The atmosphere of the Icarus Crater, previously filled with the chaotic, whistling winds of kinetic buoyancy, fell into a suffocating, unnatural silence. The golden glow of the Harpy Matriarch's debris was instantly extinguished, replaced by a searing, clinical white radiance that seemed to bleed the color out of the world.
Standing at the edge of a floating ruin several hundred meters below them was a figure clad in ivory-and-gold kinetic plate. He didn't float; he stood on a solid platform of solidified light. This was Grand Master Alaric Vance, a Rank 8 Enforcer of the Central Authority's "Purity Division." To Alaric, magic wasn't a resource to be scraped, it was a sacred hierarchy to be policed.
"The Central Authority?" Mateo whispered, his voice cracking. "We're just Rank 3s and 4s. Why would they send a Grand Master for a Scrapsmith?"
"Because I'm an error," Kenji said, his eyes locked on the figure below. He could feel the Epic Scrap of Kinetic Lift and the Absolute Defense shard vibrating in his core, reacting like magnets to the overwhelming pressure of Alaric's presence. "I'm a Rank 3 holding the keys to a Rank 10's vault. To them, I'm a virus."
Alaric Vance didn't move. He didn't need to. He simply raised a hand, and the light around him crystallized into a spear of pure, consecrated energy.
"Kenji Tanaka," the voice boomed, vibrating through the very marrow of their bones. "By the decree of the System Oversight, your core is designated as 'Highly Volatile.' The scraps you have integrated are unauthorized. Surrender your core for extraction, or the environment will be purged."
"Extraction?" Priya gasped, her hands trembling. "Extraction from a Rank 3 core… that's a death sentence. It'll tear his soul apart."
"I'm not surrendering," Kenji said, his voice low and dangerous. He looked at his team. They were exhausted, battered, and outranked by five levels of power. "Elara, Zola, get back. This isn't a fight you can help with."
"Don't be an idiot, Tanaka," Zola spat, though her face was pale. "We're a team. If the System wants a piece of you, they have to go through the Lancer."
"No," Kenji commanded, a new authority in his tone. "He's a Rank 8. Your magic will be absorbed by his light before it even touches him. But I'm a Scrapsmith. I don't use magic, I use what's left over."
Alaric didn't wait for a debate. He flicked his wrist, and the spear of light shot forward. It wasn't a projectile; it was a line of erased space.
Kenji reacted with a speed he didn't know he possessed. He didn't use the Disruptor. He tapped into the Epic Scrap of Kinetic Lift and the Absolute Defense shard simultaneously.
[Scrapsmith: Paradoxical Refraction]
As the spear of light reached him, Kenji didn't try to block it. He used the Kinetic Lift to warp the air around the light, and the Absolute Defense to create a micro-thin layer of "repulsion scrap" over his skin. The spear of light, designed to pierce anything solid, found nothing to hit. It slid off the curved space around Kenji, lancing through a floating metallic spire behind him and vaporizing it instantly.
Alaric's head tilted slightly. "Resourceful. You utilize the residue of the scraps to bend the laws of the encounter. But a virus cannot outrun the cure."
Alaric stepped off his platform. He didn't fall. He moved across the air as if it were a paved road, each step creating a ripple of white light that nullified the Icarus Crater's natural buoyancy.
"He's stabilizing the entire D-H!" Elara shouted, trying to summon an ice barrier, but seeing the frost dissolve into white mist the moment it formed. "He's rewriting the zone's rules!"
Kenji knew he had seconds before Alaric reached them. He looked at his interface.
[OBJECTIVE 5: FORGE THE PERMANENT SKILL [Scrap Velocity]]
[CURRENT KINETIC ENERGY: 12,000 / 25,000]
"I don't have enough energy!" Kenji gritted his teeth. "I need a massive surge of kinetic scrap to forge the skill and get us out of here."
He looked at the dissipating golden cloud of the Harpy Matriarch. It was still there, a massive reservoir of uncollected high-rank kinetic scrap.
"Mateo! Elara! I need you to funnel that Matriarch scrap into me! Now!"
"It's too much!" Mateo yelled. "It'll blow your core!"
"Do it, or we're all light-dust!"
Mateo and Elara acted in perfect, desperate synchronization. Mateo used his Sonic Burst to create a high-pressure wind tunnel, pushing the golden cloud toward Kenji. Elara used her Frost Weaver magic to create a cold-pressure vacuum, pulling the energy into a tight, concentrated stream.
The golden kinetic scrap slammed into Kenji. It wasn't a gentle integration; it was an assault. His skin began to crack, glowing with an internal golden fire.
[KINETIC ENERGY: 18,000... 22,000... 26,500!]
[REQUIREMENT MET.]
[FORGING SKILL: [Scrap Velocity]]
At that moment, Alaric Vance arrived. He stood ten feet away, his presence like a sun that refused to set. He raised his hand, and a halo of white swords manifested behind him.
"The end of the error," Alaric said calmly.
The swords launched.
[SKILL FORGED: [Scrap Velocity]]
Kenji didn't move. He became movement.
With [Scrap Velocity], Kenji didn't just move fast; he converted the residual kinetic energy of the entire environment into a personal propulsion field. To the observers, Kenji simply vanished. To Alaric, the target had become a blur of golden-gray light that existed in five places at once.
The light-swords struck empty air.
Kenji reappeared behind Alaric, his hand glowing with the dark red residue of the original Abomination scrap, mixed with the high-frequency vibration of the Sonic Disruptor.
"My core isn't a virus," Kenji whispered. "It's a record."
He slammed his hand into Alaric's back the point where the Grand Master was anchoring his "Light Stabilization" field.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV-RRRRRUMMMMM!
The impact was silent. The Sonic Disruptor, amplified by the Scrap Velocity's momentum, hit Alaric's light-shield with the force of a falling moon. For the first time in his life, Alaric Vance stumbled. The white light around him flickered, and the "stabilized" air of the crater surged back into its natural, chaotic buoyancy.
"Now!" Kenji roared, blood leaking from his nose as his core groaned under the strain. "Mateo, get them to the Transit Gate! Use the lift!"
With the Grand Master's field broken, the upward draft returned with a vengeance. The team, already prepared for it, shot upward like corks released from the bottom of the ocean.
Alaric recovered instantly, his face a mask of cold, celestial fury. He turned to pursue, but the entire Icarus Crater was now reacting to the disruption. The massive, floating spires, no longer held by his light-anchors, began to collapse inward toward the source of the greatest energy, him.
"You have delayed the inevitable, Scrapsmith," Alaric's voice echoed, even as he was obscured by a falling mountain of metallic ruins. "The System does not forget its debts."
Kenji didn't look back. He used the last of his Scrap Velocity to propel himself after his team. They reached the Transit Gate at the very peak of the atmosphere just as the entire crater below them was engulfed in a blinding explosion of white light and golden kinetic debris.
They tumbled through the gate, the world spinning into blackness.
They woke up in a location that was definitely not the Guild Hall.
It was a dim, sprawling underground hangar, filled with the smell of oil, old magic, and ozone. Rows of sleek, unmarked stealth-transports sat in the shadows.
"Where are we?" Mateo groaned, clutching his head.
"A safe house," a voice rasped.
Finnian stepped out of the shadows, looking older and more tired than Kenji remembered. He wasn't alone. Standing behind him were several figures in dark, utilitarian combat gear, none of them had Rank-Readers on their wrists.
"You've done it now, kid," Finnian said, tossing a rag to Kenji to wipe the blood from his face. "You didn't just pick a fight with a local noble. You struck a Grand Master of the Central Authority. You're officially the most wanted man on three continents."
Kenji stood up, his legs shaking, but his core felt solid newly evolved.
[RANK UP COMPLETE: RANK 4 (ADEPT)]
[NEW STATUS: SYSTEM ANOMALY]
"Who are these people, Finnian?" Kenji asked, looking at the unranked soldiers.
"They call themselves the Zero-Point Insurgency," Finnian said, his eyes glinting. "People the System forgot. People who lived their lives as 'Scraps' because they didn't fit the Ranks. They've been waiting for someone who could actually make the scraps bite back."
One of the soldiers, a woman with a cybernetic eye and a massive railgun slung over her shoulder, stepped forward. "We saw the feed from the crater. You broke a Grand Master's anchor. We don't care about your Rank, Tanaka. We care about that power you're holding."
She pointed to a massive holographic map of the world. Several points were glowing with the same dark red, volatile energy Kenji had absorbed in the sewer.
"The Abomination you absorbed wasn't an accident," the woman said. "It was one of seven. The System is trying to harvest them to reach Rank 10, The God Rank. If they get all seven, the world becomes a permanent, rigid hierarchy. No more growth. No more change. Just the System."
Kenji looked at his hands. He could feel the six other signatures now, humming in the distance, calling to the scrap inside him.
"I only have one," Kenji said.
"Then we better go get the other six before Alaric Vance finds his footing again," the woman replied.
Kenji looked at his team. Elara, Mateo, Zola, Priya, and Bjorn. They looked terrified, but they weren't backing down. They had seen a Grand Master bleed. The myth of the impossible hierarchy had been shattered.
"We aren't just grinding for Ranks anymore, are we?" Mateo asked, a small, nervous grin on his face.
"No," Kenji said, his eyes hardening as he felt the [Scrap Velocity] humming in his veins. "We're taking the whole System down."
[NEW QUEST: THE SEVEN FALLEN STARS]
Objective: Locate and integrate the remaining 6 High-Rank Volatile Scraps.
Location 1: The Sunken Citadel of the Deep (Rank A Zone).
Reward: Evolution to Rank 5 (Veteran) & The Scrapsmith's True Form.
The journey from a zero-potential scrapsmith to a world-altering anomaly was no longer a dream. It was a war.