The following evening, Zen stood in the center of the newly restored penthouse.

Nyx’s construction drones had worked tirelessly through the night, replacing the blasted concrete and shattered windows with seamless, high-strength smart-glass and sleek metallic paneling.

The scent of ozone and smoke was completely gone, replaced by the faint, sterile hum of top-tier servers.

In the middle of the pristine room, Zen was securing the straps of his familiar, matte-black tactical suit.

"We need a gift," Zen announced, adjusting the clasps on his forearm guards. "Aurelia is the Empress. Walking into the Zenith Gala empty-handed is a political insult she will definitely use against me. I need high-grade materials to craft a proper tribute, so I am hitting a Mid-Tier D-Rank Fracture Zone in the lower sectors tonight."

He looked up. "Maya, you are coming with me."

Instantly, the temperature in the room dropped.

"Absolutely not," Valeria snapped, stepping directly into Zen’s path. Her golden eyes flashed with protective anger. "If you are going into a combat zone, you take your Vanguard. I can rip the core out of am A-Rank boss in five seconds flat. Why are you dragging this squishy mortal into the dirt?"

"A statistical anomaly," Nyx noted dryly, sliding away from her newly repaired terminal. Her digital circuitry flared with irritation. "The Vanguard actually formulated a logical thought."

She turned to Zen. "This is the Omni Domain, Zen. My territory. I know the patrol routes of every cyber-organic stray in those zones. Taking the mortal is a massive tactical liability."

"I am taking her because she needs the live-fire experience," Zen replied smoothly, stepping around Valeria to grab his Ghost Scrapper mask from a nearby crate. "She cannot walk into the Crown Domain without knowing how to handle herself in a real fight. You two are staying here."

Valeria opened her mouth to argue, her golden eyes flashing dangerously, but Zen raised a single finger.

Nyx narrowed her purple eyes, crossing her arms. "Fine. But are you going to stream this to your Ghost Scrapper sycophants? Your viewer metrics are..."

"Not tonight," Zen said, securing the half-mask over his face. The voice modulator immediately gave his words a deep, metallic edge. "If they see Maya on the stream, someone at the Academy will put the pieces together and my cover will be blown."

Behind him, Maya paused, turning to face him with a shocked expression. She looked at his familiar tactical gear, the matte-black mask, and the way he held himself.

"Wait," Maya stammered, pointing a shaking finger at him. "You... you are the Ghost Scrapper? The lunatic who solos C-Rank bosses with a rusty pipe?" 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Zen let out a metallic chuckle. "Guilty."

Maya pressed her hands to her face. "What else have you been hiding? Am I going to find out you own the Academy next?"

"Just get your gear, Protégé," Zen smiled beneath the mask. "Let’s move."

An hour later, Zen and Maya stood at the rusted, towering gates of Sector 7, a Mid-Tier D-Rank Fracture Zone. The sky above was choked with neon smog, and the air smelled heavily of ozone, rotting metal, and stale blood.

Back at the penthouse, Valeria was aggressively pacing. Every time her heavy boots hit the floor, a new crack webbed through the concrete.

"He shouldn’t be out there with her," Valeria growled, her Aegis gauntlets flickering on and off in her agitation. "She’s going to get him hurt."

Nyx sat at her terminal, completely ignoring the Vanguard. She was intensely focused on a hidden holographic screen displaying a crystal-clear, night-vision feed of Sector 7.

Valeria stopped pacing and peered over Nyx’s shoulder. "Are those your stealth drones?"

"Shut up and watch," Nyx muttered, her fingers flying across the keys to adjust the camera angle. "If that mortal misses a single heal, I am teleporting in and dropping a localized orbital strike on her."

Inside the Fracture Zone, Maya was shaking, but not from fear.

It was her first time entering a gate as a Mid D-Rank. The difference was staggering.

As an F-Rank, the zone had always felt like a suffocating, terrifying maze.

Now, her senses were hyper-sharp. She could hear the hum of exposed electrical wires fifty feet away. She could smell the exact difference between rusted iron and dried blood. She could feel the ambient mana flowing through the ruined cyberpunk streets.

"Stay sharp," Zen warned, his eyes scanning the shadows.

He tapped a small, magnetic pouch on his belt. Three metallic spheres, about the size of marbles, popped out and hovered in the air. With a quiet whir, they unfolded into small, sleek surveillance drones.

With a flick of his wrist, Zen sent them zipping forward into the smog. Their blue optical lasers swept the ruined street, linking a live topographic feed directly to his vision.

But before the drones could even map the next block, a red threat indicator flashed violently across his HUD.

[System Warning: High-Probability Threat Detected in Immediate Vicinity.]

Three massive, mechanical shapes dropped from the fire escapes above them. They were Synth-Hounds, grotesque fusions of starved, mutated wolves and heavy cybernetic armor. Their mechanical jaws dripped with corrosive acid as their red optical sensors locked onto Maya.

Maya froze, her F-Rank instincts screaming at her to hide and cast a defense buff.

But Zen didn’t lift a finger. He casually crossed his arms, stepping back against a rusted car.

"Come on, Maya," Zen ordered.

"Me?!" Maya squeaked, dodging backward as a Synth-Hound lunged, snapping its metal jaws inches from her face. "Zen, I’m a healer! I don’t have offensive spells!"

"Healing is just the manipulation of life force," Zen called out smoothly. "If you can give life, you can take it. What does a healer do when a target has too much corrupted energy? You drain it. Summon your weapon!"

Gritting her teeth, Maya stopped hiding. She reached deep into her core, tapping into the heavy, Emperor-infused mana pool and commanding it to take shape.

Golden-green light exploded from her right hand. The mana instantly crystallized, forming a long, elegant staff made of intertwined dark wood and glowing golden metal.

The three Synth-Hounds lunged at her simultaneously.

"Drain them!" Zen shouted.

Maya slammed the base of her staff into the cracked pavement. Her eyes flared gold. Instead of pushing a healing aura outward, she created a violent vacuum, pulling inward.

"Leech!" Maya yelled.

Thick, glowing tendrils of green magic erupted from the crystal at the top of her staff. They shot forward like vipers, bypassing the hounds’ metal armor entirely and plunging straight into their organic, mutated flesh.

The hounds let out a screech of pure static agony.

Maya gasped as a rush of raw, stolen life force flooded up the staff and into her own veins. She wasn’t just killing them; she was ripping their vitality out to instantly replenish her own mana. In less than three seconds, the organic halves of the Synth-Hounds withered into dry, gray husks.

The heavy metal plating collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

Maya stood panting, the golden glow slowly fading from her eyes. She looked at her staff, then at the dried husks on the ground, completely stunned by her own lethality.

Zen pushed himself off the rusted car, a proud smirk hidden beneath his Ghost Scrapper mask.

"Not bad for a squishy healer," Zen said. "Now, let’s clear this zone."