The deep subway tunnels beneath New York were a maze of damp concrete and cold steel, a forgotten underworld. For Jera, they were a highway.
He did not wait for a train. He did not look for a map. He simply followed his System's internal compass, which pointed west toward Chicago.
Then, he began to run.
[Action: Sustained Movement. Agility Multiplier Roll: $\times 112$.]
[Endurance Multiplier Roll: $\times 98$.]
He moved at a sustained, blurry speed, his high-end mining rig completely silent. He was a black-helmeted ghost, a phantom of focused intent. He ran at over 100 miles per hour, his compressed mana core providing a limitless, perfectly efficient fuel source.
He ran through dark, flooded tunnels. He passed through the collapsed ruins of old, forgotten D-Rank dungeons that had been sealed off decades ago. He saw nests of blind, subterranean creatures, but they only sensed a sudden gust of wind as he passed, a disturbance too fast to be identified as a threat.
He did not need to rest, eat, or drink. His body, enhanced by the [System Trial] boost, was a self-sustaining biological engine.
The 700-mile journey from New York to Chicago, a trip that would take a normal person a 12-hour drive, took Jera just under seven hours.
He had become a transcontinental threat.
In a penthouse office overlooking Manhattan, the air crackled with fury. Gideon Thorne, the Guild Leader of the Iron Hand, smashed a crystal glass against the wall.
"Dead," he roared. "My best A-Rank retrieval team. Dead. In a public subway station. In five seconds."
In front of him, a holographic display showed the sole survivor—the female assassin—babbling incoherently from a hospital bed, her bones shattered.
"...just... ate it... he ate the plasma... just looked at me... a monster..."
Thorne was a man who had built an empire on strength. Now, he was terrified. This "Cain Walker" wasn't just a powerful Hunter. He was a law-breaker. He broke the laws of physics.
"Sir," a nervous assistant said, "the Bureau is demanding answers. They're classifying this as an act of inter-Guild warfare. And... and our stock... it's collapsed. Dropped 60%."
Thorne gripped his desk. "This isn't war. This is an extermination. He's making an example of us. What about the targets? The ones who gave us the initial tip?"
"You mean... Markos Vance and Sarah Vance?"
"Yes, them! The ones who said this 'Cain Walker' used to be their 'weakling' co-worker, Jera Murphy! The ones who guaranteed he was just a man in a lucky suit! Where are they?"
"They're... they're in the lobby, sir. They've been demanding to see you about their promotion."
Gideon Thorne's face turned purple with rage. He had just lost billions, his best team was dead, and the proximate cause of his ruin was waiting in his lobby to complain about a paycheck.
"Send them," Thorne hissed, "to the lowest-paying, most dangerous D-Rank sewage-clearing contract we have in Alaska. If they complain, tell them they're lucky I don't throw them in a dungeon rift myself. Get them out."
The Iron Hand Guild was now broken, not by a rival Guild, but by the bored, efficient actions of a single man.
Captain Elara Kane sat in a dark analysis room. On the main screen, the subway station footage played on a one-second loop.
Frame 1: Cain Walker stands on the platform.
Frame 2: He is gone. The assassin's knife stabs empty air.
Frame 3: He is behind the assassin, his hand raised.
"It's not speed," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "It's a spatial jump. A short-range teleport. A skill no one on Earth has ever registered. Not even the Ascended."
"Captain," her analyst said, his face pale. "The weapon's analysis came back. The assassin's mana-shotgun. It wasn't jammed."
"I know," Kane said.
"No, I mean... it was perfect. But the firing pin... it's just gone. It wasn't broken. It wasn't melted. It's missing. Like it was surgically removed from inside a sealed weapon."
Kane closed her eyes. "And the plasma bolt."
"It... it vanished. Our sensors tracked it. It moved at 1,200 meters per second, and then... it hit a spatial anomaly and ceased to exist. Captain, what are we hunting?"
Elara Kane finally stood up. She had been treating this like a man. A powerful, anomalous man. She was wrong.
She was hunting a high-level, interdimensional entity that had, for some reason, decided to disguise itself as a B-Rank miner.
"This is no longer an Anomaly Investigation," she said, her voice hard as diamond. "This is a Category 1 Threat. Lock down his file. This is S-Rank, Eyes-Only. He is to be considered a walking continental-level threat. Find him. I don't care what resources you have to burn."
Meanwhile, in the lobby of the Iron Hand Guild, Markos Vance slammed his fist on the reception desk.
"What do you mean he won't see us?!" he boomed.
"And what is this Alaska contract?" Sarah shrieked, looking at the data-pad. "This is a demotion! We're A-Rank prospects! We're the ones who gave you the Cain Walker lead!"
The receptionist didn't even look up, her face a mask of bored contempt. "Guild Leader Thorne's direct orders. You are to clear out your desks and report to the Chicago transfer hub. Immediately. Or your Guild contract will be terminated. And your lives, probably."
Markos and Sarah looked at each other, their faces a picture of confusion and indignation. They were so wrapped up in their own small-time ambition that they had no idea what had just happened. They didn't know that their "tip" had led to the Guild's crippling.
They didn't know that the "weakling" they had betrayed, the man they had left for dead, was the same man who had just shattered the power balance of New York without even trying.
They were, and would remain, completely and utterly irrelevant.
Jera slid a heavy manhole cover back into place, the sound a dull thud in the quiet Chicago alley. The air here smelled different. Lake water and old industry.
He was 700 miles from New York. 700 miles from Kane, the Iron Hand Guild, and the circus his life had become.
He checked his new, untraceable comm. A message from The Vault was waiting.
To: C.W.
From: The Vault
Welcome to Chicago. I took the liberty of securing a small, clean, and completely anonymous safe house for you. The address is attached. It's near your contract zone.
Also... the Midnight Auction. I have a lead on another fragment of that 'Heresy' you're looking for. It's the main event. Things are getting interesting.
Be safe, Jera. The world is watching you now.
Jera noted the change. The Vault had used his real name. This was a true partnership.
He looked at his HUD. His B-Rank contract was active. The target, the A-Rank "Shadow-Stalker" nest, was three blocks away.
[Level: 78]
He was close. He could feel the threshold of Level 100 on the horizon.
He stepped out of the alley. He was just another faceless Hunter in a new city. But this time, he wasn't here to mine.
He was here to hunt.