Chapter 26: Gravity
Savin stared coldly at the man curled up at his feet, as if he were nothing more than a bug with its spine snapped.
Stark's head of security? That was all he amounted to. Savin straightened the collar Happy had wrinkled, ready to reclaim the suitcase and then clean up this pathetic obstacle.
The screams and chaos around them barely registered to him, just meaningless background noise.
But on the edge of that chaos, a figure everyone had ignored was making an unthinkably reckless move.
Jack Taggart lay sprawled on the ground, staring at the overturned silver suitcase and the shimmering syringes scattered like lifesaving ambrosia. A desperate greed burst through his eyes.
Savin and Happy fighting meant nothing to him. The life or death of some security chief mattered even less.
He only knew one thing. The cold gnawing at his bones and the creeping weakness made him wish he were dead. And the antidote was right in front of him.
He lunged forward, half crawling, half stumbling. He grabbed a syringe and plunged it into his thigh without a second thought.
A warm current surged in, and the instant comfort made him groan with satisfaction.
But it wasn't enough, not even close.
Like a starved animal that hadn't eaten in centuries, he snatched a second one, then a third, jabbing them wherever they landed. His arm, his neck, his abdomen. It didn't matter. All he cared about was forcing that glowing liquid into his body.
Savin sensed something wrong. He turned just in time to see Taggart jam the very last syringe straight into his chest. For the first time, horror appeared on Savin's eternally unchanging ice-cold face.
"You idiot!"
Savin cursed. He decisively abandoned the case and turned to run without hesitation.
That thing wasn't human anymore. It was a bomb.
He took one step. Only one.
Smack!
His body slammed face-first into the concrete.
This wasn't a stumble. It felt like the gravity of the entire planet had multiplied tenfold and focused all of it on him alone.
Dust exploded beside his face.
He tried to prop himself up, his strong muscles tensing, veins bulging on his neck and forehead.
Useless.
His limbs were pinned as if nailed to the earth. His bones groaned under an unbearable weight.
A feeling of terror began to spread throughout his body.
He couldn't move. He was trapped.
Meanwhile, Taggart's body had begun to glow a dangerous red. The veins beneath his skin stood out like heated iron rods pressed against flesh.
Scalding steam burst from his pores, twisting the air around him. The concrete at his feet melted and cracked with a violent hiss.
"It's hot… it's burning!"
His scream didn't sound human. He felt like a piece of iron thrown into a blast furnace, melting from the inside out.
The Extremis virus in his body, due to severe overdose, had completely lost control, turning into a highly unstable biological nuclear bomb.
Only now did the surrounding tourists realize the glowing man wasn't some street performance. He was a ticking explosive.
Panic erupted into blind terror. People shoved and trampled each other as sobs and screams filled the night.
On the theater steps, Happy coughed up blood. His vision blurred around the edges.
He saw Taggart, now a walking inferno, and felt the scorching waves radiating from him. He saw the ground beneath Taggart cracking and melting.
He also saw Savin pinned flat against the pavement, flailing like a crushed beetle under a boot.
It was the end of the world, and it was unfolding right here at the gates of the Chinese Theatre.
Just as Taggart's body reached its breaking point and a blazing core threatened to detonate, his light shifted.
No… it didn't vanish. The glow remained, but his body began to lift off the ground.
He rose slowly at first, then faster, shooting upward like a reluctant rocket fired into the night.
The crowd froze. Their screams died in their throats, replaced by a collective gasp.
Heads tilted back to track the human firework streaking upward, leaving a blazing orange trail that tore across the canvas of the dark sky.
Two hundred meters.
A silent, dazzling flash lit up Hollywood, momentarily brighter than any spotlight.
A few seconds later, the sound caught up. A thunderclap tore through the air, making teeth buzz and buildings tremble.
A shockwave spread outward in a wide circle.
The towering glass panels of nearby buildings and every windshield in sight shattered at once, bursting either inward or outward. Shards scattered like a sparkling yet deadly storm.
However, the expected carnage of glass raining down, slicing through the crowd below, never happened.
Time seemed to hit a pause button.
Every fragment of shattered glass, no matter the size, hung suspended in midair. Under the neon glow of the city, the pieces reflected vivid colors, forming a surreal tableau both beautiful and horrifying.
The crowd around the theater, still drowning in panic a moment ago, froze. People who had been running for their lives stopped in their tracks, stunned by the impossible sight above them.
No one understood what had just happened. They only stared blankly at the unmoving "sky of glass."
Then a new sound slipped into the chaos.
Tok.
A crisp, rhythmic tap echoed through the air.
Tok.
Again.
The sound wasn't loud, but it struck each person's heart like a hammer, precise and heavy. The chaotic screams and running miraculously subsided.
It was the sound of wood tapping against concrete, steady and calm. Its serenity cut straight through the panic, making it stand out all the more.
As though under a spell, people stopped moving, their gazes drifting toward the source.
In the midst of the terrified crowd, a path cleared on its own. A man walked straight toward the center of the disaster.
He was towering, at least two heads taller than anyone around him, his presence as solid as a stone monument.
He wore a simple purple kimono with wooden sandals, but draped over his shoulders was a white Marine coat. Bold black calligraphy on the back spelled a single word: Justice.
His face was carved with stern resolve, framed by short hair and a trimmed beard. But the most striking part of him lay in his eyes, or rather, the lack of them.
His eyelids remained closed. A massive cross-shaped scar stretched across his face, cutting straight over both eyes.
He was blind.
He moved with a wooden staff in one hand, its tip tapping lightly against the ground with each step as it guided him across the debris-strewn pavement.
Strangely, the tapping grew louder. Not in the air, but in the chest of every onlooker, as though the sound echoed inside their ribcages.
The lingering panic evaporated, replaced by a suffocating sense of awe.
The air thickened with a quiet authority that needed no explanation.
The blind man passed bewildered tourists without a change in expression. He walked by Happy, who struggled to prop himself up against the theater steps, and didn't spare him a glance.
He stopped only when he reached Eric Savin, his towering presence casting a complete shadow over him.
Savin was still pinned to the ground by that crushing gravity. He forced his head to turn, terror surging again, sharper and deeper than before.
The blind stranger stood still, as though listening to the world itself. He caught the distant sirens, the trembling sobs of civilians, and Savin's heartbeat slamming against his ribs in frantic bursts.
"My, my… this is quite a mess," he murmured, his voice low and calm, tinged more with weariness than surprise.
"Wagering with human lives and losing the bet… what a pitiful excuse for a gambler. Old me won't allow civilians to be toyed with like that."
He tilted his head slightly, as if hearing something no one else could.
The tip of his staff-sword rested quietly on the ground, becoming the only point of stillness in this newly torn world.