Chapter 362: Carmine City
Jayden stood frozen in his lobby, staring blankly at the glowing words floating in the air.
[Match Concluded. Winner: Nebula]
He dismissed the notification and reached up to his upper body, his hand pressing against his chest. There was no wound, no physical damage, but his mind’s neural link to the pod had simulated the phantom sensation perfectly. It felt like an icy void had been violently carved into his ribcage.
He didn’t stick around to check his rank or read his messages. He logged out immediately.
The digital world dissolved, and the real world rushed back in with the hiss of pneumatics. The heavy glass door of his VR pod slid open in the dimly lit Emerald City Pod Den.
Jayden stepped out, his boots hitting the scuffed linoleum floor. He leaned against the side of the machine, taking a deep, shuddering breath of recycled air.
He pulled out his holotab as he walked toward the exit. The gaming forums and local holonet channels were already in absolute meltdown. The headline on the main combat server’s homepage flashed in bright, bold letters:
[Nebula versus Orion; The fight of Legends]
Jayden tapped the embedded video, watching the replay from the spectator’s angle. He watched himself charge, watched his telekinetic wave shatter like glass against her invisible barrier. And then, he watched the X-ray overlay. He saw the red, surgical tendril of psionic energy bypass his armor entirely and rip his digital heart straight out of his chest.
Jayden stopped walking. He stared at the screen, the neon lights of the street reflecting off his face.
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t throwing a tantrum. Instead, a slow, dark chuckle vibrated in his chest. It was clear that he still had a long way to go in terms of his telekinetic prowess. He turned off the holotab and slipped it into his pocket.
"Get stronger."
Her voice echoed in his mind. She was right. He had been riding a massive high... slaughtering Pioneers, outrunning supertrains, building beast armies. He had started to feel invincible. Nebula and Coraline had both served as brutal, necessary reality checks. The universe was infinitely larger and vastly more dangerous than he had ever imagined. There were entities out there; gods, magic users, psychics, and legendary beasts—who could snuff out his life with a mere thought.
If he was going to tear down the EVA, he couldn’t just be strong. He had to become an absolute monster.
Jayden stepped out into the cool afternoon air of Emerald City.
It was time to get back to work.
Several hours later,
Jayden stood on the roof of his house, fully geared. The sun was dipping below the skyline, casting long, bloody shadows across the pavement. His black tactical suit hugged his lean, muscular frame, and the metallic Mask of Anansi rested securely over his face, its white eye-slits glowing faintly in the dusk.
Tonight he was going after Frost.
After much contemplation on how to go about defeating her, he concluded on using every single ability in his arsenal. Whatever it takes to bring her down. He had a natural elemental advantage with his Pyrokinesis, but a Level 68 ex-EVA agent wouldn’t fall to simple tricks.
This was going to be a battle of attrition and raw skill. But Jayden had the upper hand as always, with his multiple abilities and transformations.
He pulled up Fred’s encrypted files on his holotab to confirm her location.
Carmine City was roughly three hundred kilometers away. It was a metropolis known for its towering, hyper-modern corporate architecture and its deep ties to high-society corruption. Frost wasn’t hiding in a grimy nightclub like Duke, she operated out of the Apex tower—living in a luxury penthouse there, running the Black Cobra’s most lucrative smuggling rings.
Jayden cracked his neck, the joints popping loudly. He dropped into a runner’s stance at the edge of the roof.
Then he exploded forward.
Whoosh!
The sonic boom shattered the silence of the neighborhood, rattling the windows of the houses below. He launched himself off the roof, his boots hitting the asphalt of the magnetic highway. He didn’t hold back. He funneled his massive stamina reserves into the dash, his Agility and Perception stats working in perfect overdrive.
The world around him stretched and warped into a tunnel of blinding neon lights and blurred steel. He wove through high-speed hover traffic as if the cars were parked, his body cutting through the atmosphere like a black bullet. And thanks to the thermal regulation of his suit, he felt no friction—only the euphoric, limitless rush of raw kinetic energy.
And eventually, he arrived at his destination. The journey took him exactly fourteen minutes.
Jayden skidded to a halt on the outskirts of Carmine City, his boots tearing long gouges into a concrete overpass. He stood up, completely unbothered, his stamina barely dented.
He looked out over the skyline.
Carmine City lived up to its name; the city was bathed in deep crimson and violet neon, the towering skyscrapers looking like jagged glass teeth against the night sky. In the very center of the downtown district stood Apex Tower—a colossal, needle-like skyscraper that pierced the clouds.
Jayden bolted through the city streets, a phantom gust of wind that bypassed security checkpoints and automated drones. When he reached the base of Apex Tower, he didn’t stop running. He channeled his momentum, shifted his center of gravity, and leapt off the ground. He landed directly on the side of the building and ran straight up the sheer vertical glass of the skyscraper.
Gravity tried to pull him down, but his velocity was absolute. He sprinted hundreds of stories into the air, the wind howling around him as he ascended into the freezing upper atmosphere.
When he reached the top floor—the penthouse suite—he triggered his Molecular Phasing.
Without breaking stride, he phased smoothly through the reinforced, blast-proof glass of the penthouse window, passing through the solid matter like smoke, and landed silently on the plush, white carpet inside.
He dropped his intangibility and instantly dropped into a crouch, his senses expanding.
The penthouse was massive, occupying the entire top floor. It was decorated in minimalist, terrifyingly expensive white marble and chrome. But the most striking feature was the temperature.
It was freezing. Not just cold—it felt like the inside of a cryogenic vault.
Jayden’s breath plumed in thick, white clouds in front of his mask. Small patches of frost clung to the edges of the marble furniture and the high-end artwork.
He activated Dragon Eye.
Jayden’s vision shifted to the thermal spectrum. He scanned the massive suite. Two heavily armed guards with standard heat signatures were stationed by the private elevator bank. And there were some others stationed about the building as well.
But there was no sign of Frost. She wasn’t home.
