Leo pulled the crowbar from the void fold, examining the hairline fractures spreading across the dark glyphs.
The salvaged tonfa alloy had hardened the striking edge, but the base core was losing the argument against repeated shock, warning him that the weapon would shatter if pushed through another high-voltage conflict.
[ Weapon Evolution: 35% ]
[ Warning: Base Structure Failing | Superior Alloy Required To Advance ]
Slipping the tool back into the spatial fold, he knew that real combat alloy was required before he could face a cosmic-tier hunter, directing his focus toward the southern canals.
He kept off the main avenues as he headed south, choosing the canal side of the roofs where the shadows were deepest.
Every few minutes the low drone-sweep rolled through the district, sending a soundless vibration through his jawbone as it scanned the tenements for ether signatures.
Twice he pressed flat against the parapet and held his breath, waiting while the invisible pulse crawled over the tiles like a dragged chain.
A patrol buggy rattled through the crossroads below him, its searchlight combing the walls before speeding away toward the distant rail yard.
The whole district was buzzing with nervous energy tonight, but only a handful of predators knew what had actually dropped from the sky.
He dropped down the rear ladder at the end of a dead street where the scrap fringe began, stepping onto the damp ground with quiet footsteps.
The pawnshop sat on the corner behind a window filled with repossessed datapads and rings, but the real inventory rested underground.
He walked down the narrow steps past the peeling sign, stopping in front of a reinforced door scarred by dozens of rejected visitors.
He knocked three deliberate times, listening as three locks unlatched from the other side before the door swung open into a hazy cellar.
"Tsk, closed," said a voice like grinding stones, cutting through the haze of cigar smoke before the door could widen.
"Heh, come back never."
"I’m buying combat blades tonight, Doc," he said, stepping past the frame before the door could swing shut in his face.
Doc Richter stood by the workbench in his reading glasses, looking like a retired bear with a smoldering cigar parked between his teeth.
His scarred fingers continued reassembling a shock pistol with practiced muscle memory, not even bothering to glance down at the springs.
"Well," the old man grunted, sliding his glasses down his nose to look him over with a critical squint.
"The Marsh kid. Dock crews swore you got roasted in a boiler explosion last week."
"Rumors travel fast," he answered with a faint grin, rolling his shoulders to work out the lingering stiffness.
"I managed to walk away in one piece."
"You don’t look dead," Richter noted, his eyes ticking from Leo’s knuckles to the balanced way his weight rested on the balls of his feet.
"You look like you’ve been wrestling freight haulers for sport."
"Something like that," he replied, cutting to the point without wasting any more time on small talk.
"I need a blade that won’t shatter when I hit something harder than bone."
"Shop’s full of them," Richter said, gesturing with his cigar toward the wall display where machetes, batons, and a ceremonial saber hung on velvet.
"Priced for heroes, priced for husbands looking to scare muggers."
"I’m not shopping for a wall decoration, Doc."
"Good, because wall decorations get returned by crying widows," the old man said, rolling the cigar to the other corner of his mouth.
"Real tools get buried with their owners when the job goes sideways."
"I need something that bites deep and holds its edge against cosmic armor," he said, meeting the broker’s skeptical gaze without blinking.
The old man’s hands stopped moving over the pistol parts on the bench.
He set the weapon down, studying Leo’s face the way a surgeon examines a critical scan before making the first incision.
"Fifteen years I’ve run this basement," Richter muttered, exhaling a thick plume of grey smoke toward the low ceiling.
"Every young hothead walks in asking for a flashy toy, but you’re the first one who showed up asking for a real tool."
He walked past the crowded shelves to the back wall, shoved a storage bin aside, and unlocked a floor safe with a grunt.
He reached into the dark compartment and lifted a long bundle wrapped in faded cloth that smelled of damp earth.
He placed it on the counter and unwound the bindings, letting centuries of rust flake onto the surface with a soft clatter.
It was a broad cleaver built for battlefield slaughter, its curved edge notched with ritual grooves and its spine etched with ancient script.
"Dug it out of a sealed bunker under the old sector before the Incident," Richter said, tapping ash onto the floor.
"Older than the Hero Association, and probably older than the first mutants who crawled out of the slag."
"What does that mean, older than the mutants?"
"Means nobody alive is left to invoice me for the history lesson," the old man shrugged, resting his rough palm on the cloth.
"What I do know is this. For twenty years it sat in my safe, and every fool who picked it up went numb to the shoulder."
"It drains ether?" he asked, his eyes locking onto the strange glyphs that seemed to drink the lamplight.
"It drinks energy like dockworkers drink beer at shift change," Richter answered, baring his yellowed teeth around the cigar.
"So I keep it wrapped, and I keep it cheap for desperate souls who don’t know any better."
"How cheap?"
"Eight thousand credits, cash only, no refunds," Richter said with a dry chuckle that ended in a rasp.
"Especially not when the blade finishes eating your arm."
"If it drains everyone who touches it, why keep it around to sell?"
"Because you asked for a real tool, kid, and that’s the only one I have left in stock tonight."
He pulled a stack of banded credits from his void pouch and counted eight thousand onto the counter without hesitation.
[ Personal Transaction: -8,000 Credits ]
[ Remaining Balance: 128,500 Credits ]
Then he reached out and closed his fingers around the wrapped grip with a firm, deliberate squeeze.
The cold shock struck his veins instantly, feeling like a plunge into freezing canal water in the dead of winter.
Numbness surged from his fingertips up through his wrist, threatening to pull his balance sideways as the blade began to drink his energy.
The weapon’s hunger pulled at his reserves, demanding every drop of ether circulating through his body.
Then the All-Spark flared awake behind his ribs and answered the pull with a roar of cosmic power that shook his marrow.
The newly refined gate pathways held his stance firm while two ancient hungers locked onto the same channel, clashing across his forearm.
The blade pulled with the thirst of an old relic, but the core in his chest was older, vaster, and infinitely meaner.
Violet light erupted across the cellar, washing over the weapon racks and painting the walls in a pulsing purple glow.
[ Weapon Synthesis Initiated ]
[ Assimilating Ancient Alloy... ]
[ Merging Host Vessel: Crowbar (Evolution 35%) ]
[ Weapon Created: The Null Razor (Growth Blade | Grade: F) ]
[ Core Trait: Kinetic & Ether Absorption (Absorbs 70% Parry Impact -> 200% Counter-Slash) ]
[ Growth Blade: Absorbs Slain Essence To Evolve ]
The ancient rust burned away into drifting purple sparks as midnight blackness spread across the alloy like ink blooming in clear water.
The fractured crowbar materialized from the void fold on its own, dissolving into liquid shadow before merging into the cleaver’s spine.
The notched hook nestled cleanly beneath the new crescent edge, while violet circuit lines etched themselves along the dark surface.
When the light faded, he held a single-edged black blade that drank the room’s illumination without casting a single reflection.
The weapon felt weightless in his grip, balanced to perfection and humming in harmony with his steady heartbeat.
His optimized pathways fed energy to the circuit channels in a seamless loop, circulating power from core to blade and back again.
He gave the weapon a slow test swing through the air above the payment stack on the counter.
The top corner of the wooden bin sheared away without a sound, sliding off to hit the floor with a clean, polished cut.
Richter’s cigar ash fell onto his trousers, but the old man didn’t even blink as he stared at the sliced timber.
"Twenty years," Richter whispered, his voice trailing off into stunned silence as he watched the violet circuits pulse along the edge.
"Twenty years that cursed relic sat in my safe, and you turn it into a masterwork for eight thousand credits."
"You set the price, Doc," he said, turning the dark blade in his hand with a faint smile.
"No refunds on tools."
The old man stared at him in disbelief, then let out a rasping laugh that dissolved into a coughing fit.
"Get out of my shop, kid, before I change my mind and slap a finder’s fee on that monster."
Before he could answer, the floor beneath their feet shuddered as a deep tremor rolled through the foundation.
Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling beams, and bottles ticked against each other in the display racks behind the counter.
[ Warning: Ether Signature Broadcast Detected ]
[ Source: Weapon Synthesis Pulse ]
[ Threat Tracking: Bearing Locked | Scrap Wastes Perimeter, Two Streets South ]
The passing drone-sweep that had been crossing the district suddenly halted its cycle and locked onto their exact coordinates.
"Was that a freight hauler?" Richter asked quietly, his hand already slipping inside his coat toward a hidden firearm.
"Worse," he answered, letting the Null Razor slide into his void fold with a single pulse of thought.
"Stay in this basement until sunrise, Doc, and stay clear of the ceiling if things start coming down."
He took the stairs two at a time, burst through the door, and emerged into the freezing alley with adrenaline surging through his blood.
The synthesis pulse had rung across the district like a dinner bell, and the cosmic hunter two streets over was already closing in for the kill.