The sunken tracks of the Ilian Grid erupted into a cacophony of screeching metal and animalistic maws.
The Runners did not move like the wandering hordes of the inner city; they were a blurred, white-skinned avalanche of muscle and pulsing black veins, scaling the concrete platform on all fours at a velocity that defied standard physics.
“Stop looking at the claws!” Asher’s voice cut through the smog, steady and absolute.
“Sense where the air breaks!” A trio of Runners lunged simultaneously from the fog, their jaws ripped wide to reveal cavernous maws.
Asher didn’t retreat.
Without a single spark of a glowing Segonda ability or a flashing shield to cushion the impact, he stepped directly into the blind spot of the lead hunter.
His predictive, peak-human reflexes read the minute shifting of the fog around the monster’s shoulders before its feet even left the gravel.
When the Runners launch an unexpected outbreak, he steps to the front of the line like a sacrificial wall, keeping his warm, fiercely protective focus locked onto their safety.
SWISH.
CLANG.
The wavy snake-sword moved like an unmanifested silver blur.
Asher executed a flawless, low-angle parry, using the lead Runner’s own hyper-velocity momentum to redirect its trajectory straight into the path of the second beast.
The two white-skinned entities collided with an organic, bone-shattering crash, tumbling helplessly off the platform into the rusted chassis of an old transport train.
But the sheer numbers of the pack were overwhelming.
Two more hyper-fast hunters bypassed the captain entirely, their claws tearing deep gashes into the concrete as they locked their blind, flat faces onto Ambo’s purple outerwear.
Ambo’s heart hammered against his ribs, the dark panic in his chest threatening to spark a massive, exhausting eruption of the black fluid.
But as the freezing wind of the monster’s leap hit his face, his mind locked onto the memory of his blindfold training.
Precision, not an outburst.
Instead of projecting a giant, draining mud-wall, Ambo focused on keeping the malicious black fluid compressed strictly underneath his skin.
He willed the oily substance to settle just below his dermis like a razor-thin, highly dense layer of protective kinetic film.
He didn’t manifest it outwardly; he mapped it locally along his forearms, gritting his teeth as the lead Runner’s claws sliced viciously across his right sleeve.
THUD!
The impact sounded like a heavy mallet hitting dense clay.
The razor-thin, locally hardened film absorbed the absolute kinetic force of the strike completely.
Ambo’s jacket was torn, but his bones remained entirely unbroken, the internal dampener neutralising the impact.
Shifting his weight instantly, Ambo channeled the dormant fluid locally into his left elbow, driving it forward in a short, explosive counter-strike that cracked the Runner’s white jaw with a sickening crunch.
“Ambo!
Help!” A desperate, terrified scream echoed from the far side of the platform.
Jahek was cornered.
Three screeching Runners had pinned him flat against the rusted, corrugated iron door of a derailed cargo train.
His raw Astral energy was draining at a catastrophic rate, leaking uselessly from his body as an unstable, flickering aura because his sheer panic was hijacking his focus.
His daggers clattered weakly against the iron sheets as he blindly swung at the snapping maws.
Grrrr— As a massive Runner lunged directly for his throat, Jahek’s survival instinct reached its absolute limits.
Driven by pure desperation, a profound, violent surge of raw power began to churn deep within his core—his dormant Segonda ability, a force far deadlier than his standard silver daggers, was screaming to be released.
But the exact microsecond the ability threatened to burst from his palms, a sudden, agonizing echo fractured his mind.
“Jahek…
it’s not your fault…
please, don’t blame yourself…” A chorus of distorted, sobbing echoes—the final, weeping cries of his own family—shattered violently through the dark halls of his memory.
They were drowning in the phantom sound of crackling destruction, their voices desperately trying to absolve him even as the raw, unforgettable weight of his own past regret slammed into his chest like a physical blow.
A crushing wave of guilt paralyzed him.
He had made an absolute promise to himself beneath the ashes of his old life: Never again.
Never resort to this ability in front of anyone.
Jahek forcefully suppressed the rising Segonda, suffocating the energy back into his core as tears of panic and bitter memory mixed with the sweat on his face.
The hesitation left him completely exposed, the lead Runner’s teeth mere inches from his shoulder.
“Listen to the wind, not your heart!” Asher’s earlier command snapped through his panic like a whip.
Jahek slammed his eyes shut, spitting his bubble gum into the dust.
He forced his chest to drop, abandoning the chaotic aura entirely.
He stopped blindly swinging.
In the pitch-black behind his eyelids, he felt the air pressure violently drop to his front-right.
Overcoming the internal noise, Jahek executed his signature tactical retreat step, twisting his torso flush against the cargo door just as the lead Runner’s jaws snapped on empty air.
Opening his eyes with newfound, gritty precision, Jahek drove both silver daggers straight through the soft underside of the monster’s throat, overflowing his raw energy into its head until the white flesh toasted and sizzled into fine grey ash.
Ambo arrived a split-second later, his fluid-coated clogs launching him into a heavy slide that knocked the remaining two trailing hunters off the platform.
Asher stood at the center of the tracks, sheathing his pristine snake-sword with absolute, unbothered calm as the last of the white-skinned beasts dissolved into dust around his high-heeled boots.
“You survived the first sprint,” Asher muttered, his silver earrings swaying as his sharp eyes scanned the trembling rookies.
He looked at Jahek’s pale, tear-streaked face, then at Ambo’s torn purple sleeve, his peak-human perception cataloging their hidden burdens without a word.
“But the grid is fully awake now.
If you want to keep your skin intact, we move to the next purok before the scent of that ash draws the Abnormals.”