LXI

The wind slapped against my face as I sat in the sidecar of the motorcycle. Selena was at the helm, her hair whipping in the breeze as she maneuvered the bike with practiced ease. No helmets, of course—according to Selena, helmets were for "nerds."

"So," Selena said over the roar of the engine, her voice laced with curiosity. "You didn’t join the Dogs in the end? What changed?"

I glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. "What made you say that?"

She shrugged, keeping her eyes on the road. "Just asking..."

"Right." I leaned back in the sidecar, letting the conversation hang for a moment. "Where’s your car, anyway?"

Her expression soured instantly. "Some bitch stole it."

I couldn’t help but snort. "You? Tricked? Of all people?"

"Shut up," she snapped, her voice tinged with embarrassment. "So, where to next?"

I grinned, enjoying her irritation just a little too much. "I’m thinking the World Wall. Specifically, the Northern Walled City. There’s someone I need to meet."

Selena’s frown deepened. "We’re definitely taking the train."

"How about a plane?" I suggested, though I already knew her answer.

She rolled her eyes. "Only government-approved airplanes are allowed to travel the airspace. You know that."

"I could call in a favor," I said, a plan forming in my mind.

Selena glanced at me skeptically. "A favor? From who?"

"A mundane client I had once. He wanted to learn aura—or at least the requirements to learn it. I gave him some pointers, and now he owes me a ton of money and a few favors."

She snorted. "A mundane, huh? You really are something else. Most hunters wouldn’t waste their time on someone like that."

"That’s their loss," I replied. "Knowledge about aura is still valuable in this world, especially with how the sects hoard it. That’ll change in the next decade or two, though. A new generation of hunters is coming, and they’ll play by different rules. Not to mention its pretty commons sense to most people that aura is not to be shared. I’d say they are stupid. Bob gets it."

Selena didn’t respond immediately, but her silence spoke volumes. She might have been skeptical, but she wasn’t dismissive.

"So, the nearest military airport it is," she said finally. "What do you even want in the Walled Cities? Don’t tell me you’re going sightseeing."

I smirked. "I want to make a deal with one of the Seven Extremes."

That got her attention. Her grip on the handlebars tightened, and she shot me a sharp look. "You’re joking."

I met her gaze, my expression serious. "My intel says the person I’m looking for might be in the World Wall."

Selena’s eyes narrowed, suspicion written all over her face. "Who, exactly?"

I hesitated. The truth was, I was after the Extreme Trickster—Silhouette. But telling Selena that would only piss her off. Silhouette was her deadbeat father, after all, and that was a sore subject I didn’t want to poke at right now.

"My intel is vague," I lied, keeping my tone casual. "But I’m confident it’ll lead me to the right person."

Selena didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press the issue. "Fine," she muttered. "But don’t expect me to bail you out if this goes sideways."

I chuckled, the sound lost in the wind. "Wouldn’t dream of it."

The truth was, this plan was a gamble. My original idea had been to join the Hunting Dogs, rise through the ranks, and issue a Hunt Order against the Cult. It would’ve taken me at least three years, maybe more. Loki had taken about as long when he infiltrated the Hunter Association ten years from now.

But things had changed. My discovery of Atropos and the Hunt Order she facilitated had fast-tracked my plans. Now, the next step was securing firepower. The kind of firepower only one of the Seven Extremes could provide.

And if I was right, the Extreme Trickster would be my ticket to turning the tide.

Selena’s voice cut through my thoughts. "You’ve got that look again."

"What look?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"The one that says you’re about to do something stupid."

I grinned. "Trust me, Selena. This is all part of the plan."

She rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath that I couldn’t quite catch. But despite her exasperation, she didn’t stop the bike… and then she swerved.

The wind rushed past me as I clung to the sidecar, Selena weaving the motorcycle through the barren highway like a woman possessed. Suddenly, without warning, Leora’s boot lashed out, and I was airborne.

“What the hell, Leora?!” I barely managed to yell as gravity claimed me.

Combat instinct honed from the World Tower kicked in. My current loadout—Connection, Puppetry, and Homing—came to life in an instant. Aura strings flared from my fingers, latching onto the Soul Link tethered to the doll stashed in the sidecar’s rear compartment.

Using Homing, I surged toward the doll as though pulled by an unseen magnet. My trajectory was perfect. The doll sprang into action, catching me mid-air in a graceful arc. It rolled to absorb the momentum and released me gently onto the asphalt.

"Thanks," I muttered under my breath, already moving to find cover.

From my vantage point, I spotted three gunmen emerging from behind a makeshift barricade further up the highway. Selena had vanished, likely cloaking herself with invisibility. Moments later, she reappeared behind the gunmen, a blur of motion as she engaged them with deadly intent.

Before I could join the fight, I felt it—a soft click, the unmistakable pressure of a gun barrel against the back of my head.

A voice, calm and deliberate, whispered behind me. “Do you know what it feels like to have a barrel of a gun pointed at your head?”

I didn’t flinch. My fingers twitched, activating Soul Castling. In an instant, my body and the doll switched places.

BANG!

The doll’s head exploded into a shower of splinters and debris, the high-caliber round ripping through it like paper. A second shot whizzed past my ear, close enough to feel the heat.

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I turned to face my attacker, my heart pounding but my expression calm.

“You…” I breathed, recognition dawning as I took in her long, dull blonde hair, emerald eyes, and the faint curl of smoke rising from the cigarette in her mouth. Her aura was overwhelming, radiating a lethal calm that could only belong to one person.

“Eliz-Beth,” I said, my voice steady despite the danger.

The Extreme Maker herself stood before me, her trademark gun still trained on me. She was a legend, the most feared bounty hunter in the Claimed Lands.

Eliz-Beth smirked, taking a slow drag from her cigarette before flicking the ash to the ground. “Well, aren’t you a sharp one. Didn’t think anyone would recognize me this far out.”

My mind raced. Facing an Extreme wasn’t part of the plan—not yet. But if she was here, it wasn’t by coincidence.

“What’s the bounty?” I asked, buying time.

She raised an eyebrow, her smirk widening. “Who says I’m after you?”

I gestured to the smoking remnants of my doll. “Just a hunch.”

Eliz-Beth laughed softly, a sound that sent chills down my spine. “Fair point.” She leaned in slightly, her emerald eyes gleaming with amusement. “You’ve got guts, kid. I like that. But guts only get you so far.”

Behind her, the fight raged on. Selena was a whirlwind of movement, dispatching the gunmen with ruthless efficiency. But I couldn’t count on her to bail me out of this one.

“What do you want?” I asked, keeping my voice even.

Eliz-Beth’s expression darkened, the playful glint in her eyes replaced by something far more dangerous. “I want to see if you’re worth the bounty.”

Before I could respond, she moved—faster than I thought possible. Her gun shifted, and I barely managed to summon my aura strings to deflect the shot. The bullet ricocheted off the strings, but the force sent me stumbling back.

“Impressive,” she said, already lining up her next shot. “Let’s see how long you can keep that up.”

Eliz-Beth’s bullets weren’t ordinary projectiles—they were extensions of her will, manifestations of her Maker Aura. I had tried to puppet them, tried to wrestle control, but the sheer complexity of their construction was overwhelming.

Her weapon was no ordinary firearm either. The oversized hand cannon gleamed in the fading light, an unholy fusion of craftsmanship and aura mastery. It was more than a weapon—it was a statement of dominance.

Eliz-Beth stood casually, her midriff exposed under her loose, comfortable clothing, as if mocking the seriousness of our battle. Her gaze swept over the remains of my destroyed doll, her boot kicking at the rubble until something caught her eye.

The two hearts, still faintly beating, peeked out from the wreckage.

“Shoddy craftsmanship,” she said, her voice carrying a mixture of amusement and disdain. “Clearly not made by you. This is Atropos’s work.” She crouched slightly, her fingers brushing against the hearts. “And… these are identical. Creepy.”

Her emerald eyes snapped to me, and before I could react, she leveled her gun and fired.

The bullet tore through the air, a blazing comet of raw aura energy. I had no time to think—only to act. I thwipped a Soul Link, hardening it with every ounce of focus, and latched onto an overpass in the distance. The string yanked me upward, my body rocketing away from the ground just as the bullet screamed past where I’d been standing.

But it didn’t stop. The bullet curved mid-air, its trajectory impossibly shifting to home in on me.

Damn it!

As I ascended, I worked furiously, imbuing Soul Links into the air around me. The intricate web of strings shimmered faintly, a lattice of aura designed to intercept the oncoming bullet. My chest burned as I drew on the coin hidden in my pocket, the stored aura surging into my veins.

The bullet collided with the web, and my muscles screamed as I puppeted the strings to twist the projectile’s path. It slowed, faltered, and finally reversed direction, hurtling back toward Eliz-Beth.

For a moment, I allowed myself a flicker of triumph—only for it to die instantly.

The bullet dispersed in a burst of light, and from the fragments, Eliz-Beth emerged, her body reforming as if she had stepped through a door.

My mind reeled. She had teleported through her bullet.

Aura strings lashed out instinctively, wrapping around her mid-air form. But they didn’t hold for long. With a single pulse of power, her Maker Aura shredded the links like cobwebs.

I was falling now, the momentum from my ascent spent. Gravity pulled me toward the ground, but Eliz-Beth remained suspended in the air.

Her boots rested on what appeared to be solidified light, a platform conjured from her aura. She looked down at me, calm and collected, the predator toying with her prey.

She raised her gun, the barrel glowing with energy.

In that instant, I saw my death flash before my eyes.

I had no more strings left to save me, no clever tricks to turn the tide. Falling helplessly, I could only watch as she took aim.

And yet, even as the end seemed inevitable, a voice whispered in the back of my mind:

Think, Reynard. There’s always a way.

I clenched my fists, gritting my teeth as I prepared to make one last desperate move.

My aura reserves were spent. No Soul Links connected to anyone—not even Selena. The usual lifelines I relied on to siphon aura were severed. I was utterly alone.

But I wasn’t done yet.

There was still the coin tucked in my chest pocket. A pitiful reserve of aura remained within it, barely enough for two or three Soul Links at most. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had. Most of my aura battery existed in the doll—my last line of defense. And now, the doll was in pieces.

Eliz-Beth didn’t hesitate. She fired her weapon.

The bullet roared toward me, a sphere of concentrated aura energy the size of a ping-pong ball. Its glow was blinding, its speed unmatched.

I had no time to think, only to act.

Taking a deep breath, I wrapped my right palm with the faint threads of a Soul Link, weaving it tightly like a glove. The bullet screamed closer. My body screamed in protest, but my mind remained focused.

I slapped the bullet.

The instant my palm made contact, I felt the searing heat of its aura, the immense pressure it carried. But I didn’t falter. In the first microsecond, I latched onto it with the Soul Link. In the next, I siphoned half of the bullet’s aura into myself, cycling it back into my body and the bullet itself.

“Soul Gear: Deflection.”

With a twist of my wrist, I redirected the bullet. It veered away from me, its trajectory now aimed at the shattered remnants of the doll on the ground.

Eliz-Beth’s eyes widened in shock as the bullet spiraled away, her control over it overridden by my intervention.

I continued to fall, the wind roaring in my ears, but my focus was on the bullet and the doll.

The bullet struck the broken doll.

Using the Soul Links I’d attached earlier, I forced the doll’s shattered pieces to reconnect. The process was crude, the craftsmanship rushed, but it was enough.

In the same instant, I activated the Soul Link tethered to the bullet and the ability inside it. My consciousness blurred, my body twisting through space as I teleported into the doll.

It wasn’t elegant, but it worked.

I reformed inside the makeshift fragmentsof the doll, my limbs awkwardly fitted into its jagged structure as if it was armor. It groaned under the strain, but it held. In my hands were the two hearts—Karl’s hearts—the Hero of Elsewhere Cult.

They pulsed with powerful aura, the remnants of a life once dedicated to unimaginable strength.

I didn’t hesitate. Tossing one of the hearts upward like a grenade, I shouted:

“Soul Detonation!”

The heart erupted in mid-air, a blinding flash of aura tearing through the space between me and Eliz-Beth. The shockwave knocked me backward, the doll’s frame barely holding together as I stumbled.

I didn’t wait to see the aftermath.

With what little energy remained, I turned and ran, the doll’s clunky movements dragging me toward the edge of the battlefield.

Behind me, the sound of Eliz-Beth’s enraged shout echoed through the air.

I stumbled into an obscure alley, my makeshift doll armor groaning with each step before collapsing into useless scraps. I discarded it, my body aching, my aura nearly drained. The shadows of the alley swallowed me, offering a fleeting sense of safety.

My hand reached for the imaginary Moon Tarot card tucked into my mind. I needed to telepathically call Selena, to warn her, to regroup.

But before I could focus, a sudden, sharp tug pulled at my consciousness—not from the Moon, but from the Lovers Tarot card.

It was Leora.

Her voice pierced through my mind like a scream:

“Reynard! Stefan is dead! T-the Extreme Fighter is here! And—”

The connection cut off abruptly, leaving me gasping for breath. But the Lovers card wasn’t done. It dragged me deeper, showing me images, vivid and unrelenting, as if I were standing right there.

Leora, holding Leon in one arm, stood in the middle of a desolate desert. Her Seeker Aura shimmered faintly, barely enough to keep her alive as she faced down an unstoppable force.

Ranas. The Extreme Fighter.

His aging, weathered frame moved with a speed and precision that defied logic. The massive single-edged greatsword in his hand carved through the air, its weight seemingly meaningless to him. He pressed Leora relentlessly, forcing her to dodge and counter with every ounce of strength she had.

This wasn’t just bad.

This was catastrophic.

I leaned against the alley wall, my breath ragged. The image of Leora’s desperate struggle refused to fade from my mind’s eye. I had anticipated a response to my stunt—knew the Cult wouldn’t sit idly by after I disrupted their plans.

But this?

This was far beyond anything I’d expected.

Had I been arrogant? Thinking I was in control of the situation? Believing I could outmaneuver forces that had existed long before I even understood what aura was?

I fancied myself a god because I thought I’d created this world.

What a fool I was.

Leora’s voice echoed in my head, her desperation clawing at my resolve. My hands trembled as I gripped the Lovers card tightly, its edges digging into my skin.

I couldn’t leave her to face Ranas alone.

But what could I do? My aura was nearly depleted. My plans were in shambles. The doll—my last line of defense—was destroyed.

Yet, as the image of Leora shielding Leon with her body burned in my mind, I knew there was no choice.

I had to act.

I had to find a way.

Even if it killed me.

~061