CHAPTER 5 — The Second Force
Aiden moved deeper into the ruined street, slipping between overturned cars and shattered storefronts. Hunters pushed farther ahead, their shouts echoing through the chaos, but none of them looked his way. Their scanners flickered, glitched, and ignored him completely.
He was invisible in the middle of a warzone.
The Gravity Force pulsed faintly inside him—steady, heavy, waiting. The Strength Force hummed quietly in his muscles. Aiden tightened his grip on the rebar and kept moving.
The Rift’s violet glow washed over everything, turning the smoke into shifting curtains of light. The air tasted metallic, charged with something ancient and wrong.
A distant roar cut through the noise.
Not a Primal.
Something deeper.
Aiden froze.
The sound came again—low, vibrating, like the rumble of a collapsing building. The pavement beneath his feet trembled. Dust drifted from a cracked awning overhead.
Aiden stepped back instinctively.
The awning buckled.
A massive shape slammed through it.
Aiden dove aside as metal and concrete crashed down where he’d been standing. He rolled across the pavement, coughing as dust exploded outward.
When he looked up, he saw it.
A Pressure Beast.
It was larger than the Primals—twice as tall as Aiden, with a hunched, muscular frame and skin like compressed stone. Its chest expanded and contracted with unnatural force, each breath sending ripples through the air. The space around it shimmered, bending slightly with every exhale.
Pressure Force.
Aiden’s pulse spiked.
The creature turned toward him.
Its eyes locked onto him instantly.
Of course they did.
Aiden raised the rebar, swallowing hard.
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“Okay,” he whispered. “Round two.”
The Pressure Beast inhaled sharply.
The air around its chest compressed inward.
Aiden’s instincts screamed.
He dove behind a toppled vending machine just as the creature exhaled.
A shockwave blasted outward.
The vending machine took the hit, metal denting inward with a deafening crunch. Aiden felt the force even behind cover—like someone had punched the air out of his lungs.
He gasped, gripping the rebar tighter.
The Pressure Beast snarled and charged.
Aiden scrambled to his feet, sprinting down the street. The creature barreled after him, each step sending tremors through the pavement. Aiden ducked behind a collapsed streetlight, heart hammering.
He couldn’t outrun it.
He couldn’t overpower it.
But he had something the creature didn’t.
Gravity.
Aiden pressed his back against the streetlight, breathing hard. The Pressure Beast’s footsteps shook the ground as it approached. Aiden closed his eyes, reaching inward.
The weight behind his ribs pulsed.
He focused on it—on the heaviness, the density, the strange pressure that wasn’t physical but felt like it was. He pushed it downward, imagining his body sinking into the ground.
His weight increased.
The pavement cracked beneath his feet.
The streetlight groaned under the sudden shift.
The Pressure Beast rounded the corner.
Aiden stepped out.
The creature inhaled sharply, chest expanding.
Aiden moved first.
He sprinted toward the beast—lighter now, faster—then slammed the rebar into its knee. The blow didn’t break anything, but it staggered the creature just enough.
The Pressure Beast roared and exhaled.
Aiden dropped his weight instantly.
The shockwave passed over him, slamming into the streetlight behind him instead. Metal twisted. Glass shattered. The streetlight snapped in half and crashed down onto the Pressure Beast’s back.
The creature stumbled, pinned under the weight.
Aiden didn’t hesitate.
He ran forward, lighter again, and leapt onto the fallen streetlight. He shifted his weight downward—hard.
Gravity pulsed.
The streetlight drove deeper into the Pressure Beast’s spine.
The creature roared, thrashing violently.
Aiden pushed harder.
The weight inside him surged, heavier than before—dense, crushing, focused. The streetlight bent under the pressure, metal groaning.
The Pressure Beast’s movements slowed.
Then stopped.
A Core rose from its body—larger than the Basic ones, swirling with deep red and black energy. It pulsed violently, distorting the air around it.
Aiden stepped back.
The Core followed.
He swallowed.
“Here we go again…”
The Core surged forward.
Aiden braced himself.
It hit his chest.
The world compressed.
Aiden’s vision blurred. His lungs seized. His bones felt like they were being squeezed by invisible hands. The pressure built, rising, rising, rising—
Then it snapped.
A new weight—sharper, tighter, more volatile—coiled inside him.
A notification flickered into view.
[PRESSURE FORCE — Level 1]
Aiden collapsed to one knee, gasping. His chest felt like it held a storm—dense, compressed, ready to burst. The Gravity Force pulsed beside it, steady and heavy.
Two Forces.
Two Special Forces.
Aiden stared at his hands, breath unsteady.
“What… am I becoming?”
The Rift pulsed overhead, casting the street in shifting violet light.
Aiden pushed himself to his feet.
Hunters fought in the distance.
Forceborn prowled the ruins.
And Aiden—unseen, unregistered, unnoticed—stood in the middle of it all with two Forces burning inside him.
He tightened his grip on the rebar.
“Fine,” he whispered. “If you won’t see me…”
He looked toward the deeper part of the city.
“…then I’ll make sure you feel me.”
