~ On the Surface ~
The sound of explosions tore across the wasteland.
A fireball erupted near the ruin entrance, sending debris and dust flying into the air as awakened fighters clashed violently. The ground trembled with every collision with cracks spiderwebbing outward under the stress of awakened abilities colliding head-on.
Three gangs.
Three banners.
Three colors.
They were drawn by the sudden emergence of a large-scale ruin in a populated area... a rarity that promised unimaginable rewards.
Iron Chain.
Black Furnace.
And a third faction clad in jackets emblazoned with rough white markings shaped like fractured anvils.
None of them were willing to back down.
Shouts echoed and metals clashed as Awakened abilities lit up the battlefield.
Flashes of flame, distorted air, shockwaves that sent lesser fighters flying like dolls. Blood splattered across the cracked ground, staining the pale dust that covered the area.
At the edge of the battlefield, civilians stumbled out of the ruin exit.
Aria emerged first.
The light from the surface hit her like a slap, forcing her to shield her eyes as she stumbled forward, gasping for breath. Auntie Maribel followed close behind, clutching her arm, along with the other aunties and the injured man and his fiancée.
They froze.
Because the first thing they saw wasn't safety.
It was war.
"What… what is this…?" someone whispered.
Awakened fighters flew past them and one slammed into the ground hard enough to leave a crater before rolling to a stop. Another leapt overhead, landing atop a broken vehicle husk and launching a blazing attack toward the ruin entrance.
The civilians screamed and scrambled away from the immediate combat zone, instinctively seeking cover behind what little debris remained.
Aria's heart pounded painfully in her chest.
She spun around, searching the exit.
"West…?" she whispered.
Her breath turned hurried when he didn't come out.
Auntie Maribel grabbed her arm. "We need to move away from here! This isn't safe!"
But Aria couldn't take her eyes off the opening.
Then she noticed something else.
She turned slowly with disbelief washing over her face.
The street was gone... completely gone.
Where homes had once stood was now a vast, flattened wasteland stretching outward like a scar across the city. The ground bore faint outlines... ghostly impressions of where roads, buildings, and sidewalks used to be, like burn marks left after something had been ripped out of reality.
No houses.
No streetlights.
No familiar landmarks.
Just empty land and cracked earth.
Beyond the boundary of the missing neighborhood, the rest of the city continued as normal with high rise buildings, glowing lights and traffic flowing in the distance.
It was as if someone had taken a section of the city and erased it.
"…It merged," one of the aunties whispered in horror. "The ruin… it merged with our neighborhood."
Auntie Maribel's legs nearly gave out.
"This place… this was our home…"
Aria's didn't feel any sentimental attachment to this place but West was still inside and that was all she was worried about.
...
...
(( One hour earlier ))
The first alert didn't come from the city sirens.
It came from the underground networks.
Encrypted channels lit up almost simultaneously across the city: gang feeds, faction relays, black-market observatories, and ruin-monitoring arrays that only those with power and money even knew existed.
> [ANOMALY DETECTED]
[LARGE-SCALE SPATIAL WARPING — CLASS: RUIN]
[LOCATION: RESIDENTIAL ZONE | EASTRIDGE BLOCK C-17]
Chaos reigned almost instantly.
Residential...
That single word alone was enough to make hardened gang leaders sit upright, cigars forgotten between their fingers, drinks left untouched, meetings abruptly adjourned.
Because residential ruins were different.
Always had been.
Unlike the regular ruins which were usually found in remote corners or outside the cities in the wild where danger scaled proportionally with rewards... residential ruins followed a cruel, tempting rule:
> Low-level creatures.
High-tier rewards.
No exceptions.
No recorded deviations.
Every single residential ruin in history had contained something pivotal.
Affinity stones.
Core artifacts.
Branch-enhancing relics.
Legacy-bound items.
Ten years ago, the last residential ruin had rewritten the hierarchy of the awakened world.
A nobody... an unremarkable Tier 1 awakener at the time, had emerged from that ruin carrying a High-Tier Core Relic, something so rare it was supposed to exist only in myths. Within three years, he had climbed the global awakened rankings.
He was now spoken of in the same breath as legends.
And now—
Another residential ruin had appeared.
This time, right in the middle of a living neighborhood.
---
Engines roared through the night as black vans skidded to a stop at the edge of what used to be Eastridge Block C-17.
Or rather—what had been.
The neighborhood was completely gone.
The ground bore faint imprints of streets and buildings, like scars burned into reality itself. At the center of it all was a massive, slanted depression... a slope descending into darkness, emitting spatial instability.
That was the ruin entrance which was still sealed.
Standing at the forefront were twelve members of the Black Furnace gang, clad in dark jackets stitched with molten-red sigils.
At their center stood a broad-shouldered man with a square jaw and eyes like smoldering coal.
Captain Darius Kline... the Second Captain of Black Furnace.
Behind him were eleven others...
And among them was Ross.
He leaned against one of the vans with a thick cigar between his fingers, as he surveyed the empty wasteland with interest rather than concern.
"Looks clean," Darius said while cracking his knuckles. "Residential ruin confirmed."
One of the members whistled low. "Jackpot."
Darius smirked. "We're taking dibs."
No one argued.
They all knew the unspoken rules.
First arrival claimed priority. Fortunately, being close by had helped them get there faster.
Another member, named Tobias Reed, frowned slightly as he peered down the sloped entrance. "Shame these things take time to open."
Ross exhaled smoke. "Yeah. If it were already open, we'd be inside stripping it bare by now."
Someone else glanced around uneasily. "This whole block vanished… what about the people who got dragged under with it?"
Ross chuckled.
"This always happens with residential ruins," he said casually. "Entrance doesn't open for one to three days. Anyone trapped inside without awakened protection?" He shrugged. "Dead."
A few laughs followed.
"Even if they find the exit," Ross continued, puffing his cigar, "how long do you think a bunch of unawakened civilians last down there? Minutes? Maybe an hour if they're lucky."