The Only Powerless is the Apex Predator

The Ash of Retribution

The air inside the small apartment didn't just fracture; it tore apart like old parchment.

The neighborhood boy scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his eyes wide with primordial terror as the Extinction Mist choked out the remaining neon green light from the window. The Black-Gold Primordial Cracks hovering around Zuraiz pulsed with an erratic, deadly frequency.

"Zuraiz... your eyes..." the boy whimpered.

Zuraiz didn't hear him. The roaring of ancient blood was deafening in his ears. But within three seconds, the volatile storm of ash and dark gold energy suddenly snapped backward into his skin. His breathing was heavy, but his face—once again—became a mask of absolute, frozen stone.

Rage was a weakness. His father had always told him that a predator who loses his temper is nothing more than a rabid dog waiting to be put down. An intelligent predator keeps his heart cold.

Amaya was taken to the Eastern Scrap Yard, but they are moving her to the First District High Alliance, Zuraiz’s mind spun, calculating the distance and time. Riaz’s men cannot simply drive into the First District without clearance. They will be holding her at the border checkpoint of Sector 9 to finalize the transfer logs.

He had less than twenty minutes before she was beyond his reach forever. Once inside the gleaming high-tech walls of the First District, a slum kid like him would be disintegrated by the defense turrets before setting a foot inside.

"Where is the transport convoy?" Zuraiz asked, his voice deathly low, but steady.

"T-The private transit station... near the Sector 9 wall," the boy stammered. "Riaz’s armored trucks are already idling there."

"Go hide under Old Man Kabir's shop. Don't come out," Zuraiz commanded. Without looking back, he vanished through the shattered iron doorway.

The Sector 9 border checkpoint loomed like a concrete leviathan, dividing the crumbling slums from the pristine, towering skyscrapers of the First District. Heavy iron gates barred the road, guarded by mercenaries wearing tactical armor adorned with Riaz’s syndicate insignia.

In the center of the staging area stood a heavily armored obsidian-black transport truck.

Inside the back of the vehicle, trapped within a reinforced containment pod made of localized suppression glass, lay Amaya. Her body was shifting violently. Strands of blinding, pure white plasma fire rippled beneath her skin, clashing against her natural DNA. Every time her cells flared, the digital display on the pod flashed red:

[Warning: Calamity-Class Gene Mutation Detected. Fusion Rate: 4%. Code-Name: White Phoenix (Extinct/Forbidden Tier).]

Standing just outside the pod, Riaz looked through the reinforced glass, his volcanic scales glowing with a dull, orange internal heat.

"Fascinating," Riaz murmured, his vertical pupils expanding. "The First District Alliance spent billions trying to synthesize a Phoenix-type primordial strain, and all this time, the perfect vessel was rotting in my slums, taking black-market suppressants. If I hand her over to the High Directors, Sector 9 will be officially recognized as an Elite District. I will finally leave this trash heap."

"Boss!" a mercenary shouted, running from the perimeter wall. "The gate guards... they’re not responding! The security feeds are just showing... gray smoke!"

Riaz’s smile vanished. The temperature around him violently spiked, singeing his tailored white suit. "The ash boy."

Outside the gate, the heavy sulfur smog of the slums had been completely swallowed by a thick, suffocating Extinction Mist. It didn't roll in like weather; it crawled like a living graveyard.

Three mercenaries stood near the outer barricade, their automatic rifles raised, their D-Rank mammalian bloodlines activated—claws extended, muscles bulked. But they couldn't see a single foot in front of them. The smell of petrified soil was so thick it made them gag.

Snap. Snap.

A sharp, terrifying sound of fracturing reality echoed from the fog.

"Where is he?! Fire!" one mercenary screamed.

Before his finger could tighten on the trigger, a dark gold silhouette materialized from the mist directly beside him. Zuraiz didn't waste a single movement. His hand, fully transformed into obsidian Deinonychus talons, shot forward with geometric perfection.

He didn't aim for the armor. He slashed the pneumatic fluid tubes of the mercenary’s mechanized exo-suit.

The suit hissed, losing pressure instantly, pinning the mercenary under his own heavy gear. At the same moment, Zuraiz used the momentum to pivot, his right leg sweeping the second mercenary’s knee—striking the exact structural weakness his system highlighted in real-time.

Two minutes left, Zuraiz counted internally, his lungs starting to burn from the heavy fossil energy circulating through his Mortal Core. The physical drawback is accelerating. I have to finish this within sixty seconds.

He kicked the heavy steel doors of the checkpoint fortress open.

The mist flooded the pristine interior, instantly choking out the modern neon lighting. Zuraiz walked into the center of the staging area, his golden eyes burning through the gray fog.

Twenty feet away, Riaz stood beside the containment pod. The air around the syndicate boss was so hot that the Extinction Mist hissed and melted into steam before it could touch him.

"You're fast, kid. Smart, too," Riaz said, his voice echoing with the heavy thud of his Ankylosaurus tail hitting the concrete floor. "But your little system trick has a time limit, doesn't it? Look at your forearms. Your skin is already peeling from the density of that fossil aura. You're burning your own life force just to stand here."

Zuraiz looked down at his arms. Riaz was right. Faint cracks were forming along his skin, weeping ash instead of blood. His Tier 0 body couldn't handle a B-Rank strain for long.

"I don't need a lifetime to deal with a lizard in a white suit," Zuraiz said, his voice completely devoid of fear.

"A lizard?" Riaz laughed, and the molten scales along his jaw flared into bright, blinding orange fire. "I am a Volcanic Ankylosaurus! My defense is absolute, and my heat will melt your raptor claws before they can scratch my skin!"

Riaz stepped forward, the concrete melting beneath his boots. The sheer explosive pressure of a mutated D-Rank boss was overwhelming.

But as Zuraiz braced himself, a sudden, familiar digital beep chimed in the corner of his eye. It wasn't a standard prompt. It was a localized override.

[Ding! Proximity Alert: Forbidden Strain 'White Phoenix' identified within 5 meters.]

[System Database Syncing...]

[Dr. Idris’s Personal Log Unlocked: 'Project Apex-0 was never meant for one. The Predator requires the Catalyst to survive the Extinction. Zuraiz, protect your sister, and she will balance your ash.']

The system screen didn't crash this time. The answer was right there. His system and Amaya’s forbidden bloodline weren't separate—they were two halves of the same prehistoric puzzle his parents had engineered.

A sudden surge of cool, stabilizing energy flowed from the containment pod, washing over Zuraiz’s cracking skin. The three-minute time limit in his mind suddenly froze.

Zuraiz’s lips twitched into a cold, ruthless smirk. He looked at Riaz, whose fists were now wreathed in roaring volcanic fire.

"Your defense is absolute?" Zuraiz whispered, his obsidian talons crackling with a mixture of dark gold energy and black-gold cracks. "Let's test that theory."