyn lifting a hand to halt, and everyone just stopping because she had told them to. He took that in and set it by his ribs where steady belongs.

The next sound came thin and high, not a beast, not a construct. A chime from the air that meant the sim had made a note in his ledger.

It didn’t congratulate. It didn’t threaten. It just shifted the weight of the day a little and waited to see if he would carry it.

He did. He moved through the ruin as if it were not trying to kill or impress him but simply trying to be what it was while learning what he could from it.

When the next two wolves came, they came smarter. They ignored the first smudge of sound he gave them. He smiled without showing teeth.

He sent a second sound, later, off-beat, a step that belonged to a person who had just looked over their shoulder.

They took that one. He gave them the floor instead of his body and let broken glass speak for him again.

By the time the first wave fully ended, his breath ran fast but not ragged. His shoulder ached where the plate had kissed it.

His hands were steady, which mattered more than comfort. The field felt like something that wanted to keep improving itself until he missed, and he respected that.

He stood in the courtyard and watched the insects for a count of ten. They spiraled closer and then farther with no pattern he could see.

It didn’t matter. The pattern that counted sat between his feet and his chest.

He listened one last time. Wind honest. Water where it should be for now. No scrape meant for him.

He let the silence fill his mouth and then leave it to taste the room without hurry. He rolled his shoulder once and set it down again as if returning a tool to its place.

He didn’t talk to the sim or to himself. He let the test be what it was and let himself be the person who had walked into it with counts, water, and a knife that didn’t care about pride.

He could feel it now, in the way the corners held themselves and the way the insects’ blue light brightened and dimmed as if asking questions the exam wanted answered.

The longer he lasted, the more it adjusted. It was already shifting toward the parts of him that liked to work quietly and pull weight without telling anyone.

It would probe there, demanding he spend attention where habit had replaced it.

He was fine with that. He settled his stance, breathed once more, then moved on. The ruin changed its angle by a finger’s width. It was enough to tell him the day had only started to know him.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!

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Creation is hard, cheer me up!

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