Centuria Books · The Final Boss Is One of Us: A System Apocalypse LitRPG Thriller
The Final Boss Is One of Us: A System Apocalypse LitRPG Thriller — Read the First Chapter
Seven zones. Six players. One traitor. At dawn, one of them becomes the final boss.
Chapter 1
The last box held six game cases, one dead phone, and the brass key to a house neither brother wanted.
Nolan Greeley set the box beside the front door. Dust marked the floor where their father’s recliner had stood. The clean patch looked too small.
Rhett leaned against the kitchen arch with a black trash bag at his feet. At twenty-four, he still wore his hair clipped close on the sides and too long on top. Their father had called it surrendering halfway through a haircut.
“You taking those?” Rhett asked.
“Donation bin.”
“They were ours.”
“They were plastic.”
Rhett nudged the top case with his shoe. Siege Crown. The cover showed six heroes beneath a red castle. Nolan had led the first North American team to clear its last raid.
Eleven minutes after that clear, their father had reached the hospital.
Nolan folded the box shut. “Truck comes at nine tomorrow. We need the basement empty.”
“You always did like the clean lane.”
“Freight gets there or it doesn’t.”
“Dad wasn’t freight.”
Nolan looked at the dead phone in the box. It was the corded one from the hall, yellowed around the buttons. Rhett had made the emergency call on it because both their cell phones had been feeding the raid stream.
“No,” Nolan said. “Freight tells you when it is late.”
Rhett pushed away from the arch. “You want me to say it again?”
“You have said it in every room.”
“You kept us in combat.”
“You told me he was asleep.”
“He was on the floor.”
“Which I learned after the clear.”
The black trash bag tore under Rhett’s shoe. Their father’s old work shirts spilled across the kitchen tile. One still carried a paper name tag from a neighborhood cookout. MARTIN, written in blue marker, had faded to MART.
Rhett picked it up. For a second he held it by both shoulders.
“Truck comes tomorrow,” Nolan said. The sentence sounded cruel. He used it anyway. Schedules held when people did not.
Rhett folded the shirt once. “Eleven minutes.”
“I know the number.”
“You know the clock. That is different.”
Nolan closed the last box harder than he meant to. One of the game cases cracked inside.
The kitchen clock changed to 8:17.
Every light in the house burned white.
The bulbs held for one hard second, then burst. Glass struck the walls. Nolan dropped beside the box and covered his head. The refrigerator died. A low tone rolled through the floorboards and pressed against his teeth.
Amber light filled the windows.
Rhett stepped into the front room. “Power surge?”
The sky beyond the glass had become a curved amber wall. It rose past the roofs and bent over Pittsburgh. The wall cut through clouds, brick, and the far slope without casting a shadow.
On the street, a city bus stopped in the intersection. Its doors opened. No one got out. A flock of birds struck the amber curve above the hill and vanished in brief white points.
The low tone ended. For half a breath, the neighborhood held still.
Then every dog began barking, and words formed in the air above the box.
CIVIC TRIAL 412: PITTSBURGH
REGISTRATION OPENS IN 00:09:59
REACH A SAFE POINT.
DEADLINE: 06:12:00 LOCAL
Rhett waved through the words. His hand passed behind them.
“Tell me you paid for a projector,” he said.
Nolan reached for his phone. The lock screen showed 8:17 and no carrier. The emergency call failed before the first ring.
He tried emergency text. It returned a white block with no sender.
OUTSIDE COMMUNICATION UNAVAILABLE DURING REGISTRATION.
LOCAL OUTCOMES WILL BE RECORDED.
Rhett read it over his shoulder. “Local outcomes. Comforting.”
Nolan took the fireplace poker from its brass stand. Their father had never used the fireplace. He liked the tools lined up anyway.
A woman screamed next door.
Nolan crossed the front room. Mrs. Kovac’s porch stood twelve feet beyond the window. Her red door hung open. A pale shape moved through her hall at knee height.
Rhett caught Nolan’s sleeve. “Safe point first.”
“She’s seventy.”
“And whatever that is has teeth.”
The shape entered Mrs. Kovac’s porch light. It had a dog’s frame and no hide. Clear plates covered red muscle. Its front legs bent inward at the middle joint. Each foot ended in three black hooks.
A yellow mark appeared above it.
GLASS HOUND — LEVEL 1
FIRST KILL REWARD AVAILABLE
The hound lowered its head toward the open door.
Nolan grabbed the fireplace poker. “Take the back steps. Pull it into the yards.”
“You quit leading raids.”
“Then pretend you had the idea.”
Nolan opened the front door. Humid air carried cut grass, hot brick, and a sharp metal smell. The amber wall hummed above the street.
Mrs. Kovac screamed again.
The hound sprang through her doorway.
Nolan ran toward it.
Chapter 2
The glass hound cleared Mrs. Kovac’s porch in one jump.
Nolan planted the poker across his body. The beast struck the iron bar and folded him against a parked car. Metal buckled behind his back. One black hook cut his left calf through his jeans.
Rhett hit the hound with a garden spade.
The clear plates rang. The beast spun and snapped at the wooden shaft. Rhett let go before the jaws closed. He moved the way he had played: fast, greedy, and certain the next opening belonged to him.
The hound hooked the spade between its teeth and shook. The tool crossed the yard and struck Mrs. Kovac’s mailbox. Her nameplate split down the middle.
Nolan tested his leg. It held his weight. Blood made the inside of his shoe slick, but the knee still answered.
The hound’s clear plates shifted from front to back. Each carried scratches from Rhett’s first strike. The marks did not fade. The creature preserved what had hurt it.
“Back yard,” Nolan said.
Mrs. Kovac crawled onto her porch. Blood striped one sleeve of her flowered housecoat. Her left ankle dragged behind her.
Rhett reached for the spade.
“Leave it. Three attacks used the same side.”
“It’s a dog.”
“Its right plate lifted before each turn.”
The hound lunged at Rhett. He cut left. The beast turned right anyway and struck the spade with its shoulder.
Same turn. Same target. A simple rule wearing claws.
Nolan ran up Mrs. Kovac’s steps. “Can you stand?”
“I can complain,” she said. “Standing may follow.”
He put her sound arm across his neck. Her weight drove heat through the cut in his calf.
Mrs. Kovac smelled of lavender powder and the onions she had been frying. Her hallway smoke alarm chirped once every thirty seconds. Nolan had promised to replace its battery last Tuesday.
“My purse,” she said.
It lay inside the hall, behind the hound.
“Leave it.”
“My medicine.”
Nolan saw the brown pharmacy bag beneath a chair. The hound stood between it and the door. Registration time fell somewhere beyond his sight.
“Rhett, pull right.”
Rhett picked up a broken porch spindle and struck the rail instead of the hound. The sharp sound drew its head. Nolan reached through the doorway, caught the purse strap, and dragged the bag across the floor.
The hound turned toward him.
Rhett threw the spindle. It struck the beast’s left plate, a new attack from a new angle. The hound chose him again.
The hound attacked Rhett again.
Rhett ducked, snatched the spade, and struck the lifted plate. A white number flashed above the hound.
7 DAMAGE
The plate closed over the dent.
“Seven,” Rhett called. “I can burn it down.”
“You hit the same weak point.”
“That’s what weak points are for.”
Rhett struck again. The number changed.
3 DAMAGE
The hound’s front legs swelled beneath the clear shell.
REPEATED ATTACK DETECTED
ADAPTATION: +20% SPEED
The beast hit Rhett before he raised the spade. Its shoulder drove him through the porch rail. Wood cracked beneath his ribs.
Nolan got Mrs. Kovac down one step. “Can you cross to our house?”
“With a drink and a younger leg.”
“You get the leg.”
He lifted her under the knees. His calf opened wider. Warm blood filled his sock.
The hound climbed through the broken rail. Rhett lay among the boards with the spade across his chest.
One black hook came down. Rhett rolled. The hook split a board where his throat had been.
Nolan could not reach him and keep Mrs. Kovac upright. The old raid instinct tried to turn the yard into icons and cooldowns. Tank displaced. Civilian objective active. Environmental break behind target.
The instinct had outlived the team. It still worked.
Nolan carried Mrs. Kovac into his father’s yard. The brass handrail ran down the middle of the walk. Behind it, the old porch banister leaned where Nolan had removed two bolts that morning.
Loose wood. Narrow gap. A target that always turned right.
“Rhett,” Nolan called. “Three steps toward the street. Hit left, then drop.”
Rhett rolled clear of the jaws. “That’s your plan?”
“The clean part.”
Rhett gained his feet and struck the hound’s left flank. The beast planted its front hooks and drove right, straight through the loose banister.
Nolan kicked the lower rail.
The porch section fell across the beast’s back. Clear plates broke under the oak post. The hound thrashed inside the narrow gap and cut grooves through the walk.
It adapted even there. One foreleg twisted backward through a space too small for the shoulder. The hooks caught Nolan’s boot.
Mrs. Kovac hit the leg with her purse. A bottle of blood-pressure medicine broke inside it. The hook released.
“Different attacker,” she said.
Rhett laughed once. “She listens better than you.”
Rhett raised the spade.
“Different attack,” Nolan said.
Rhett flipped the tool and drove the steel edge through the beast’s open mouth. The number above it flashed white.
19 DAMAGE — CRITICAL
The hound sagged. Clear plates turned gray from nose to tail.
GLASS HOUND DEFEATED
KILL CREDIT: RHETT GREELEY — 62%
OUTCOME CREDIT: NOLAN GREELEY — 38%
RESCUE VERIFIED: MILENA KOVAC
Mrs. Kovac sat on the walk and pressed her good hand to Nolan’s bleeding calf. “Your father kept towels by the cellar sink.”
The old house key dug into Nolan’s pocket.
“I know,” he said.
Rhett pulled the spade free. “Registration says seven minutes.”
A blue route line formed across the street and bent downhill.
Nolan lifted Mrs. Kovac. “Then move.”
Chapter 3
The route line stopped at the end of the block when Nolan set Mrs. Kovac on a stone wall.
Amber sparks drifted over the roofs. Car alarms cried from three streets at once. People ran downhill with bags, children, and kitchen knives. A man in a Pirates shirt swung a golf club at a glass hound near the corner. His second hit made it faster.
The city was learning the rule one injury at a time.
A woman shouted for everyone to follow the blue marks. A delivery driver tried to start his van, though its dashboard had become a blank white panel. Two teenagers carried a door between them as a shield. The route line ignored cars and bent through a yard where a stone retaining wall had cracked open.
“Tell him to change attacks,” Nolan said.
Rhett shouted the rule. The man answered with a curse and struck a third time. The hound took his forearm between its jaws.
Nolan turned Mrs. Kovac toward the blue line. “Stay with the crowd. Safe point is downhill.”
She gripped his sleeve. “You boys stay together.”
Rhett gave a short laugh. “We excel at that.”
Mrs. Kovac slapped his chest with her sound hand. “Your father raised smarter liars.”
The crowd carried her toward the next block.
Nolan watched until Mrs. Kovac reached the woman calling directions. He wanted to send Rhett with her. He wanted to go back for the last box. Both wants were ways to postpone choosing the route.
The System did not pause, and two panels opened in front of Nolan.
CLASS ASSIGNMENT
WITNESS — COMMON SUPPORT
You changed a verified outcome through observation, instruction, and preserved
life.
Class growth favors accurate records, tested claims, and disputed rulings.
Combat growth: LOW
Rhett’s panel burned red.
“Vanguard,” he said. “Rare combat.”
Of course it was.
Rhett shared the top of his panel.
VANGUARD — RARE COMBAT
You accepted direct threat, broke an adapting hostile, and completed the first
kill.
Class growth favors pressure, forced engagement, and decisive damage.
The description fit him well enough to be insulting.
Nolan reopened Witness before accepting. Common support. Low combat growth. Nothing in the text promised protection. Nothing promised that accurate records would matter to whatever had sealed the city.
It did promise they could not be changed after closure.
He accepted.
Nolan accepted Witness. A cold line ran from the cut in his calf to the base of his skull. The street sharpened around him. Scratches on the gray hound plates returned to exact order. A timer appeared beneath his route marker.
SKILL ACQUIRED: RECORD I
Preserve one System-recognized event up to 30 seconds.
Capacity: 1 Record
Cost: 10 Focus
Immutable after closure.
“You get anything that kills?” Rhett asked.
“Evidence.”
“Try hitting the next one with precedent.”
Nolan faced the dead hound. A thin white frame marked its final thirty seconds. He selected the frame.
The fight replayed without sound. Each target, attack, damage number, and rule change appeared beside the moving bodies. The record fixed when Rhett drove the spade through the hound’s mouth.
Nolan stepped around the replay. It preserved positions from every angle, but not thoughts. Mrs. Kovac’s purse strike appeared as a separate attacker. The loose banister carried an environmental owner tag tied to Nolan. Rhett’s final hit held kill credit. Nothing blurred the difference.
The System might be cruel. Its records were exact.
RECORD 001 CLOSED — GLASS HOUND OUTCOME
No edit control appeared, and Nolan opened his sheet.
NOLAN GREELEY
Class: Witness
Level: 1
Health: 82/100
Focus: 40/50
Might: 4
Speed: 5
Grit: 5
Sense: 9
Will: 7
Unspent Points: 0
Skills:
Record I — 1/1 slot filled
Conditions:
Left calf laceration — moderate blood loss
Trial Time Remaining: 09:42:31
Rhett read over his shoulder. “Might four.”
“The System values honesty.”
“It gave you a filing cabinet.”
“A locked one.”
The brass key pressed against Nolan’s thigh. He pulled it from his pocket. The teeth held a line of gray hound blood.
Their father’s house stood behind them with the front door open. Amber light filled the hall where the last box waited.
The old phone sat on top now. Nolan could see its coiled cord from the street. For five years, he had pictured Rhett standing beside it and choosing the raid. He had never pictured what their father had said before the call.
Not knowing had been easier to organize.
Nolan walked back and set the key in the lock. He turned it once and left it there.