Chapter 85: DECLARATION OF WAR
The air inside the Imperial Ballroom remained suffocatingly still, choked by the dying static of the Grade-S Anti-Magic Field and the overwhelming stench of ozone, scorched marble, and mineral oil.
High-society nobles, corporate lobbyists, and S-Rank Guild Masters huddled along the edges of the room like shivering livestock. On the main stage, the CEO of Aegis Plaza lay trembling against the display pedestal, staring up at the slouching figure in the black suit with wide, bloodshot eyes that held no remaining trace of corporate arrogance.
Noah Kurtz stood at the edge of the stage.
Underneath his dark lapel—where the ironwood leaf brooch glinted under the dimming cobalt lights—his coat pocket bulged slightly with the newly secured 14th-Cycle Gold Data Sphere. His steel-gray eyes swept over the paralyzed ballroom with a cold, clinical indifference that made the surrounding high-society elites shrink backward into the shadows.
"Jiho," Noah spoke, his flat, rasping whisper carrying clean through the silent hall. "The exit corridor."
"On it, Master," Jiho Park rumbled softly.
The broad-shouldered Juggernaut turned toward the colossal forty-foot double doors of Aegis Plaza—reinforced ironwood gates bound in Grade-S kinetic steel designed to withstand a siege. Six surviving Sovereign Enforcers stood behind the gates, frantically keying emergency lockdown codes into a glowing wall console.
Jiho didn’t check the console. He didn’t wait for Chloe to read the luck vectors.
He simply trudged forward, his faded slide sandals squelching against the plush crimson carpet, and delivered a short, minimalist shoulder-barge straight into the center of the forty-foot gates.
BOOM—!
The reinforced kinetic steel doors didn’t just unlock; they were torn entirely off their hydraulic hinges.
The forty-foot gates flew outward into the night air, smashing through the glass promenade railing outside and plunging seventy stories down into the plaza gardens below in a thunderous avalanche of metal and shattered crystal. The six enforcers behind the console were hurled backward by the wind pressure, sliding thirty meters across the polished marble floor.
"Whoa," Jiho mumbled, scratching his messy hair as he looked out at the open night sky. "Master, those doors were barely anchored. I didn’t even use my hips."
"They build everything for show out here, Jiho," Chloe Harrington laughed, stepping smoothly past him.
She held her dead platinum revolvers loosely at her sides, her asymmetric midnight-black gown fluttering in the sudden, howling draft sweeping in from the open promenade. She turned her amber eyes back toward the terrified corporate executives cowering behind the marble pillars, spinning a silver coin high into the air.
"Aegis! Apex! NovaCox!" Chloe called out, her voice filled with a sharp, rebellious flair that echoed across the entire Seventy-Story Plaza. "Tell your board of directors that the Shadow Vanguard just closed your exhibition! If you want your Gold Data Sphere back... come find us in the lower conduit!"
BANG!
Chloe pulled the trigger of her right revolver without looking, firing an unpowered iron slug into the ceiling’s primary power junction.
CRACK-LE—!
The probability distortion inverted the room’s remaining electrical grid. The high-tier chandeliers exploded in a sweeping, spectacular shower of golden sparks, plunging the entire seventy-story Imperial Ballroom into total, pitch-black darkness.
Screams of utter panic erupted from the high-society crowd as nobles trampled over expensive velvet chairs, desperately trying to find the ruined exit in the dark.
Inside the pitch-black void, Noah Kurtz didn’t hesitate.
Ashen Step: Phase Shift.
Noah folded the local spatial friction, stepping smoothly through the darkness toward the open promenade balcony.
Beside him, Rin Asakura moved in perfect, weightless synchronization. Because Rin was blind, the sudden loss of light didn’t affect her perception for a single millisecond. Her hyper-precise sensory grid—Asura’s Touch—mapped the open night sky, the seventy-story vertical drop, and the cool evening draft with mathematical perfection.
Yet, as they reached the shattered edge of the marble promenade overlooking the glittering skyline of Aethelgard, a sudden surge of high-frequency corporate alarms ignited across the city.
Searchlights from three massive NovaCox tactical dreadnoughts swept across the sky, their blue targeting lasers locking onto the broken balcony of Aegis Plaza.
"Intruders detected on Promenade Level!" the dreadnought speakers boomed across the sector. "Initiate Level-Zero Sector Lockdown! Deploy kinetic interceptors!"
Rin’s ears twitched beneath her black silk blindfold. "Noah... three heavy warships in the sky... and forty mechanized interceptors ascending from the lower docks."
Noah looked out over the seventy-story drop, his steel-gray eyes reflecting the dancing searchlights. He didn’t draw a dagger. He didn’t execute a complex defensive spell.
He turned toward Rin, his slouching posture completely relaxed.
"Hold onto me, Rin," Noah said gently.
Rin’s pale lips curved into a breathtaking, serene smile under the starlit sky. She didn’t ask how they would survive a seventy-story jump, nor did she express a single thread of doubt. She stepped smoothly into his space, wrapping her slender arms tightly around his waist, resting her cheek securely against the lapel of his black suit—right over the dark ironwood leaf brooch.
Noah gently placed his left arm around her waist, pulling her close against his chest, shielding her frail frame from the wild wind.
"Jiho, Chloe," Noah commanded softly. "Bottom conduit."
"Catch you at the late-night stall, Boss!" Chloe smirked, hopping over the broken ledge and letting gravity take her into the dark.
"I’m diving first!" Jiho cheered, plunging off the seventy-story balcony like a falling meteor, his broad frame cutting through the sky.
Noah Kurtz stepped off the ledge.
They fell seventy stories through the open night air, the glittering lights of Aethelgard’s corporate towers rushing past them in a blur of neon blue and gold. The howling wind whipped through Noah’s ash-black hair and rustled Rin’s deep-navy kimono, yet inside Noah’s arms, Rin felt no fear, no turbulence, and no zero-gravity disorientation.
Circulate.
Inside Noah’s spine, his Silver-Tier Ki loop expanded into an active Kinetic Dampening Field.
He didn’t fight gravity; he manipulated the air displacement around their falling bodies. As they neared the roofs of the lower Sector 09 conduit three hundred meters below, Noah executed a micro-burst of Ashen Step: Phase Shift.
Whoosh—!
The vertical falling momentum was instantly converted into a smooth, horizontal zero-weight glide.
Noah’s boots touched the damp, brick-lined roof of a Sector 09 steam conduit with a soundless, feather-light tap. He didn’t displace a single loose pebble, nor did he break a single clay roof tile.
A hundred meters away, Jiho smashed into a concrete alleyway with a deafening BOOM, leaving a three-foot crater in the asphalt, while Chloe landed smoothly on an iron fire escape with a graceful, cat-like spring.
Noah slowly eased his grip around Rin’s waist, though he kept his right hand gently wrapping around her pale wrist.
Rin raised her blindfolded face toward his profile. She let out a soft, peaceful exhale, her fingers tightening their gentle hold around his wrist, her cheek lingering against his arm for a breathless second.
"That was... breathtaking, Noah..." Rin whispered softly, her melodic cadence carrying an intimate warmth that melted into the damp night breeze. "Floating through the sky with your pulse..."
Noah looked down into her blindfolded face, his steel-gray eyes softening with a rare, quiet tenderness that no corporate CEO or Church High Priest would ever see.
"You weren’t scared?" Noah asked gently.
"I am never scared when I am in your arms, Noah," Rin murmured, a beautiful, genuine smile touching her pale lips as she leaned her head against his shoulder.
Noah felt the unyielding, absolute truth of her words, a quiet warmth filling his heart. He gently tightened his grip around her hand, pulling her a little closer to his side as Jiho and Chloe trotted up the alleyway toward them.
"Man!" Jiho grinned, dusting concrete powder off his tuxedo pants. "That was a great jump! Now, where is this late-night stall Chloe promised?"
"Right down the conduit, Jiho," Chloe laughed, flipping her silver coin into her pocket. "Hot pork buns and fried dough sticks."
Noah looked back up at the glittering seventy-story spire of Aegis Plaza in the distance, where sirens were wailing frantically across the high sector.
The Mega-Guild Triumvirate had tried to treat his team as F-Rank porters and wild cards. They had tried to lock them in a corporate cage.
Instead, the Shadow Vanguard had stripped them of their prize, shattered their security pride, and officially declared war on the rulers of the Central Continent.
"Let’s get food," Noah said flatly, his voice an unflinching pool of calm. "Tomorrow... we breach NovaCox Facility Zero."
Hand in hand, with Rin resting her head against his shoulder and his squad laughing beside him, Noah Kurtz walked into the shadows of Sector 09, ready for the final battle for the Gold Archive.