Chapter 4

The rain fell in thick, heavy sheets, soaking through Alana's black trench coat. She pulled her hood down low, navigating the narrow, neon-lit alleyways of the lower city. The smell of ozone, rotting garbage, and wet asphalt filled her nose.

She stopped in front of a rusted iron door with no handle.

Two massive bouncers, their arms replaced by heavy chrome cybernetics, stepped into her path. One of them grabbed her chin roughly and forced her eye open, scanning her pupil with a red laser.

The door clicked open.

She was shoved into a dimly lit back room. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of cheap cigars and old blood. A man named Viper sat on a stained velvet sofa, slowly polishing a plasma pistol with a greasy rag.

Viper looked up. His eyes crawled up and down her body, lingering on her chest and hips like she was a piece of meat on a butcher's block.

Alana ignored the nausea twisting in her gut. She stepped forward. "I need a loan. 1.22 million credits."

Viper threw his head back and laughed. The sound was wet and grating. He tapped a button on his table, projecting a holographic contract in front of her.

"Sure, sweetheart," Viper sneered. "Collateral is your organs. And your womb. Sign here."

Alana didn't even blink. She swiped her hand through the air, shattering the projection into pixels. "No."

The two cyborg bouncers instantly drew their weapons. The hum of charging plasma filled the room. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

Alana didn't move. She reached deep into the inner pocket of her trench coat. Her fingers closed around a jagged, glowing shard of crystal. It was the core fragment of the academy's premier talent-measuring monolith-the one that had mysteriously shattered during her freshman evaluation. She had kept it hidden for three years, terrified of being caught. But now, with nothing left to lose, she pulled it out.

She slammed the broken test crystal onto the table right next to Viper's hand.

"Look at the energy signature," she ordered.

Viper frowned, glancing at the shard. The moment his desk's security sensors picked up the residual aura, his instruments shrieked in a high-pitched alarm. The raw, violent S-tier energy fluctuations bleeding from the crystal bathed his face in a blinding, terrifying light. His eyes widened. The cigar dropped from his lips, burning a hole straight through his expensive silk pants.

The readout on his scanner confirmed the impossible truth. Potential: Tier-S.

"That is my collateral," Alana said, her voice ice-cold. "When I succeed tonight, this loan will bring you a ten-fold return."

The lust in Viper's eyes vanished, instantly replaced by raw, naked greed. He waved the guards down. He typed furiously on his console, drafting a new contract with an astronomical, predatory interest rate.

Alana pressed her thumbprint onto the digital pad without a second thought.

Ding. 1.22 million credits transferred.

She left the loan shark's den and plunged into the black market bazaar. She moved like a machine, buying vials of Void Stardust, the heart-blood of an Abyssal beast, and a heavy pouch of high-grade conductive silver sand.

By the time she reached her temporary dorm in the slums, she was shivering violently, her clothes plastered to her skin.

She didn't bother drying her hair. She shoved a broken chair out of the way, clearing a small space on the rotting wooden floor.

She tore open the bags. Her fingers, stained with dirt and rain, began mixing the silver sand with the thick, foul-smelling beast blood. She crawled on her knees, drawing the jagged, complex geometric lines of the forbidden matrix.

When the final circle was closed, she pulled a combat knife from her boot.

She didn't hesitate. She pressed the sharp steel to her left palm and sliced deep. The skin parted, and bright red blood welled up instantly.

She held her bleeding hand over the center of the matrix. Drops of her blood hit the silver sand.

The entire array flared with a blinding, violent crimson light.

Alana sat cross-legged in the center. She closed her eyes and forced the energy in her body to flow backward.

She ignited her entire pool of 100 resonance points.

Agony hit her like a physical blow. Her muscles seized. Her back arched violently as a scream tore its way up her throat, but she clamped her teeth together, biting her own lip until she tasted copper.

Sweat mixed with the rain on her face. Her skin turned the color of ash.

The crimson light grew blinding. The air in the tiny room began to warp and twist. A sound like shattering glass echoed in her ears.

A localized hurricane erupted inside the room. Papers flew, the desk flipped over, and the single lightbulb exploded in a shower of sparks.

Alana felt invisible claws sinking into her soul, trying to rip her consciousness out of her body and drag it into the void.

She held on. She gripped the floorboards with her bloody hands and screamed in her mind. Answer me!

A pillar of pure, blinding silver light smashed through the dimensional barrier of the ceiling, engulfing her completely.