Chapter 121The sky above Aethelgard shattered.When Adrian Black disabled the safety limiters on his System’s flight modules, he didn’t just break the sound barrier. He obliterated it. He was a streak of blinding gold and violent red light tearing through the rain-choked clouds at Mach 5.The G-force was a physical titan sitting on his chest, trying to crush his ribs into powder. The friction of the atmosphere was so intense that the outer edges of his kinetic shield were superheating, turning the air around him into a cone of glowing plasma."Adrian! Your core temperature is at four hundred degrees!" Cora’s voice shrieked in his earpiece, barely audible over the deafening roar of his own velocity. "Your jacket is literally on fire!""I never liked this jacket anyway," Adrian shouted back, his teeth gritted in a feral, agonizing smile. "Distance to target?""You're crossing the city perimeter now! Entering the Dead Wastes. But Adrian... the Iron Guard is already there. They’ve depl

Chapter 122With a final, agonizing push, Adrian crushed the marble of compressed explosive energy out of existence. It vanished with a soft, anti-climactic pop, leaving nothing but a wisp of ozone and falling flakes of steel casing.Adrian dropped to the floor of the reactor cavern, gasping for air. His muscles trembled. His shirt was soaked in sweat.But the pain was gone. The red glow was gone.He looked at his hands. They were steady. The golden light of the System pulsed warmly, purely, beneath his skin.He had done it. He had burned the corruption to contain the bomb.Suddenly, the massive blue reactor of Node Gamma hummed. The terminal lights flashed.[ SYSTEM STATUS: PURGED AND PURIFIED. ][ UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK LOOP DETECTED. ][ HOST HAS SUCCESSFULLY INTERFACED WITH ALL THREE FOUNDATION NODES VIA KINETIC RESONANCE. ][ LAZARUS CODE ASSIMILATED. ]Adrian slowly stood up, frowning at the blue text floating in his vision. "Assimilated? What does that mean?"[ THE ARCHITECT'S MAS

Chapter 124 Adrian walked up the steps, his boots making no sound."Lena," Adrian said gently. "Are you hurt? Did the Iron Guard touch you?""Touch me?" Lena sniffled, wiping her nose with a lace handkerchief. "Oh, Mr. Adrian, they did much worse. They wore muddy boots on the Persian rug in the foyer. And the Ming dynasty vase in the hallway, it’s shattered. Completely shattered into a thousand pieces."She looked up at him, her chin quivering, looking so utterly weak and vulnerable that Adrian felt a sudden, fierce wave of protective rage."I spent three hours polishing that vase yesterday," Lena whispered tragically. "And the hydrangeas, they shot the hydrangeas with plasma rifles.""I will buy you a new vase, Lena," Adrian promised, placing a comforting hand on her frail shoulder. "I'll buy you a dozen Ming vases. I'll buy you the entire country of China if you want it. The men who did this are in jail, and their boss is currently being used as a high-tech paperweight.""You promi

Chapter Next Adrian pinched his thumb and forefinger together in thin air.The centipede stopped dead, hovering a millimeter above his skin, trapped in a localized bubble of absolute zero gravity and halted momentum."Got you," Adrian breathed.But the drone didn't just stop. It reacted.To Adrian’s absolute shock, the tiny machine adapted. The metal casing rippled, vibrating at a frequency that directly countered Adrian's kinetic stasis. The drone began to slowly, agonizingly push its way through the gravity field, fighting against the power of the City god himself."It's chewing through my gravity," Adrian said, his eyes widening. He poured more power into the stasis field, his golden eyes burning. The metal tray beneath the drone crumpled under the ambient pressure, but the drone kept pushing forward."That's impossible!" Cora yelled, jumping out of her chair. "Nothing can break a System-level stasis lock!""Someone taught it how," Adrian gritted his teeth.With a fierce surge o

Chapter 129Adrian took another sip of his coffee. "She's a saint, Joe. And she makes the best tea. I could see how terrified she was after the mess made yesterday. If anyone ever hurts that woman, I will compress their skull into a diamond and wear it on a ring.""She makes a mean scone," Joe agreed, stuffing one into his mouth."System," Adrian said, setting the cup down. "Plot a route to Sector 3. The Aegis Works factory."Adrian turned and strode out of the command center, his mind already shifting back into combat mode. He marched down the hallway, heading for the front doors.He stepped onto the freshly polished hardwood floor of the foyer.[ SYSTEM ALERT: ENVIRONMENTAL ANOMALY. ][ FRICTION COEFFICIENT: 0.0001% ]Adrian’s heavy combat boot hit the wood.There was absolutely zero traction. None. It was like stepping onto a sheet of wet ice covered in Teflon.Before his superhuman reflexes could even register the lack of friction, Adrian’s feet flew entirely out from under him.