"Are you insane?!" The Broker yelled, dragging himself out from under a collapsed filing cabinet as the electrical arc faded. His cybernetic eye was spinning wildly, trying to process how three elite paladins had just been neutralized by a teenager with a wire and some mist. "You just fried thirty million credits worth of military hardware!"
"Correction," Zayn said, not turning around as he walked toward the nearest dead paladin. "I preserved the hardware. The internal electronics are melted, but the external titanium-plating is ninety-two percent intact. Rora, bring the plasma cutter."
Rora scrambled out from behind the equipment rack, her eyes wide with a mix of terror and professional awe. "You want to strip them? Right now? Zayn, the Inquisitor's drop-ship is literally sitting on the roof!"
"Which means we have exactly four minutes before the second wave descends," Zayn deadpanned, his hand reaching down to unclip a heavy, high-density mana-battery from the dead leader's belt. "The Inquisitor is currently recalculating his data because his advance squad's vitals went from one hundred percent to zero in 0.4 seconds. He will assume a localized explosion. He will send a heavy recon unit next. We need to be heavy enough to meet them."
[Item Scavenged: Orthodoxy Mk-II Core Battery (High-Grade)]
[Item Scavenged: Reinforced Kinetic Bracer (Left/Right)]
Zayn tossed the heavy battery to Rora, who caught it with a grunt. "Modify your hover-stretcher's thrust output with this. If we attempt to navigate the lower geothermal vents at our current speed, the thermal draft will melt the anti-grav stabilizers. We need thirty percent more velocity."
"On it," Rora said, her panic instantly shifting into mechanic-mode. She dropped to her knees, her wrench and plasma torch flaring to life as she began tearing into the dead paladin's gear with practiced efficiency.
The Broker watched them, his jaw hanging loose. "You kids are monsters. You're literal street rats dismantling an empire."
"Street rats understand supply chains, Broker," Zayn said, his golden eyes narrowing as his battle IQ picked up a low, rhythmic thumping from the elevator shaft at the end of the hall. The second wave was arriving early.
[Warning: Incoming Target Signature: Heavy Mechanical]
[Classification: Crusader-Class Purge Drone (Level 26)]
[Time to Contact: 01:15]
Zayn looked down at his own status.
[Time to Cooldown: 10:45:12]
[Current Physical Output: 33%]
[Available Skills: Primal Step (Disabled due to Core Suppression)]
"Thirty-three percent," Zayn murmured, his fingers trailing over the cold, smooth fabric of his Midnight Tunic. "Still insufficient for a direct physical confrontation with a Level 26 mechanical unit. The armor thickness exceeds my current structural fracture capability by twelve percent."
"Zayn!" Rora yelled, slamming the modified battery housing into the hover-stretcher. The small vehicle let out a high-pitched, aggressive whine, its anti-grav pads glowing with a dangerous, violet intensity. "The stretcher is loaded! It's basically a flying rocket now, but the steering is going to be a nightmare!"
"Good," Zayn deadpanned, stepping onto the back of the stretcher and gripping the control handles. "I don't intend to steer. I intend to aim."
He looked at The Broker, who was currently trying to squeeze his wide frame into a ventilation duct. "Broker. If you survive the next thirty seconds, I suggest you relocate your business. The ceiling is no longer structurally sound."
"Just get out of here!" The Broker wheezed, his legs kicking in the air as he finally wedged himself into the pipe.
Zayn turned the stretcher toward the main corridor. At the far end, the heavy steel elevator doors buckled outward, ripped apart by a massive, three-pronged mechanical claw. A Purge Drone—a towering, bipedal mass of gun-barrels and red targeting sensors—stepped into the hallway.
Its primary lens whirred, locking onto the black shadow standing on a glowing hover-stretcher.
[Target Locked: Anomaly identified as 'The Butcher']
[Purge Protocol: Authorized]
"Rora, hold on," Zayn said, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly calm, deadpan register.
"Hold on to what?!" she screamed, clinging to the frame of the vehicle.
"The kinetic coefficient of friction," Zayn replied, and slammed the throttle to maximum.