Ninety pounds of specialized Island extraction gear cut deeply into Will's fractured collarbone.
He stood on the eastern loading dock at dawn, letting [UNBROKEN] do its quiet, ugly work. The jagged edges of his broken bone ground together under the heavy canvas straps. He filed the agony as environmental data, keeping his posture perfectly straight.
Fifty feet away, Murn paced the dirty concrete. The massive dock boss vibrated with territorial rage, flanked by his enforcers. He was entirely paralyzed. Vesper's cybernetic bouncer stood silently on the rusted catwalk above, his necrotic metal arm resting on the railing, ensuring Murn did not attempt to collect his thirty percent tax.
A Lounge hostess walked past Will, carrying a tray of empty rotgut glasses.
She tripped slightly, her shoulder colliding with his rig. Her hand brushed the underside of the heavy canvas. Through the thick material, Will felt a distinct, microscopic click against his ribs. A magnetic anchor. Vesper was watching the board.
The heavy reinforced doors groaned open.
The Island team walked onto the loading dock. They did not look like PATH survivors. They radiated an overwhelming, suffocating aura of high-density mana, completely untouched by the soot and chemical haze of the underground.
Ariya led the formation in pristine tactical weave, her flawless brunette blowout defying the humid air. Vance followed, a giant standing six-foot-eight, wearing interlocking plates of medieval-style System-metal that hummed with stored kinetic energy. Sora chewed neon-pink gum in sleek, minimalist stealth gear. Rhys brought up the rear, casually holding a recurve bow with absolutely no bowstring and wearing an empty quiver.
Ariya stopped directly in front of Will. She looked at his patched, grimy coat and the massive canvas pack.
"Oh, look at him," Ariya cooed, tapping a glowing wrist-HUD. "He packed it all himself. That is adorable."
She reached out and patted Will on the cheek, treating a lethal operative like a brave toddler helping with the groceries.
Sora popped a loud, sticky bubble. "Don't break him, Ari. We need him to carry the drops. I am not ruining my posture hauling monster cores."
Will kept his face completely blank. Khan went entirely silent in the void, processing the sheer, unfathomable audacity of the disrespect.
Tightening the frayed straps on his chest, Will turned toward the Gate.
They stepped through the shimmering anomaly.
The transition hit Will with the crushing weight of a collapsing lung. The temperature spiked instantly to a sweltering forty degrees Celsius. The air was thick, dripping with hundred-percent humidity, and smelled violently of rotting meat and blooming orchids.
Massive, ancient Amazonian flora towered hundreds of feet into a false green sky. The jungle chattered, hissed, and ground together with the sound of millions of unseen, heavily mutated insects.
Will instinctively pushed his focus outward into the massive ferns.
He immediately dropped to one knee, clutching his temples. The read did not return one or two threats. The entire jungle was a massive, overlapping chorus of apex predatory hunger—every single shadow wanted to eat him.
Rhys stepped casually over a thick, pulsating vine. "I hate the bio-domes. This humidity is going to ruin the string-tension algorithm on my bow."
Ariya checked her flawless nails, ignoring the lethal shadows entirely. "Just keep the canopy cleared, Rhys. I have a gala on the Island at eight. If we're late because you let a mud-crawler slow us down, I'm billing your father."
Vance grunted, his heavy steel plating clanking. "Gala is black tie. I need at least three hours to get the dent out of my dress pauldron."
Will wiped stinging sweat from his eyes, staring at the team complaining about dry cleaning in the middle of a death trap.
A low, clicking vibration rattled the massive ferns.
The canopy exploded. A horde of Jaguar-Mantises dropped from the trees in a coordinated, shrieking swarm. They were massive, sleek mammalian predators armed with jagged, chitinous scythes for forelegs.
Will reached for his sidearm, raw adrenaline flooding his system. He braced his legs, preparing to rely on massive, bone-breaking momentum and raw [Luck] just to survive the next ten seconds.
He didn't even get his weapon out of the holster.
A two-ton Jaguar-Mantis lunged at Will. Vance simply stepped in the way. The monster's scythe struck the medieval armor. The kinetic transfer was so violently heavy that Vance's steel boots were driven knee-deep into the jungle mud. The monster's shattered chitin exploded outward like shrapnel, slicing the surrounding foliage to ribbons. Vance backhanded the creature with a heavy gauntlet, caving its skull in with a sickening, wet crunch. Bone and brain matter sprayed across the broad leaves.
Rhys drew the stringless bow. A crackling arrow of pure blue mana materialized between his fingers. He fired casually into the canopy. The arrow split into twenty distinct bolts mid-air, tearing through flesh, wood, and chitin, vaporizing a cluster of monsters into a shower of boiling violet mist.
A monster swung a scythe directly at Sora's neck. Her body blurred, turning semi-translucent. The blade passed harmlessly through her throat. She stepped forward, plunged her vibrating, phased hand directly into the monster's solid chest cavity, solidified her grip, and violently ripped its glowing, beating A-Rank heart out through its ribs.
Will analyzed the bloodbath. He watched the Island team, searching for their battle focus or adrenaline.
He hit a wall of utter, terrifying boredom—Rhys was annoyed, and Ariya was mentally drafting an email. They were slaughtering apex predators and feeling absolutely nothing.
Sora dropped the dripping A-Rank heart casually into the mud. "Vance, watch your left, you're tracking gore everywhere."
Vance kicked a twitching, headless carcass out of his path. "My bad. Boots are new."
Will dropped to a crouch. Operating on pure PATH survival instinct, he slid his hands through the wet mud while the gods argued about dry cleaning. He quietly and methodically bagged the discarded A-Rank organ and slid it deep into his heavy rig.
He secured the massive financial asset, clicking the canvas clasp shut.
A massive Alpha-variant broke through the killing floor, entirely bypassing Vance—a direct, unbroken trajectory toward the unarmored pack mule.
The beast's jaws opened wide, hot breath washing over Will's face.
Ariya did not look at the monster. She was scrolling through a digital map on her wrist-HUD, visibly annoyed by the interface.
She raised two fingers. A hexagonal, shimmering wall of golden psychic glass violently materialized inches from Will's nose.
The Alpha hit the shield at sixty miles an hour. The impact did not shake the glass. The monster's jaw shattered completely, its neck snapping backward with a loud, absolute crack. It dropped dead at Will's boots.
Ariya dropped the shield. She finally looked up from her screen.
"Stay close to Vance, cutie," Ariya commanded. "I don't want to have to clean your brains off the new cargo crates."
Will swallowed hard, gripping the canvas straps of his heavy pack.
The skirmish ended in exactly forty seconds.
The jungle went dead quiet, save for the wet sound of violet blood dripping from the fern leaves into the mud.
Will stared at the smoking craters and the casually discarded monster organs. He realized his waiting-room tricks and street hustles would not matter against these people. If he triggered a trap, they wouldn't even notice they killed him.
Khan's voice finally echoed in the void, watching Ariya complain about a speck of monster blood on her pristine weave.
They are beautiful, the warlord murmured, deep respect coloring the ancient tone. Flawless mechanics. The heavy one swings his hammer like a true giant.
Will wiped stinging sweat from his eyes, adjusting the straps on his bleeding collarbone. I can't beat them.
Khan laughed, a dark, cruel sound. Of course you can. Look at them, Will. They fight like they are playing a parlor game. They have never had to bleed for a meal.
The warlord's presence sharpened with absolute, predatory confidence.
A warrior who has never been hungry will die the first time he misses a block. Let them slaughter the beasts. We will watch how they stumble when the light goes out.
Will adjusted the ninety-pound pack on his shoulders, following the gods deeper into the green hell.