080 Running Blind

Anti-Aura Technology. AAT. Something unique to the World Order.

Fun fact—those bastards also had a clairvoyant. Correction: clairvoyants. They weren’t as strong as the Prophet, but they didn’t need to be. It was enough to be a pain in the ass.

I didn’t mind them all that much, though. Clairvoyants were often too busy dealing with grand-scale events, prophecies, and existential crises to give a damn about some no-name guy like me. Or at least, they should have been.

So why did the World Order want me dead?

The only logical explanation? Their Think Tank. Those guys were the real pain in the ass. Hyper-intelligent strategists with access to absurd amounts of data, analyzing threats before they even became threats. If they had decided I was a problem, it meant they saw something in the future that required my immediate removal.

Of course, it would be impossible it was directly related to me. I’m a blindspot to clairvoyants. If anything, they must have deduced I must have done something.

Made me wonder—what the hell did I do this time?

I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

We made a break for it the moment Leora regained enough mobility to run.

The moment we turned into a narrow alleyway, I muttered, "I don't know how much time we have left, but they're going to find us."

We didn’t make it far, but at least we’d put some distance between us and the kill squad. Leora was fast—even without aura. But she wasn’t superhumanly fast like she usually was. Whatever they were using had completely locked down our abilities.

Not good.

She glanced at me. "Any ideas?"

I exhaled. "They're using a specialized kind of technology that suppresses aura patterns. There should be beacons scattered across the city. We need to destroy at least one of them to regain our aura."

Leora clenched her fists. "This is cheating. Taking aura away like that?"

I let out a dry chuckle. "If it offers any comfort, they won’t be able to use aura either."

Leora didn’t hesitate. She elbowed a car window, shattering it instantly, then reached inside and yanked the door open. Without missing a beat, she slid in, reached under the dashboard, and started yanking at wires.

Sparks flew. The engine roared to life.

She looked up at me through the open door. "Get in."

I climbed into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind me.

"I have a plan."

Leora smirked. "That so? Please, do impress me."

I took a breath and checked my configuration. The AAT meant I was only able to equip two Attributes at a time. Anything more, and the suppression field would shut me down completely.

I went with Connection—it helped with control and allowed me to create my aura threads, even in this weakened state. And second? Weakness.

A stolen Attribute. One I took from the Elsewhere Hero.

After my little revelation back with the DIVINE, I was starting to piece things together. My Gift—Butterfly Effect—was based on cause and effect. That meant when I "stole" an Attribute, I wasn’t just borrowing some passive ability. I was stealing the very theme of someone’s aura. Their cause.

And by replicating that cause, I could produce its effect.

Which meant Weakness wasn’t just some ability to identify flaws and weaken others—it carried the very property of breaking probability. And if probability was being artificially tampered with to suppress aura… then theoretically, this should work.

I focused.

Threads of aura flickered at my fingertips—thin, weak, but present.

"No need to overthink it." I clenched my fists, feeling the tiny sparks of power flicker in my palms. "Plan is simple. We drive away and beat them up while doing it."

Leora grinned and slammed her foot on the gas.

"I like that thinking."

The city blurred past us, neon signs and dim streetlights casting fleeting shadows over the hood of the stolen car. The night wasn’t much of a cover—Temon was a city-state, after all, and a metropolis never truly slept. Even at this hour, there were enough people on the streets to make things complicated.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Leora gripped the wheel with practiced ease, her eyes sharp as she weaved through lanes with terrifying precision. She was good at this. Too good. It was easy to forget that despite her skill with a sword, she had been a Hunting Dog before—she knew how to handle a car just as well as she handled a fight.

Then came the sirens.

Red and blue lights flashed behind us. A helicopter’s searchlight locked onto the car, painting us in blinding white.

"We’d be screwed if they used Maker Artifacts," Leora muttered, sparing a glance at the rearview mirror.

"They won’t," I assured her. "Maker Artifacts function on aura. The AAT suppresses all aura activity, meaning they’d be useless."

I felt the car shift violently. Leora had sharply turned a corner, dodging a spike strip laid out ahead. The side mirror exploded in a spray of glass as a burst of bullets shredded through the air beside us.

Another impact—something slammed into my side of the car.

I caught a glimpse of the police vehicle ramming into us, trying to force us off the road. More bullets tore through the shattered window, barely missing me. I ducked low, pressing against the seat.

The firing paused.

That was my chance.

I twisted my body, reached out, and tapped the hood of the cop car with my fingertips.

My aura threads latched onto the metal like invisible strings of silk, embedding themselves before I yanked my hand back and retreated.

Transform.

In an instant, the threads solidified into Soul Chains—binding the vehicle’s movement, locking its wheels in an unnatural grip.

The result was immediate.

The cop car jerked, its front tires screeching as they locked up. The driver must’ve panicked because instead of regaining control, the vehicle skidded hard, spun sideways, and slammed into another pursuing car behind it.

Two down. More to go.

The two police cars crashed in a mess of metal and sparks, flipping onto their sides as Leora took another sharp turn. The smell of burnt rubber filled the air as she pushed the vehicle even faster.

Leora glanced at me. "Nice trick. Think you can do that again?"

"I can try, but I need to get close enough to leave my aura threads on them. That’s the tricky part."

Another hail of bullets rained down from the helicopter above. Leora cursed under her breath, twisting the wheel just in time to avoid a direct hit.

"That chopper is a problem," she said. "We can’t outrun it."

I looked up through the shattered window, watching the spotlight track us relentlessly. The World Order’s forces were coordinated, fast, and efficient. AAT wasn’t their only advantage—they had manpower, strategy, and, worst of all, clairvoyants.

"Turn left," I ordered.

Leora didn’t hesitate. She swerved into a narrow alley, scraping the side of the car against the concrete walls. Sparks flew, but we made it through. The police vehicles following us weren’t so lucky—one of them clipped the corner too hard and spun out.

We burst out onto another main road, but the helicopter was still tracking us.

"This thing is a damn pest," Leora growled.

"I have an idea," I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a handful of coins.

She raised an eyebrow. "Are we bribing the helicopter pilot?"

"Just drive."

I focused on my aura—what little I could use under AAT suppression—and activated Weakness. The coins in my hand glowed faintly, infused with the power to break probability. Then, with a flick of my wrist, I tossed them out of the window.

As the helicopter passed overhead, the coins collided with its rotor blades.

A loud metallic crack echoed through the night.

The effect was instant—one of the blades snapped, sending the helicopter into an uncontrollable spin. The searchlight wobbled erratically before the entire aircraft began its descent, spiraling toward a rooftop in a shower of sparks.

Leora whistled. "Damn. You planned that?"

"Not really. Just took a chance."

She grinned. "Remind me to never play poker with you."

With the helicopter out of commission, our odds of escape skyrocketed. The remaining pursuers were still behind us, but they were losing their biggest advantage—eyes in the sky.

Leora pressed the pedal to the floor. "Now, let’s find one of those beacons and smash it."

Leora swerved to avoid the flaming wreckage, the tires screeching against the pavement. The overturned van tumbled across the road, creating an instant barricade that forced the other police vehicles to brake hard or crash into the pile-up.

"They can still keep up with us," I muttered, glancing at the remaining pursuers in the rearview mirror.

Leora smirked. "They sure like us."

Ahead, the road split into two, and Leora took the right without hesitation. But as soon as we turned the corner, another van with a mounted minigun rolled into view, its barrel already spinning.

"Shit!"

The roar of gunfire exploded, bullets tearing through the air. I had only seconds to act.

I swapped Connection for Homing. My aura twisted in response, and a net of aura threads burst from my palms, shimmering faintly as I imbued them with the Homing attribute. The moment the bullets reached the threads, their trajectories shifted, bending unnaturally as they followed the tangled web of aura.

The gunner didn’t notice what was happening at first. The bullets curved away from us, dispersing wildly, some even ricocheting into nearby buildings and back toward their own van.

I gritted my teeth, fighting off the growing migraine that came with incorporating Homing into my threads. The strain of using aura under AAT suppression was unbearable, but I couldn’t stop now.

Another van came out of nowhere from the left alley, its gun already aimed at us.

"Again!?" Leora growled.

I didn’t hesitate. I leaned over, stretching past Leora’s side, and let another burst of aura threads intercept the incoming fire.

The bullets bent, scattering away from the SUV.

Leora didn’t waste the opportunity. She floored the gas, pushing through the chaos.

I wasn’t done yet. I flicked my wrist, sending a thin aura thread into the air, twisting it into a Soul Chain mid-flight.

The glowing chain whipped through the van’s open window and wrapped around the gunner’s arm.

The next thing that happened was instantaneous—

The gunner twitched, losing control of the minigun. The barrel jerked sideways, unleashing a spray of bullets into their own vehicle.

A second later, the van skidded sideways, its tires losing grip, and then—

BOOM!

It toppled over, crashing onto its side with a metallic groan. The explosion of sparks lit up the night as another police car behind it rammed straight into the wreckage.

Leora didn’t even blink as she kept driving, dodging debris effortlessly.

I exhaled, leaning back into my seat, my head pounding from the exertion.

"Remind me to never be in a car chase with you," I muttered.

Leora grinned. "Come on, you’re having fun."

I didn’t answer. My headache was getting worse. Using aura under AAT suppression was like pushing against a steel wall—every time I forced my power through, it pushed back ten times harder.

We weren’t out of the woods yet.

I could still feel the beacons pulsing somewhere in the city, suppressing our aura.

And as long as they were active, we were running on borrowed time