CHAPTER 52: FAST TRAVEL

The Sperrgebiet wasn’t just a desert anymore, it was a graveyard of physics.

Rin watched a scorpion scuttle across the sand, freeze, stretch into an infinite line of pixels, and then snap back into existence ten feet away. The sky was a bruised purple that throbbed in time with the headache behind his eyes, and the wind didn’t blow so much as it buffered, hitting them in gusts of hot static.

"We need wheels," Nyx said, kicking a rock that fell upwards. "Walking to the coast will take weeks, and Leo is leaking."

Leo was walking in the middle of the formation, his outline blurry. The shadow mana holding him together was fraying at the edges, dissipating into black smoke that trailed behind him like exhaust.

"I’m fine," Leo lied, his voice sounding like it was coming from a bad speaker connection.

"You’re running at 30% opacity," Joy noted. "You’re literally fading."

Echo stopped, raising his cane. "Engine noise. Three klicks north. Heavy diesel."

"Association patrol?" Tayo asked, checking his emitter charge.

"No," Echo tilted his head. "Too rhythmic. Too heavy. Supply convoy. Architect logistics."

Rin climbed a dune, peering over the crest.

Below, cutting through a valley of crystallized sand, was a convoy of three massive, armored transporters. They looked like bank vaults on wheels, matte white with no windows, guided by sensors. Hovering above them were four of the triangular drones Rin hated.

"Automated," Rin said, sliding back down. "Robot trucks carrying supplies to whatever outposts Thorne has left."

"If they’re automated," Joy said, "they don’t have drivers to throw out."

"They have CPUs," Rin said, flexing his gray-scarred hand. "I can talk to CPUs."

"Hijack mission?" Nyx grinned, spinning her knife. "Finally."

"We need one truck," Rin planned. "The lead truck has the navigation data, the rear truck has the drone coverage. We take the middle one."

"How do we board a moving fortress without getting vaporized by the drones?" Tayo asked.

"I handle the eyes," Echo said. "You handle the ride."

The blind S-rank didn’t wait for a countdown. He stepped out from the cover of the dune, standing openly in the path of the convoy.

The drones spotted him instantly. Red lights flashed, targeting lasers painting his chest.

Echo tapped his cane on a flat rock.

Click.

It wasn’t a loud noise, but it resonated. The sound wave hit the canyon walls, bounced, amplified, and hit the drones.

It wasn’t an explosion, it was a frequency match. The glass lenses of the drone cameras vibrated, cracked, and shattered simultaneously.

The drones spun wildly, blinded, firing plasma bolts into the sand.

"Go," Echo said calmly.

Rin sprinted.

He pulsed the gray energy into his legs, ignoring the burn. He hit the valley floor, running parallel to the convoy. The trucks were moving at fifty miles an hour, throwing up clouds of glass dust.

"Nyx, launch me!"

Nyx was right behind him. She decreased the gravity around Rin, then hit him with a repulsion blast.

Rin flew.

He soared over the gap, landing on the roof of the middle truck. The metal was hot enough to cook an egg. He magnetized his boots with a tiny pulse of mana to stay attached.

"Joy, Tayo, get ready to board!" Rin yelled into his comms.

He crawled to the front of the truck. There was no windshield, just a sensor array.

’Static Mastery.’

Rin placed his hand on the metal roof.

He didn’t try to hack it. He glitched it.

He pushed a chaotic burst of gray noise into the truck’s guidance system.

[System Alert: External Interference]

[Guidance Logic: Corrupted]

[Manual Override: Engaged]

The truck swerved, slamming into the rear of the lead vehicle before correcting. The door lock clicked, the system confused into thinking it was in maintenance mode.

Rin swung down, kicked the door open, and pulled himself into the cab.

It was empty, just banks of servers and a single chair for a mechanic.

Rin grabbed the wheel—which was moving on its own—and pulsed gray energy into the steering column, severing the connection to the central AI.

"I have control!" Rin shouted. "Slowing down!"

He tapped the brakes, bringing the massive vehicle to a matching speed with the runners. Nyx tossed Joy and Tayo into the open door before jumping in herself.

"Leo!" Rin yelled.

Leo dissolved into shadow, streaming into the cab and reforming in the passenger seat, looking solid again.

"We’re in," Joy slammed the door.

"Punch it," Nyx ordered.

Rin floored the gas, peeling away from the convoy and turning west, off-road, heading toward the coast.

The drones, still blind and firing at rocks, didn’t follow.

"Nice work," Echo’s voice came over the short-range radio Tayo had rigged. "I’m breaking off here. My war is in the city."

"Echo," Rin picked up the mic. "Thanks."

"Don’t thank me," Echo said. "Just don’t die before you learn to play the song."

The radio went static.

Rin drove.

The journey west was a blur of jagged terrain and engine noise. They took turns driving, sleeping in the cramped cab, eating Architect ration bars they found in the cargo hold (which tasted like chalk and vitamins).

As they crossed the invisible line where the desert met the coast, the world changed.

The heat vanished, replaced by a bone-deep chill. The sky turned from purple-bruised to a flat, oppressive gray.

And then the fog rolled in.

It wasn’t normal fog. It was thick, oily, and moved against the wind.

"Skeleton Coast," Tayo whispered, looking out the window. "The Gates of Hell."

Rin slowed the truck. Visibility dropped to zero. The headlights cut beams into the mist but revealed nothing but swirling gray.

"Sensors are useless," Rin tapped the dashboard screen, which was showing static. "We’re flying blind."

"I can feel... heavy things," Nyx said, her eyes closed. "Large masses. Metal."

"Shipwrecks," Rin said. "The coast is littered with them."

They crept forward.

Suddenly, a shape loomed out of the fog. A massive, rusted hull of a cargo ship, resting on its side in the sand, half-buried. It looked like a dead whale made of iron.

"There’s a light," Joy pointed.

High up in the superstructure of the wreck, a single yellow light was burning.

"That’s him," Leo said, his voice tight. "I can feel the mana. It feels like... surgery."

Rin parked the truck in the shadow of the ship. They climbed out, the cold air biting through their gear.

"This crafter," Nyx said, looking at the rusted ladder leading up the side of the ship. "He lives in a shipwreck in the most haunted place on earth. He’s definitely going to be well-adjusted."

"He builds bodies for ghosts," Rin said, grabbing the ladder. "I doubt he’s normal."

They climbed. The metal groaned under their weight. The fog swirled below them, hiding the ground.

Rin reached the deck, which was tilted at a twenty-degree angle. He walked toward the bridge, where the light was coming from.

The door was welded shut, but there was a speaker box.

"We’re looking for the Artisan," Rin said into the box.

Silence.

Then, a voice that sounded like gravel in a blender.

"You brought a glitch, a shadow, and a gravity witch," the voice crackled. "You’re loud."

"Echo sent us."

The heavy steel door unlatched with a pneumatic hiss and swung open.

Inside, the bridge of the ship had been converted into a workshop. Mana crystals hung from the ceiling on chains, casting multicolored light. Workbenches were covered in limbs—metal arms, ceramic legs, eyes made of glass and runes.

And in the captain’s chair sat a man.

He was small, withered, missing both legs below the knee, replaced by mechanical spider-limbs that clicked on the floor. He wore goggles that magnified his eyes to comical proportions.

"I’m Varg," the man said, spinning his chair around. "And you’re trespassing."

"We need a vessel," Rin said, stepping forward, pulling Leo with him.

Varg looked at Leo. He adjusted his goggles, zooming in.

"Oh," Varg whispered, a greedy smile spreading across his face. "A Shadow construct with a human soul imprint. How... illegal."

"Can you stabilize him?"

"Stabilize?" Varg hopped off the chair, his spider legs scuttling across the floor. He poked Leo in the chest. His finger passed right through. "Boy, he’s not unstable. He’s dissolving. Another week and he’s just a stain on the astral plane."

"Can you fix it?"

"Fix it? No. I can’t fix a ghost." Varg walked to a covered table in the corner. "But I can bind him."

He pulled the sheet off.

Underneath was a body.

Not a human body. A mannequin made of black metal and white ceramic, sleek, faceless, etched with thousands of containment runes.

"Project Aegis," Varg said. "Military contract, canceled when the budget went to biologicals. It’s a mana-containment suit. Empty. Waiting for a pilot."

"You want to put him in a robot?" Joy asked.

"It’s not a robot, it’s armor," Varg corrected. "It will contain his shadow form, stop the leakage, allow him to interact with the physical world without burning mana just to exist."

"What’s the price?" Rin asked. "We don’t have credits."

"Credits are useless here," Varg scoffed. "I trade in materials."

He pointed a metal finger at Rin’s arm.

"I want a sample of the Grey."

Rin stiffened. "It’s volatile. It eats whatever it touches."

"I know," Varg grinned. "I want to make a battery out of it. Give me a vial of your corrupted mana, and I suit up your ghost."

Rin looked at Leo. Leo looked at the suit, then at Rin.

"Do it," Leo said.

Rin nodded. "Deal."

"Excellent," Varg clapped his hands. "Strap him in. This is going to hurt."

As they lifted Leo onto the table next to the suit, Rin looked out the bridge window.

The fog was shifting. Shapes were moving in the mist. Big shapes.

[System Warning: High Threat Detected]

[Proximity: 200 meters]

[Entity: Fog Walkers]

"We might have company," Rin said.

"Ignore them," Varg said, pulling out a syringe made of glass and runes. "Unless they knock, I’m busy."

Rin sat in the chair Varg indicated, rolling up his sleeve. The gray scars pulsed.

"Just a little prick," Varg said, "and then we create an abomination."

Rin gritted his teeth.

The upgrade was beginning.