CHAPTER 43: ADMIN PRIVILEGES

The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime that felt entirely out of place for the end of the world.

Rin stepped out, his boots crunching on expensive marble tile, his breath catching in his throat because the scene in front of him didn’t make sense. The penthouse wasn’t a lab, it wasn’t a command center, it was a sanctuary of glass and steel floating above the apocalypse.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sky was tearing itself apart, purple clouds swirling into a funnel that connected the earth to the void, but inside, classical music played softly from invisible speakers.

Sitting in a leather armchair, watching the destruction of the desert with the casual interest of someone watching a documentary, was Thorne.

Standing to his left was Dr. Helix, whose white suit was spotless despite the carnage downstairs.

And standing between them and the elevator was a woman.

She wore a combat suit made of a material Rin had never seen, shifting between white and silver like liquid starlight, but he didn’t look at the suit, he looked at her face.

It was older, sharper, but undeniable.

"Mom?" Rin asked, the word scraping out of his throat, raw and painful.

She didn’t flinch, didn’t cry, didn’t run to hug him, she just tilted her head slightly, studying him like he was a data point that had drifted outside expected parameters.

"You look tired, Rin," Senna Matsuda said, her voice exactly as he remembered it, calm and terrifyingly steady. "You never did know when to sleep."

"This is a trick," Joy whispered, stepping up beside him, her hands trembling as she raised them. "Rin, that’s illusion magic, it has to be."

"It’s not," Rin said, his fracture energy sputtering in his hand because his focus was shattered. "That’s her."

"Touching," Thorne said, not turning around, still watching the purple vortex swirling outside. "Family reunions are rare in our line of work, usually because we harvest the family members for parts."

Director Tau stepped out of the elevator, blood dripping from his chin, his golden aura flaring up like a sun going supernova.

"I don’t care who she is," Tau growled, gripping his dao with both hands. "She’s in the way."

Tau moved.

It wasn’t a run, it was a flash step, S-rank speed that bridged the thirty feet between them in a heartbeat, his blade swinging in a horizontal arc meant to cleave Senna in half.

Rin shouted "No!" but it was useless.

Senna didn’t draw a weapon, she didn’t cast a spell, she just raised her left hand, palm open.

The air in front of her solidified.

Tau’s blade, capable of cutting through tank armor, hit an invisible wall of white force, the impact creating a shockwave that shattered the nearest window and sent glass raining down into the room.

"Crude," Senna said.

She flicked her wrist.

The white barrier didn’t just block, it reacted, exploding outward with the force of a cannon shot, catching Tau in the chest and launching him backward across the room where he smashed through a stone pillar and embedded himself in the drywall.

"Director!" Nyx yelled, sliding into a combat stance, her eyes narrowed. "That’s not mana, Rin, that’s... that looks like your stuff, but inverted."

"White Fracture," Rin whispered.

Dr. Helix stepped forward, giggling, a sound like wet leather rubbing together.

"The Director is indisposed," Helix said, grabbing the lapels of his suit and ripping it open.

Underneath, he wasn’t human.

His chest cavity split open, ribs expanding outward like spider legs, and four fleshy tendrils shot out, tipped with bone blades.

"I’ll handle the trash," Helix said.

The tendrils lashed out, stretching across the room faster than a whip crack.

"Scatter!" Rin yelled.

Tayo dove left, rolling under a coffee table just as a bone blade smashed it into splinters.

Joy went right, blasting a wave of terror at Helix, but the doctor didn’t even blink, his physiology so altered that his brain probably didn’t process fear chemicals anymore.

One of the tendrils caught Nyx mid-air as she tried to gravity-jump, wrapping around her ankle and slamming her into the floor with a bone-crunching thud.

"Nyx!" Rin turned to help, pulsing energy to cut the limb.

Senna appeared in front of him.

No sound, no displacement of air, just instant relocation.

"Focus, Rin," she said.

She punched him.

It wasn’t a normal punch, her fist was wreathed in that blinding white energy, and when it connected with his stomach, it felt like she’d shoved a grenade into his gut.

Rin folded, gasping, bile rising in his throat as he skidded backward across the marble floor.

"You’re sloppy," Senna said, walking toward him, her heels clicking rhythmically. "You rely on the System too much, you let it regulate your flow instead of seizing the source."

"You died," Rin wheezed, forcing himself up, purple sparks dancing off his skin. "I went to your funeral."

"I was extracted," she corrected. "Thorne offered me a choice, die in a hospital bed or evolve, I chose progress."

"You chose to become a monster."

"I chose to become a god," she said simply.

Rin gritted his teeth and lunged, abandoning technique for pure rage, swinging a blade of condensed void energy at her head.

Senna caught his wrist.

Her grip was absolute, immovable, the white energy from her skin burning against his purple void, the two forces hissing and popping like water on oil.

"Is this it?" she asked, looking disappointed. "Is this the Tier 0 potential we’ve been tracking?"

She twisted his arm, effortless leverage that sent pain shooting up his shoulder, and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying back toward the elevator.

"Rin!" Joy screamed, creating a psychic scream that made Helix pause for a second, giving Tayo enough time to blast the doctor’s limbs with a sonic boom.

Rin hit the wall and slid down, his HP bar flashing red in his vision.

[Warning: Critical Damage]

[Opponent Threat Level: Cannot Calculate]

[Run]

’I’m not running.’

He looked past Senna.

Thorne was standing on the balcony now, arms raised toward the vortex. The beam of light from the tower was pulsating, widening, and the sky was beginning to crack, literal fissures appearing in the blue atmosphere like broken glass.

"He’s merging the dimensions," Rin realized. "He’s not opening a gate, he’s bringing the dungeon here."

"The Convergence," Senna said, not turning around. "A permanent bridge between Earth and the Fracture, endless mana, endless evolution."

"Endless death," Rin spat.

He couldn’t beat her.

She had years of experience, better control, and power that seemed infinite.

But she was arrogant.

Rin stood up, wiping blood from his mouth.

"Nyx!" he shouted. "Anchor!"

Nyx, currently pinned under one of Helix’s limbs, understood immediately. She slapped her hand on the floor.

"Gravity Well!" she screamed.

The gravity in the room shifted instantly, multiplying by twenty.

Helix collapsed, his spindly limbs snapping under their own weight.

Thorne stumbled on the balcony, grabbing the railing.

Senna buckled, dropping to one knee, her white energy flaring to compensate.

Rin didn’t fight the gravity, he pulsed his energy to coat his bones, reinforcing his structure, and sprinted.

Not at Senna.

At Thorne.

He moved through the crushing pressure, his boots cracking the floor tiles with every step, forcing his body forward through sheer will.

Senna tried to intercept, throwing a lance of white light, but the heavy gravity curved the projectile, sending it smashing into the ceiling.

Rin reached the balcony.

Thorne turned, his eyes glowing blue, looking annoyed rather than scared.

"Insolent child," Thorne said.

He raised a hand, and the air in front of him crystallized, mana freezing into a geometric wall of hard light, a perfect hexagonal barrier.

Rin didn’t stop.

He didn’t slash.

He poured everything he had into his hand, not forming a blade, but a needle, compressing the void energy until it was singing, vibrating at a frequency that hurt his ears.

"Open," Rin roared.

He drove his hand into the barrier.

The purple needle met the blue wall.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the barrier shattered, not breaking into pieces but unravelling into code and light.

Rin’s momentum carried him through, tackling Thorne.

They hit the railing, teetering over the edge of the sixty-story drop.

"You ruin everything," Thorne hissed, grabbing Rin’s throat.

His hand was burning cold, draining Rin’s mana instantly.

Rin gasped, feeling his strength sap away, but he grinned, blood staining his teeth.

"I’m not trying to kill you," Rin rasped. "I’m trying to disconnect you."

Rin reached out with his free hand and grabbed the beam of white light shooting up from the spire next to them.

He grabbed the raw mana stream.

"No!" Thorne shouted, eyes widening.

Rin channeled his fracture energy, the purple void, directly into the white beam.

Corruption.

Like dropping ink into water, the purple energy shot up the beam, infecting the pure mana, turning it gray and chaotic.

The sky screamed.

The vortex above them shuddered, the smooth rotation turning jagged and violent.

"You fool!" Senna yelled, appearing on the balcony, fighting through the gravity. "You’ll destabilize the core!"

"That’s the plan!" Rin shouted.

The tower groaned, the crystal structure beneath their feet starting to crack.

Thorne shoved Rin away, blasting him with a wave of pure force.

Rin flew back into the room, sliding across the floor to stop at Tau’s feet.

"Get up," Tau said, his voice ragged, leaning on his sword. "We need to leave."

Outside, the beam collapsed.

The energy didn’t dissipate, it fell back down.

A backlash of mana slammed into the top of the tower.

"Containment failure," Helix screeched, abandoning his fight with Tayo and scuttling toward Thorne.

"Teleportation," Thorne ordered, his suit torn, his composure finally cracking.

He raised his hand, carving a rune in the air that tore open a stable portal, looking like a doorway to a dark room.

"Senna, now!"

Senna looked at Rin one last time, her expression unreadable, then stepped backward toward the portal.

"This isn’t over, Rin," she said.

She stepped through. Thorne and Helix followed.

The portal snapped shut.

The room began to disintegrate.

The floor under the balcony fell away first, crumbling into dust. Then the ceiling peeled back like a sardine can.

"Gravity is gone!" Nyx yelled, standing up as the pressure wave vanished. "The whole building is coming down!"

"We can’t take the elevator," Joy shouted, grabbing Rin’s arm to help him stand.

"Floor," Rin coughed, pointing down. "Go down."

"Through the floor?" Tayo asked.

"Through the floor."

Rin summoned the last of his energy, his vision tunneling.

He didn’t make a platform. He made a bomb.

He slammed his hand onto the marble.

Pulse.

The floor of the penthouse exploded downward, not a collapse but a controlled demolition of matter.

They fell.

Falling into the dark, into the belly of the beast, while the sky above them burned with broken magic.

[Quest Updated: Survive the Crash]

[Current Altitude: 59 Stories]

[Mana: 0%]

Rin closed his eyes as the wind roared, grabbing Joy’s hand in the dark.

The raid was over.

The disaster was just starting.