The heavy lead box hit the workbench with a thud that echoed through the silent foundry.
Rylan set the box down and felt the hairs on his forearm lift. Mei checked the seam without touching the wet frost.
"You brought it," Mei whispered, looking at Rylan with wide eyes. "A Thunder-Source Geode. Earth-High grade. Unstable."
"Sylara put it to sleep," Rylan said, gesturing to the shivering Ice Phoenix leaning against the wall. "But she can't hold it forever. The ice is already sweating. If that thing wakes up before it's in the containment chamber, we lose the warehouse."
Mei nodded, snapping into focus. She grabbed a pair of rubberized tongs.
"Clear the floor!" Mei shouted to the Earth-Kin. "The discharge can jump through the wet ore dust on your skin! Get back!"
She opened the box.
The geode sat inside, encased in Sylara's blue rime-ice. It pulsed slowly, like a heart under a frozen lake.
Mei moved with terrifying precision. She lifted the crystal and placed it into the heart of the massive machine she had built in the center of the room.
The Thunder-Arc Ballista looked less like a weapon and more like a torture device for physics. It was a massive assembly of brass coils, spirit-glass tubes, and dampening runes, all leading to a sleek, iron-wood barrel aimed at the retractable roof skylight.
"Inserting the core," Mei announced.
Six more ingots had gone into this frame, its coils and containment fittings. Lyra's store count stood at twelve, three hundred kilograms under the standard weights. Rylan could see every failed casing stacked beside the bench; salvage would need its own work before it became stock again.
She slid the geode into the brass housing. She slammed the locking lever down.
HUMMMMM.
The machine woke up.
The ice around the geode flash-melted. The purple energy surged out, hungry for a path. It hit Mei's containment runes and screamed, channeling into the capacitors instead of exploding. The glass tubes on the side of the weapon lit up with a blinding violet glow.
Mei checked the gauges. "Pressure at 80%... 90%... Stabilizing."
She slumped against the console, laughing breathlessly. "It holds. The lattice holds."
Rylan walked over and touched the cold iron of the barrel. He felt the hum of devastating power beneath his fingertips.
"Range?" Rylan asked.
"Three miles effective," Mei reported. "Five miles maximum. It fires solid iron bolts charged with concentrated lightning. It can punch through a city wall. Or a dragon's scale."
"Those are design estimates," she added. "We have one loaded bolt and two spare blanks, no field range trial. It has a discharge head meant to disrupt a ward on contact; if the beam couples to it, it may carry the discharge back along the attack. If it doesn't, I can only try to hit the emitter."
"Good," Rylan said. "Because I think we're going to need it sooner than we thought."
The celebration was short-lived.
Lyra entered the foundry, her face pale. She held a spyglass.
"Rylan," she said urgently. "The roof. Now."
Rylan and Sylara climbed the catwalk to the roof access.
Mei stayed at the console. She had loaded the one prepared iron bolt and checked the lift before they came back from the heist. The sighting scope on the roof was linked to her station through a tuned voice pair; Mei would need someone above to read the scale and call the target.
The smog over Iron-Tooth City was churning. But it wasn't the wind moving it.
High above the city, breaking through the cloud layer, was a shape. It was a sleek, green vessel, shaped like a spearhead, floating on anti-gravity arrays. A Jade Empire Sky-Skiff.
It wasn't a warship—it was too small. It was a scout. A hunter.
It was circling the city, emitting a low, rhythmic pulse of sound.
"They are scanning for the Geode," Sylara said, her eyes narrowing. "That pulse triggers a resonance in the crystal. They know exactly where it is."
As if to answer her, the Sky-Skiff stopped circling. It pivoted. Its nose pointed directly at the Slag District. Directly at the warehouse.
A hatch on the bottom of the skiff opened. A green light began to gather.
"They aren't here to retrieve it," Rylan realized. "They are here to detonate it."
Mei had warned that a resonant strike could overwhelm the new containment lattice. Rylan could not calculate the damage. The homes crowded against the foundry wall made it more than his own risk.
"Mei!" Rylan roared into his receiver. "Target the skiff!"
"I... I can't see it!" Mei's voice came back, panicked. "The roof is still closed! And I need coordinates!"
Rylan looked at the skiff. The green light was brightening. They had seconds.
"Open the roof!" Rylan ordered.
The gears ground open. The massive barrel of the Thunder-Arc Ballista rose from the darkness of the warehouse, aiming at the sky.
"I need a spotter!" Mei screamed. "The smog is too thick! I can't get a lock!"
Rylan looked at Sylara. She was the only one with the eyesight and the instincts of a Peak Stage cultivator.
"Sylara," Rylan said. "Take the scope."
Sylara looked at him. "I am a prisoner. Why should I help you shoot down my enemies just to save your hide?"
"Because if that ship fires," Rylan said, pointing at the gathering light, "you die too. And you never get your vengeance."
Sylara snarled. She grabbed the heavy brass aiming scope mounted on the roof railing. She synced it to the ballista below.
"Elevation 45 degrees!" Sylara barked. "Windage three degrees East! Target is locked!"
Down below, Mei spun the heavy wheels. The barrel shifted, tracking Sylara's commands.
The light on the Sky-Skiff flashed. It fired.
A beam of green energy shot down toward the warehouse.
"FIRE!" Rylan commanded.
Mei slammed the trigger.
CRACK-BOOM.
The sound was deafening. It wasn't a mechanical thud; it was the sound of a thunderclap originating from inside the building.
A bolt of solid iron, wrapped in a spiraling vortex of purple lightning, exploded from the barrel. It moved faster than sound. It tore through the smog, leaving a vacuum tunnel in its wake.
It met the incoming green beam halfway.
The prepared disruption head met the beam. For an instant the two discharges flared against one another; then the bolt drove through toward the emitter. The purple energy rode up the green beam like a conductor wire, instantly reaching the Sky-Skiff.
The bolt slammed into the skiff's hull.
KABOOM.
The Jade vessel disintegrated. The anti-gravity arrays failed catastrophically. The ship turned into a fireball of green and purple flame, raining debris down onto the city.
The shockwave rattled the teeth of everyone on the roof.
Rylan stood firm, watching the burning wreckage fall.
Sylara lowered the scope. She was breathing hard, a fierce, predatory grin on her face. For a moment, the ice had melted, replaced by the heat of the kill.
"Direct hit," Sylara whispered. "Nothing moving on the wreck."
"Reload," Rylan ordered into the receiver. "In case they sent two."
He looked out over the city.
People were shouting from the nearest roofs. A bell rang at the district watch post. The flash had been visible above the smog; how the Spire interpreted it would depend on the reports that reached it.
Rylan Sterling hadn't just built a gang. He had built surface-to-air artillery.
"They know now," Lyra said, stepping up beside him. "There is no hiding."
"We were never hiding," Rylan said, looking at the burning sky. "We were just reloading."
[Ding! Threat Neutralized: Jade Empire Scout Skiff.]
[Reputation Update: "The Warlord of Iron-Tooth".]
[Global Tension: Critical.]
Mei's report interrupted the interface. "Fifteen percent charge left. Five minutes before the housing is cool enough to open. After that I can insert a blank, but we still don't have another firing charge." Rylan repeated the figures so she knew he had heard.
Rylan turned to his team.
"Get inside. The Syndicate is going to come knocking again. And this time, Vargas won't be smiling."