The air in the Golden Quarter didn't smell like the rest of the world. Down in the Rust Lands, the air tasted of iron and blood. Here, atop the gilded spires of the capital, it smelled of ozone, expensive perfume, and stagnation.
Victor stood at the edge of the private military docking bay, his white coat snapping violently in the high-altitude wind. His left eye—a pristine, sapphire-blue cybernetic implant—whirred softly as streams of data cascaded across his vision.
[Security Grid: Bypassed.]
[Automated Turrets: Loop Mode.]
[The Prototype: Online.]
"Stop staring at the sun, Victor. You look like a poet, and I hate poets."
The voice was deep, resonating like boulders grinding together. Kyle stepped onto the platform, his massive frame encased in "Titan-Class" armor that gleamed with an obsidian luster. On his shoulder rested a gravity hammer the size of a grown man, yet he carried it as if it were a twig.
Victor adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, ignoring the taunt. "I am not looking at the sun, Kyle. I am looking at the rot beneath the gold."
"Rot, gold, it's all the same to me," Kyle scoffed, walking past him toward the massive vessel clamped in the launch cradle. "As long as this ship can fly."
The ship—The Prototype—was a monstrosity of engineering. It wasn't built for elegance like the noble yachts; it was built for war and survival. Its hull was reinforced with black steel alloy, designed to withstand the crushing pressure of the deep abyss.
"The engine is experimental," Victor noted, tapping a final command into his wrist console. The ship's thrusters ignited with a low, bone-vibrating hum. "Midas built this city on the backs of the weak. The energy grid is failing, the biology of the earth is screaming, and the Council is too busy counting coins to listen. The system isn't just corrupt, Kyle… it's terminal."
"So we leave," Kyle said, cracking his neck. The sound was like a gunshot. "We go where they are too scared to look."
"The solution is below," Victor confirmed, his voice cold. "In the Zero Gear."
Suddenly, the bay doors flashed red. Sirens wailed, shattering the serene silence of the Golden Quarter.
"ALERT. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. SECTOR 7 GUARDS INBOUND."
A squad of elite "Sky Knights"—soldiers equipped with steam-jet wings and high-caliber rifles—descended from the upper balconies, weapons locked on the duo.
"Surrender!" the captain screamed. "By order of Lord Midas, step away from the vessel!"
Victor didn't flinch. He didn't even look up from his console. "Kyle. We have thirty seconds before the engine reaches optimal thermal levels. Clear the path."
"Thirty seconds?" Kyle grinned, a savage expression that promised violence. "I'll do it in ten."
Kyle didn't dodge the incoming fire. He didn't need to. The bullets sparked harmlessly against his obsidian armor. He leaped forward, swinging the gravity hammer in a wide, lazy arc.
BOOM.
He didn't hit the soldiers. He hit the air in front of them. The shockwave of compressed gravity slammed into the squad like a physical wall, swatting them out of the sky and sending them crashing into the cargo crates.
"Pathetic," Kyle laughed, landing heavily on the ship's ramp. "I told you, Victor! I'm going to smash the gates of hell with this hammer! A few flying tin cans won't stop me!"
Victor stepped onto the ramp as the clamps released. The ship groaned, eager to be free. "Then let us go. Before this paradise turns into a graveyard."
The Prototype blasted away from the spire, leaving the gleaming city behind as it plunged downward. The world ended at the edge of the capital, and the nightmare began.
Minutes later, the ship skimmed the surface of the Forbidden Ocean, its reinforced hull groaning under the strain. This was not a sea of water. It was a vast, churning expanse of liquid mercury, heavy oil, and toxic sludge that had drained from the continent's industrial veins for centuries. The waves here were heavy. They didn't splash; they crashed with the sound of bending metal.
"Atmospheric toxicity: 90%," Victor announced from the cockpit, his fingers dancing across the holographic controls. "If you step outside without a filter, your lungs will turn to stone in three breaths."
"Fresh air is overrated," Kyle mumbled. He was sitting on the prow of the ship, the most exposed point, legs dangling over the edge as silver sludge sprayed beneath his boots. In his hand, he held a bright, red apple—a rare luxury he had swiped from the port before departure.
Hiss.
The surface of the mercury sea erupted.
A "Quicksilver Leviathan"—a bio-mechanical serpent made of chrome scales and dripping oil—surged from the depths. It was colossal, its maw wide enough to swallow the ship whole, lined with rotating saw-blades instead of teeth. It shrieked, a sound of tearing metal, and lunged at the tiny figure sitting on the prow.
Victor didn't change course. He didn't even look up from his navigation charts. "Kyle. Pest control."
"On it," Kyle said, taking a loud, crisp bite of his apple. Crunch.
With his free hand—the one not holding the apple—he grabbed the handle of his hammer lying beside him. He didn't stand up. He didn't assume a combat stance. He simply swung the hammer downward, casually, as if he were swatting a fly.
CRACK.
The moment the hammer made contact with the Leviathan's skull, the laws of physics seemed to bend. The massive kinetic force didn't just break the monster; it atomized the impact point. The Leviathan's head exploded into a mist of oil and gears. The shockwave traveled down its serpentine body, rupturing its metallic spine in a chain reaction of destruction. The massive beast collapsed back into the heavy sea, dead before it even realized it had been struck.
Kyle swallowed his bite of apple and wiped a speck of oil from his cheek. "That was a small one," he shouted back at the cockpit, looking bored. "Are we there yet, Victor? The appetizers are boring."
Victor watched the energy readings spike on his radar. The sea was calming down, but the horizon was getting darker. "Do not get arrogant, Kyle. That was just the garden. We are now entering the deep."
The transition was instantaneous and terrifying. One moment, the ship was tearing through the roaring waves. The next, the world fell into an absolute, suffocating silence.
It wasn't just quiet. The concept of sound had been erased.
Kyle slammed his gravity hammer against the deck plating. Bang. But there was no noise. The vibration shook his bones, but his ears registered nothing but a high-pitched void. He shouted, his mouth opening wide, veins bulging in his neck, yet not a whisper escaped his throat.
Then, the lights died.
The ship's hum vanished. The holographic consoles flickered and dissolved into darkness. The "Silent Zone"—an anomaly mentioned only in the oldest myths—had stripped the energy from the air itself. The ship began to drift, dead in the toxic water.
In the pitch-black cockpit, only one light remained: the sapphire glow of Victor's left eye.
Victor didn't panic. He didn't check the manual controls. He knew they were useless. In this zone, mechanical physics were secondary to will. He removed his white glove, revealing a hand that seemed to be made of translucent marble, pulsating with faint blue veins of pure energy—a power he possessed long before he became a broken man in a museum basement.
Connect, Victor projected the thought, not speaking, but forcing his will upon reality.
He placed his bare hand onto the cold, dead metal of the ship's central console.
Zzzzt.
Blue sparks of electricity jumped from his fingertips, crawling over the dashboard like living spiders. Victor didn't need tools. He closed his eyes and saw the ship's anatomy in his mind. He saw the stalled electrons in the engine core. He saw the frozen circuits.
He didn't fix them; he commanded them.
Wake up.
With a mental shove that would have fried a normal human brain, Victor forced his own bio-energy into the ship's veins. The circuits screamed back to life, glowing with an unnatural blue hue instead of their usual amber. The engine roared—a sound that vibrated directly in their skulls, bypassing their ears.
The Prototype surged forward, propelled not by fuel, but by Victor's sheer mental dominance.
Kyle looked at his partner, his eyes wide. He gave a silent thumbs-up, a grin stretching across his face. He mouthed two words:
"Show off."