"Run, Jax!" Zen yelled over the blaring red emergency sirens. "Now!"

Jax didn’t need to be told twice.

He let out a terrified, high-pitched scream, gripping his heavy tower shield with both hands. He turned around and sprinted down the crumbling alleyway as fast as his heavy kinetic armor would allow.

"It’s coming!" Maya shrieked, sprinting right behind Jax. She kept looking over her shoulder, her green medical staff glowing brightly in the dark. "The beast is breaking through the wall!"

"Don’t look back, Maya! Look at Jax’s back and keep running!" Zen ordered, deliberately staying at the rear of their formation.

Valeria ran perfectly in sync with Zen, staying exactly half a step behind his right shoulder. She didn’t look scared at all. She looked incredibly annoyed.

"This is ridiculous," Valeria hissed quietly to Zen, easily keeping pace without breaking a sweat. "I should not be running from a pathetic B-Rank mongrel. Let me take my glasses off. I can incinerate it before it takes another step."

"No," Zen shot back, his eyes darting up to the reinforced glass observation deck far above the ruined city block. "The Vanguard cameras are tracking us. If you use high-level magic, the Inquisitor will lock this entire sector down and detain us all. Just keep your power output at E-Rank, Val. Got it?"

Valeria let out a frustrated sigh, but her eyes softened when he used his commanding tone. "Got it, Zen. But if it gets too close to you, I am ripping its jaw off."

CRASH.

A massive chunk of concrete exploded directly behind them. The B-Rank Void Beast tore through the narrow alleyway, its massive, skeletal body scraping against the brick walls. Thick purple smoke poured off its shadow-like flesh.

It wasn’t alone.

The purple smoke from the Beast was acting like a beacon, corrupting the artificial monsters already hiding in the D-Rank sector.

A pack of six simulated dire-wolves crawled out of the shadows. Their fur was peeling off, replaced by jagged, glowing purple crystals.

"We have company!" Jax yelled from the front, raising his shield as two of the corrupted wolves lunged out from a side street to block their path.

"Aegis Block, Jax! Take the hit!" Zen shouted.

"I got it!" Jax screamed. He planted his boots into the cracked asphalt and slammed his heavy shield down.

A faint, blue kinetic barrier flared to life in front of him. The two wolves slammed into the shield with a sickening crunch. Jax groaned loudly as the impact pushed him back three feet, his boots leaving deep skid marks in the dirt.

But the barrier held.

"Maya! Heal his stamina! Now!" Zen commanded.

"O-Okay!" Maya stammered. She pointed her staff at Jax’s back. "Vitality Surge!"

A bright, soothing green light shot from her staff and wrapped around Jax. His heavy breathing instantly steadied, and the bruising on his arms faded away. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Holy crap, that feels amazing!" Jax yelled, easily shoving the stunned wolves backward with his shield. "Keep doing that, Maya!"

"I’ll try!" Maya cried, running to keep up with him.

"Zen, on your right!" Valeria warned.

Three more corrupted wolves leaped down from the rusted fire escapes above them, completely bypassing Jax and aiming straight for Zen.

Valeria moved faster than a low-rank student ever could, but she expertly hid it by making her movements look desperate. She grabbed a rusted steel pipe from the ground, stepped squarely in front of Zen, and swung.

She didn’t use magic. She just used pure physics limited to an E-Rank output.

CRACK.

The steel pipe shattered the first wolf’s skull instantly. She spun on her heel, driving the jagged, broken end of the pipe directly through the throat of the second wolf.

"One left!" Valeria called out, stepping back to guard Zen’s left side.

The final wolf bypassed Valeria, lunging straight for Zen’s throat with its purple, crystalline fangs exposed.

Zen couldn’t use his core. If he channeled even a single drop of mana from his inverted mana organ, his chest would physically explode. But he didn’t need his core. He had five hundred years of combat experience.

"System," Zen thought.

[Warning. Mana core not in a good state. Combat options severely limited.]

"I don’t need the core. Give me the environmental mana density."

[Environmental mana density is currently at 42% due to Void corruption.]

"That’s enough," Zen muttered.

Zen planted his feet. He took a sharp, violently deep breath.

Primordial Void Breathing.

Instead of cycling mana through his broken core, Zen forcefully sucked the raw, ambient mana from the air directly into his lungs and muscle tissues. It felt like inhaling razor blades. His veins bulged against his skin, glowing with a faint, dangerous white light.

As the wolf snapped its jaws at his neck, Zen shifted his weight using the Emperor’s Stride.

He sidestepped the attack by a single millimeter, raised his elbow, and struck the exact harmonic weak point of the wolf’s spine using the borrowed environmental mana.

The impact sounded like a gunshot. The wolf’s spine snapped in half, and it crumpled to the ground, dead.

Zen immediately exhaled, forcing the volatile mana out of his body before it could reach his core. He coughed violently, a few drops of blood spattering the pavement.

"Zen!" Valeria panicked, completely dropping her guard and grabbing his shoulders. "You used magic! You’re bleeding!"

"I’m fine," Zen wheezed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I didn’t use my core... It hurts... Let’s keep moving!"

"You are reckless," Valeria growled, her crimson eyes flashing dangerously. "I will not let you do that again. Stay entirely behind me."

"Less talking, more running!" Jax screamed from the front. "The big one is catching up!"

Zen looked back. The B-Rank Void Beast was bulldozing through the alleyway, its hollow eyes locked entirely on the smoking Aggro-Lure strapped to Jax’s chest plate.

Zen quickly scanned the crumbling buildings passing by them.

The modern Vanguard might have built this artificial dungeon, but they had modeled the ruins directly after the ancient cities of the Old Empire. To the academy instructors, this was just a random maze of concrete. To Zen, it was Imperial Zoning Standard Four.

He knew exactly how these streets converged.

"Take the next right!" Zen ordered. "There’s a central plaza at the end of this block! That’s the only place wide enough for them to place the extraction beacon!"

Jax led the charge, bashing a piece of rubble out of the way with his shield. They burst out of the narrow alleyway and into a massive, open courtyard.

In the very center of the ruined plaza stood a towering, white magi-tech pillar. The extraction beacon.

"We made it!" Maya cried, panting heavily as she lowered her staff. "Do we just press a button?!"

"It’s not that simple," Zen said, running straight toward the pillar. "The beacon is locked behind a Vanguard encryption. I need sixty seconds to pry the maintenance panel off and manually rewrite the spatial matrix to close the Void tear."

"Sixty seconds?!" Jax yelled in pure panic, turning around.

The Void Beast exploded out of the alleyway, sending bricks and shattered glass flying across the plaza. It landed heavily on all fours, shaking the ground beneath their boots.

It was easily fifteen feet tall, entirely made of shifting shadows, jagged bone plating, and leaking purple energy. It slowly stood up, letting out a roar that physically vibrated in Zen’s teeth.

"We don’t have sixty seconds, Zen!" Jax screamed, raising his shield as his hands shook uncontrollably. "That thing is going to turn me into a red paste before then!"