The junk mountain didn't just fall—
it detonated.
Engines, pipes, broken drones, entire car doors-everything crashed down at once, roaring like a tidal wave made of discarded metal. Riko didn't think. Couldn't think. His legs moved on instinct, firing like rockets the moment the first chunk of debris smashed into the rooftop behind him.
He launched into a sprint.
His feet hit the ground so fast that the world blurred sideways. He vaulted off the sagging roof and landed in a spray of dust that exploded outward in a shockwave. His legs didn't buckle. They didn't even complain. They kept running, faster, faster, faster.
Behind him, the boss monster plowed through the junk pile like it was papier-mâché. Every footstep that the creature took thundered through the ground with such heavy weight that dents rippled through the earth. Pieces of debris flew past Riko's head: shards of bent metal and twisted springs that sliced the air like shrapnel.
"I—HATE—THIS!" Riko yelled between ragged breaths that tore at his throat. "THIS—SHOULD—NOT—BE—CARDIO!"
A huge gear crashed into the ground beside him, driving itself into the earth so deep that the dirt cracked open. Riko yelped and swerved, nearly tripping over a rusted turret that had no business still existing.
Something heavy slammed behind him—so close the air itself seemed to punch forward. Riko didn't dare look back. His legs kept firing, picking up speed until the world warped at the edges.
The screen on his wrist flickered violently, glitching from red to blue to static.
"NOT—NOW!" he barked at it. "I'M—BUSY!"
The display didn't care.
ERROR-ERROR-ADAPTIVE STAT BOOST TRIGGERED
"What does THAT mean?! No more boosts! My legs are already illegal!"
But the glitch surged anyway. A burst of electricity shot through his calves, powerful enough to make his kneecaps vibrate. His stride stretched wider, longer, smoother. Suddenly he wasn't running through a junkyard-he was flying inches above it, barely touching the ground before he pushed off again.
He dodged left, right, leaping over scrap heaps the size of cars. His shoes scraped across loose plates that tried to slide out from under him, but each time his feet corrected instantly, as if the stat boost was steering him with invisible strings.
Pieces of collapsing junk slammed down all around him. A refrigerator smashed the dirt where he'd been a millisecond before. A scooter frame clanged off a boulder, flipping end-over-end past his shoulder with a shriek.
Behind him came the noise of a collapsing skyscraper.
The boss monster burst into full view.
It tore through the smaller monsters without slowing. One of them skittered in terror, but the boss simply bulldozed it aside with a swipe of its huge, armoured head. The creature's jaws snapped open, bits of metal still hanging from its teeth as it roared again-so loud the vibrations rattled Riko's spine.
"Nope nope nope NOPE!" Riko shrieked, vaulting over a stack of broken vending bots. "You stay back there! You stay in your trash throne!"
The boss did not stay back there.
It accelerated.
Its footsteps were a pounding rhythm—closer, closer, closer—and the sound made Riko's lungs lock up. He could feel the breath of the monster at his back, a searing gust of hot air mixed with the stench of burnt circuitry.
Riko's sprint turned into a blur at full speed. His knees had turned to pistons, his lungs into furnaces. He couldn't process the terrain anymore-there was only movement, chaotic forward motion through collapsing metal and choking dust.
A wall of junk toppled in front of him.
Riko barely had time to panic before his legs took control. He leapt—a huge, soaring arc that carried him over the falling debris. He hit the ground rolling, sparks flying off from the metal he scraped across.
"THIS IS TOO MUCH!" he screamed mid-tumble. "I'M NOT YOUR ACTION HERO! I'M A DROP-OUT WITH ANXIETY!"
He pushed himself upright, still sprinting. His arms pumped wildly as another burst of collapsing trash thundered behind him-the shockwave nearly threw him forward.
The screen juddered again.
SPEED STAT TEMPORARILY DOUBLED
Riko almost stumbled in complete disbelief.
"DOUBLED?! YOU CAN'T DOUBLE SOMETHING ALREADY IN THE 'ILLEGAL' RANGE!"
His legs disagreed instantly.
They doubled his pace.
The wind continued lashing his face so hard it flattened his cheeks. His vision smeared outward, colors running into streaks. He felt less a person and more a projectile fired from some experimental cannon.
He tore between two stacks of crushed cars, zigzagged under a rusted girder, and slid across gravel as the ground shook beneath him. Machinery fell behind him in a rolling avalanche of scrap that the boss monster simply smashed through without hesitation. It barreled forward like some sort of glitching tank with a fury problem.
Riko whipped around a turn—if piles of junk could be considered "turns"—and finally made out the exit path ahead: a narrow length of gravel ending at the chain-link fence he'd snuck through earlier.
"Yes! FINALLY! FREEDOM!" he shouted.
He began to run even harder.
The boss roared again, this time louder. Angrier. The sound scraped across the whole zone like a storm of broken speakers.
Riko didn't dare glance back. He didn't need to—the tremor of the monster's colossal footsteps told him exactly how close it was now.
Too close.
Far too close.
The fence drew closer. Riko pushed harder than he had ever thought possible, lungs burning like molten iron; he could taste blood in the back of his throat from the force of his breathing.
Almost there.
Almost—
A shadow swallowed the light above him.
Riko's eyes widened.
"No," he whispered. "It can't— "
It did.
The boss monster launched itself into the air. It soared over him-its massive frame blocking out the sun, blocking out the sky, blocking out everything for a split heartbeat-before crashing down directly in front of the exit path. The impact shook the entire ground with a thunderous quake. The boss Jumps over him and blocks the exit.