Chapter 5
The sound of the wind was no longer a whistle; it was a roar. It was the sound of the atmosphere trying to tear the skin from Kael's bones.
Eighty stories. In Neo-Astra, that wasn't just a distance; it was a death sentence. Below them, the sprawling megacity looked like a motherboard made of fire and shadows. The clouds of toxic smog rushed up to meet them, thick and grey, smelling of sulfur and burnt copper.
[WARNING: TERMINAL VELOCITY REACHED]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 9 SECONDS]
[CURRENT STATUS: FREEFALL]
"Kael! Focus !" Vex's voice screamed in his ear, barely audible over the hurricane of air.
She was clinging to him, her tactical suit flapping violently. She reached for a device on her thigh—a compact emergency decelerator—but a piece of flying debris from the skyscraper's explosion clipped her arm. The device skittered away into the abyss.
"The thruster is gone !" Vex yelled, her violet eyes wide with a rare flash of panic. "Kael, if you have a trick, use it now or we're both becoming sidewalk art !"
Kael's mind was a frantic blur. He looked at his HUD. His Stamina was flashing red, but his Luck stat was glowing with a strange, pulsing intensity.
[SYSTEM PROMPT: EMERGENCY SITUATION DETECTED]
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONSUME 500 XP TO ACTIVATE 'LIMIT BREAKER'?]
Yes! Kael screamed internally. Do it!
[LIMIT BREAKER ACTIVATED]
[TEMPORARY SKILL UNLOCKED: 'GRAVITY ANCHOR']
Description: For 3 seconds, your mass is ignored by the laws of physics.
Kael didn't just need to stop; he needed to aim. He looked down. About thirty floors below them, a massive Maglev Train track cut through the skyscrapers like a silver vein. A cargo train was screaming across the rail at four hundred kilometers per hour.
"Vex! Hold on!"
Kael grabbed her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. He didn't aim for the ground. He aimed for the magnetic wake of the train.
[4 SECONDS TO IMPACT]
He activated [Gravity Anchor].
Suddenly, the crushing weight of the fall vanished. For Kael and Vex, it felt like they were floating in a vacuum, while the rest of the world continued to rush past at lethal speeds. It was a sickening, stomach-turning sensation.
[LUCK CHECK: CRITICAL SUCCESS]
Result: A stray maintenance drone is hovering exactly in your trajectory.
Kael kicked off the passing drone, using the momentum to tilt their fall. They didn't hit the train; they fell into the electromagnetic field generated by the rails.
ZZZZZT!
Blue sparks erupted around them. The magnetic repulsion slowed their descent just enough to prevent instant death, but the impact with the roof of the moving cargo train was still brutal.
K-THOOM!
They slammed onto the metal roof of the train. Kael felt a rib snap. The air was sucked out of his lungs. They tumbled across the vibrating surface, metal screeching against metal, until Vex jammed her daggers into the roof to anchor them.
[STAMINA: 2%]
[HEALTH: 45%]
[QUEST COMPLETED: SURVIVE THE DROP]
[REWARD: +1,000 XP / RANK UP: E-CLASS RIDER]
Kael lay flat on his back, staring up at the disappearing towers of the Neon Heights. His body felt like it had been put through a trash compactor. Beside him, Vex was panting, her mask cracked, revealing a smear of blood on her cheek.
"You... you absolute lunatic," she wheezed, her voice shaking with a mix of terror and laughter. "You actually used a Maglev rail as a trampoline."
Kael couldn't even answer. He just held the carbon-fiber bag containing the book against his chest.
Suddenly, his neural link chimed. It wasn't the System. It was a call from the Night Rider Guild. The face of Marcus, the Guild Master—the man who had sent him to die—appeared in a small holographic window.
"Kael, my boy!" Marcus said, his voice dripping with fake concern. "We saw the explosion at the Aurelius Spire. We assumed you were lost. Where is the package?"
Kael felt a cold, sharp anger rise in his throat, eclipsing the physical pain. He looked at the 1,500,000 credit value of the book in his mind. Then he looked at Marcus's smiling, treacherous face.
"The package is gone, Marcus," Kael lied, his voice like flint. "It went down with the vault. I barely made it out."
There was a long silence on the line. Marcus's smile didn't fade, but his eyes turned into slits. "Is that so? That's a shame. A real tragedy. Especially for your sister. Without those credits, I doubt Dr. Aris will keep the machines running past midnight."
Kael's blood ran cold. "You wouldn't."
"I don't have to do anything, Kael. The world works on contracts. No delivery, no pay. No pay... well, nature takes its course."
Marcus leaned closer to his camera. "But if you 'happen' to find that book in the rubble within the next hour... maybe we can still save her. Don't play games with me, kid. I know you're still alive. And I know you have it."
The call cut black.
Vex sat up, wiping blood from her lip. She had heard everything. "He's going to kill us anyway, Kael. Even if you give him the book, you know too much now. You're a witness to a heist against Aurelius."
Kael stood up on the vibrating train, his legs shaky but his resolve hardening. He looked at the book. Then he looked at the interface of his System.
"I'm not giving him the book," Kael said. "And I'm not letting Elara die."
"Then what's the plan? We have forty minutes before her life support shuts down, and we're on a train heading to the industrial wastes."
Kael looked at his new Rank. [E-Class Rider]. He had 10 new Stat Points to spend.
"We're not going to the wastes," Kael said, his eyes glowing with a faint, blue light. "We're going back to the clinic. But we're not going as couriers. We're going as the hunters."
[NEW MISSION: THE RECKONING]
Objective: Breach the Night Rider Guild HQ.
Target: Marcus Rixe.
Time Limit: 39:59... 39:58...