Vane didn't move. He didn't have to.
He stood there in his glowing white armor, looking at me like I was a bug he'd already stepped on. His black glass sword was humming, a sound that made my teeth feel like they were going to vibrate out of my gums.
"You threw sand at me," Vane said. His voice was flat. "The great 'Bridge' is reduced to throwing dirt like a child."
"It's not just dirt, Vane," I said. I was breathing hard. My lungs felt like they were full of needles. "It's bone-sand from the Origin World. Sarah calls it 'Anchor Dust.' It doesn't like being in our dimension."
The white sand I'd thrown was still hanging in the air. In a normal world, it would have hit the floor. But here, in the middle of a Fracture, the sand was glowing brighter and brighter.
Vane looked up. He finally saw it. The sand wasn't just floating; it was eating the golden light of his aura.
"What is this?" Vane hissed. He tried to swing his sword, but his arm moved in slow motion. The air around him had become thick, like he was trying to swim through honey.
"It's a localized gravity-well," the Architect yelled from behind the elevator doors. She was typing furiously on her tablet. "Kane! The field is unstable! You have thirty seconds before the whole floor implodes!"
"Thirty seconds is plenty," I said.
The Rush
I didn't have "Speed Boost." I didn't have "Flash Step."
But I knew the floor. I could see the "thin" spots—the places where reality was already cracked. While Vane was struggling against the heavy air, I stepped onto a patch of floor that looked like it was made of liquid silver.
Whoosh.
The floor acted like a treadmill, flinging me forward at three times my normal speed.
Vane roared, forcing his hand up to blast me with golden fire. "Die, you little brat!"
The fire shot out of his palm, but as soon as it hit the "Anchor Dust," the beam bent. It curved 90 degrees to the left, blowing a hole through the glass window of the Space Needle instead of hitting me.
"My turn," I whispered.
I didn't have a sword. I had a heavy metal wrench I'd swiped from Sarah's workshop. It was coated in the same blue "Essence" juice the Architect used for the ship.
I slid under Vane's guard. To him, I was a Level 0 nobody. He didn't even think I could scratch his armor.
CLANG.
I slammed the wrench into the back of his knee.
In a normal world, the wrench would have snapped. But the Essence coating reacted with Vane's mana. It caused a mini-explosion of blue and gold sparks.
Vane's leg buckled. The "God" fell to one knee.
"You... you worm!" Vane screamed.
He swung his black glass sword in a wide arc. I couldn't dodge it. I wasn't fast enough.
The blade caught me in the shoulder.
[HEALTH: 15%] [WARNING: NEURAL SHOCK]
I flew back, hitting a control console. Everything went black for a second. My shoulder felt like it had been branded with a hot iron. I could taste copper in my mouth.
"Kane!" the Architect screamed.
I looked up. Vane was standing over me, his face twisted in rage. His armor was cracked where I'd hit him. He was bleeding black blood from his nose.
"Enough games," Vane said. He raised his sword for a finishing blow. "The King wants you alive, but he didn't say you needed all your limbs."
The Backburn
I looked at the black sword. I looked at the "Anchor" device the Architect was holding—a small silver box that needed to be plugged into the center of the room.
If I died here, the Stitch would happen. Elena would dissolve. Sarah would die. The world would turn into a buffet for monsters.
Not today, I thought.
I reached into my brain. I didn't look for mana. I looked for the Scar.
The place where the System used to live was like a burnt-out crater. It was empty, but it was still connected to the "Other Side." I grabbed that emptiness and pulled.
[NEURAL BACKBURN: 600%] [REALITY BENDING: ACTIVATED]
The world didn't just slow down; it stopped.
The blood dripping from my shoulder hung in mid-air. Vane's sword stayed frozen an inch from my neck.
Everything turned a deep, bruised purple.
I stood up. My body felt like it was made of glass that was about to shatter. Every step I took felt like my bones were grinding together.
I walked past Vane. I looked at his face—he was frozen in a look of pure hate.
I reached out and touched the black glass sword.
"Delete," I whispered.
I didn't have the power to delete an item. But I had the power to show the world that the sword shouldn't exist. I pushed my "nothingness" into the blade.
Crack.
The Level 25 legendary weapon shattered into a million tiny pieces of dust.
I kept walking. I reached the Architect. She was frozen, too, a look of terror on her face. I took the Anchor box from her hands.
I walked to the center of the observation deck. There was a glowing green hole in the floor—the heart of the Needle.
I shoved the box inside.
"Stabilize," I said.
The Crash
The purple world shattered.
BOOM.
Time slammed back into gear.
Vane's sword was gone. He stumbled forward, his hands empty, hitting the floor where I had just been lying.
The silver box in the floor started to hum. A wave of pure white light exploded outward. It hit the green fog and turned it into steam.
"NO!" Vane screamed.
The white light hit him like a physical wall. He was blasted through the window, screaming as he fell a thousand feet toward the streets of Seattle.
I fell, too.
My heart stopped beating for three seconds. Then it started again, but it felt weak. Like a bird hitting its wings against a cage.
[NEURAL BACKBURN ENDED] [PERMANENT PENALTY: PERMANENT HEALTH REDUCTION] [LEVEL: 0]
"Kane! Kane, breathe!"
The Architect was over me, pumping my chest. Elena was there, too, her face covered in soot. She looked like she'd just fought through an army.
"Did... did it work?" I whispered.
Elena looked out the window. The black glass tower was glowing white. The green fog was clearing. For the first time in weeks, you could see the actual buildings of Seattle.
"The Anchor is set," Elena said. She was crying, but she was smiling. "The Fracture is holding. We stopped it, Kane."
"One down," I muttered. "Three to go."
The Aftermath
We didn't stay to celebrate.
The UN "Peacekeepers" were already swarmimg the base of the Needle. They saw the white light. They knew something had happened.
Sarah met us at the service entrance. She looked at me, then at the blood on my hoodie.
"You used it again," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I had to," I said.
"If you keep doing that, you won't make it to the Amazon," she said, her voice stern. But then she put a hand on my shoulder. "But you did good, kid. Vane is gone. For now."
We scrambled back into the van. Marcus floored it, weaving through the abandoned cars as the UN sirens got closer.
"Where to now?" Marcus asked.
"The airport," Sarah said. "We have a ship to catch."
"A ship?" the Architect asked. "The UN has the airports locked down! There's a Level 20 'Sentinel' guarding the runway!"
Sarah pulled a small remote out of her pocket. "Not for long."
She pressed a button.
In the distance, the airport's main hangar exploded. A massive, black shape rose out of the flames. It looked like a shark made of metal, with four jet engines and no windows.
"That's our ride," Sarah said. "The Vagabond."
The Vagabond
Getting onto the ship was a blur.
UN soldiers were firing at us from the tarmac. Elena and Marcus stood by the ramp, firing back to keep them at bay. Kess was already in the cockpit, their four arms moving like a whirlwind.
"Engines at 80%!" Kess yelled. "We must go now!"
I stumbled up the ramp, leaning on the Architect. My vision was still blurry. The "Backburn" was like a hangover that wouldn't go away.
"Kane, get inside!" Elena shouted.
She jumped onto the ramp just as the ship started to lift. A UN missile whistled past the tail, hitting a nearby fuel truck instead.
WHOOSH.
The Vagabond didn't fly like a normal plane. It didn't need a runway. It pointed its nose at the sky and just... went.
The G-force slammed me into a seat. I watched through the small porthole as Seattle turned into a tiny dot. The white light of the Space Needle was still visible, a tiny candle in the dark.
"We're clear," Kess announced over the intercom. "Heading for the Amazon Fracture. Estimated travel time: six hours."
The Quiet
The ship was noisy and shaky, but it felt safe.
Marcus was in the back, cleaning his shotgun. The Architect was already setting up her laptop, trying to sync with the ship's sensors. Sarah was at a workbench, sharpening a new set of "Essence" arrows.
I sat in the corner, holding a cold pack to my shoulder.
Elena sat down next to me. She didn't say anything for a long time. She just looked at my hands.
"You're shaking," she said.
"I'm cold," I lied.
"You're not cold, Kane. You're dying." She looked me in the eye. "Every time you use that power, you're burning your soul. Stop it. Next time, let me handle it. Let Marcus handle it. You're the brain, remember? Not the shield."
"I can't just watch," I said. "Vane would have killed you."
"Then let him," she snapped. Her eyes were wet. "I'd rather be dead than watch you turn into a vegetable."
I didn't have an answer for that.
I looked at my phone. The five-year timer—now the six-month timer—was still ticking.
[0:05:28:14:02:10]
"We have to do this, Elena," I said. "If we don't, there won't be anyone left to watch."
She sighed and leaned her head on my shoulder. "You're the worst hero I've ever met."
"I'm not a hero," I said. "I'm D-Rank."
The New Enemy
Six hours later, Kess's voice came over the speakers again.
"We are over the Amazon. But... there is a problem."
I stood up and walked to the cockpit. The Architect was already there, her face pale.
"Look at the scanners," she said.
Below us, the rainforest was gone. In its place was a sea of black glass, identical to the towers in the Devourer World. But it wasn't just a tower. It was a City.
Thousands of Devourer ships were buzzing around the towers like hornets. And in the center, a massive portal was pulsing with red light.
"They're moving fast," Sarah said, joining us. "The Needle is already finished. They're starting the invasion."
"But the Stitch hasn't happened yet!" I said.
"They don't need the Stitch to send the small stuff," Sarah said. She pointed to a screen. "Look."
A fleet of small, needle-shaped ships was launching from the portal, heading toward North America.
"They're not coming for us," I said, realizing it. "They're coming for the survivors. They want to harvest the Essence before the worlds collide."
"Then we have to drop the second Anchor now," Marcus said, racking his shotgun.
"We can't," Kess said. "The air defenses are too strong. We will be shot down in seconds."
I looked at the black glass city. I looked at the red portal.
I didn't feel like a hero. I felt small. I felt like a fly.
But sometimes, a fly is the only thing that can get through a screen.
"Kess," I said. "Give me a parachute."
"Kane, no!" Elena yelled.
"I'm Level 0," I said, looking at Sarah. "Their sensors won't see me. I'll drop in, plant the anchor, and you guys pick me up on the other side."
Sarah looked at the city, then at me. She handed me her wooden rifle.
"Take this," she said. "It's got one shot left in the battery. Make it count."
I took the rifle. It was heavy. It was real.
"Volume 3," I whispered, stepping toward the airlock. "Let's see if I can fly."
I jumped.