Sprinting across the rooftops of District 9, Leo felt the evening rain whip against his face in cool, relentless droplets.
The cool moisture did not slow his pace, as every long leap carried him effortlessly through the twilight.
His feet landed silently on the slick parapet stones, guiding him forward while he tracked the pulsing beacon on his display.
His physical form felt remarkably light, his evolution to Level 5 having expanded his overall endurance.
Zero fatigue weighed on his lungs as the shadow energy circuited smoothly through his optimized gates.
Beneath his hooded jacket, the All-Spark core pulsed against his chest, guiding his silent movements through the maze of slums.
Leo centered his inner balance, drawing comfort from the memory of the cashier check he had secured for Tessa earlier that morning.
His younger sister was safe inside the academy dormitories, her tuition cleared in full after his hard-fought battles.
But his patrol through the lower sectors was far from finished.
Smoke curled into the gloomy sky from Seventh Avenue, where the ruined facade of the charity clinic stood among the tenement buildings.
The evening fog was dense and damp, carrying the biting scent of coal and ozone from burning electrical conduits across the narrow street.
Rain pattered against the roof tiles, washing black soot down the drainage gutters in murky streaks.
Below on the pavement, two black transport vans blocked the entrance, their engines idling with a low vibration that rattled the nearby shopfronts.
Four lookouts stood on the pavement with rifles, keeping curious neighbors away at gunpoint.
The local residents watched from behind drawn curtains in silence, knowing that Flint’s enforcers answered to no one in these streets.
With his Perception attribute raised to thirteen, Leo’s hearing caught the muffled cries of the medical staff inside the building.
He heard the crunch of toppled carts, the breaking of medicine jars, and the high whine of capacitors charging in the lobby.
Guards tossed medical files into burn barrels near the pharmacy entrance, destroying all patient archives in the rising flames.
’Flint is trying to erase all evidence of the clinic’s existence,’ he thought, crouching low on the adjacent roof to map his path.
He scaled a drainage pipe to the third-floor roof of the clinic, finding the central ventilation skylight standing open near his feet.
Looking down through the rectangular opening, he observed the wrecked emergency ward in the glow of flickering ceiling lamps.
Cabinets lay spilled, surgical trays were scattered across the floor, and several nurses were zip-tied against the plaster wall.
An elderly dockworker shivered on an examination cot, clutching his bandaged leg as syndicate thugs kicked over his IV stand.
In the center of the room stood Creel, an enforcer whose muscular frame was clad in plated combat gear.
Across his thick forearms rested a pair of hydraulic shock tonfas, their capacitors glowing with pulsing amber energy.
The enforcer held Luna by the collar of her scrubs, lifting her until her feet barely touched the floor.
"Hah! Boss Flint is done playing games with charity clinics," Creel growled, his scarred face twisting with satisfaction.
"Apex Bio-Tech pays fifty thousand credits for your life ether strain, nurse, and you are leaving in our stasis crate tonight."
"Ghk... let the patients go, Creel," her voice was a strained, thin rasp as she struggled for breath.
"They are innocent neighborhood laborers who need urgent treatment."
"In District 9, nobody is innocent," Creel laughed, raising a hydraulic tonfa toward her ribs with a cruel grin.
"Your little healing clinic is closed for business."
"Chairman Gruber needs your genetic vitality to synthesize a cure for his son’s cellular decay," the brute added with a chuckle.
"Once the laboratory extraction is finished, there won’t be enough left of you to bury in the ground."
Luna reached for a surgical scalpel on the rolling cart, slashing at his wrist in a desperate attempt to free herself.
The strike produced only a dull screech and a tiny spark against his gauntlet, failing to pierce his hardened armor.
"Heh, spunky little healer," Creel sneered, swatting the scalpel out of her fingers with a casual backhand.
"That fiery attitude will make Chairman Gruber pay double for your capture."
The young nurse coughed, trying to channel her vibrant vitality ether to break his grip, but the enforcer’s kinetic aura choked the spark before it could form.
High above on the roof frame, the All-Spark in Leo’s chest flared with blazing violet and rose-gold light.
[ High-Priority Combat Quest: Neutralize E-Rank Enforcer Creel ]
[ Combat Objective: Defeat The Kinetic Enforcer And Erase Syndicate Presence ]
[ Combat Reward: +3,000 EXP | Trait Extraction: Material Absorption | Cosmic Shop Online ]
[ Desire Objective: Protect Luna From Harm | Erase Her Terror ]
[ Desire Reward: +1,000 Desire EXP ]
[ Cosmic Pathways: 0% / 100% ]
Leo didn’t wait another fraction of a second to intervene.
He kicked the ventilation grate open and dropped through forty feet of open air, channeling shadow ether into his steps to soften the descent.
He landed on the floorboards behind Creel with a dull thud, the shadow energy cushioning his landing before the impact could register.
The nearby guards spun around in surprise, their eyes widening as they struggled to process the sudden appearance of the hooded vigilante.
Before they could raise their rifles, Leo whipped the crowbar around in a swift horizontal sweep, striking the skulls of both lackeys in a single heartbeat.
The two gunmen collapsed like cut timber, their rifles clattering across the floorboards without firing a single shot.
Creel dropped Luna in shock, spinning around to face the hooded intruder who had materialized from the ceiling.
Luna scrambled backward on the floor, her eyes widening in relief as she recognized the lean figure standing before her.
"You came!" she cried out, her hand flying to her bruised throat where the enforcer’s grip had left red marks.
"I told you I would come back if you ever needed help," Leo said quietly, shifting his stance as pitch-black smoke curled along the shaft of his crowbar.
"Get the other nurses and patients into the back examination room and lock the door."
Luna nodded, scrambling across the floor to cut the zip-ties on her colleagues before ushering them behind the rear security partition.
"Be careful, Leo," she called out from the doorway, her voice filled with desperate worry.
"He can shatter solid stone with those hydraulic tonfas!"
A soft emerald glow pulsed around her hands, her warm energy strengthening the Healer’s Devotion bond that fed fresh vigor into Leo’s bloodstream.
Creel looked at his goons, then sneered with amusement as he brought his hydraulic tonfas up into a guard position.
"So you are the little slum rat who took out Kincaid," Creel mocked, his capacitors whining as kinetic force built up within the internal pistons.
"Kincaid was a weak F-Rank brawler who relied on clumsy muscle, but I command kinetic shockwaves."
"Your shockwaves won’t save you tonight," Leo answered, his eyes narrowing beneath the shadow of his hood.
"Hah! Big talk for a boy with a construction crowbar," Creel barked, his eyes flashing with murderous glee.
"Let me show you what an E-Rank kinetic meta can do to human flesh and bone."
The enforcer slammed the twin hydraulic tonfas together in front of his broad chest.
The collision unleashed a concussive shockwave, the kinetic force blasting a deep trench across the floor to rip through the room.
The atmospheric pressure spiked, the sudden rush of wind blowing loose records and medical supplies into a swirling vortex of debris.
The surrounding walls groaned as plaster cracked and fell from the ceiling in sheets.
Creel charged forward, his steps shaking the floorboards as he aimed a crushing strike at Leo’s ribs.
Leo didn’t back down or give up an inch of ground.
He lowered his center of gravity, shadow ether surging through his hands as he met the kinetic shockwave head-on.
Shadows coiled around his feet, the umbral coils anchoring him to the floor as the kinetic tempest slammed against his shadow barrier.
He raised his crowbar, the shadow ether coating the tool until it hardened into an obsidian blade of pure shadow.
Cold air whistled through the ruined clinic, the winter draft chilling the room as both combatants braced for the fatal collision.