The Wilds stank of rust and rot.
Kai crouched behind a fallen concrete pillar, watching the skeletal remains of the old hospital standing against the grey sky. Vines wrapped around broken windows like hands reaching out, and the air felt wrong in a way thatmade his teeth ache.
He'd been doing this for three years, and the feeling never got easier.
"Visual on the east entrance," Mira's voice came through his earpiece. "Two Hollows, D-rank. They're just wandering."
"Copy." Squad Leader Chen's response was clipped. "Kai, can you seal the west entrance from here?"
Kai pressed his palm against the rubble beneath him, feeling for the network of broken stone and metal bars. His Shard pulsed in his chest, and a small warmth that spread down his arm. "Yeah. Give me thirty seconds."
"You've got twenty," Chen said. "Torres, Jin, you're on overwatch. Mira, Demo, with me. We go in fast, hit the supply cache on the second floor, and we're out in fifteen minutes. Standard D-rank salvage, nothing fancy."
"Nothing fancy," Demo muttered. "That's what you said last time, and I nearly got my arm torn off by a Screamer."
"Last time was C-rank," Jin said from somewhere above them. His sniper rifle was probably already trained on the hospital. "This is baby stuff."
Kai tuned them out, focusing on the earth. His Shard was E-rank, barely better than a civilian awakening.
[Earth Manipulation - Basic] didn't let him throw boulders or create walls from nothing. He could shift existing materials, reinforce structures, collapse unstable rubble. It was a support ability, the kind that kept you alive in the Wilds but never made you rich.
The ground under his hands shook. The broken concrete moved, fitting together like puzzle pieces. Metal bars bent and locked into each other. Within twenty seconds, he had built a temporary wall across the west entrance, thick enough to slow down anything trying to get around them.
"West sealed," he reported.
"Good work." Chen's voice carried the faint approval that Kai had learned not to expect too often. "Move in."
The team moved forward in formation; Chen led the way with his C-rank Shard already active, forming wind blades that flickered around his hands. Mira covered the right flank, her electric gauntlets sparking with blue power. Demo walked in the back, looking nervous as usual, his explosive Shard ready but hopefully not needed.
The hospital inside looked like a medical graveyard. Stretcher beds were flipped over in the lobby, their wheels stuck forever with rust. Kai's boots stepped on broken glass and spilled pill bottles.
Somewhere upstairs, the Hollows Mira had seen were groaning; it sounded like the wind blowing through broken teeth.
"Second floor, east wing," Chen whispered, pointing. "Medical storage. That's where the Guild wants us."
They walked up the stairs with their weapons ready. Kai kept a hand on the wall to feel the building's structure. The hospital was old, built before the Incursion, and it made groaning sounds because of its age. Cracks spread across the concrete like a spiderweb. In just a few more years, the whole place would fall apart by itself.
"There," Mira said, stopping outside a door marked 'PHARMACEUTICAL STORAGE.' "Locked, but the frame's half-rotted."
"Stand back." Demo placed a small charge on the hinges. The explosion was muffled, controlled, just enough to blow the door inward.
Inside, medical supplies were on metal shelves, covered in dust but still intact. There were antibiotics, pain pills, and sterile tools. In the world after the Incursion, these stuffs were worth more than gold. The Guild had paid them fifteen thousand Credits for this contract, and it was just a D-rank area. Esy cash.
Chen started filling his pack. "Load up. We can carry about forty pounds each without compromising mobility."
Kai moved to help, but something made him pause. A sensation, like a tuning fork vibrating in his bones. He'd felt it before, once, during a B-rank mission that had nearly killed him. "Hey, Chen…"
"You feel it too?" Mira's eyes were wide. "That's not normal environmental distortion."
Chen's jaw tightened. "Finish loading. Double time."
But the sensation grew stronger. Kai turned, following the pull, and his eyes landed on a stairwell at the far end of the hallway. The air around it moved like the wavy air you see when it's hot, but it was actually getting colder.
"There's something in the basement," he said.
"Of course there is," Demo hissed. "This is a D-rank zone. The basement is probably C-rank or worse. We ignore it, take our supplies, and…"
"Wait." Chen held up a hand, his expression shifting from professional to something hungrier. "What kind of distortion?"
Kai didn't like where this was going. "Feels like a Fracture Site."
The words just kinda hung in the air.
Fracture Sites were tears in reality, places where the dimensional fabric had worn so thin that Shards could crystallize naturally. They were extremely valuable but also super dangerous.
Just one Fracture could have anywhere from a dozen low-rank Shards to one ultra-rare A-rank or higher. But they were also unstable, prone to spawning high-tier monsters or collapsing into empty dimensional holes.
"We're not equipped for a Fracture," Mira said immediately. "Protocol says we report it and let a B-rank team handle it."
"Protocol also says we get a finder's fee," Chen countered. "Ten percent of whatever the Guild extracts."
"Or we could investigate," Jin's voice came through the comms. "Just a quick look. If it's too dangerous, we back out."
"That's insane," Demo said. "You know the stats. Seventy percent fatality rate for unprepared teams entering Fractures."
"Seventy percent for D-rank teams," Chen said. "I'm C-rank. And this is a D-rank zone. The Fracture can't be higher than C-rank, probably B at worst."
Kai felt his stomach sink. He knew that look in Chen's eyes. The squad leader had been stuck at C-rank for two years, unable to afford the resources needed to upgrade his Shard or take on contracts that might drop something better. A Fracture Site could change that. One good Shard, one lucky find, and Chen could break into B-rank. Maybe even A-rank if they got extremely fortunate.
"It's not worth it," Kai said quietly.
Chen turned to him. "You're E-rank, Kai. You don't know what it's like to be stuck. To be this close to something better and have to play it safe every single time."
"I know what it's like to stay alive."
"We're going in," Chen decided. "Jin, Torres, maintain overwatch. Everyone else, with me. Five minutes. We look, we assess, and if it's clear, we grab what we can."
Mira looked like she wanted to argue, but she'd worked with Chen for five years. She knew when he'd made up his mind.
They went down into the basement, their flashlights lighting up the darkness. The temperature dropped with each step, and their breath made fog in the air. The walls were wrong here, the angles too sharp, and the shadows too dark.
Kai's Shard pulsed irregularly, like a heartbeat skipping a beat.
At the bottom of the stairs, they found it.
The Fracture Site floated in the center of the basement like a wound in the air. It was roughly circular, maybe six feet across, and through it Kai could see colors that didn't exist, geometries that hurt to look at.
Shards floated within the distortion, glowing crystals of condensed power, just out of reach.
"Jackpot," Chen breathed.
That's when Kai's vision flickered. For just a moment, he saw text overlaid on reality, glowing red letters that shouldn't exist:
[WARNING: CATASTROPHIC DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY DETECTED]
Then the Fracture pulsed, and reality began to scream.