THE UNBOUND MORTAL

Chapter 3

The force punched through the cartilage of Brandon’s ribs, slamming straight into his diaphragm. 

The nerve cluster behind the stomach went into violent, catastrophic biological shock. The air was ripped from Brandon’s lungs in an instant, cutting off the blood flow to his brain.

"Guh—!"

Brandon’s S-Rank aura shattered like brittle glass.

The tall, armored noble did not fly backward. Instead, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. His knees buckled instantly, slamming into the cracked marble with an ugly clatter of metal. He doubled over completely, his forehead hitting the floor right where he had commanded Logan to kneel.

A second later, Brandon convulsed. A thick puddle of clear gastric juice, blood, and yellow bile poured from his open mouth, splashing over the polished toes of his own boots. 

He lay there twitching, clawing desperately at his throat, his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating carp pulled out of a muddy pond.

Silence descended upon the Grand Pavilion.

Five thousand people stopped breathing.

The city guards stood with their halberds half-raised, their mouths hanging open. Victoria took three steps back, her hands flying to her mouth, her radiant golden priestess runes flickering wildly as her eyes darted between the puddle of vomit on the floor and the quiet young man standing before her.

"Brandon...?" she squeaked, her voice trembling. "Brandon, get up! Use your skill! Use your armor!"

Brandon could not answer. His diaphragm was locked in a violent cramp; his biological body did not care about his S-Rank status. Without oxygen, his brain was drowning in darkness.

Logan stood over the fallen heir. His breath was slow and steady. His knuckles did not even sting.

“Kinetic recovery delay confirmed,” Logan noted in the quiet silence of his own mind. “System users do not brace for physical impacts while their skills are active. They trust the interface too much. Cut the breath, and the god falls.”

Logan reached down, picked up the paper card that had fallen from the clerk's table during the commotion, and looked at the terrified scribe sitting on the floor.

"Stamp it," Logan said softly.

The scribe’s hands shook like dry leaves in the wind. He grabbed his wooden stamp, pressed it into the red ink, and slammed it down onto Logan's card without checking a single line.

[CIVILIAN STATUS: REGISTERED — UNFIT FOR COMBAT]

Logan took the paper, folded it neatly into four quarters, and placed it inside his pocket next to the two halves of his mother’s silver ring.

He did not look back at Victoria. He did not spare another glance at the twitching noble on the floor. 

He simply turned around, stepped over the broken tiles, and walked toward the grand iron archway leading to the city streets. He took ten steps.

Then, the high vault of the Ascension Pavilion turned red.

WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—!

A deafening, metallic siren screamed from the center of the ceiling. It was not the alarm for an invading monster pack, nor was it the warning for a rift collapse. It was an ancient, mechanical chime that none of the young initiates had ever heard in their lifetimes.

Above the central altar, the giant floating obsidian monolith spun furiously on its axis. Deep crimson runes, thick as blood, burned across its dark stone face, projecting words that cast a terrifying shadow over the entire five-thousand-man pavilion:

[CRITICAL ANOMALY DETECTED]

[TARGET: LOGAN CARTER]

[THREAT CLASSIFICATION: UNREGISTERED SYSTEM DEVIANT]

[HOSTILE INTERFERENCE WITH ASCENSION VESSEL IDENTIFIED]

Before the echo of the alarm could fade, the iron portcullises at the main exits slammed down with a thundering crash of iron against stone.

High above on the grand balcony, the golden curtain parted.

Elder Inquisitor Gabriel Edwards leaned over the marble rail, his pure white robes billowing around his thin frame, an iron judgment scepter glowing with blinding holy fire in his right hand. 

Beside him, three heavily armored heralds of the Iron Vanguard Clan drew their greatswords, their eyes burning with murderous intent.

"Close the district gates!" Gabriel’s voice boomed through the hall, carrying the absolute weight of an imperial death sentence. "By order of the High Council and the Iron Vanguard Clan! The unregistered blank has committed high treason against the divine bloodlines! Strip his citizenship! Post his bounty across all four gates!"

The herald at his side unrolled a black parchment, his voice echoing like rolling thunder across the trembling initiates:

"Bounty declared! Logan Carter is hereby sentenced to immediate penal conscription! Drag him to the southern transport wagons! Throw him into the meat-grinder of Demon's Maw Valley!"

Logan stopped three feet from the heavy iron gate. He looked at the iron bars, then looked up at the hundreds of armed system soldiers drawing their glowing blades along the high walls.

Slowly, Logan reached into his pocket, tapped the two broken pieces of silver resting against his ribs, and exhaled a long, thin plume of white breath into the cold air.

His quiet civilian life was dead. The hunt had begun.