The stench of decay clung to the air, heavier than mere death. The alley was his refuge no longer. Every lingering shadow hinted at lurking hunger, and the acidic burn of his bite wound throbbed in time with a countdown he couldn't see. This town was ground zero, where the System's poison first festered, and time was no longer his ally.

His hand clenched around the crude wax bindings. Pathetic weapons, yet the faint warmth they still emitted held a perverse comfort. Each mouldering sliver harvested from his last kill buzzed with a warped echo of that unseen energy flow. Even in his regression, they resonated - a sign he hadn't been utterly abandoned.

The System's first pulse had created more than just monsters. His gaze wandered down the alley, where remnants of what was likely a terrified civilian lay splayed and unrecognisable. Their clothing was singed oddly, remnants dissolving as if by chemical burn, and amidst the horror, his gaze fixated on something else.

A flicker. Not the motes of harvested energy, but an almost iridescent shimmer clinging to the alley's brick façade. It was subtle, an afterimage easily missed in this waking nightmare, but undeniably there. He approached, wax gleaming a grotesque crimson in the twilight's final glow. This wasn't the gore of a fresh kill. It had seeped into the brick itself, pulsing with a rhythm of its own. A birthmark of this monstrous new world.

And as his blood pulsed, something answered. He didn't just see the mark; he felt the pull of it, a nauseating tug mirroring the monstrous fluid leaking from the canine corpse. Could these echoes…could they guide him?

No more hiding. Not with this grim discovery at his fingertips. It was time for the hunted to become the hunter. Time to turn the tables on the System itself and track down the root of this infection.

The town square was in utter disarray. His past life held memories of later rifts, their openings chaotic wounds spewing an ever-worsening array of predators. Yet this time, his early arrival wasn't salvation – the streets teemed with the nightmare born from the first rift. A goblin-faced wretch scavenged amidst rubble, another larger creature stalked down a shattered side street, leaving dripping stains behind it. Even now, their presence felt dilute, mere heralds before the true onslaught. This was but the opening salvo, and his best chance for true understanding...and power.

His path forward wasn't a blind stumble. Guided by an instinct more primal than sight, he navigated the twisted streets, each iridescent mark pulling him in like a grotesque compass. This wasn't just about finding the rift, it was about dissecting the echo it left on reality itself. With each mark, with each beat of his ragged pulse, the knowledge seeped deeper, replacing fear with a twisted fascination. His wound felt less like a countdown to death, more like a connection to the System's core.

In a cruel irony, the town's familiar geography warped beneath this strange new lens. An old brick church – his past self might have sought refuge there. Now, the walls pulsed with a sickening light, the iridescent shimmer clinging like a plague. It drew him further into a maze of crumbling suburbs. Here, the marks weren't subtle stains, but grotesque slashes – as if the rift fought its way into existence, reality screaming in defiance.

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Then, at the heart of a decimated cul-de-sac, he found the source.

The rift yawned like an obscene wound in the centre of the world. It didn't simply hover, it throbbed, each pulse forcing out another grotesque mockery of life. He saw goblin warriors wielding crude clubs ripped from street signs, beasts that scuttled forth on too many legs, some warped hybrid between dog and spider… His old enemy, the acid-hounds, seemed insignificant beside these new monstrosities.

Jason retreated into the shadows, his blood pounding not from fear this time, but a predator's adrenaline. It was here, the source of all he'd faced, all he would inevitably face again. In his past, he learned to navigate later, far more deadly rifts. This one was different. Less like a gateway, more like a fresh scar bleeding with power. His gaze traced the ragged line where the monstrous energy pulsed brightest, an umbilical cord stretching into utter darkness. Even at his weakest, there was potential here, possibilities those creatures lacked the foresight to understand.

But he wasn't strong enough. At least not yet. Not for the heart of the rift. His gaze moved toward the periphery, where lesser monsters bickered over territory, unaware of the grotesque wellspring behind them. They were his target, the first rung on his climb. And if his memory was correct, each death...each mote of power he siphoned…could feed back into understanding the very mechanism of this invading force. Not that it helped him much in his previous life, due to spending almost all the time running and hiding.

His hand tightened around his hardened wax, now resonating with an energy that went beyond simple survival, pulsing with an echo of that insidious glow. It was an invitation, and one he had no intention of denying.

A lone figure stumbled from a shattered house, an elderly woman whose whimpers of confusion broke the grotesque tension. She hadn't noticed the warped creatures converging, or the rift glowing behind them. She was prey, a pitiful distraction… and, potentially, a tool. In his former life, such cold calculation would have fuelled nightmares. Now, he didn't hesitate.

"Help! " her plea cracked mid-word into a gasp. A spider-beast had sunk its dripping fangs into her leg, dragging her back toward the darkness. Just as a flicker of its venom-swollen abdomen pulsed outwards, Jason moved.

One hardened edge, the other sharpened into a brutal spike - this was more than a fight for survival. This was his laboratory, the monsters the specimens, and his skill now extended beyond simply winning.

He lunged, slamming the hardened wax into the creature's flank to redirect its strike. It snapped back, teeth grazing his shoulder, but instead of pain, his injury flared with an answering sting. Something flickered, a sliver of that monstrous venom clinging to him, reacting on contact with the mark of his earlier bite. And as his enemy staggered, he seized the opening, sharpened wax sinking deep into its swollen centre. His victory cry tore through the twilight, less human, more an echo of the beast he just slayed.

Here, he had no name but predator. No history but one written in blood, and no future but the empire he would create amidst this wreckage.