The coast wasn't where it was supposed to be.
Rin drove the Void-Runner over the crest of a dune that shouldn't have existed, expecting to see the quaint German architecture of Swakopmund. Instead, he saw a pixelated cliff dropping off into a void of static.
"Where's the city?" Joy asked, leaning forward against her restraints.
"It clipped," Leo said from the turret seat, his sensors spinning. "The map coordinates are offset by three miles. The city is floating."
Rin looked up.
There it was. Swakopmund, the entire city, was hovering two thousand feet in the air, islands of asphalt and buildings drifting in a slow, clockwise rotation around a massive central pillar of blue light. The pillar rose from the ocean, piercing the sky and anchoring the floating city like a thumbtack.
"That's the Siphon," Rin said, feeling the Logic Core in the engine thrum against his own heartbeat. "It's not just draining mana, it's rewriting gravity to pull the terrain up."
