Ashlane District was fully broken now.
Sirens screamed over the rooftops. Black smoke rolled through the streets in thick waves. Glass kept raining from the higher blocks. Every few seconds, another Blackdrop slammed out of the sky with a BOOOOM-KRAASH, shaking the pavement hard enough to knock people off their feet.
And Sorren Holloway was running straight into it.
His coat whipped behind him as he dashed across the ruined street, weaving through flipped vendor carts and panicked civilians. His white-silver locs lashed across his face, amber eyes locked on the glowing Forge-grade coins inside the dead Blackdrop's chest.
"Mine," he muttered. "Those are absolutely mine."
A burning delivery drone spiraled down past his shoulder and exploded against a wall with a shower of sparks.
Sorren flinched. "Okay. Slightly everybody's, but mostly mine."
Ahead of him, two low-rank Switchborn were getting ripped apart by another Blackdrop with hammer-shaped arms. One tried to run. Too slow. The creature blurred forward with a THOOM, caved in the ground, and sent him skidding across the street in a spray of debris.
Sorren cut left fast—SKRRRT—his shoes grinding over broken concrete as he slid under a collapsing signpost.
The dead Blackdrop was only a few steps away now.
Then something slammed down between him and the body.
BAAAM.
A heavier Blackdrop landed in a crouch, all smoke, muscle, and jagged bones sticking out of its back like snapped blades. Its head twitched. Its black eyes found Sorren instantly.
Sorren stopped.
"…you big ugly bastard."
The creature shrieked.
The sound hit like shattered metal inside his skull. Sorren grabbed a broken pipe from the ground just as it lunged. He threw himself sideways—FSSSHH-KRAK—claws tore through the pavement where his chest had been a split second earlier.
He rolled, popped back up, and swung the pipe across its face.
KLANG.
Nothing.
Sorren stared. "That felt disrespectful."
The Blackdrop backhanded him.
WHOOOM—CRASH!
Sorren flew into the side of a cracked wall hard enough to spiderweb the concrete. Air exploded from his lungs. Pain shot through his ribs like hot metal.
He dropped to one knee, coughing.
"Yeah," he rasped, "that definitely connected."
The Blackdrop charged again.
Sorren's eyes snapped up.
He moved.
Not stronger. Not faster than it. Just sharper.
He kicked off the wall—TCHK!—ducked under its claws, snatched a loose chain hanging from a wrecked storefront, and whipped it around the monster's throat. He ran past its side, looped the chain around a bent street pole, then planted both feet and yanked with everything in his body.
The pole groaned.
The chain locked.
The Blackdrop lunged forward and got violently jerked sideways with a choking GRRRAK-KK!
It stumbled.
That was enough.
Sorren bolted.
Three steps. Two. One.
He dove onto the dead Blackdrop, reached into the split chest cavity, and grabbed the glowing Forge-grade coin cluster.
The moment his fingers closed around it, the metal felt different.
Heavy. Warm. Real.
Sorren's eyes widened.
He laughed.
A wild, breathless laugh.
"Oh, this is crazy."
The chained Blackdrop tore free with a violent SNAP-KRAAASH, sending links whipping through the air. Sorren jumped off the corpse and hit the ground running again, clutching the coins to his chest as people shoved past him in blind panic.
A woman screamed overhead.
A Blackdrop fell from the sky directly toward the street.
Sorren looked up once.
"Not today."
He launched himself through a shattered bus window just as the creature hit the road behind him with a catastrophic DOOOOMM, flipping the whole vehicle on its side.
Inside the wreck, Sorren crashed across broken seats, glass scraping his arms.
But he still had the coins.
Still breathing.
Still smiling.
Outside, the district sounded like the end of the world.
Inside that overturned bus, Sorren Holloway looked down at the glowing Forge-grade cluster in his shaking hands and whispered, almost like he didn't believe it himself—
"I can actually get in."
Then, through the cracked bus windows, he saw it.
Far down the avenue.
A giant emergency holo-screen flickered through smoke and static.
THE SWITCH FORGE WILL REMAIN OPEN FOR PRIORITY CLIENTS DURING THE ASHLANE BREACH
Sorren slowly lifted his head.
His grin sharpened.
"Priority client?" he said. "I'm about to become the most annoying one y'all ever seen."
And outside, the Blackdrop Fall got worse.