The Shadow Sovereign: Level Up from the Dirt

Point Blank

The white beam from Ifunanya's pistol ripped through the air, aimed directly at my neck.

I rolled hard across the wet metal floor, feeling the heat of the beam singe the cloth on my shoulder. The energy bolt slammed into the wall behind me, blowing a hole straight through the steel plate.

On the Island, hunters like Ifunanya were trained to hunt slum dwellers like wild animals. The upper city gave them neural implants and high-grade weapon gear, making them faster and far more dangerous than any street fighter. But Kemi had spent years studying their combat implants, learning every flaw in their design. She always said that no matter how advanced a hunter's gear was, it relied on predictable electrical signals.

"Launch the pod now!" I shouted, scrambling to my feet near a heavy iron support beam.

"Not without you, Zane!" Kemi called out from the open hatch of the escape pod. She didn't panic or reach for a weapon she couldn't use. Instead, her hands flew across the pod’s internal override panel, her sharp mind working out a way to turn the vessel's exterior pressure thrusters into a weapon.

"Close the door!" I ordered, my voice firm. "Tariq, lock it from the inside!"

The giant hunter with the red armor raised his heavy plasma cannon, taking slow, deliberate aim at the pod's glass window. "No one is leaving this ship alive."

Before he could pull the trigger, I summoned my remaining shadow soldiers. Two dark figures rose instantly from the deck, throwing their smoky bodies straight into the giant hunter's face. The shadow hands clamped over his helmet visor, blocking his sight and forcing him to stumble backward into the narrow hallway.

Ifunanya spun toward me, her pulse pistol clicking as she tracked my movement. "Your shadows are weak today, Zane. You don't have enough mana left to stop me."

She was right. My internal mana bar was sitting at a dangerous fifteen points. Every second I kept those shadow soldiers summoned felt like a heavy weight pressing down on my chest. My vision blurred around the edges, but I forced my legs to stay firm.

"I don't need mana to kill you," I said, drawing my physical gun.

I fired three quick shots straight at her chest.

Ifunanya didn't even try to dodge. Her high-tech personal shield flickered to life, a glowing red barrier absorbing the bullets before they could touch her body. She took a step forward, a cold laugh escaping her lips.

"Standard copper bullets?" she asked, her voice full of disdain. "Did you forget who I am? I am a Class-A hunter for the Chairman. Your little street weapons cannot break my defense."

"I am not trying to break your defense," I said.

Behind her, Kemi hit the manual release switch inside the pod.

The escape pod’s emergency pressure thruster burst to life with a deafening blast of compressed air. The sudden wave of high-pressure gas slammed straight into Ifunanya’s back, smashing her hard against the steel deck and shattering her glowing red shield in a single second.

The escape pod slid down the metal launch ramp, shooting out of the ship's side hatch and splashing into the dark ocean waves below.

Ifunanya groaned, struggling to sit up as the white smoke cleared around her. Her eyes burned with pure rage as she raised her pistol toward me again. "You arrogant rat!"

I didn't give her a chance to align her target. I dived forward, slamming my weight into her body and knocking the pistol out of her hand. We hit the metal floor hard, tumbling across the tilting deck as the ship listed further to the left.

Water was pouring into the lower corridor now, rising past our ankles in cold, violent rushes. The ship's structure groaned under the immense water weight, its metal plates buckling all around us.

I grabbed Ifunanya's wrist, pinning her hand against the deck while my other hand reached for the fallen pulse pistol two inches away. She drove her armored knee straight into my ribs, knocking the air clean out of my lungs. Pain shot through my side, but I held onto her wrist with everything I had.

"You think you won?" Ifunanya gasped, her teeth gritted as she fought against my grip. "Even if you get off this ship, you have nowhere to run! Chairman Femi has already sent the strike team to your home sector! Everything you ever cared about is burning right now!"

My chest tightened with sudden, raw terror. The small room where we kept our spare food, the old records our father left behind, the hidden shelter where the other lower-city families hid from the patrols—if Femi had sent a strike team there, dozens of innocent people were going to die.

"You're lying," I said, my voice shaking with rage.

"Check the public sector grid," she sneered, her eyes locking onto mine with ruthless triumph. "He marked your entire neighborhood as a terrorist cell twenty minutes ago."

Before I could pull the trigger or answer her, a deep explosion rocked the floor right beneath us.

The main engine room finally gave out. The iron deck snapped in half between us, a massive wall of dark ocean water bursting through the floor plate with violent force. The sheer pressure threw me backward, ripping my grip away from Ifunanya as the icy water swallowed the entire hallway.

I fought against the pulling current, kicking my legs toward the open launch hatch where the pod had exited. I burst through the surface of the sea, gasping for air as the cold wind whipped across my face.

Fifty yards away, the yellow lights of Kemi’s escape pod floated on the water.

I swam toward it, my arms heavy as lead, until Tariq reached down from the open hatch and pulled me inside. I fell onto the floor of the pod, coughing up salt water while the small hatch sealed shut behind us.

"Did you hear what she said?" Kemi asked, her small face looking paler than ever as she held the navigation screen.

"She said Femi sent a strike team to our neighborhood," I panted, wiping the sea water from my eyes.

Kemi tapped the screen, her hand trembling slightly. A live feed of our home sector appeared on the glass monitor. Black smoke was rising over the iron market buildings, and bright orange fires were burning through the street where we grew up.

"It's worse than that," Kemi said, her voice dropping to a low, hollow tone that made my skin go cold. She pointed at a flashing red message at the top of the feed. "Femi didn't just send a strike team to burn the market. He posted an open execution reward on our heads. And the person who just claimed the contract... is our brother."