Sector 12 was a monument to the Vanguard's hypocrisy. Decades ago, before the dimensional rifts began tearing the sky apart with alarming frequency, this sprawling industrial yard had been the beating heart of the capital's manufacturing sector. Generations of ordinary, working-class men and women had sacrificed their bodies here, enduring grueling 9-to-5 shifts in toxic, sweltering conditions to forge the steel and circuitry that built the Vanguard's pristine, floating enclaves above the clouds.
But when the first minor rifts appeared, mutating the local wildlife and irradiating the atmosphere, the Vanguard elites didn't protect the workers. They evacuated their own assets, shut down the atmospheric purifiers, and left the laborers to fend for themselves in the poisoned ruins.
Corvus crouched atop the rusted, skeletal remains of a massive overhead crane, the icy wind whipping at his charcoal suit. His cybernetic eye whirred softly, cycling through thermal and esoteric energy spectrums. Below him, the abandoned factory floor was a graveyard of colossal, decaying machinery. And right in the center, a tear in reality was silently screaming.
It wasn't a standard jagged crack in the sky. It was a perfectly spherical distortion, pulsing with a nauseating violet light that warped the very concrete beneath it.
Around the perimeter of the factory floor, hidden behind reinforced blast shields, waited the Vanguard's Black Omega strike team. Corvus counted twelve operatives. They were clad in hyper-advanced, matte-black powered armor, their weapons thrumming with highly condensed, lethal Mana. They looked like gods of war, completely confident in the four massive, spire-like Mana-suppressors they had driven into the concrete around the anomaly.
Arrogant fools, Corvus thought, a sneer twisting his scarred lips.
A tiny, microscopic receiver grafted into his ear canal crackled to life. It was untraceable, functioning on a frequency dictated by Origin Qi rather than electromagnetic waves.
"They are miscalculating the thermal and kinetic load by a lethal margin," Same's resonant, artificially deepened voice echoed in Corvus's ear. Even miles away in his academy dorm room, the seven-year-old was perfectly monitoring the situation through the ambient energy flow. "The Vanguard engineers treat spatial rifts as standard energetic phenomena. They are relying on brute-force suppression. But a Seed Core's gestation produces dimensional friction that generates an entirely different spectrum of chaotic radiation."
Corvus watched as the violet sphere began to bulge, the air pressure dropping so rapidly that his ears popped. "How long until the shockwave, Master?"
"Sixty seconds," Same replied. "When the core breaches our dimension, the resulting radiation spike will instantaneously fry every Mana-tech circuit in the area. Prepare the containment vessel."
Corvus reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, heavy box roughly the size of a human heart. It was a masterpiece of clandestine engineering that Same had instructed him to build using scrapped parts and precise black-market materials. To handle the catastrophic heat and chaotic radiation of the Seed Core, Same had designed the interior of the box using specialized structural materials layered with a synthesized aluminum oxide nano-coating, reinforced by a microscopic infusion of Origin Qi. It was built to absorb and shield against energies that would melt Vanguard battle-armor into slag.
"Thirty seconds," Same intoned. "The Guardian will emerge exactly three seconds after the shockwave. It will be disoriented. That is your window."
Down below, the Black Omega commander raised a glowing hand, signaling his squad to power up their heavy weapons. The massive suppressors whined, projecting translucent blue energy shields designed to cage the rift.
Suddenly, the spherical distortion collapsed inward, shrinking to the size of a marble before detonating outward in a blinding flash of silent, violent light.
It wasn't an explosion of fire; it was an explosion of pure, unadulterated cosmic static. The shockwave hit the Vanguard's suppressors. The blue energy shields didn't shatter—they simply dissolved, the chaotic radiation eating through the Vanguard's Mana like acid through wet paper.
The EMP-like wave of dimensional friction rolled over the Black Omega squad. Instantly, the glowing blue lines on their matte-black armor died. Their heavy weapons sparked and powered down. The massive hydraulic servos in their suits locked up tight. Twelve elite killers were instantly transformed into helpless statues, trapped inside thousands of pounds of dead metal, shouting panicked, muffled curses over their dead comms.
"Now," Same commanded.
Corvus dropped from the crane. He didn't use parachutes or cables. He channeled the golden Origin Qi through his perfectly forged meridians, pushing the energy down into his legs to break his physical limits. He hit the concrete floor from a hundred feet up with a deafening CRACK, the impact sending a spiderweb of fissures across the ground, yet his knees didn't even buckle.
He stood up, brushing a speck of dust from his lapel, and walked right past the paralyzed Vanguard operatives. They could only watch through their visors in helpless terror as a man in a tailored suit strolled casually toward the epicenter of a Class-A rift.
At the center of the blast crater, floating three feet off the ground, was the Seed Core. It was a crystalline octahedron, burning with a furious, shifting spectrum of colors. The heat radiating off it was so intense that the concrete beneath it was bubbling into glass.
But Corvus didn't look at the core. He looked at the massive shadow pulling itself out of the lingering dimensional tear behind it.
The Rift Guardian was a monstrosity of Higher Realm biology. It resembled a towering, four-armed gorilla forged entirely from jagged obsidian and molten magma. It roared, a sound that shook the dust from the factory rafters, and slammed its four massive fists into the ground, locking its burning eyes on Corvus.
It was easily a Class-S threat. A monster that would require an entire Vanguard battalion and heavy artillery to bring down.
Corvus cracked his knuckles. The golden Origin Qi began to visibly leak from his pores, wreathing his fists in a terrifying, silent halo of power.
"You're in my city, ugly," Corvus growled.
The Guardian lunged, clearing the fifty-foot gap in a single, explosive bound, bringing two magma-infused fists down toward Corvus's head in a strike meant to flatten him into a red smear.
Corvus didn't dodge. He planted his feet, drew his right arm back, and punched directly upward.
When diluted Mana clashed, it created loud, flashy explosions. But when Origin Qi met the crude, chaotic energy of the beast, it was a display of absolute, mechanical dominance. Corvus's fist collided with the massive, molten hands of the Guardian.
There was a sickening crunch.
The kinetic force of Corvus's blow, backed by the limitless density of his reconstructed body, shattered the Guardian's obsidian arms all the way up to its shoulders. The beast shrieked in agony, its momentum completely halted.
Before the monster could even register the loss of its limbs, Corvus vanished. He moved faster than the paralyzed Vanguard operatives could track, reappearing directly behind the towering beast.
He channeled a concentrated spike of Origin Qi into his right hand, hardening his fingers into a blade capable of piercing dreadnought armor, and drove his hand straight through the Guardian's spine, gripping the chaotic energy core beating in its chest.
With a brutal yank, Corvus ripped the core out.
The monstrous gorilla froze, the magma glowing within its body rapidly turning to gray ash. The colossal beast crumbled into a mountain of inert dust, blown away by the freezing winter wind sweeping through the factory.
The fight had lasted exactly six seconds.
Corvus crushed the Guardian's core in his grip, absorbing the residual energy, and calmly walked over to the floating Seed Core. The chaotic radiation battered against him, trying to tear his cells apart, but the Origin Qi in his blood acted as a perfect, impenetrable shield.
He opened the heavily modified containment box. The advanced aluminum oxide nano-coating inside shimmered faintly. Corvus casually reached out, grabbed the blindingly hot Seed Core with his bare hand, and dropped it into the box, snapping the heavy latches shut.
Instantly, the oppressive, skin-boiling heat in the factory vanished.
Corvus tapped his earpiece. "Package secured, Master. The nano-coating is holding perfectly. Zero radiation leakage."
"Understood. The Vanguard's armor will reboot in eighty seconds," Same's voice replied, perfectly calm. "Leave them. Let them explain to their superiors how a ghost stole their prize and killed a Class-S Guardian with bare hands. Return to the warehouse."
Corvus looked over his shoulder at the Black Omega squad. The commander's visor was aimed directly at him. Corvus offered a mocking, two-finger salute, then let the Origin Qi wrap around him, bending the light and sound.
By the time the Vanguard's hydraulic servos finally hissed back to life, the factory floor was entirely empty, save for a pile of ash and the lingering scent of ozone.