Periun city, Kettlia Region
Ashtarium Nation
North American Continent
October, 1st 2019
Wren's knuckles split with every punch, blood slicking his fist, but he didn't care. Frustration, raw and ragged, drove him onward as he hammered his fist into Moses' face—a man he'd once trusted to handle the dirty work. Handle the Ryan boy. Clean up the embarrassment that had stained Wren's name. But Moses had failed. Worse, the itch under Wren's skin—the crawling sense of something unseen—only grew with each passing hour since his bar had been attacked.
He needed to vent, to purge himself of the crawling dread and humiliation. Yet every blow he landed brought only momentary relief, each one ricocheting back into a rising tide of fury. Moses' groans, muffled by blood and shattered teeth, barely registered. Wren was somewhere else—eyes haunted, mind spinning as he replayed the chain of events. His men from the bar, dazed and broken, had staggered back with fractured memories, each story suspiciously similar, as if read from a script. Rival gangs, they insisted, had stormed the place. That was the word on every tongue.
And then there was the aftermath of Moses' own excursion—sent to silence the boy who'd tangled with Joe and his crew, only to return addled, with the same gaps and contradictions running through his mind. Different faces, the same smudged narrative. It didn't add up.
Wren could smell it now—an odorless, acrid residue woven through the fog of their minds. Magic. The kind that left a mark, subtle but indelible, like burnt ozone after a storm. This wasn't mundane intimidation. It was Ascendant work—powerful memory magic of a grade far beyond anything a Non-Awakened like him could break. Even so, as a Manaborn who had clawed his way through the rudiments of the Arcane—learning what tricks he could, despite never Awakening—Wren knew memory tampering when he saw it.
He pressed his bloodied fist to his lips, smearing a taste of copper across his mouth as he glared down at Moses' ruined face. His thoughts spiraled. Who was erasing his men's memories? What Ascendant had taken an interest in the street wars of Periun? The uncertainty gnawed at him, more painful than the gash across his knuckles.
Wren straightened, breathing hard, letting the tension coil inside him like a wounded animal. He wasn't just up against rival gangs anymore. Something darker was at work in his territory, and the rules had just changed.
"Take him to heal," Wren barked, his voice jagged with impatience. One of his men flinched, caught off guard by the savagery in Wren's tone. After a tense heartbeat, two others scrambled to obey, hauling Moses' battered form out of the ring of harsh warehouse light and into the gloom beyond. The warehouse itself was little more than a concrete crypt—walls stained with years of spilled chemicals and the scent of cut product. Metal tables gleamed beneath overhead bulbs, their surfaces cluttered with baggies, scales, and the tools of their trade.
Wren's hands still trembled as he fished a battered pack of cigarettes from his jacket. He shook one loose, lit it with a flick of his thumb, and dragged in the smoke, holding it deep in his lungs as if it might steady his nerves. The silence thickened, broken only by the soft hum of fluorescent lights and the fading scuffle of his men's retreating footsteps.
Then, without warning, the shadows along the far wall seemed to shift—stretching, bleeding together, coalescing into a darker shape. Wren's heart lurched. He dropped his cigarette, watching as the ember tumbled to the dusty concrete.
A figure stepped from the umbra with impossible grace, her form materializing as if sculpted from moonlight and midnight. She was pale—unearthly pale—her hair falling in a shimmering, silvery veil that caught the wan light, eyes like quicksilver pools, cold and unfathomable. Her body, encased in a sleek, charcoal bodysuit, moved with predatory silence. The suit clung to her, its fabric shifting hues, camouflaging her with the shadows—rendering her less a woman, more a wraith given flesh.
But it was her presence that froze Wren's blood. There was an aura around her, oppressive and sharpened, like the promise of a blade pressed against the throat. The air itself seemed to thin in her wake. The stench of danger—of Ascendant power—radiated from her every movement.
Wren shuddered, unable to mask the primal fear crawling along his spine. He knew this woman—everyone in Periun's underworld knew her name, though few dared to speak it aloud. The Whisper. The stories were legion. Whole crews had simply vanished after crossing her path, their territory erased, their names stricken from the city's memory. Now she was here, in his sanctuary, staring at him with those silver, inhuman eyes. And Wren realized, in that breathless instant, that nothing—no wall of muscle, no arcane trick, no alliance—would save him if she decided he'd outlived his usefulness.
"Hmm." The Whisper's gaze drifted, cold and clinical, across the warehouse—taking in the sweating workers, the stacks of crates, the tang of chemicals and fear that clung to the air. Her silver eyes lingered on Wren with a glimmer of disdain.
Wren didn't hesitate. He moved with the desperate grace of prey before a predator, dropping into a low, formal bow. The gesture was both respect and survival, a plea for her not to turn that killer's focus on him.
"I see you've figured out the truth." Her voice was softer than he expected, almost melodic, but it carried a quiet, withering gravity. It was the voice of someone who had watched men live and die for far less than a careless word.
"Yes," Wren managed, keeping his head down, his mind racing. There was no point in lying or pretending ignorance—not before a creature who could sift through memories like silt in a riverbed. So they'd been watching all along. Observing the fallout, tracking the moves on the board, always several steps ahead. Wren wondered, distantly, if she'd been the one to plant the magic in his men's minds—or if she was here to punish him for noticing.
He heard the faintest clink—and when he dared to look up, Selice Moura, the infamous Whisper, had already dropped a small item onto the concrete between them. It gleamed under the harsh warehouse lights: a delicate, intricately etched silver bracelet.
"Deal with it," Selice intoned, her command as final as a death sentence. She turned, shadows swirling around her like a living cloak—and in the space of a blink, she was gone. Gone as if she had never existed, the only proof of her presence the chill left in her wake and the bracelet glinting at Wren's feet.
He bent and scooped up the bracelet, careful not to let his hands shake. Up close, he recognized the artifact at once—a dimensional band. A spatial device, far beyond the reach of most street-level operators, capable of storing objects in a pocket of private reality.
Wren pressed his thumb to the hidden rune and peered into the band's internal catalogue, a small smile creeping across his face as he beheld the trove within: weapons, documents, vials of rare product—each one a secret worth a fortune, or a war.
"I'll handle it, alright," Wren murmured, the fear replaced by a hungry calculation. This was more than a task. It was an opportunity, delivered by the city's most notorious ghost. Whatever power play Selice Moura had just set in motion, Wren was determined to turn it to his advantage—even if it meant selling his soul to the shadows that ruled Periun's night.
****
Jack crouched at the edge of the warehouse rooftop, the night pressing in cold and thick around him. Below, the neon sprawl of Periun City faded into a patchwork of grimy alleys and flickering sodium lamps, the warehouses clustered like dark sentinels guarding the river. These warehouses—this stretch of forgotten concrete and rusted chain-link—were home to some of the city's most violent gangs, the same predators who ruled Periun's underbelly with blood and fear.
He'd spent the evening in the warmth of friendship, laughing with Mark and Amber over greasy noodles, stealing quiet moments alone with Carrie—her hand in his, her laughter a fragile comfort. But that world felt distant now, eclipsed by the stark resolve that burned in his chest. He could not afford to rest, not while his mother's fate hung in the balance. If he wanted to heal her, he had to grow stronger—had to master the power awakening inside him, push his Ability Factor to new heights. That meant one thing: he needed to fight, to carve his path forward with fists and will.
Jack's clothing blended him into the night: a black hoodie zipped tight, hood drawn low over his brow; sweatpants and sneakers chosen for silence and speed. A black tactical mask shielded his jaw and nose, his breath coiling in faint clouds behind the fabric. He felt like a shadow among shadows, a nameless wraith. No one would see his face tonight.
He breathed in, steady and measured, feeling for the tremor of anticipation in his limbs. Then, with a thought, he activated his Zone Drive.
The world changed.
A translucent ripple spread out from him, silent and invisible to the untrained eye—a ten-meter sphere where space itself answered to his will. Within this boundary, every sound sharpened, every movement slowed; time seemed to bend, the city's pulse beating to the rhythm of his intent.
Below, a cluster of gangsters spilled from a warehouse door—laughing, shoving, the metallic flash of knives and pistols glinting in the dark. Jack watched, every detail magnified within his zone. He leapt down, landing without a sound atop a stack of crates, his knees flexing to absorb the impact.
Two guards turned, startled by a whisper of movement.
Jack moved.
Within his zone, distance collapsed. One instant he was crouched on the crates; the next, he was behind the nearest thug, his hand closing around the man's collar. Jack yanked him off balance and drove a fist into his solar plexus—hard, efficient, precise. The man sagged without a cry, already unconscious as Jack eased him to the ground.
The second guard's eyes widened. He started to shout, but Jack flickered through space—his Zone Drive bending reality, letting him appear beside his foe in a blur. A sharp elbow caught the man beneath the chin, sending him crumpling to the concrete.
The other gang members heard the commotion. They surged out, brandishing weapons, their voices sharp with alarm. Jack stepped forward, his zone expanding—a ripple of power flattening the chaos, every motion calculated, every strike guided by intuition and spatial mastery. Bullets flew, but within his domain, Jack twisted aside, weaving through the hail of fire as if the world itself parted for him.
He struck, and the sound of violence rang like muted thunder. A fist shattered a jaw, a knee broke a rib, bodies thudded to the ground as Jack danced through the melee. He moved with ruthless efficiency, each step chosen, each blow amplified by the spatial vectors of his Ability Factor. His zone became a battlefield, every inch of space a weapon in his hands.
As the last gangster dropped, Jack exhaled, chest heaving. He glanced at his hands—bloodied knuckles, trembling with the aftershock of adrenaline and power. This was how he would grow, how he would become strong enough to save his mother. Not through hope, but through struggle. Through mastery of the shadows, until even the city's predators learned to fear the name Jack Ryan.
Jack barely had time to catch his breath before a new squad burst from the warehouse—a half-dozen men, tougher, more disciplined, led by a bald enforcer with a gold-toothed sneer. Flashlights swept the yard, pistols drawn, their eyes scanning the darkness for the intruder. The air was sharp with the promise of violence.
Jack's heart hammered, but his mind clicked into focus. He could feel the zone—his zone—stretching around him, an invisible sphere where reality bent to his will. He was learning, with every breath, how to shape it.
Five shifts. That's all I get. The thought was cold, precise. If he wasted one, he might not walk away.
He drew the zone tighter, feeling its boundaries. The nearest thug advanced, gun raised. Jack flicked his gaze—Zone Shift. In a blur, he teleported behind the man, feeling the familiar lurch in his gut. The enforcer barely had time to register a chill on his neck before Jack drove a chop into the side of his throat, felling him instantly.
Four shifts left.
Bullets tore through where he'd just been, sparking off steel. The gold-toothed enforcer barked orders. Jack ducked behind a crate—Zone Freeze—and, with a flex of will, froze the movement of a second gunman as the man raised his pistol. In the stuttering, localized stasis, the world flickered, the man's finger hovering in the air, sweat beading on his brow as time held him captive for a split-second.
Jack slid in, wrenching the pistol from frozen fingers, and spun—Zone Displace Echo. For a breath, Jack left an afterimage of himself standing where he'd been, a flickering false target. Two gunmen fired at the illusion, their bullets punching through empty air. Jack was already moving, silent and low, ghosting through the chaos.
He positioned himself in the shadow of a rusted pillar, mind racing. Tactical versatility. Instantaneous movement. Attack redirection. He could feel the zone resonating with his intentions, the potential opening before him. But every shift cost him; each time, his power waned, the pressure behind his eyes mounting.
Gold Tooth spotted him, raising his gun. Zone Shift. Jack flickered again—appearing at the man's flank—and slammed his stolen pistol into the enforcer's temple. The man went down, hard. Three shifts left.
More thugs pressed in, circling. Jack drew his zone into a tighter sphere—Zone Freeze—momentarily paralyzing a cluster of three. Their forms flickered, shadows frozen mid-attack. Jack darted forward, snatching a dropped baton and knocking each unconscious with rapid, surgical strikes.
Two shifts.
Adrenaline roared in his veins. Jack ducked behind another stack of crates. The last two men, wary now, advanced together—covering each other's blind spots. Jack studied their movements, seeking a flaw. He glanced at a loose metal pipe lying nearby. Zone Displace Echo. He sent a false image of himself darting to the left, drawing both men's fire.
In the instant their focus broke, Jack Zone Shifted behind them, snagged the pipe, and swept both men's legs out from under them. They crashed down, and he finished it with a sharp blow to the head.
One shift left.
Breathless, Jack let his zone recede, tension humming through every nerve. He had to pace himself—too many shifts would leave him vulnerable, drained. But as he stood over the fallen men, a fierce exhilaration burned in his chest.
He understood now: Zone Drive wasn't just raw power. It was the art of movement, deception, and control. Each shift, freeze, or echo was a chess move on a battlefield where he defined the rules. In this crucible of violence, Jack's tactical mind sharpened, each decision a matter of life and death.
He scanned the darkness, senses stretched, ready for anything. He was no longer just surviving. He was growing—shaping his ability, one battle at a time, until his zone would become unbreakable. For his mother, for himself, and for the shadowed city below.
****
The city seemed endless from the warehouse district's rooftops—a labyrinth of lights, haze, and concrete veins feeding Periun's heart of darkness. Jack moved like a rumor through the night, slipping across rooftops and alleys, the moon his silent witness. His pulse thudded with exhaustion, but every skirmish left him more attuned to the rhythm of his power. He learned to feel the contours of his zone, to sense its limits and strengths, to let instinct and intent become one.
The first gang had been a shock to the system. The second—a knot of brutes guarding a stash house—was a test. Jack didn't waste time. He slipped in through a broken window, observed their lazy patrol, and used Zone Displace Echo to scatter their attention, leaving false images of himself darting through shadows. The thugs fired wildly at nothing while Jack closed in, using Zone Shift to teleport behind the ringleader and drop him with a single blow.
He was getting faster, sharper. Each encounter honed his tactical sense: conserve shifts, blend attack and misdirection, always keep a fallback escape. The city's predators fell, one by one, never knowing what hit them.
But by the third warehouse, something changed. As Jack crouched above a battered loading dock, his senses pricked. This wasn't the usual crowd of half-drunk sentries. These men moved with crisp precision, radios clipped to their belts, hands gloved and faces masked. A pair of black vans idled beside the open doors, their cargo covered in tarps. Jack's zone picked up something strange—a metallic tang, faint but wrong, mixed with the bitterness of some unknown substance leaking from the crates.
He dropped down, landing behind a stack of discarded pallets. Shadows masked him as he watched the operation unfold. The gang worked quickly, voices hushed, forming a human chain to offload the goods. One crate slipped, and a gloved hand righted it carefully. Whatever was inside, it was dangerous—or precious.
Jack's mind raced. This was more than drugs. He reached out with his zone, letting its boundaries bleed into the warehouse floor, mapping every movement. Four men inside, three outside, two with submachine guns by the doors. No room for error.
He breathed in, drawing the city's chill into his lungs, and moved.
Zone Freeze—two guards by the van stiffened, locked in the moment just as they caught a flicker of motion. Jack swept in, disarmed them, and struck both in the throat before the stasis released, sending them down in silence. He ducked as the third outside sentry whirled, spraying bullets where Jack had been. Zone Shift—he appeared behind the man, grabbing his arm and wrenching the gun away. A knee to the gut, an elbow to the neck, and the man crumpled.
Inside, the others noticed something was wrong. Jack heard muffled curses, saw flashlight beams slashing through the dark. The closest man raised a pistol—Jack used Zone Displace Echo to create a spectral double running right at him. The gangster fired, wasting his clip, while Jack circled around and struck from the flank, disarming him with a precise twist.
The next two attacked together. Jack realized in an instant: they were working as a pair, covering each other's blind spots. No more simple muggers—these men were trained. He let them close, reading their formation, then triggered Zone Shift to appear between them for a heartbeat—just long enough to drive a punch into the first man's ribs and sweep the other's legs with a kick. He rolled away, counting his shifts—three left.
He pressed the attack, using the chaos to scatter the last pair. The leader, a wiry man with a jagged scar over one eye, pulled a knife and a vial of shimmering liquid. "Back off, kid. This ain't your game," he snarled, voice taut with fear and bravado.
Jack narrowed his gaze, channeling focus into his zone. He feinted left, baiting the leader to lunge. At the last instant, Jack used Zone Freeze, halting the man mid-swing. Jack snatched the knife and vial, then released the stasis, sending the leader sprawling in confusion. He pinned the man with a knee, pressing the blade to his throat.
"What is this?" Jack demanded, holding up the vial. The liquid inside glowed with an uncanny light, swirling with flecks of darkness. The man only laughed, blood running from his mouth.
"You think you're cleaning up the streets? You don't even know what you're dealing with…" Jack kicked the man, knocking him out. Jack swept the rest of the crates with his zone, opening one to reveal dozens more vials, strange sigils etched into their glass.
Jack exhaled, the enormity of what he'd stumbled upon sinking in. The streets of Periun were changing. Gangs weren't just pushing drugs or weapons anymore. They were trafficking something…otherworldly. Something mystical.
He pocketed a vial, his mind whirling with the possibilities and dangers. Then he melted back into the night, his body battered but his will sharpened. Tonight, Jack had grown. Each fight taught him not only the limits of his power, but the shape of the darkness lurking in Periun's heart. As he disappeared into the maze of the city, the zone hummed beneath his skin, ready for whatever would come next.
Jack slipped through the fractured alleys of Periun, the night pressing in close and heavy. He ducked into a derelict stairwell two blocks from the warehouse, heart still pounding, every nerve humming from the fight. He withdrew the vial from his pocket and turned it in his fingers. In the faint glow of a streetlamp, the liquid shimmered—silver-blue veins swirling in darkness, a light both inviting and profoundly wrong. He sat on a crumbling step, breath misting in the chill, and questioned the Codex on what the object in his possession was.
"What is this?" he asked quietly, the words trembling out of him. "What did I just steal from them?"
For a moment, only silence. Then the Codex stirred within him, a thin tendril of light reached from the Codex, circling the vial, drawing it into the center of a glowing sigil. Jack felt the resonance, like static crackling through his Zone Drive. A voice echoed in his mind—not a sound, but a presence, cool and ancient:
"You hold a fragment of Lumen's Grasp—an alchemical elixir born from the harvest of Ascendant energy. A forbidden synthesis. It mimics the spark of Awakening, infusing the unworthy with power not their own. To mortals, it offers brief transcendence. To the Manaborn, it is poison masked as salvation."
Jack's eyes narrowed, the Codex's words weaving through him, cold and absolute.
"Prolonged exposure corrupts body and soul. Some who take it do not die, but become vessels for energies not meant for mortal flesh."
A chill crawled up Jack's spine. He tightened his grip on the vial, suddenly aware of the faint, living pulse within it—something hungry, something waiting.
"Warning: Do not ingest. Exposure may attract entities from the astral periphery. Handle with caution. Destroy if possible."
Jack exhaled, tension shuddering through his limbs. The Codex's light faded, the city's noises rushing back in—a siren, distant laughter, the steady beat of his heart.
He slipped the vial into his pocket, mind racing. Someone was playing with the fabric of power in Periun, turning the city's darkness into a crucible. The Codex had given him answers—but it also left him with a deeper unease.
He rose to his feet, senses sharpened, resolve hardening. If he was to protect his mother—and this city—he would need more than just strength. He would need to uncover who was poisoning the shadows, and why. And for that, he would have to go deeper into the night.