The strain on Dax's mind was reaching its crescendo. He was a human fulcrum, a single point of will attempting to lever a mountain. The raw, untamed energy of the Anomaly, the parasitic god that lived in his soul, surged against the walls of his control. It was a glutton, ecstatic at being used, and it wanted more. It wanted to do more than just slow the crane; it wanted to obliterate it, to atomize every ounce of steel and concrete in a glorious, overwhelming display of power. Dax felt its hunger as a physical pressure behind his eyes, a pounding in his skull that threatened to crack it open. Every iota of his focus, every fiber of his being, was locked in a two-front war: one against the law of gravity acting on the crane, and a far more desperate one against the very source of his own power. The blood from his nose was a constant, warm stream now, the coppery taste a familiar sacrament of his struggle. His vision was tunneling, the edges of the world turning grey and fuzzy as his body protested the impossible demands being placed upon it.
It was this immense, unnatural pressure he was exerting on the crane arm that caused the second failure. Metal, even reinforced steel, can only endure so much. The primary telekinetic field he had created wasn't just catching the structure; it was gripping it, applying counter-pressure from every conceivable angle to keep it from shattering mid-air. But the forces were too great, the material integrity too compromised.
With a final, agonized shriek of tearing metal that was audible even over the chaos in the street, the main axle housing of the crane's counterweight system failed. Bolts, each as thick as a man's arm, were sheared clean in half, their threads stripped away by forces they were never designed to withstand. The multi-ton block of solid concrete and steel, which had been designed to balance the crane's load, was suddenly and violently liberated from the main structure.
It did not just fall. It was flung, propelled downwards by the whipping motion of the buckling crane arm, a cannonball fired from a dying siege engine. It tumbled through the air, a meteor of brutalist architecture on a direct and immutable trajectory for the one spot on the street that held Dax's attention: the small, defiant kinetic shield of the Tier 3 rookie, Leo Vance.
The new variable hit Dax's awareness like a physical blow. The main arm was a slow-moving catastrophe he could manage. This was a kill shot, a focused point of annihilation that would arrive in less than three seconds.
For Leo, the world had already become a surreal, slow-motion nightmare. He was holding his ground, his entire body trembling with the effort of maintaining his small shield against the growing pressure from the debris field. He had felt the impossible slowing of the main arm, a miracle he couldn't comprehend. For a fleeting moment, he had felt a flicker of hope. That hope was extinguished the instant he saw the counterweight break free.
His heart plummeted. All his training, all his knowledge of energy ratings and kinetic absorption limits, told him the raw, undeniable truth. He could not stop it. His shield, which had struggled to repel falling bolts, would be less than paper against a force of that magnitude. It would shatter, and he and the family cowering behind him would be reduced to a red stain on the pavement.
There was no time to run, no time to think. There was only time to act. In a final, desperate gesture of duty, Leo roared, pouring every last ounce of his own ECE, every bit of his will and terror, into his shield. It glowed brighter, the hexagonal pattern sharpening, as he braced for an impact that would not just kill him, but utterly erase him from existence. He closed his eyes, a silent prayer on his lips, his only thought a hope that his body might absorb enough of the impact to give the family behind him a fraction of a chance. It was a futile hope, but it was all he had left.
Dax's mind, already a raging battlefield, was forced to make a split-second calculation that would have shattered a supercomputer. To stop the counterweight, he would have to divert a significant portion of his focus and power from the main telekinetic field that was barely holding the crane arm together. It was an immense risk. A miscalculation of even a fraction of a percent could lead to a cascading failure. He could lose control of both, and the disaster would be magnified tenfold.
The ghost that wanted to hide screamed at him to let it go, to maintain the primary objective, to accept the small loss to prevent a greater one. But the soldier that had taken command refused. He would not trade lives. He would not sanction a sacrifice. He would save them all, or die trying.
With a supreme act of will that felt like tearing his own soul in two, he partitioned his power. He maintained the primary field on the crane arm through sheer, stubborn discipline, even as he felt it weaken precariously. Simultaneously, he gathered a separate, concentrated reserve of ECE, shaping it not into a wide, brutish field, but into a fine, dense, and absolute barrier. He projected it forward.
A half-second before the multi-ton counterweight struck Leo, a translucent, shimmering wall of pure force materialized in the air directly above him. It wasn't golden and brilliant like the shields of Zane Apex. It had no dramatic flair. It was a barely-there distortion in space, like a pane of perfectly clean glass, visible only by the way it bent the light around its edges. It was pure function over form, a shield created not for a camera, but for a single, desperate purpose.
The impact was absolute.
The sound was deafening, a world-shattering BOOM that was felt more than heard, a concussion wave that slammed outwards with the force of an artillery shell. The concrete and steel counterweight, an object with enough kinetic energy to punch through a bunker, did not shatter or deflect. It struck the invisible, absolute plane of the shield and simply ceased to be. It vaporized, its physical form instantly sublimated into a massive, expanding cloud of superheated dust and pulverized shrapnel. The shrapnel flew harmlessly sideways, peppering the nearby buildings with a shotgun blast of gravel, but the space above Leo and the family was utterly clear.
For Leo, the sensory overload was total. He was blinded by the flash, deafened by the roar, and physically slammed to his knees by the pressure wave that washed over him, even as the shield held. His own kinetic barrier shattered into a million points of light, its energy completely exhausted.
The final act of the drama played out. The main crane arm, its descent managed and its most lethal component neutralized, finally hit the street. The impact was not the city-leveling event it should have been, but it was still a force of immense destruction. It landed with a crushing, grinding impact that buckled the asphalt as if it were tin foil. The ground shook violently, a localized earthquake that shattered every window for a block in every direction. And from the point of impact, a massive, opaque cloud of dust, debris, and smoke erupted, a roiling grey tidal wave that swallowed the entire intersection in a thick, choking fog, plunging the world into a sudden, gritty twilight. The screams of the crowd were momentarily muffled by the sheer density of the air, the world reduced to a maelstrom of dust and ringing silence.
The dust cloud was his salvation. The instant it erupted, a perfect curtain of chaos and confusion, Dax severed his connection to the power. The immense, crushing strain on his mind vanished, and the world rushed back in a wave of dizzying vertigo. He staggered, catching himself against the cold wall of the bank, his legs trembling, his head pounding with a migraine that felt like a spike being driven through his skull. The Anomaly within him, denied its climax, snarled in frustration, a wave of cold fury washing through him before he brutally suppressed it, shoving it back into the dark cage where it lived.
He didn't wait. He didn't look back to admire his work. The soldier's job was done. Now, the ghost had to disappear.
He pulled his hood down further, turning his face away from the disaster site, and simply let the current of the panicked crowd take him. He was just another terrified face in a sea of them, his blood-streaked upper lip and pale, sweat-slicked skin indistinguishable from anyone else's shock. He moved with purpose, not running, but melting into the urban labyrinth. He took the first alley he saw, a narrow, garbage-strewn canyon between two buildings, and put distance between himself and the scene. Every step was an effort of will. By the time the first sirens began to pierce the air, he was three blocks away, a ghost returning to the shadows he called home. His mission was complete. He had intervened. He had saved them. And now, he would be hunted.
Back at ground zero, the thick, grey dust began to settle, revealing a scene of impossible devastation and even more impossible survival. Leo Vance pushed himself to his hands and knees, coughing, the grit of pulverized concrete coating his tongue. The ringing in his ears was a constant, high-pitched whine. He opened his eyes. He was alive. He looked behind him. The family, huddled together, was weeping with a mixture of terror and overwhelming relief, but they were alive, untouched.
He stumbled to his feet, his mind a whirlwind of confusion and awe. He looked at the spot where the counterweight should have obliterated him, at the grotesquely bent steel of the main crane arm, at the cars shoved into buildings. It didn't make sense. The physics of it were impossible.
"Did you see him?" he gasped to a woman who was struggling to her feet nearby. "Did you see who did it?"
The woman just stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes and shook her head, her own shock too great for words.
Leo staggered forward into the wreckage, his gaze sweeping across the chaotic scene, searching. He was looking for a hero, for a flash of golden light, for any sign of the S-Tier who must have intervened. But there was nothing. No grandstanding, no posing for the cameras, no reassuring presence calming the crowds. Just the wreckage, the wounded, and the wailing of approaching sirens. He had been saved by a phantom, a force that had descended, held back the sky, and vanished without a trace. The feeling inside him was something he had never experienced. It was a terrifying, humbling, and profound sense of awe. It was the feeling of having stood in the presence of something truly powerful, something that was not a hero in a costume, but a fundamental force of nature.
Several blocks away, the wail of sirens grew louder, converging on the scene. But these were not ambulances or fire trucks. A convoy of sleek, matte-black armored vehicles, bearing the stark white insignia of the Eclipse Watch Tactical Response Division, screeched to a halt, forming a perimeter. Humorless, heavily armed soldiers in advanced combat gear disembarked, their movements efficient and precise. Their helmeted visors glowed with a cold, blue light as their internal scanners began sweeping the area, not for survivors, but for the energy signature of a ghost.
On the ground, a legend was being born in the stunned, grateful whispers of the survivors. From the shadows, the hunt had just begun.