The 'Wraith' didn't stop. Chen-Bo was a professional, but his loyalty was to a schedule, not to the intuition of a student. As the car glided over a bridge spanning the rusted remains of the Old Foundry, the air didn't just vibrate—it ripped.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: SIDE-QUEST 'STEADY THE FRINGE' COMPLETE]
[REWARD: 0.05% DAO STABILITY / UNLOCK: 'EARTH-HEART PULSE']
[CURRENT STATUS: ANGER LEVELS RISING]
I felt the reward click into place—a sudden, deep resonance with the iron and stone beneath the car. But the satisfaction was instantly smothered by a cold, white-hot fury. My "System" showed me exactly what was happening: Zhao Feng's drones were currently vibrating the structural bolts of the bridge at a frequency specifically designed to cause a "Partial Structural Failure."
They weren't just playing a prank. To humiliate me, they were willing to risk the lives of everyone on this bridge. They were playing with the Balance I had spent eighteen years of "boring" life perfecting.
"Chen-Bo, left! Hard left!" I barked.
The driver hesitated for a fraction of a second, and that was all the time the physics needed. The support beam beneath the front-left hover-pad sheared. The bridge deck groaned, tilting forty-five degrees toward the black, toxic waters of the canal fifty feet below.
Lin Yue gasped, her iridescent coat flashing a warning crimson as she was thrown against the door. The 'Wraith's' alarms wailed, a shrill, digital scream of failing lift-vectors.
"Ren!" she cried, her "Observer" eyes wide, seeing the world dissolve into a chaotic blur of data-noise.
I didn't move my hands. I didn't chant. I simply closed my eyes and let my anger flow downward, channeled through the new 'Earth-Heart Pulse'.
Insolent children, I thought, the voice of the Sovereign echoing in the silent chambers of my mind. You would break the world for a seat at a table?
[WARNING: HOST EMOTIONAL VARIANCE EXCEEDING 'AVERAGE' PARAMETERS]
[DAO MESSAGE: CALM DOWN, REN. IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY RE-ESTABLISH THE RADIANT PEAK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INDUSTRIAL FRINGE, WE ARE BOTH FIRED.]
Shut up and help me anchor, I snapped back.
I gripped the leather seat, and through my feet, I sent a command to the tectonic plates. I didn't create a pillar of stone—that would be too obvious. Instead, I manipulated the Local Density of the air and the rubble falling beneath us. I forced the falling debris to lock together into a temporary, invisible lattice.
To Lin Yue and Chen-Bo, it felt like the car hit a giant, invisible pillow. The 'Wraith' stopped mid-plunge, hovering precariously on a shelf of "solidified" air and coincidentally placed steel girders.
High above, hidden on a rooftop, Zhao Feng stared at his tablet. "What? Why isn't it falling? Increase the vibration! Give it everything!"
I felt his signal. It was like a gnat biting a mountain.
My anger flared. I didn't just steady the bridge; I sent a Reverse-Flow Pulse back up the frequency line he was using. It was a subtle move—a "Glitch" in the system that would look like a battery surge.
Five blocks away, every drone in Zhao Feng's control array simultaneously turned into a small, expensive fireball. His tablet exploded in his hands, the feedback scorching his "Apex" eyebrows and sending him tumbling backward into a pile of trash.
Inside the car, the silence was deafening. The 'Wraith' settled onto a stable piece of the remaining bridge deck with a soft thud.
Lin Yue was breathing hard, her hair disheveled for the first time in her life. She looked at the wreckage of the bridge, then she looked at me. I was sitting there, perfectly calm, my hands resting on my knees. I looked like a man who had just finished a boring lecture, not someone who had just survived a lethal plunge.
"The... the bridge supports must have been sturdier than they looked," I said, my voice returning to its practiced, middle-class monotone. "Luck of the draw, I guess."
Lin Yue didn't speak. She leaned forward, her violet eyes glowing with a terrifying, piercing intensity. She didn't look at the car. She looked at the ground beneath my feet, which was still humming with a faint, golden warmth that shouldn't exist in a "Normalized" world.
"Luck," she whispered, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her face. "You're right, Ren. You are very, very lucky. And now, I'm going to find out exactly how much 'Luck' you've been hoarding."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: DAO STABILITY AT 94.3%]
[WARNING: THE OBSERVER IS NOW 99% CERTAIN YOU ARE A GOD.]