Chapter 244: A Pity You Picked Mine

Evren drove Corb’s lifted scout truck up the muddy mountain trail while the engine hummed steadily against the steep climb. Rain poured over the windshield in steady waves as the large off-road tires pushed through the slippery red mud and gravel.

Zephyra watched the glowing green dashboard navigation screen, her violet eyes tracking their progress through the misty darkness. "One mile until the quarry entrance."

"Good," Evren smiled, shifting into low gear as the narrow trail wound between sheer rocky walls. "Corb’s scout truck has decent suspension, but it doesn’t compare to our rig."

"I doubt Maddox Pike has even managed to scratch the paint," Zephyra noted with a faint, knowing smirk. "Those runic alloys do not bend to frontier tools."

"That won’t stop them from trying," Evren chuckled, keeping both hands on the steering wheel. "Let’s go make sure they haven’t made a mess of the cabin."

They crested the high plateau of Dead-Man’s Ridge, where the dark pine forest opened into a vast, rain-soaked granite crater. The abandoned pre-war quarry was ringed by tall chain-link fencing topped with coiled razor wire, illuminated by harsh halogen floodlights mounted on timber watchtowers.

Evren killed the headlights fifty paces before the outer gate, coasting quietly beneath the shadow of a towering pine grove. He pulled the handbrake, letting the engine idle down in the damp chill as they studied the compound layout.

They stepped out of the scout truck into the dark drizzle, moving silently to the edge of the rocky bluff overlooking the quarry floor.

In the center of the pit sat a massive aircraft-style salvage hangar, where the harsh glare of work lamps and the screech of electric tools spilled through wide sliding doors.

"Two spotters in the guard towers, sixteen men inside the main bay," Zephyra reported after scanning the compound with her shadow perception. "The guards in the towers are drinking coffee to stay warm, paying very little attention to the perimeter."

She looked toward the open hangar doors. "Our transport is hooked to an overhead hydraulic gantry in the center of the floor."

"Take out their power grid first," Evren murmured with an amused smirk, gesturing toward the floodlights. "No need to fight under their spotlights when the dark belongs to you."

Zephyra’s lips curved faintly as she melted into a veil of dark mist, vanishing soundlessly into the rainy shadows.

She glided over the chain-link fence without triggering a single tripwire, slipping behind the diesel generator shed at the base of the eastern tower. With a single fluid slash of her shadow dagger, the primary electrical conduit severed in a shower of silent blue sparks.

The deep rumble of the compound’s generator sputtered and died instantly. Every floodlight and perimeter sensor across the quarry snapped dark at once, plunging the muddy yard into pitch-black silence.

"What happened to the lights?" a guard yelled from the watchtower, shining a weak flashlight through the downpour. "The breaker tripped again, so someone go check the generator!"

Confused shouts and curses echoed across the dark yard as emergency battery lanterns flickered to life inside the main hangar.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Evren and Zephyra slipped through a high ventilation opening in the corrugated iron roof, perching silently on the steel crossbeams fifty feet above the concrete bay.

Down below, their matte-black armored transport was parked in the center of the bay, its dark runic plating repelling every tool they brought against it.

A pale technician in a grease-stained jumpsuit was frantically typing into a portable mana-hacking terminal plugged into the door console, surrounded by fried cables and cracked drill bits.

The terminal screen flashed bright red warning symbols, accompanied by high-pitched error beeps.

"Boss, it’s completely impossible!" the decryptor shouted, wiping sweat and grease from his brow. "This isn’t commercial runic security, it’s Level-One Defense encryption!"

Standing beside him was Maddox Pike, a broad-shouldered brute with a robotic red eye, a scarred jaw, and a sawed-off kinetic blaster strapped to his thigh.

"Shut your mouth and bypass the secondary lockout!" Maddox roared, kicking an empty metal drum with a ringing clang. "You got it running at the motel, so why did the engine die the second we parked it in the bay?!"

"Because that bypass was only a temporary ignition trick!" the technician yelled in panic, holding up a melted diagnostic probe. "Once the engine shut down, the real defense capacitor kicked in, and if I force the relay, it will dump eighty thousand volts straight through the console!"

Several mechanics standing nearby shook their heads, tossing ruined diamond-tipped saws onto a workbench. "The armor won’t take a scratch, Maddox, and we’re just burning through tools."

"I... DON’T... CARE! Keep at it!" Maddox snarled, brandishing his kinetic blaster. "And if by morning you can’t get it running, then you’re rift beast distraction when we pass through East Gorge."

"Yes boss... I’ll get back to it."

"No, you wouldn’t, because that vehicle is registered to me," a calm, amused voice echoed from the rafters.

Maddox and his twenty scavengers froze instantly, their heads snapping upward as weapons were raised toward the shadows.

Evren and Zephyra dropped from the steel crossbeams, landing softly on the concrete floor without making a single sound. Evren dusted a speck of soot from his jacket, his hands resting casually in his pockets.

"Intruders!" Maddox bellowed, raising his blaster with a furious snarl. "Kill them both!"

Before a single scavenger could pull a trigger, Zephyra moved.

Her right hand closed around the dark hilt at her hip, her thumb clicking the forward release switch with a sharp click. Zephyra slashed her arm forward in a blinding arc.

The thirty-two interlocking segments detached, instantly forming a deadly whip of jagged razor teeth. It whipped through the air like silver lightning and swept through the front line of scavengers with incredible speed.

The teeth cleanly sliced through rifle barrels and shotgun receivers, ripping the ruined weapons from their hands with brutal torque.

With a reverse flick of her wrist, the internal spring mechanism engaged, snapping the braided cable back with a sharp metallic hiss as the segments locked seamlessly back into a rigid short blade in her grip.

The disarmed scavengers scrambled backward in sheer terror, reaching for side knives and scrap pistols. Evren simply took one casual step forward.

A crushing wave of invisible kinetic force smashed downward as Evren unleashed a Gravity Domain across the entire hangar. Maddox and all twenty scavengers slammed hard against the concrete floor like dropped stones, the breath driven completely from their chests.

They groaned in agony, unable to lift their heads against the immense downward pressure. Faint sparks of golden lightning danced lazily across Evren’s knuckles as he walked over to the groaning gang leader.

Evren stepped onto Maddox’s fallen kinetic blaster, crushing the reinforced barrel to scrap metal under the sole of his boot. "Now then," he said in a quiet, pleasant tone. "Why was an ex-military deserter so desperate for an armored transport?"

"Don’t kill me," Maddox gasped, his robotic eye whirring erratically. "The mountain pass... the road to Oakhaven is a death trap!"

Evren narrowed his dark eyes, keeping the gravity pressure steady. "Explain."

"Two days ago, a massive dimensional fissure cracked open at Eagle Gorge, right on the edge of Oakhaven," Maddox confessed in a desperate rush. "Ambient rift mana is bleeding through the canyon, and swarms of mutated rift beasts have overrun the highway so nobody can get through without high-grade military plating!"

"And your next solution was to steal?" Evren asked in a dry and unimpressed tone.

Maddox swallowed hard, his robotic eye twitching in panic. "We were desperate! Nobody survives the gorge without high-grade military plating, and the cartels in the south were offering millions for an intact core-shielded rig!"

"A pity you picked mine," Evren said smoothly, releasing the crushing gravity pressure.

Before Maddox could even think of rolling away, Evren reached down and tapped two fingers against the outlaw’s temple. A sharp burst of lightning crackled through Maddox’s skull, instantly short-circuiting his robotic red eye with a loud pop and a puff of acrid black smoke.

Maddox howled in agony as the electric surge burned out his combat optical implants and fractured his internal mana conduits, permanently stripping the deserter of his awakened rank.

"Since you enjoy preying on travelers with military rank," Evren murmured coldly, "you can spend the rest of your days as an ordinary civilian."

Zephyra lowered her blade, her violet eyes narrowing as she looked toward the dark southern ridge outside. "A dimensional fissure right at the mouth of the valley explains why the beasts earlier were acting so organized."

Before the groaning scavengers could attempt to scramble for the exits, Zephyra flicked her wrists. Coils of thick shadow threads surged across the floor, wrapping securely around Maddox and all twenty men, binding them tightly to the central iron support pillars.

Evren flicked his wrist toward their communications desk and weapons lockers. A branching arc of golden electricity leaped across the metal consoles, melting their long-range radios and spare ammunition into glowing scrap.

"No blasters, no radio, and a leader who cannot channel a speck of mana," Evren remarked calmly, turning toward their rig. "This gang will not be troubling anyone ever again."

"A fitting end for scavengers," Zephyra agreed, sheathing her whip-blade.

Evren walked over to the driver’s side of their matte-black transport and pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner.

The reinforced doors clicked open with a smooth, solid thunk.

"Not a single scratch," Evren smiled, glancing into the clean cabin before turning to Zephyra. He spun Corb’s brass key ring around his index finger with an amused smirk.

"Well, now we have two trucks and six miles of empty mountain switchbacks back to the motel," Evren noted.

Zephyra’s violet eyes lit up with a rare, competitive gleam as she looked from the borrowed scout truck to their custom military beast. "Are you suggesting a race, boss?"

"Last one back to the Iron-Pine Rest Stop buys breakfast," Evren grinned, tossing her the keys to the matte-black transport as he headed for Corb’s scout truck.