The magnetic rail train tore through the darkness, ascending the steep incline toward Sector 8 at a speed that rattled the rust off the cargo bay walls. Inside, it was pitch black, illuminated only by the faint blue flicker of the Axiom Grid on the ceiling, pulsing in sync with the magnetic tracks below. The air was thick with industrial dust and the heavy scent of oxidized metal.
Elian Laurent let out a low groan. Every jolt of the train felt like a sledgehammer hitting his fractured ribs. He leaned against a stack of crates, trying to manage his agonizing breaths. Miya. Her name throbbed in his mind—an emotional anchor keeping him from surrendering to the pain.
Yet, beneath the crushing physical agony, there was something new. Something terrifying, yet intoxicating.
Elian lifted his right hand, staring at his trembling fingers. He focused his mind. Null Perspective.
Instantly, the dark world shifted. In Elian's eyes, darkness was no longer absolute. He saw reality in its rawest form: a floating stack of formulas and variables. He saw the train's velocity vector, the tension formulas in the carriage structure, and the air friction variables outside.
His gaze fell upon a heavy steel cargo crate. It was secured with a massive industrial padlock.
Elian squinted. He didn't see the lock as a solid object. He saw the complex equations maintaining its molecular integrity. He looked for decimals. He looked for inaccurate roundings. He looked for errors.
There. In the bottom-left corner of the locking mechanism, a decimal variable flickered. A microscopic inconsistency.
Elian reached out his index finger. He exerted no physical strength. He simply touched the coordinate of that decimal, and in his mind, he forced the variable to Zero.
SNAP.
The thick steel lock didn't explode or melt. It simply... disintegrated. Its structure collapsed into a pile of fine metallic dust, spilling onto the iron floor. Its molecular integrity had been totally nullified in milliseconds.
Elian gasped, then recoiled. His visual field snapped back to normal instantly.
Cough!
Fresh blood sprayed from his nose, dripping rapidly onto his chin and stolen cloak. But that was nothing. A sudden pain struck his head with a force far greater than Inquisitor Valerius's blow.
It wasn't a normal headache. It felt as if someone had driven a white-hot iron rod directly into the center of his brain. His head throbbed so hard his eyes felt like they would pop out of their sockets. His vision blurred, replaced by an agonizing flash of white light. He clutched his head, slumping to the floor, stifling a scream that died in his throat. This extreme migraine felt like his brain was being fried alive from the inside out.
"Impressive," a flat voice drawled amidst his suffering. "Utterly un-aesthetic, but effective. 10 points for structural destruction, 0 points for style."
Elian looked up with immense effort, blood still streaming from his nose. Caelus was sitting cross-legged on a stack of crates, casually biting into an apple that somehow still looked fresh in the grime of this carriage.
"You..." Elian coughed, blood staining his teeth. "Damn it... my head..."
Caelus hopped down with irritating grace, his stringless harp tucked into his silver belt. He crouched before Elian, looking down with a patronizing gaze.
"Are you an idiot, Workshop Boy?" Caelus asked, his tone devoid of emotion. "You just hacked the world's physical laws with that fragile human brain of yours. Without Axiom energy to act as a buffer, your brain was forced to function like a high-level supercomputer processor."
Caelus pointed his apple at Elian's forehead. "The world's Axiom system is designed to reject 'nothingness.' When you force a formula to Zero, you trigger a System Error. And that Error must be processed by the brain of the Null—you. Your body is burning calories at a brutal rate just to supply energy to your brain. If you force it again without preparation, you won't just get a migraine. Your brain will melt. Literally. You'll die of a total Brain Overheat."
Elian wiped the blood from his nose, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "I... I have to use it. For Miya."
"Flawed logic," Caelus bit his apple again with a loud crunch. "You can't save Miya if you're a corpse with liquefied brains. Live in your disorder a little longer, at least until we reach the kitchen of hell in Sector 8."
Just as Caelus finished his sentence, the train's sound changed abruptly.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!
The horrific screech of magnetic rails was deafening. The train braked so suddenly it threw Elian against the cargo crates. Crates shifted; mineral piles collapsed. The pain in Elian's ribs flared again, nearly making him black out.
Wooooong... Wooooong... Wooooong...
Emergency red sirens began flashing on the ceiling, replacing the faint blue glow.
"Oh, look at that," Caelus stood, casually smoothing his silver cloak. "Seems we have a welcoming committee. Our probability of escaping without a fight just dropped to 0.02%. How troublesome."
"What..." Elian coughed, trying to stand while clinging to a crate. "What's happening?"
A strange mechanical hum echoed from the upper vents of the carriage. The hum grew louder, rhythmic, and menacing.
Zrrrt. Zrrrt.
A shiny metallic sphere the size of a fist, with a glowing red lens eye, slipped through the vent. An Axiom Seeker Drone. An upper-sector military patrol unit designed to detect energy anomalies from Sector 9.
The drone hovered in the air, its eye scanning the room.
"Hide," Elian hissed, fully alert.
"Hide from thermal sensors in a carriage this small?" Caelus shrugged. "Poor logic. I'd rather stand here and watch probability at work."
The drone's red lens locked onto Elian.
BEEP!
A thin red laser grid emitted from the drone, sweeping slowly toward them. It wasn't a destructive laser, but an "Energy ID" scanner. Elian panicked. He had no ID. If that laser touched him, sirens would sound across the entire train, and the Centurions would come.
He tried to focus his mind back into Null Perspective. Come on, just one more crack. Just for this drone.
But his head exploded again. The pain was so intense he screamed silently. His vision spun. He was too weak. The overheat was still too severe. He couldn't hack.
The red laser drew closer. One meter. Half a meter.
"You're too tense, Workshop Boy," Caelus murmured, his tone still flat.
Caelus raised his right hand, holding the silver coin. He didn't look at the coin, nor at the drone. He looked at the carriage wall, cluttered with cooling pipes and steam.
With a casual flick, he threw the silver coin.
Ting. The coin hit the iron wall.
Ting. The coin bounced off the corner of a wooden crate.
Ting. The coin struck the valve lever of the train's main steam pipe with a mathematical probability of ricochet impossible to calculate manually.
PSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Thick, hot, dense white steam sprayed instantly from the open valve, filling the entire cargo bay within seconds. The air became a total blur. The Seeker Drone's thermal and optical sensors were instantly blinded by the extreme shift in temperature and air density.
The drone's red laser stopped, just an inch from Elian's bloodied face.
The drone hummed in confusion, spinning in the air, trying to recalibrate its haywire sensors. After a few tense seconds, it gave up, classifying the anomaly as a steam error, and flew back out through the vent.
Silence returned to the carriage, leaving only the hiss of thinning steam.
Elian slumped to the iron floor, his heart racing. He stared at Caelus, who was performing an overly theatrical round of applause.
"Probability Zero," Caelus grinned. "Steam vs. laser sensors. A classic. Utterly un-aesthetic, but effective. I love how chaos works."
Elian leaned his back against the iron wall. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his heart and soothe the migraine. He took a breath of relief. They were safe. This madman... he was actually reliable.
"We... we have to get out of here before they send the Centurions," Elian muttered, eyes still closed.
"Of course," Caelus replied, his voice suddenly sounding closer. "But by my reckoning, we have a more pressing problem than that drone."
Something in Caelus's tone made Elian open his eyes.
A second later, the world exploded.
BOOMMMMMMMM!!!
A massive explosion tore through the wall directly behind Elian's back. The solid iron wall disintegrated into flaming shards of metal.
The blast threw Elian forward brutally. He slammed into a pile of crates, the pain in his ribs exploding into a momentary total darkness. He lay amidst the wreckage, covered in blood, dust, and debris, utterly defenseless.
The train was still hurtling forward, and now the fierce winds of Sector 8 roared through the gaping hole in the carriage wall.
KLANG! KLANG! KLANG!
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed through the roar of the wind and the magnetic rails.
From the gaping hole, amidst the rushing wind, a gargantuan half-machine human—a low-level Centurion—with glowing red eyes peered inside. Half his face was rusted metal, and his right hand was a massive chain-anchor, still smoking from the blast.
The monster stared inside, toward the helpless Elian and the calmly standing Caelus.
the Centurion's red eyes locked onto Elian Laurent.
"Found you," the monster growled, its mechanical voice raspy and full of menace. "You ID-less rats."