The air near the quarantine perimeter felt thick enough to chew.
Every breath Deku Kwanoh took tasted of ozone, copper, and the sweet, sickly fragrance of the distant Divine Tree.
The emerald pillar of light illuminated the jagged skyline of Sector 9, casting long, warped shadows that seemed to bend unnaturally against the rusted walls.
As Deku approached the final checkpoint separating the slums from the quarantine zone, the heavy rumble of anti-gravity treads vibrated through the ground.
Two massive, wedge-shaped armored carriers bearing the insignia of the Aether-Corp Defense Division sat idling before a towering electrified gate.
Standing outside the vehicles were five elite mercenaries.
Unlike the low-tier Vanguard Hounds Deku had dealt with earlier, these operatives wore sleek, pearl-white combat rigs that shimmered with faint, geometric holographic grids.
Worse still, they weren’t just armed with plasma rifles; they were active space-time manipulators.
A tall, silver-haired mercenary with a scar across his bridge stood at the front, casually tossing a small metal grenade into the air.
Every time the grenade reached the peak of its arc, it didn’t fall back down immediately—it hovered in a tiny, localized pocket of frozen time before snapping back into motion.
”Sector 9 quarantine is locked down by corporate decree,” the silver-haired mercenary called out, his voice carrying effortlessly across the open plaza without needing to raise it.
He turned his chilling blue eyes toward Deku, who was walking out of the shadows with immaculate posture and a slime-stained high school uniform.
Deku stopped twenty paces away.
He didn’t flinch.
Instead, he raised his hand, inspecting his knuckles where the Tier 2 spatial distortion was humming invisibly beneath his skin.
”Erase my trajectory?” Deku repeated, his voice smooth, calm, and dripping with absolute disdain.
“You talk a lot for a man standing in my way.”
The silver-haired mercenary’s expression darkened.
With a flick of his wrist, he didn’t throw the grenade—he projected a localized spatial rupture directly beneath Deku’s feet, aiming to tear the ground away and drop him into a subspace pocket.
CRACK.
The earth beneath Deku’s shoes shattered into a spiderweb of glowing fractures, and space violently buckled inward.
But Deku didn’t fall.
With a cold smirk, he channeled his newly synchronized inner mutation and Tier 2 spatial resistance, stepping forward right through the tearing fabric of space as if walking through a puddle of water.
His foot landed solidly on the other side, unbroken and unfazed.
The mercenary’s eyes widened in genuine shock. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“What?! That’s a Tier 3 spatial trap! How did he—”
Before the mercenary could finish his sentence, Deku vanished from sight, using the compressed space-time lag to bridge the twenty-pace gap in a single, terrifying blink.
Appearing directly in front of the silver-haired leader, Deku drove his fist forward.
The air around his knuckles fractured into a jet-black void, unleashing a shockwave that slammed directly into the mercenary’s chest plate.
BOOM!
The pearl-white armor shattered like glass, and the elite mercenary flew backward like a ragdoll, crashing straight through the side of an armored carrier with a deafening screech of twisted metal.
The remaining four operatives froze in absolute horror, their spatial manipulation abilities sputtering out as they stared at the slime-stained high schooler who had just dismantled their squad leader in a single blow.
Deku calmly straightened his tie, his dark eyes glowing with a cold, predatory light as he surveyed the remaining guards.
”Class is in session,” Deku whispered, the system humming a victorious tune deep within his core.
“And attendance is mandatory.”