[Time]: 10:50 AM
[Location]: Milan'thir · White City · An uninhabited back alley in the Commercial District
The wind screamed in her ears. Gravity felt like a giant, invisible hand, clamping down on Hathaway's ankles and dragging her straight to hell. The dumpsters and stray cats on the ground were hurtling towards her face at terrifying speed.
"AAAAAH I'M GOING TO DIEEE!!"
Hathaway's mind went blank. Even though she knew her stats were off the charts, the moment that weightlessness hit, the primal fear of falling, etched deep into the DNA of every "Earth Primate," took over. At this height, the laws of physics were a death sentence.
But while her Earth brain was still filing a formal complaint, the body belonging to "Ludwig" moved on its own. Something that was not Hathaway reached into the reservoir, grabbed as much as it could hold, and threw it at the empty air under her feet: a chaotic, structureless lump of raw energy.
I am NOT going down! STOP!
BOOM!!
About one meter above the ground, Hathaway slammed into an invisible rubber wall as if she were sprinting a hundred meters directly into it.
A muffled sonic boom detonated in the alley. The air, crushed flat by her mana, kicked up a visible shockwave of dust, flipping the nearby dumpsters like toys.
Then.
Thud.
Hathaway fell from that one-meter high "air wall," her feet smashing heavily onto the bluestone pavement. The fragile tiles spiderwebbed with cracks, sending gravel flying.
She had landed. Her knees had gone numb, the pavement was destroyed, and the noise had been roughly that of a demolition crew, but she had landed.
Hathaway froze in a stiff half-squat, her heart battering against her ribcage. She stared at the pulverized ground beneath her feet, then up at the strip of sky between the rooftops, so far above that the club she had fallen out of wasn't even a dot in it.
"I..."
Hathaway’s voice trembled. More than when she’d exploded the vase.
I hit the brakes.
The realization flooded her brain like adrenaline. She looked at her trembling hands.
Did you see that?! I fought gravity! I just kicked the lid off Newton's coffin! I just grabbed Universal Gravitation by the neck and curbstomped it!!
I am Superman! I am Peter Pan! I am—
"Did you guys see that?!" Hathaway blurted out, unable to contain the manic survival high. She spun around, waving her arms at them, her Earthly common sense entirely overridden by the thrill. "I stopped! I actually stopped the fall! I didn't die!"
However.
The air was a little too quiet. Hathaway blinked and looked at them.
Rhode and Lin stood two meters away. Landed ages ago. Clothes straightened, hair fixed, and Rhode had somehow produced a fresh lollipop from a pocket that had no business containing one, unwrapped it, and was working on it.
Even if you searched every dictionary in the universe, the look could only be summarized as: "The tender pity one feels for a puppy that just walked into a glass door."
Lin didn't even hold her staff properly anymore. She crossed her arms, tilted her head, and asked Rhode with the tone of someone inquiring about a terminal illness:
"...Rhode, tell me the truth. Was she dropped on her head as a baby?"
"No, she wasn't." Rhode pushed the sunglasses up her nose, and the lollipop stopped moving in her mouth. "I mean, she used to be a bit of a waste, but I remember she could use [Levitate] to reach the cookie jar when she was three. Why is her survival skill so... scuffed?"
"You call that a survival skill?" Lin glanced with disdain at the crater beneath Hathaway's feet, then at the dumpster overturned by the shockwave. "To stop a bicycle, she blew up the road. That wasn't [Feather Fall]; that was clearly [Meteor Swarm (Braking Variant)]."
Lin sighed. She walked forward, extended a gloved hand, and gently, even affectionately, patted Hathaway's forehead.
"You poor child."
The woman known as the "G.O.A.T. of Dueling" displayed a touching amount of tenderness (even if her words were poisonous):
"It seems Adeline's killing intent scared you silly. To be proud of such an aesthetically bankrupt execution fueled purely by brute force... This is like an adult shouting in the street, 'Sweet Mother of Mana, I can walk! I can actually use two legs to move alternately without falling! I am Supreme!'"
"..."
Hathaway’s jaw dropped, her excitement extinguished by a bucket of ice water.
Walking.
Right. Congratulations to me. I have achieved toddler.
"Alright, alright, don't kill the kid's motivation."
Rhode walked over and patted Hathaway on the back like she was patting a dog (with enough force to almost knock Hathaway back into the crater). "Look on the bright side. At least in that moment, your survival instinct was very strong. The mana spike you just panic-flared was enough to shatter a low-level gargoyle." Rhode showed all her teeth. "Although the execution was ugly and devoid of technique, 'Brute Force Miracles' is a style of its own. As a rookie, this spirit of 'I might not know how to fly, but I refuse to die' is worthy of praise."
"...Brute Force Miracles." Hathaway said the words back at her, flatly.
On Earth, they call it a "Miracle," she thought bitterly. Here, they call it "Uncultured Nouveau Riche." Cultural gap. It's a killer.
"Enough. Let's stop embarrassing ourselves here. Even though there's no one in this alley, if a stray cat sees this and word gets out, we'll be the laughing stock of the year."
Lin glanced disgustedly at the filthy surroundings (mostly worried about dirtying her combat boots) and waved her staff (which she held like a conductor's baton). "Let's go. Jumping out of that window burned about... 0.5 calories. I'm hungry," Lin announced righteously. "Since we dodged Adeline's poisoned wine, we need to eat something good to calm our nerves."
"Agreed," Rhode said. "Hathaway only inhaled three plates of beef earlier; she must be starving too. Where to?"
"Hotpot."
Lin snapped her fingers, her gaze sharpening. "I heard a new place opened in the East District called 'Abyss Magma Hotpot'. Only those with the hardest lives can handle the spiciest pots. I want to see if I can eat the owner into bankruptcy."
Hathaway looked at the two Witches who were jumping out of a building one second and discussing hotpot the next, and let the sigh out through her nose. She looked down at her toes, then at the pit she had stomped into the ground.
As long as you have enough mana, even air can become a cushion.
She clenched her fist, the corner of her mouth curling into an imperceptible smile. Just you wait, you bunch of elitist monsters. Once I figure out how to use this body properly, I'm going to fly into the stratosphere and scare you to death.
"Wait for me!" Hathaway chased after the two long-legged figures, her energy fully restored. "I want to eat too! I want the extra spicy!"
Walking out of the dusty back alley, Hathaway finally saw the true face of the "East District." Or rather, the terrifying grandeur of Milan'thir.
There was no smog, no neon signs. There was only White.
A blinding, "Absolute White" that made Hathaway squint. The entire city seemed to be built from bleached dragon bones and white marble, reflecting the sunlight with an intensity that bordered on arrogance.
Milan’thir divided itself by altitude. On the ground, ordinary humans (Mortals) moved like orderly ants. They rode bicycles or sat in silent, magi-tech buses, moving strictly along designated lanes, living their lives in the shadow of the colossi above.
But in the sky... that was the domain of the Witches.
Hathaway looked up, her mouth falling open. Countless floating islands defied gravity, suspended in the azure sky like white stepping stones leading to heaven, and the most striking one was directly ahead: a massive, semi-circular Commercial Ring.
An engineering impossibility: the left side of the ring was normal, with shops and cafes sitting atop the floating rock. But as the ring curved to the right, the gravity inverted.
The buildings on the right side were built underneath the island. Hathaway watched with dizzying vertigo as Witches flew their brooms upside down, landing on the "ceiling" to enter inverted boutiques, their skirts defying physics to stay perfectly draped.
This is the arrogance of Milan'thir, Hathaway realized. They don't use magic on physics. They use magic at physics.
"Hey! Taxi!"
Rhode, obviously not intending to walk another step in her flip-flops, raised her hand and snapped her fingers towards the sky. A yellow, unmanned [Griffon-Cab] (a smaller, public transport version of the beast) swooped down from a nearby rest-stop island, braking to a halt in front of them.
"To the Abyss Magma Hotpot. Meter running."
Rhode shoved Hathaway into the backseat. "Get in. If we're late, the line will be longer than Lin's list of failed exams."
"I heard that!" Lin, who was climbing in from the other side, dangerously narrowed her eyes. She poked Rhode hard in the ribs with her legendary staff. "Correction. It's a 'portfolio of academic exploration'."
"Keep telling yourself that," Rhode cackled, dodging the staff and squeezing into the middle seat between Hathaway and Lin.
"Just drive!" Lin slammed the door and snapped at the confused magic-construct pilot. "If I don't see a chili pepper in five minutes, I'm eating the upholstery."
The Griffon screeched, spreading its wings and launching them into the dazzling, chaotic sky of Milan'thir. Hathaway pressed her face against the glass, watching the inverted city blur past.
She survived the fall. She survived the idol.
Now, she just had to survive lunch.