They were now standing on the roof of another building that the connected office space led to, having navigated through the dusty corridors to reach the open air again.
The rest of the people who had originally landed on that first building with them had followed them up the stairs, and they were now just watching the small group from a safe distance near the doorway.
"Hmm, that idiot is going to get them all killed," the older man from earlier muttered, making sure his voice was loud enough for everyone on the roof to hear his expert opinion.
He crossed his arms defensively and looked at the empty gap between their building and the next one like it was a guaranteed death sentence for anyone dumb enough to try it.
Gene completely ignored the complaining man and took a deep, calming breath as he focused his eyes intently on the roof of the next building over.
The gap was mostly twenty meters across, with absolutely nothing but dark, monster-infested water churning hungrily far below them.
That specific distance would be completely impossible for even a world-class athlete from their home planet to clear on their best day.
But the system upgrade, and this special black uniform had already increased their normal physical strength to a degree, meaning a person could easily make the jump if they just trusted their new muscles and did not hesitate at the edge.
Gene focused all of his attention on the strength pooling in his legs as he backed up to get a solid running start.
He sprinted forward without a single second of hesitation, feeling his boots grip the rough concrete perfectly.
When he reached the edge of the roof, he pushed off with everything he had, launching himself high into the open air.
Everyone watching from behind was completely shocked by the speed and the height he achieved.
The complaining older man was sure he would fall straight down into the waiting water, but Gene just kept flying through the air like gravity had forgotten about him for a second.
He cleared the twenty-meter gap with room to spare and landed properly on the other roof, finishing the impressive move with a smooth forward spin to safely absorb the impact of the landing.
He stood up on the new building, dusting his hands off as he turned around to face the group he had just left behind.
"Aiden, you do it next," Gene called out clearly across the open gap, waiting to see if the blonde guy had the actual guts to follow through on his promise to tag along.
Aiden stood near the ledge and looked down at the water churning far below his feet. His face went completely pale in an instant, and he looked like a guy who absolutely could not force his body to step off that ledge.
"Ah, Gene, I have a much better idea," Aiden yelled back across the gap, waving his hands nervously in front of his chest.
"Why don't you just tie that magical rope of yours onto something secure on your side of the roof, and we will just climb across it like a bridge?"
Maria and Kiara both nodded their heads vigorously, clearly loving Aiden's safe idea much more than the terrifying thought of jumping across the open gap themselves.
Gene let out a long sigh that carried a lot of frustration. He ran a hand through his dark hair and looked toward the tall black skyscraper looming in the distance.
It would be troublesome and completely ruin their pace if he had to stop and rig up a secure rope bridge for every single gap they came across on this journey.
Every passing minute meant someone else in the zone was getting closer to that skyscraper.
If someone else managed to get to the main weapons cache before him, he would be at a severe disadvantage for the rest of the stage, and he could not afford to play from behind.
'Should I just abandon them right here and keep moving on my own?' Gene thought, doing the cruel, practical math in his head.
'I do not owe them anything at all, and babysitting them is just going to slow me down when I need to be moving fast.'
But he remembered the quiet promise he made to himself back in the park about saving the people who actually deserved to make it out of this nightmare alive.
So he offered them a compromise instead of just walking away and leaving them stranded.
"I'm not going to make any rope bridge for you all. But if you were to miss and fall, I'll catch you with it."
Aiden slowly nodded his head, clearly understanding that Gene was not going to take care of them all the time, and they had to step up.
He knew Gene was not normal since his face didn't show a minute of panic ever since he met him.
Aiden backed up to get a running start, taking a few deep, shaky breaths to hype himself up for the leap.
He tried to follow Gene's exact steps and sprinted toward the edge, but he gathered way too much power in his legs because he was so terrified of falling short.
Aiden leapt into the air and flew completely over the target area, overshooting Gene's roof entirely and landing hard on the roof of a totally different building right next to Gene's location.
"Whooooo, that was easy!" Aiden shouted at the top of his lungs, laughing nervously as he patted his own chest and realised he was actually alive and totally unharmed by the crazy stunt.
Seeing that Aiden had managed to survive the jump without needing a rescue, Maria and Kiara finally gathered their own courage to try.
They both backed up to the other side of the roof, ran as fast as they could in their new boots, and leapt across the gap together.
Since they did not put in the amount of extra panic-power that Aiden did, they both landed properly on the concrete roof right next to where Gene was standing.
They were breathing heavily, holding onto each other, and looking incredibly relieved that they did not end up as fish food in the dark water.
"Good," Gene said simply, turning around to face the next wide gap in their path.
"Now we just have to do that a lot more times before we reach the target."
They repeated that same process for the next five buildings, moving steadily closer to the black glass tower.
Gene would jump first to scout the landing area and ensure it was clear, and then Aiden, Maria, and Kiara would follow right behind him.
They were actually getting the hang of their new, upgraded bodies and finding a decent, fast rhythm that ate up the distance quickly.
But as they landed safely on the sixth roof and paused to catch their breath, Gene's eyes noticed some suspicious movement out of the corner of his vision.
He crouched down slightly behind a ventilation unit and looked over his shoulder, peering across the flooded cityscape they had just traversed.
Three distinct people were moving stealthily across the rooftops, a few buildings behind them, and they were very clearly following their exact movements instead of charting their own path.
Gene narrowed his eyes and focused on the three figures as they jumped across a gap in the distance.
When the leader of the small group landed on the roof and turned his head to scan the area, the sunlight caught his face just right.
Gene recognised him instantly from his memories of his past life in this zone.
'That bastard,' Gene thought, his grip tightening into a hard fist as a wave of recognition washed over him.